AI-Use Policy Guide

In Spring 2026, NYU Tandon set out to understand what AI means for teaching and learning. Every department assessed how AI was impacting its courses, while a school-wide faculty survey and departmental meetings captured what faculty were seeing and what worried them. One concern dominated: not primarily cheating, but learning loss, students submitting correct work they do not understand. Faculty wanted guidance that was light-touch and concrete at the same time: a common vocabulary and tested language to draw on, not a mandate imposed on every course.

Protecting Learning grew out of that work as part of Tandon’s AI Across the Curriculum initiative. Produced by the AI Use Policy Working Group, the guide draws on evidence from within and beyond NYU, including published research and practices at other institutions. Faculty from every department contributed to the process and reviewed drafts, and student contributors are among the guide’s authors.

Rather than propose one common standard, the guide offers a menu of approaches for instructors, departments, and schools to draw on. It pairs policy language with practices and templates for student deliberation, along with a consistent process for handling academic integrity cases when they arise. Developed at NYU Tandon but designed to be transferable, these resources can be adapted to different contexts. But the guide’s larger argument is that the process matters: policies should be grounded in what a course is meant to teach and shaped with the people they affect.