Saint Joseph’s University’s Guiding Principles for AI
Saint Joseph's University’s Mission Statement calls us to prepare students for professional success, personal excellence, and engaged citizenship. We are nationally recognized for quality education, experiential learning, and community engagement.
Consistent with this mission, we are committed to providing our community with a clear understanding of how AI is reshaping the workplace and the professions our graduates will enter. Our students’ success depends on their academic readiness and their development of core human capacities such as critical thinking, adaptability, communication, collaboration, creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence, ethical judgment, and the capacity to navigate ambiguity. AI may support this development, but it cannot substitute for it.
As a university, we have a long history of engaging new technologies thoughtfully, evaluating their impact, and adapting as they evolve. These principles reflect that same approach applied to AI. They are not a policy, and do not replace the University's existing policies on data, privacy, or academic integrity. They are the values that should guide judgment whenever members of our community use AI tools, in coursework, teaching, research, or university operations, especially in the many situations no policy will anticipate.
Principle 1: People-Centered
AI should augment human capability, not replace it. The value of a university education rests on the development of a person's own reasoning, judgment, and skill. This development is often embedded within the deep knowledge of a discipline or profession. Members of our community should use AI in ways that strengthen their thinking and their work, and remain responsible for analyzing, questioning, and evaluating outcomes.
Principle 2: Privacy
Consistent with other technological developments, AI users must protect the privacy of others and sensitive or confidential University information. Those with access to data and tools must handle others' Personally Identifiable Information with care and ensure the use is consistent with all applicable laws, regulations and University Policies. In all situations, members of our community should be mindful about what information they share with AI tools, understanding the distinction between data use in enterprise-approved AI tools and free or personal subscriptions. Information entered into a public AI tool may not stay private.
Principle 3: Fairness and Bias
AI outcomes should be evaluated for bias and unequal treatment, whether in the results an AI tool produces or in who has access to the tool itself. Members of our community should consider who benefits and who might be disadvantaged by a given use of AI, and should be attentive to the effect of AI on the people and groups it touches.
Principle 4: Care for Our Common Home
Consistent with our commitment as a Laudato Si’ university, we recognize that AI use carries a cost to the global environment we share. Members of our community should use AI deliberately rather than reflexively, weighing the resource cost of a given use against the benefit it provides, and should prefer simpler, less resource-intensive means when appropriate.
Principle 5: Accountability
Anyone who uses AI is responsible for the outcome, whether it is a decision, a recommendation, or a finished piece of work. AI can be wrong, biased, or simply unsuited to a task, so its output must be reviewed and verified, not taken on faith, before it is relied upon. This responsibility cannot be delegated to any tool.
Principle 6: Transparency
Use of AI should be disclosed when expected by University policy (including course or syllabus requirements), grant or publisher requirements, or applicable law. When disclosure is required, members of our community should follow the requirements or policy and be able to explain how AI contributed to their work and how they exercised their own judgment, verification and accountability so that others can understand, evaluate, and trust the result.