Institutions in the Register’s “Catholic Identity College Guide” are shaping their classroom approach to rapidly evolving artificial intelligence through Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, emphasizing human dignity and guarding against the technology’s potential to weaken authentic learning.
Five Catholic colleges and universities told EWTN News they are crafting classroom AI policies in light of the Pope’s encyclical, as the University of Chicago moves — as first reported by the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon — to make social sciences classes fully analog this fall.
Belmont Abbey College
“The Chicago response in their core classes resonates strongly with where our thoughts are going, although theyʼre a bit ahead of us in formulating a general policy,” David Williams, dean of arts and sciences and professor of theology at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, told EWTN News.
“Discussions on the pedagogical response to AI have been ongoing for some time now, with new impetus as we absorb Pope Leoʼs encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas,” Williams said. “There’s a significant contingent among the faculty who prefer the all-analog approach, at least in our core curriculum classes, and are teaching accordingly as a matter of individual choice.”
According to Williams, a faculty-led committee is
