MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The Middle Tennessee State University Board of Trustees will hold its quarterly meeting next Tuesday, Sept. 9.

During their last board meeting, held this summer, committee members looked at University Policy 323, involving instruction and assignment and the use of artificial intelligence. The new policy is part of a requirement under public chapter 550.

A Tennessee law that went into effect last year, requires local state university boards like the one at MTSU, to create policies on how students, faculty, and staff may use artificial intelligence (AI) for instruction and assignments. The law also encourages colleges and universities to work together when developing these rules.

According to the state bill that went into effect this past March, "artificial intelligence" means a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments and that is capable of using machine and human-based inputs to perceive real and virtual environments, abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner, and use model inference to formulate options for information or action.

As approved this past July, MTSU established a policy governing the instructional use of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GAI) by students, faculty, and staff. The policy emphasizes responsible and ethical use, distinguishing between classroom and assignment purposes versus research or personal use. Faculty retain discretion to set course-specific guidelines, which must be clearly communicated, while students are prohibited from relying entirely on GAI to complete assignments unless explicitly authorized. Faculty and staff may incorporate GAI tools into their teaching or creative work only when consistent with university ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and IT policies.

Under the policy at MTSU, all parties must avoid inputting confidential data into GAI systems and are responsible for verifying AI-generated content, which may be inaccurate. For MTSU, unauthorized or inappropriate use constitutes academic misconduct for students and can result in disciplinary action for faculty and staff.

The agenda for next weeks meeting includes:

• Reports from board committees; election of the Board of Trustees chair and vice chair; appointment of committee chairs; approval of items including minutes; degrees under consideration; annual report for Audit and Consulting Services; Risk Assessment Reporting;

• Review and approval of 2025 self-evaluation instrument; authorization to conduct Board self-evaluation prior to the November 2025 Executive and Governance Committee meeting; naming an academic unit; capital disclosures; a P3 resolution; and the President’s evaluation report and compensation recommendation.

The meeting, which will be livestreamed, is open to the public and begins at 1 p.m. in the Miller Education Center, Second Floor Meeting Room, 503 E. Bell St. For parking details, go to https://bit.ly/mtsuparkmap.

For agenda details and meeting materials or for other information, go to https://bit.ly/4g1XaGi. Please check https://www.mtsu.edu/bot/ to view the livestream and for updates about meeting details.