Managing AI in the Classroom: An Ethnography of the "In-between": How Professors are Navigating AI Policymaking at UBC

Abstract

As of 2025, the University of British Columbia (UBC)’s policy on the use of generative AI in classrooms grants professors a significant amount of freedom regarding how to create policies for student use of GenAI tools in their classes. Such autonomy leaves room for individual perceptions, motivations, and values to impact policy design. Considering the constant development of AI as a technology, professors’ processes of AI policymaking exists in a purely liminal state. Through a critical examination of AI-use statements included in syllabi, semi-structured interviews, and Interlocuter-drawn mind-maps, this study aims to analyze how professors in the UBC faculty of Arts manage the uncertainty and improvisation involved in AI policymaking while the technology (and ethical standards) remains in a state of ‘in-between’. Through engagement with professors and their policymaking process, we explore how ethics and emotions are navigated during the policymaking process, the various pedagogical considerations confronted with AI use, and consider relational policymaking as a way to imagine new academic futures. From this analysis, we notice the remarkable lack of consistency or predictable developmental patterns of the future of AI policymaking; thus emphasizing the urgent need for additional research as UBC continues to respond to and regulate generative AI in post-secondary education.