Montana Technological University appointed Professor Chad Okrusch as its first chief artificial intelligence officer, a position created to guide students, faculty and staff through the rapid adoption of AI across campus while keeping learning at the center of the college experience. The move reflects growing pressure on higher education institutions to develop clear policies around a technology that is already reshaping how students learn and what employers expect.
A new role for a fast-moving disruption
Okrusch framed AI as a fundamental shift, not a passing trend. "AI is a unique disruption to both the social and technological system," he said. "It's changing everything we do in higher education." His appointment signals that Montana Tech wants a coordinated strategy rather than leaving individual departments to figure out their own approaches.
The timeline for that strategy remains an open question. Montana Tech Chancellor Dr. Johnny Maclean said the pace of change makes long-term planning difficult. "The biggest challenge of all of this is trying to figure out what the world is going to look like in six months, two years, three years out," Maclean said. That uncertainty is forcing conversations about where AI belongs in the classroom and where boundaries need to be drawn - questions that touch on plagiarism, accuracy, privacy, and whether students are still doing the thinking for themselves.
Rethinking assignments, not policing students
Montana Tech's early guidance includes telling students not to enter personal or sensitive information into AI tools and holding them accountable for the work they submit. But Okrusch said the goal is not to create an adversarial relationship over AI use. Instead, he suggested instructors may need to redesign how they evaluate learning.
"We have to make learning visible, and we can't rely solely on the artifacts at the end of the process as what we grade," Okrusch said. "We have to grade the entire process." That could mean adding oral checkpoints, group projects, and other methods that let professors see how students develop an answer rather than only judging the final product.
Assistant Professor of Business Sebastian Perduss emphasized that students will encounter AI in their careers, making it important to teach responsible use of the technology. "It's not so much about, here's a tool that you can use to cheat," Perduss said. "Here's a tool that you will have to use going forward in your career."
Preserving human connection in an AI-enabled classroom
Some students worry that AI could weaken collaboration and the broader college experience. Civil engineering student Andrew Beal said working with others remains a core part of higher education. "One of the things that you should learn at a university or in college is how to work with other people," Beal said.
Okrusch said the university is working to strike a balance: helping students learn to use AI effectively without replacing the challenge and human connection central to learning. "We want AI to serve us, not the other way around," he said. For educators developing their own classroom strategies, resources like an AI Learning Path for Teachers offer practical guidance on integrating these tools without sacrificing pedagogical goals.
Why this matters for education professionals
Montana Tech's decision to create a chief AI officer role - and to publicly frame the challenge around assignment design rather than surveillance - offers a concrete model for schools still wrestling with piecemeal AI policies. The emphasis on making the learning process visible, not just the final submission, points to assessment changes that will affect how teachers at every level structure their courses. As more institutions follow suit, familiarity with AI for Education strategies will become a baseline expectation, not a specialization.
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