In response to the rapid shifts and learning anxieties brought by generative AI, Chung Yuan Christian University’s College of Humanities and Education has actively advanced a humanities-based approach to AI integration, exploring essential questions such as “What should universities teach in the AI era?” and “What abilities remain uniquely human and irreplaceable?”
In November 2025, CYCU officially released the Human-Centered AI Education Action Guidelines, a white paper outlining a practical and value-driven framework for Humanistic AI Literacy. The document provides guidance on values, ethics, and real-world implementation, serving as an important reference for the university’s teaching, research, and administrative practices.
Dean Penny S. Peng of the College of Humanities and Education noted that as tools like ChatGPT can already assist with reports, programming, illustration, and even draft essays, the real issue universities must confront is not how assignments should change, but what capabilities higher education should nurture. The Human-Centered AI Education Action Guidelines align with CYCU’s educational mission—“using technology with wisdom and applying humanistic knowledge for the good of society”—and echo institutional policies such as the Digital Education Development White Paper and the AI Teaching and Learning Accountability Report. From a humanities and education perspective, the guidelines remind the university community not to lose sight of values, ethics, and human relationships amid rapid technological advancement.
Centered on the idea of bringing technology back to a human-focused foundation, the white paper outlines 15 actionable principles, including: emphasizing human agency, prioritizing values before technology, sustaining reading and deep thinking, practicing critical—not blind—trust of AI, respecting privacy and intellectual property, and recognizing vulnerabilities and preventing the amplification of bias. These principles provide shared standards for faculty and students using AI in teaching, research, and administrative contexts.
The white paper stresses that while AI can handle large amounts of routine work, higher education must guide students to develop ethical judgment, responsible decision-making, critical reading, interpretation, and reasoning. It also highlights the need to strengthen cross-cultural communication, empathy, and social awareness, and to engage real-world issues through creative solutions. The guidelines emphasize that AI should not replace essential reading, reasoning, and writing, encouraging students to preserve drafts and thought processes, and to view AI as a tool for organization and reflection—not as the source of final answers or assessment results.
In recent years, CYCU has strengthened its AI teaching policies and digital learning environment across both university-wide initiatives and college-level practices. The College of Humanities and Education recently launched the “Humanities × AI Lecture Series,” offering students hands-on experience with large language models and generative image tools in writing, assessment, and interpretation—helping humanities students redefine their disciplinary role in the AI era. The university has also established the metaDisplay Immersive Interaction Classroom, an advanced projection-based learning space designed for cross-course and cross-disciplinary use, which will serve as a flagship venue for AI-integrated humanities education at CYCU.
The College noted that, moving forward, the new white paper will guide departments to treat AI as a tool for dialogue with the humanities, incorporating tasks that require reading, interpretation, comparison, and reflection. This approach aims to help students identify perspectives and values within the vast volume of AI-generated information. The College will also promote interdisciplinary exchange through faculty communities and workshops, while regularly updating related guidelines and best practices.
“Humanities are not being pushed aside in the AI era—they are becoming even more essential,” Dean Penny S. Peng emphasized. She hopes that this practical and human-centered set of guidelines will accompany faculty and students as they navigate the transformations brought by AI. By putting “human-centeredness” at the core of AI education, CYCU aims to foster a two-way integration of technology and the humanities—using AI to amplify humanistic care and professional judgment rather than replace them—and to work with the campus community and broader society in exploring new forms of learning for the AI age.
