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VOL. 71, NO. 1 AUGUST 20, 2025 THE INDEPENDENT PRESS OF VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
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VCU enters semester with fully Youngkinappointed board
Photo by Kieran Stevens, Collage by Milena Paul.
New common book continues VCU’s AI focus MOLLY MANNING News Editor HECIEL NIEVES-BONILLA Assistant News Editor VCU’s common book for the 2025-2026 academic year is “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma” by Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI. The book details the potential for artificial intelligence to advance society while also examining the risks posed by the technology. Suleyman explores the introduction of AI softwares like ChatGPT, the use of AI in current-world conflicts, regulation and ethical dilemmas. The common book is selected annually and intended to create an opportunity for the VCU community to read a common text and participate in collaborative discussions. “The Coming Wave” was chosen because of its alignment with VCU’s common book goals, according to Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost for academic affairs. “VCU's goal is to create opportunities for dialogue throughout the 2025-2026 academic year,” Arroyo stated. “No matter
one's stance on artificial intelligence, ‘The Coming Wave’ provides a starting point for a discussion across the disciplines.” VCU does not have a strict policy for using AI in the classroom, but a set of loose guidelines for students and faculty to follow, per the provost’s website. “AI is not a substitute for critical thinking,” the guidelines read. Some faculty allow students to use tools like ChatGPT for research and writing essays. Professors teaching focused inquiry — a required set of courses that study the common book — have already started integrating the technology into their lessons. One professor has required students to use ChatGPT for their weekly reading responses. The university will host events throughout the year to address challenges of AI, such as its role in classrooms and environmental impacts, through head-on discussion, according to Arroyo. VCU has added various courses, certifications and a minor in artificial intelligence within the College of Engineering. While only 14 universities nationwide offer a major in AI, others are introducing minors and other certifications, according to Business Insider.
Five schools in Virginia currently offer master’s concentrations in AI per Master’s In AI. VCU and other Virginia schools offer labs and minors instead. President Michael Rao previously emphasized VCU’s work with AI in this year’s State of the University speech. Rao invited Elaine Reeder, assistant director of curriculum development for VCU Online, and philosophy professor Frank Fairies to discuss the importance of integrating AI into university curriculum while prioritizing ethical use. During the panel, Fairies said he believes there is a need to future-proof students. “We can't predict the ways in which AI technology will change. All we can do is cultivate a philosophical foundation in our students that will prepare them regardless of what the future looks like,” Fairies said. VCU’s AI Futures Lab offers courses such as “Digital Rhetoric” and “Critical AI Studies” and will be introducing a “vertically integrated project” on critical AI this semester, which will focus on how AI systems reproduce social inequities, according to Caddie Alford, co-director of the lab. Continued on page 3
WHERE DOES STUDENT ACTIVISM GO FROM HERE? KATIE MEEKER Opinions & Humor Editor As the semester begins and students return to campus after a long and hot summer, almost everyone will have heard the big news: VCU finally gave Sereen Haddad her degree. Following a grueling battle with VCU Student Affairs, Haddad, who graduated in May, received her diploma once a higher conduct board made up of VCU administrators, faculty and students appealed the conduct violation accusation that withheld her degree. Haddad initia l ly faced conduct charges from VCU Student Affairs due to her involvement in a peaceful gathering commemorating the anniversary of the violent arrests of student protestors at the April 2024 Gaza solidarity encampment. The investigation found Haddad responsible for violating one of the tenets of VCU’s interim campus expression and space
utilization policy. Student Affairs levied her with a deferred suspension and a requirement that she write an essay on morals and ethics before she could receive her degree. Haddad, however, with her family and community’s support, decided to fight back. The struggle for Haddad’s degree caught the public’s attention, not only within the Richmond and VCU community but globally. Interviews with The Guardian and Democracy Now! spread the story like wildfire, and over 12,000 letters supporting her were sent to the VCU provost. Signatures ranged from Virginian elected officials to overseas advocates. To everyone’s amazement, she battled the institutional giant that is VCU and came out victorious. Haddad’s win is one for student activists across the country, not just at VCU. However, the situation comes with costs and benefits. While this is a rousing success story for student-led social justice movements, the
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case has also revealed cracks in the school’s regulations that administrators will be quick to fix. Do not be surprised to see updates to VCU’s campus expression and space utilization policy (again), alongside other new sanctions and rules, in the coming months. VCU will likely not let itself be embarrassed like this again. On the other hand, Haddad’s case emphasizes the power of a people united and serves as a lesson to all of us, but especially to student organizers. Groups across campus are already using Haddad’s case as a guide when it comes to dictating their goals for the upcoming semester. Students for Justice in Palestine, for example, is shifting the framework and direction of its organization after a long summer of advocating for the return of Haddad’s degree.
STUDENT ACTIVISM continued on page 17
Photo by Kieran Stevens.
MOLLY MANNING News Editor ANDREW KERLEY Executive Editor VCU is entering the academic year with every member of its highest governing board appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The newly-appointed members will take their seats amid high tensions as Democrats and Republicans fight for control of Virginia’s institutes of higher education. Universities in Virginia are governed by boards of visitors made up of 16 members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. The boards hold the power to budget, hire and fire presidents, shape university policy and approve course curricula. Board members serve four-year terms and tend to be community figureheads, business leaders and former elected officials with university ties. The governor appoints four new board members annually. With Youngkin approaching the end of his term as governor, he made his fourth routine round of appointments in June — phasing out all but one of former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s appointees. In June, Youngkin appointed Shamin Hotels CEO Neil Amin, real estate developer Lara Tyler Chambers and Lori Jennings, the founder of tech employment f irm Jennings Prosearch. He also reappointed CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance, who was initially appointed by Northam in 2021. The new appointees have made political donations to both Democrats and Republicans, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Amin has donated $1,000 to each party respectively. Chambers donated $500 to the Democratic Northam campaign in 2017.
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Mom, I'm still on drugs see spectrum page 7