Rutgers Business School (RBS) is innovating its coursework with technology to ensure students are prepared for the future, as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be adopted by industry, and work processes evolve as a result.
Last year, RBS partnered with Google to provide AI-powered tools to students, faculty and staff, and it also announced a broad directive to integrate AI into the curriculum across all areas of study.
The focus on artificial intelligence included the creation of an MBA concentration in AI, a Master of Science in Marketing Analytics and Insights, and a Master of Accountancy in Accounting and Analytics, a program that offers a specialization in AI.
“Every student who graduates will have knowledge of AI for business. That was the main motivation,” said Professor Hussein Issa, who chaired a task force charged with integrating AI into undergraduate academic courses.
Lei Lei, Rutgers Business School’s dean, noted that it is vital for students to learn how to use emerging technologies that are changing work and the way people do business.
“Our ambition is to prepare students with the skills and talent most in demand by industry,” he said. “At RBS, we describe that preparation as future proofing.”
Rutgers provides the university community with free access to such AI-based tools as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and NotebookLM. ChatGPT Edu is also available for a monthly subscription fee from the university’s software portal.
Management Professor Zeki Pagda introduced generative AI into his Management Consulting class after reading about how the U.S. government uses it to help employees improve their negotiating skills. He can select from dozens of scenarios and then assign ChatGPT a role to play. The simulation enables his undergraduate students to practice the negotiation styles he’s teaching them.
The student speaks to ChatGPT in the role-playing exercise, and ChatGPT responds in writing. “ChatGPT can play a role,” said Pagda. “It can ask a question and negotiate.”
Pagda explained that partnering them with AI is better because ChatGPT can respond with feedback, and the student can try again. Practice is essential in learning negotiation. With AI, the feedback is more meaningful than another classmate, who is also learning negotiation skills.
He is also able to create different scenarios, giving students an opportunity to practice the different negotiating styles. ChatGPT provides feedback based on the student’s words and tone.
“It’s able to challenge the students,” said Pagda.
Supply chain Professor Rudolf Leuschner started using generative AI in his graduate-level demand management classes more than a year ago.
He incorporated an assignment into his curriculum that requires students to feed AI their forecasts using the different methods he has taught them. The students ask AI to analyze the forecasts, allowing the large learning model to look for patterns. While the students are permitted to use AI to analyze the forecasts, they are required to critique the information it generates.
“I don’t want them to rely on AI tools, but I want them to be familiar with how to use them to make their output better,” said Leuschner.
He said that students were excited to use generative AI when it was novel, but now they’re more familiar with it. He still provides them with specific guidance on how he wants them to use it.
“There’s a level of scrutiny,” said Leuschner. “People aren’t really sure what to make of it or where its place is.”
Students in Professor Erich Toncre’s Marketing Strategy course use Generative AI as part of an assignment that requires them to find an article about a marketing strategy. He gives them latitude to choose a business they’re interested in, and then they must critique the strategy described in the article.
“The critique itself must be their own,” said Toncre. “They’re graded on their understanding of the marketing strategy and their ability to apply the concepts to other current business situations.”
The marketing strategy assignment allows them to use AI as a tool.
“If they use AI as a shortcut for working on the entire assignment, they’re using it wrong,” said Toncre. “They are not only committing an academic violation, but they’re also cheating themselves for not using it properly as a helpful aid.”
