The Spire

Kate Santini ‘27

News Editor

Holy Cross welcomed students back to campus with the launch of its in-house AI platform, SuarezAI, which is designed to optimize rather than undermine academic performance. 

The platform is available to students after their completion of a Gen AI Literacy Essentials course accessible via Canvas. In an email addressing the student body, Provost and Dean of the College, Elliot Visconsi, described the approach as “a two-track program designed to provide students with guidance on how to use AI tools with integrity.” 

David Shettler, the College’s Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, led the task force responsible for creating SuarezAI. He explained that when the first model was launched in mid-2024, there was not much else like it on the market yet there are now many institutions developing cost-effective AI models. According to Shettler, the major benefit of an in-house platform is that the College is not bound to a third-party subscription. SuarezAI cross-references a wide array of different AI platforms, including ChatGPT 5.2, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5, Google’s Gemini 3 Pro, and Meta’s Llama. It also eliminates concerns about data security by “us[ing] institutional agreements with AI providers that prohibit them from using our data.”

The platform takes its name after seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit and philosopher, Francisco Suarez. After prompting the AI to give itself a name, it landed upon Fr. Suarez because he “was a benchmark for structured reasoning and careful distinctions, as well as ontology work and focus on natural law.”

Dean of Education and Academic Experience, Daniel Klinghard, who also worked on the AI task force to develop the platform, pointed out its interpersonal dimension, saying that on its “start page, you see the College’s Generative AI Guidance, as well as guidance about mental health resources, and even academic integrity. [This level] of care, attention to the ethical and personal dimension is characteristic of Holy Cross’ mission.”

Klinghard argues on behalf of practicing full disclosure in the AI conversation. In 2025, 92% of Holy Cross students admitted to using AI in some form in their academic work which made it apparent to Klinghard that the College has an “obligation to take up the mantle of reasoning through and teaching our students about these ethical challenges, because no one else is going to do it for us.”

The College’s decision to embrace AI has been met with ambivalence. Ian Sykes ‘28, whose professor requires his students to use SuarezAI, expressed mixed feelings about the platform, sharing that while he, “understand[s] why Holy Cross gave us an AI [platform] – to give us an even playing field,” he feels that it clashes “with not just our Jesuit policies of environmental justice, but also of respecting one another and maintaining intellectual integrity in the mutual pursuit of the truth.”

In his email launching the platform, Visconsi addressed some of these concerns, claiming that SuarezAI is designed to work alongside the College’s Academic Integrity Policy which takes a hardline stance against academic dishonesty in any form. While he acknowledges the “peril” of using AI in academia, he also highlights its ability to facilitate research and assist learning. Shettler also recognized that “AI and cheating are an issue” yet he believes that when used properly, AI should “augment” rather than circumvent learning. The burden of cheating ultimately falls on the student, not the technology.

On the topic of academic integrity, Shettler confessed that, “as a technologist, my hope is that the dialogue around generative AI finds the opportunity to shift away from integrity/dishonesty altogether.” He instead hopes that “SuarezAI [will] provide a platform for people to engage critically with AI…in a controlled and safer way than using personal accounts with fewer contractual security and privacy safeguards.” 

In a section titled “AI in Scholarship,” the College’s website details how AI can be useful for brainstorming, generating practice tests, and editing grammatical errors in papers. The danger of widely used AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, lies in the fact that they search every corner of the internet to generate answers to user questions and do not discriminate against blatantly unreliable websites. SuarezAI is meant to offer students a trustworthy alternative to these mainstream platforms. While it does not offer a substitute for conducting deep analysis and crafting nuanced arguments, it fosters student curiosity and research opportunities. 

The Gen AI Literacy Course, which is a prerequisite to obtain access to SuarezAI, instructs students on how to navigate the platform’s features and use it in a way that aligns with the College’s Academic Integrity Policy. Klinghard claims that the course “is built for Holy Cross, by Holy Cross folks.” Instead of shying away from addressing concerns related to AI use, it encourages students to enter into the budding dialogue on AI’s ethical implications.

If you are interested in utilizing SuarezAI, be sure to complete the literacy course and stay tuned for additional announcements and updates.  

Featured image courtesy of Google Images