August 4, 2026

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to share the USC Guidebook for Artificial Intelligence Integration into the University Environment, now available in the Office of the Provost area of Scholar Commons.

My sincere thanks to Vice Provost Mark Uline, Professor Tarek Shazly and Ms. Grace Crosby for their outstanding service as the guidebook's lead authors, as well as to the 30 faculty and staff members who served as contributing authors.

This guidebook is intended to be a living document that evolves alongside advances in artificial intelligence, emerging regulations, institutional priorities, and lessons learned through implementation.

To ensure it remains relevant and effective, the university will review and update the guidebook twice during its first year and annually thereafter.

I encourage you to submit suggestions for improvements, additions, deletions or clarifications by emailing provost@sc.edu by Oct. 30 for the first round of revisions. Please note in the email subject line that your message concerns the AI Guidebook. Your feedback will help guide future updates.

As your Provost, I am committed to maintaining an adaptive framework for AI governance that fosters innovation while upholding research excellence, academic integrity, accountability, transparency, equity, privacy, and data security. I encourage every member of our university community to engage with this guidebook as we responsibly integrate artificial intelligence across the university. 

Provost Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
USC Educational Foundation Distinguished Professor