The U of A has launched a new informational website on artificial intelligence at ai.uark.edu. The site provides guidelines for acceptable use of AI for campus.

The new guidelines for campus were developed by AI working groups, which are composed of staff and faculty from units across campus. These guidelines include parameters for four areas as they relate to the campus community, including ethical and responsible use, teaching and learning, research, and allowable AI tools. The guidelines also list related campus and U of A System policies and references. Information on how to acquire approved AI tools will be added to the website soon.

More About the AI Task Force and Working Groups

In June 2024, former Provost Terry Martin created the AI Task Force, led by Chase Rainwater, professor and head of the Department of Industrial Engineering, with the following charge:

Adopt guiding principles and procedures that will help the University of Arkansas utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to advance teaching, research, and campus operations while preventing misuse and unintended consequences of AI. The task force should consider best practices developed by other peer institutions, identify training opportunities needed for faculty, staff, and students to enhance their familiarity and engagement with AI, and examine any needed changes to university policy and procedures based on the emergence of AI. Further, the task force should work with University Relations to develop a centralized digital marketplace where faculty, staff, students, and the public can quickly and easily access information about the university's AI strategy, best practice guides, as well as highlighting research on AI.

Over the past year, the AI Task Force collected data and analyzed how campus was using AI and what tools and resources they may need to support their teaching, learning, research and work. The task force completed a campuswide survey, conducted employee interviews and reviewed external benchmarks. They reported their findings to the provost in March 2025.

In May 2025, Rainwater was named the 2025-2026 Provost Fellow for AI and was tasked to establish and implement specific recommendations from the AI Task Force report at the direction of the Provost's Office. He also serves as the U of A representative on the SEC AI Consortium, which has offered important perspective from other conference institutions on their approach to inclusion of AI in higher education. In June 2025, the AI Executive Steering Committee was created and held its first meeting. At the recommendation of the AI Executive Steering Committee, four AI working groups were established in July to address AI use on campus in four key areas —teaching/learning, research, data security, and ethics and training.

"Chase has provided extraordinary leadership to the AI Task Force last year and this year as a member of the AI Executive Steering Committee and coordinator of each of the AI Working Groups," said Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jim Gigantino. "Under his leadership, we have established essential guidance for campus regarding AI and will continue to develop resources and guidance to help our faculty, staff and students navigate the changes brought about by this revolutionary and rapidly changing technology."

For more information, contact Rainwater at cer@uark.edu.

More about Chase Rainwater

Rainwater holds a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida and a B.S.I.E. from the U of A. His research spans operations research, logistics, machine learning applications and network optimization.

Professor Chase Rainwater

He has secured more than $20 million in research funding from agencies including the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Transportation, Walmart Foundation and Department of Education. His collaborative efforts have advanced areas such as food supply chain safety, autonomous systems and computational optimization. He is co-director of the ASCENT Institute and previously served as director of the J.B. Hunt Innovation Center of Excellence.

Rainwater has advised numerous graduate theses and dissertations and consistently earns top teaching evaluations. He was recognized as a Fellow of both the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and the U of A Teaching Academy, and has received multiple departmental awards for teaching, research and service.

He is also engaged in service leadership, having chaired the IISE Board of Trustees Scholarship Committee, the INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR Committee and the U of A AI Task Force. In addition, Rainwater was co-chair and general chair of the IISE annual conference.

In the community, Rainwater is active in the Northwest Arkansas STEM community as a 10-year mentor in the FIRST robotics program.

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About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $3 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.