It comes with every official Ball State University schedule book, and it's part of the materials each freshman receives upon entering the school. However, most students never take more than a cursory glance at the Student Code. It's not short, and it's not simple, so most students ignore it until they have to answer to it - and that's a mistake. Students should be aware of their rights and responsibilities before they ever have to worry about them.
To some extent, it's the responsibility of students to understand the Student Code for themselves; however, the university should also do as much as it can to bring explanations of the code to them.
As far as helping students understand the complex code, the Office of Student Rights and Community Standards offers tailored presentations - and the office even brings them right to your doorstep. Although this service is not yet incredibly well-known or attractive to students, it's still great to see a university department reaching out to improve student understanding of everything from alcohol policies to grade appeals.
Not only do students need to understand these policies, they deserve to have them presented in a more accessible fashion than printed on page after page of a university publication. Putting effort into marketing and raising awareness of these presentations is a good first step for making the Student Code more accessible. However, the Student Rights Office could do even more in future semesters.
Non-standard and energetic presentation methods, games and interaction would be more likely to attract and maintain students' attention during the programs. The office could even bring in a group of students to help plan and deliver the presentations.
Many students would learn these policies better through non-traditional teaching methods or presentations by their peers than they do through reading the policies or hearing a typical lecture - especially after spending all day in classes.
The more enthusiasm the Student Rights Office brings to its presentations, the more likely it will be to experience an increase in calls to schedule meetings and a decrease in calls to answer individual concerns. Besides, greater campus-wide understanding of the Student Code would likely have immeasurable benefits for students in every area of this university.
And raising student awareness - in an appealing way - should always be a university goal.
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