The Student Government Association will vote on "The Beneficence Pledge" next week. This pledge, broken into four main parts, was created by the Student Rights, Ethics and Standards Committee to give Ball State University a unifying statement.
The pledge covers the academic morals that an ideal Ball State student should have, including academic honesty, civility, respect and similar concepts students should have learned years ago. There is a limit to the amount of morality the university can instill into its students.
Though it might be in good spirit, this pledge is not practical.
While most of its contents are enforced by the Student Code, the pledge is not legally binding, according to SGA President Pro Tempore Betsy Mills.
The pledge might be said at the freshman convocation and placed in academic buildings and residents halls, Mills said.
This could make freshmen aware of the pledge, but the university would have to do more than place the pledge in buildings to make upperclassmen and faculty aware of it. A sense of community cannot be accomplished with a pledge few people in the university know or care about.
At an institution where few students know the words to the school fight song, it will be difficult to get the Ball State community to even glimpse at the pledge. Administrators already struggle to draw attention to the Student Code - a document that actually holds some consequential clout.
This is just one more formality that looks good on paper but has no purpose in students' everyday lives.
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