Many universities are adopting academic pledges to give them a unifying statement, and Ball State University is joining the trend with the Student Government Association set to vote on "The Beneficence Pledge" Wednesday.
The pledge promotes academic honesty and respect for other students. It is not legally binding, but all of its content is enforced by the Student Code, Betsy Mills, SGA president pro tempore, said.
Some senators questioned whether or not it would have an effect, Mills said. The senators asked if students would care about the pledge. One senator said he thought it might even discourage freshmen from attending Ball State.
Mills said she thought he was probably in the minority, and the pledge was a positive addition to the university.
"It's not earth shattering," Mills said. "It's not going to change lives. Is there anyway it can be negative? No. Is there a potential for it to be positive? I think so."
The pledge may be said at the freshman convocation and placed in academic buildings and residence halls, she said. There are no specific rules for breaking the code, and students may not have to actually say it, she said. It may be added to the Student Code, however, and most of the parts of the pledge coincide with rules already in the code.
"'I will perform academic honesty,'" Mills said. "If you weren't academically honest, there is enforcement in the code."
Mills said the pledge is designed to provide a positive, uplifting experience for the university.
Pledges, like this one, positively influence student GPAs and increase a sense of community on campus, Sen. Matthew Walker said.
Unlike other schools, which simply copy pledges from each other, Ball State's SGA wrote an original pledge, Mills said.
The Student Rights, Ethics and Standards Committee began work on the pledge in 2004 after the provost's office asked for its creation. Beverly Pitts was provost at the time. The pledge took two years to complete because the committee was working on other projects last year. The committee tried to write a positive pledge promoting positive behaviors instead of forbidding negative ones, Mills, who is also a committee member, said.
In other business, the Student Services committee is exploring block meal plans, where students would be able to buy individual meals in advance, making on-campus dining easier for off-campus students. Credit card and debit card machines may be installed at the Bookmark Caf+â-¬, and eventually in the dining halls, Sen. Tyler Clemens said. Meal cards could also be used at football and basketball games in the future when the catering company contract runs out, he said.
Cameras will be installed in the stadium parking lot in January, and the university's braille system will be reevaluated, Eean Bailey, Student Safety committee chairman, said.
Plans to install a shuttle route to Chicago and Indianapolis airports will probably fall through, Mills said. Five years ago, SGA sponsored a similar program and students did not use the service. As a result, SGA lost a lot of money, eliminating a money "cushion" it used to have, and SGA's budget has been tight ever since, Mills said. Ball State does not have as much of an out-of-state or international community as Indiana and Purdue universities and, therefore, more students have their own cars or other convenient forms of transportation, Mills said, and do not need a shuttle.
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