More than three years after its conception and several re-writes, the Beneficence Pledge has been approved by the Ball State University Board of Trustees.
Tony Proudfoot, associate vice president for marketing and communications, said the Board of Trustees approved the Beneficence Pledge unanimously at its meeting Friday.
According to the pledge, students, faculty and staff will promise to "practice academic honesty, maintain high standards of scholarship, act in a socially responsible way, [and] value the intrinsic worth of every member of the community."
Proudfoot said there was no mention of the pledge's implementation during the meeting, but it would probably go into effect immediately.
Betsy Mills, former Student Government Association president, said she helped write the pledge when she was a member of SGA's Student Rights, Ethics and Standards Committee.
The committee began working on a pledge in Fall 2004 after the provost's office charged SGA with the job, Mills said.
"There were multiple attempts to get a school pledge passed," she said. "Right after it was charged to us by the provost's office, we really didn't do a lot with it at first."
Committee members wrote the pledge in Fall 2005, Mills said, and SGA approved it in Fall 2006.
"Since then, it's been bouncing around university governance," she said. "I'm thrilled the board has approved it. I expected it, but I'm just thrilled. I know a lot of people are wondering why we're going to need this, but in a few years, it's going to be a big deal."
Bruce Hozeski, chairman for University Senate, said the pledge's approval was delayed several times because faculty members were concerned about the wording in the pledge.
"What happened is, as it came up through the delegate system, when it got to the final stages, it was worded in such a way people had difficulty with understanding the whole thing," Hozeski said. "It was written in the first person. People were raising the question about 'Will we have to stand up and recite this?'"
Mills said students did not report any problems with the pledge.
"The issue was with faculty, and they thought that some of the language would bind them into an agreement they didn't want to be in," she said. "The university governance takes forever sometimes. It took out some of the wording, which didn't change the actual pledge, otherwise, it would have had to go back through SGA for a re-vote."
University Senate established a task force to re-write parts of the pledge to compromise with the opposing faculty members, Hozeski said.
The pledge aims to clarify what academic integrity means for Ball State, Hozeski said, but it will not establish any policies or reprimandations. Punishments for any violation of the pledge are already established in the student and faculty handbooks, he said.
"For example, the fourth pledge is to pledge to act in a socially-responsible way," he said. "Say somebody decides to take a hammer to their computer. Policies that would trigger ramifications are in the handbooks rather than the pledge itself. The pledge is making a statement that is kind of pulling together all these things that are covered in various other things."
Mills said the pledge's supporters hope it will decrease issues of academic integrity by making students more aware of what is expected of them.
"We can see in several years, once students really know the pledge, you're going to see fewer cases of academic integrity [violations]," she said. "I know it's just a pledge, but we have a pledge of allegiance for America, but it means a lot for a lot of people."
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