Graduation Pledge Alliance
"Do you want to be involved in the Raise Your Voice Month of Action? A great way to be involved is to initiate a graduation pledge campaign at your school. Humboldt State University (California) initiated the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility. It states, "I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work." Students define for themselves what it means to be socially and environmentally responsible. Students at over a hundred colleges and universities have used the pledge at some level. The schools involved include small liberal arts colleges (Colgate and Macalester); large state universities (Oregon and Utah), and large private research universities (University of Pennsylvania and Duke). The Pledge is also now found at graduate and professional schools, high schools , and schools overseas (Taiwan and Australia).
Graduates who voluntarily signed the pledge have turned down jobs with which they did not feel morally comfortable and have worked to make changes once on the job. For example, they have promoted recycling at their organization, removed racist language from a training manual, worked for gender parity in high school athletics, and helped to convince an employer to refuse a chemical weapons-related contract.
Manchester College now coordinates the campaign effort, which has taken different forms at different institutions. At Manchester, it is a community-wide event involving students, faculty, and staff. Typically, over fifty percent of students sign and keep a wallet-size card stating the pledge, while students and supportive faculty wear green ribbons at commencement. The pledge is printed in the formal commencement program.
In a sense, the Pledge operates at three levels: students making choices about their employment; schools educating about values and citizenship rather than only knowledge and skills; and the workplace and society being concerned about more than just the bottom line. The impact is immense even if only a significant minority of the one million college graduates each year sign and live out the Pledge. More information on the Graduation Pledge Alliance, or help in starting an initiative on your campus, please contact Neil Wollman at njwollman@manchester.edu or visit www.graduationpledge.org.
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