Graduates pledge to consider consequences before cash

Salt shakers
June 2001

Graduates pledge to consider consequences before cash
Bringing humanity to the desert and U.S. immigration policy

Graduates pledge to consider consequences before cash
Fifteen hundred Stanford University seniors will don black robes and tassled caps for their graduation this month, but more than 200 of them will add something else—a green ribbon.

The ribbons represent a pledge those seniors have made to investigate the social and environmental implications of the jobs they consider, and to try to improve those conditions at the companies they eventually join. There's no enforcement of the voluntary promise, but the students who choose to sign it think it's significant.

"I feel that the pledge is especially relevant at Stanford since many of us will end up becoming influential individuals with the potential to make a significant impact, whether it be positive or negative," says Ned Tozun, a Stanford senior who signed the pledge.

Stanford students aren't the only signers however. This year as many as 15,000 students may have made similar commitments, says Neil Wollman, the pledge's national coordinator. Wollman is a professor at Manchester College in Indiana and a senior fellow at the school's Peace Studies Institute. He's been in charge of the pledge effort since Manchester took over the campaign in 1996.

Because the pledge differs slightly by school and its coordination efforts have been informal, Wollman isn't sure how many colleges have implemented it, but he estimates more than 70. Humboldt State University created the promise in 1987 and Manchester, a college of the Church of the Brethren, adopted it a year later. Today colleges across the country, including Ivies like Stanford and Harvard and small schools like Olivet and Skidmore, have followed suit.

At Manchester the promise officially reads: "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 organization for which I work."

The words "mean different things for the different people who sign it," Wollman says. Some students might turn down jobs they find objectionable while others have established recycling programs or removed racist or sexist language from company training manuals.

"Not only does it remind students of the ethical implications of the knowledge and training they received, but it can help lead to a socially-conscious citizenry and a better world," Wollman says.

Not everyone has as much confidence in the pledge as he does though. Some see it as an empty promise; others consider it too liberal. Wollman reminds critics it's voluntary and says graduates can define social and environmental responsibility for themselves.—Anne Graber

More info:
E-mail Neil Wollman at njw@manchester.edu
Manchester's Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility

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