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GPA Updates Log |
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Graduation Pledge Alliance - 5th
Update for 2003-2004
Hello Pledge
campaigners:
1. If
you have been contacted by myself or Melissa
Everett over the last several weeks and have
not responded, please let us know how things
are going for you Pledge-wise--and if we can
be helpful in any ways. But even more
important is telling us who at your school
is most directly working on the project this
year--especially if it is someone other than
yourself. Not everyone has told us, even
where some of you receiving this message
graduated last year,
and we need to send this and previous
updates for this school year to
current contacts.
2. This update
focuses on
materials available at the national
web site for
your effort (www.graduationpedge.org):
** We
will soon have a poster you can download and
print out that can be used to publicize your
effort and to
raise consciousness on issues of
social and
environmental responsibility. There
will be space on the poster for your local contact
info.
** Downloadable Pledge cards and
certificates are available now for
signers. On
the front side of cards are the Pledge itself and
room for your school
affiliation and a signature. An
optional back side (not backside!)
for the card has info that will be helpful
for signers in carrying out their
commitment. It gives the
national web address and web site info
about (1) workplace
issues and social responsibility, (2) web
links to socially responsible jobs,
and (3) hints
on making changes on the job.
(To make
the cards durable, consider
laminating them--or
using contact paper as one school suggested.)
** Other
documents are available for distribution to
seniors that will help either in doing
sign-ups (like a letter to seniors
explaining the Pledge)
or in providing
materials that can be kept by seniors and
utilized in carrying out the Pledge (like
the document "Going Green after Graduation,"
or one which lists social responsibility
issues to consider when applying for jobs).
We sincerely hope you can prepare some
things like this that will keep the Pledge
on the minds of signers both when they apply
for a job and when they are on the job. Work
situations don't always lend themselves well
to signers carrying out the Pledge,
so anything that promotes that will
be helpful.
** Though
only briefly noted at the web site, we want
to call your attention
to
the use of green ribbons on graduation gowns
during or surrounding graduation ceremonies.
Such ribbons have become a standard way of
identifying/celebrating those who are making
a commitment. The less expensive (and more
creative!) way is to cut strips from a roll
of ribbon from a fabric store. You
can also get prefabricated ribbons from the
Ribbon Factory Outlet at
www.ribbonfactory.com/catalog_p16.html .
THANKS AND GOOD LUCK
BOTH IN SIGNING UP SENIORS AND IN ANY PLEDGE
EVENTS YOU ARE HAVING OVER THE COMING MONTHS
LEADING TOWARD COMMENCEMENT,
Neil
P.S. If
you know anyone at other schools who might
help get the project there, please pass
along the below with an encouraging word.
And have them contact us even if they are
just considering doing the project this (or
next) year. There is still time.
Neil Wollman,
National Coordinator
Graduation
Pledge Alliance
MC Box 135
Manchester
College
North
Manchester, IN 46962
(260) 982-5346
====================================================================================================
GRADUATION PLEDGE ALLIANCE
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 what being "responsible" means to
themselves. Students at well over a hundred
colleges and universities have used the pledge
at some level. The schools involved include
small liberal arts colleges (Colgate and
Skidmore); large state universities (Oregon and
Utah), and large private research universities
(Harvard and Stanford).. This now includes some
schools overseas, graduate and professional
schools, and high schools. Graduates who
voluntarily signed the pledge have turned down
jobs they did not feel morally comfortable with
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, fifty percent of students sign and
keep a wallet-size card stating the pledge,
while students and supportive faculty wear green
ribbons at commencement and the pledge is
printed in the formal commencement program.
Depending upon the school, it might take several
years to reach this level of
institutionalization. If one can just get a few
groups/departments involved, and get some media
attention on (and off) campus, it will get
others interested and build for the future. The
project has been covered in newspapers around
the country (e.g., USA Today, Chicago
Tribune, Washington Post, and Boston Globe),
as well as being covered in magazines (e.g.,
Business Week), national radio networks (for
instance, ABC), and local T.V. stations (like in
Ft. Wayne, IN).
The pledge helps educate
and motivate one to contribute to a better
world. Think of the impact if even a significant
minority of the one million college graduates
each year signed and carried out the Pledge.
PLEASE KEEP US INFORMED
OF ANY PLEDGE EFFORTS YOU UNDERTAKE, AS WE TRY
TO MONITOR WHAT IS HAPPENING, AND PROVIDE
PERIODIC UPDATES ON THE NATIONAL EFFORT. Contact
NJWollman@Manchester.edu
for information/questions/comments; or write
GPA, MC Box 135, Manchester College, 604 E.
College Ave., North Manchester, IN 46962. The
Campaign also has a web site, at
http://www.graduationpledge.org
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