For the first time, seniors graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder can sign a pledge vowing to be socially and environmentally responsible citizens of the world they will enter after receiving their degrees on May 11.
Graduates who sign the pledge will be recognized during the ceremony by the green cords they will be wearing over their graduation gowns.
Those pledging at CU-Boulder will join graduates at more than 100 universities and colleges across the country -- including Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame and the University of Michigan -- who have signed similar pledges as part of a two-decade national effort called the Graduation Pledge Alliance.
So far, more than 200 CU-Boulder students have signed the pledge since April 27, according to CU-Boulder student Joni Borzcik, president of the 2007 Senior Class Council, who will graduate May 11. Council members worked with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs to make the pledge part of the 2007 commencement.
CU-Boulder students who sign up pledge "to consider the social and environmental consequences of choices I make in my personal life and work, and will act with integrity in my workplace and community."
"Here in Boulder we have a very engaged and civic-minded campus and community and people are naturally drawn to things like this," said Borzcik, one of the first students to sign the pledge at CU-Boulder. "I think a lot of students will want to make a commitment to something they believe in."
Neil Wollman, who co-directs the national Graduation Pledge Alliance program, says that while many students may live their lives committed to these values anyway, the pledge serves a valuable purpose.
"Making a public commitment tends to increase the value of that commitment, which is especially important here when these students get out into the world and lose some of the support they had while in college," said Wollman, who has coordinated the national effort since 1996 from Manchester College in Indiana. The pledge began a decade earlier in 1987 at Humboldt State College in Arcata, Calif.
Â鶹ÒùÔº who sign the pledge receive a small card with the pledge written on it. The hope is the number of participants will grow in the next few years and will help keep graduates connected to CU-Boulder once they leave school, according to Borzcik.
Currently, only undergraduates can sign the pledge, but in the future it may include graduate students too, Borzcik said.
Â鶹ÒùÔº interested in signing the pledge can visit Koenig Alumni Center on campus May 7 through May 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On May 11, students can pick up their green cords from a table set up on the Norlin Quadrangle from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. during the commencement breakfast.
For more information about signing the graduation pledge visit the Senior Class Council Web site at .