Graduation Pledge Stirs Debate at Colleges

In this season of college commencements and career anxiety, two documents loom large in the lives of graduates headed to the job market’s hurly-burly: diplomas and resumes.

However, a movement has begun in Northern California to symbolically insert another piece of paper between the other two. The third is called “The Graduation Pledge of Environmental and Social Responsibility” and is supposed to commit its signers “to thoroughly investigate and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job opportunity I consider,” according to the wording on the small certificate.

Matt Nicodemus, a peace activist and part-time teacher who helped start the pledge at Humboldt State University last year, said: “We are not saying ‘don’t work for a certain company.’ It’s not an all-or-nothing thing. We just want people to think about these things and perhaps choose to work within the company to change the company.”

The voluntary pledge spread this year with different levels of success to eight other campuses, primarily in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, its backers estimated. At some schools, such as UC Davis, copies were simply printed in the student newspaper along with an editorial urging signing.

At others, including Humboldt, Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and San Francisco State, the certificates were handed out just before or during graduation exercises, with some students signing them publicly and others taking them home for further consideration or a toss into the trash basket.

Stanford President Donald Kennedy, in his commencement speech, praised the pledge. “It should be as acceptable to the politically conservative as to the liberal because it does something we all need to do more of--that is, it helps us focus on the consequences of what we do,” Kennedy said.

And other college officials and teachers, especially veterans of ‘60s social activism, see it as a refreshing change from the careerism and salary-obsession that seemed to overwhelm campuses in recent years, they said.

Nevertheless, some conservatives suspect that the pledge is meant to impose a liberal or leftist view of American business and government--something the pledge organizers strongly deny. In addition, some students and teachers think moral choices about careers should be private matters, not be made into public and political acts.

At the recent Humboldt commencement, graduates were offered copies of the pledge as they stepped from the stage after receiving their diplomas. They could have signed it immediately at a table near the stage or taken the pledge with them. Student government representative David Lofink ripped his copy to protest what he said was an intrusion into the ceremony.

“Basically, everyone who disagrees with it doesn’t disagree with what it states,” Lofink explained. “They disagree with how it’s done.” The distribution of the pledge in front of an audience, even if it doesn’t have to be signed there and even if it can be thrown away later, is a form of intimidation, he said. Besides, he added, the pledge will not make any difference if a college education has not instilled a sense of social responsibility.

But Humboldt State President Alistair McCrone was pleased with the way the pledge was handled. “I think it fit in very gracefully and quietly and it didn’t in any way detract from the ceremonies,” he said.

At UC Berkeley, students and faculty in the physics and astronomy departments reportedly turned down a proposal to make the pledge a formal part of their recent graduation. “There was a difference of opinion of whether it was appropriate,” said P. Buford Price, chairman of the physics department at Berkeley. Instead, copies were distributed informally, he said.

Ironically, the inspiration for the pledge came from the Berkeley physics department, which has traditionally sent some graduates into weapons research, according to Nicodemus. In 1970, physics professor Charles Schwartz sought to have all of his students sign an oath that they would not use the knowledge gained in his classes to harm humanity; administrators blocked that idea.

A few years ago, physics students at Berkeley tried unsuccessfully to include in graduation ceremonies a voluntary pledge of refusal to work for the military or military contractors.

Peter Blando, an editor last semester at the California Aggie, said the student newspaper at UC Davis received a mailing about the pledge from Nicodemus’ group, the Graduation Pledge Alliance, which is financially supported by donations. “We were thinking originally of people working in the Defense Department or companies that dump toxic wastes,” Blando said. But the editors decided that the pledge had wider implications and agreed to print it.

“It’s just something to sign and keep as sort of your memento, along with your pictures and diplomas, to remind you. It’s to make you say, ‘Hey, I think about what I’m doing,’ ” Blando said.

How many graduates signed the pledge at UC Davis and elsewhere is unknown. For example, at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a few weeks ago, organizers set up a table at the commencement check-in point with enough certificates for all 800 graduates; about half stopped to pick up the pledges, according to student activist Kristi MacLean. “I think the majority were signed,” she said.

But might not a cynic ask whether the pledge will face the same fate as all those promises of undying friendship written next to photos in college yearbooks? Can the flames of graduation idealism survive the chilly winds of economic reality?

Hatem Bazian, vice president of the student government at San Francisco State and a supporter of the pledge, said: “Most of the time people will have to undermine their values to get food on the table. But maybe at one time or another, 10 or 20 years from now, they will have a look at it and really remember. As long as there is some standard you are looking to, as long as you try. You might not run the mile, but as long as you take the first step, there is some benefit there.”