Student government is often ridiculed for its failure to be productive. But that doesn’t preclude it from engaging in gratuitous behavior.
Its most recent quixotic quest is to create a “Global Code of Student Conduct” for students who travel abroad.
The problem is that this document, despite good intentions, just isn’t needed. The Instrument of Student Governance already binds students to a lengthy code of conduct from the moment they accept admission until they graduate (or drop out).
Paul Shorkey, senior adviser to Student Body President Hogan Medlin, has led the new effort. His desire to codify UNC’s ideals into a document for students abroad is understandable.
But frankly this is a non-issue in a time when there are plenty of real issues for enterprising minds to tackle.
Shorkey has said that this code will be lacking in specificity so as to apply to all of the various pursuits students engage in abroad. Rather, it’s a “lofty set of ideals.”
Surely UNC can’t be lacking in those.
In its simplest form, those ideals are encapsulated on our own seal with the words “Lux” and “Libertas” — light and liberty, respectively.
In a more sophisticated form, those ideals are represented in the Instrument, which weighs in at a hefty 19,349 words.
