Be Good. Be Orange.

By: Logan Hardt

What is being orange, why is it important, and to be honest, who really cares? Everyone who can associate themselves with Oregon State University either as a student, employee, faculty member, or athlete is told they are orange, they represent orange, and they are powered by orange. And for the most part, we are all proud to call ourselves orange. However, do we all know what it is to be orange?

Oregon State University has defined orange many ways and through many different mediums. For example, in OSU’s strategic plan orange is described as progression, sustainability, and success. Additionally, banners also hang from almost every light pole in the MU quad that suggests that orange is to be diversified and compassion.

For me orange is a way of life. When you attend Oregon State University, visit here, research here, you buy into a life style. More specifically, you are buying the orange product. Oregon State University is the Burger King of colleges, because you can truly “have it your way”.

By a product, I mean an object or idea that a person finds relevant to their lives or current needs and elects to buy it.  Because a product can hold many different dynamic views, ideas, and uses, they sometimes can contradict themselves.  For this reason, the Be Orange campaign is going to have some contradicting ideas and thoughts. To say orange is a product is not to say it’s a bad thing. Naturally, it would be impossible to create a campaign that encompasses all the students, beliefs, and religions represented at Oregon State University without conflicting values .

In order to understand how orange is a product, compare Oregon State University to a bag of Skittles. When you buy a bag of Skittles you know that you are going to get a variety of flavors, lime, grape, lemon, orange, and strawberry. That’s the novelty and fun with the product.  There are flavor options, and you may find that there are some you like and others you don’t care for. We know, for example, that Skittles is a brand and a company that ultimately wants to make money and this happens by growth. This growth comes from evolution of a product. There isn’t just one type of Skittles, there are the original flavors, sour Skittle, tropical Skittles, and others. The goal is to capture as much of the market as possible, through adding variety to their product.

Similarly, there are different values and ideals within the Be Orange product that you buy through OSU.  At OSU you are buying a product, the Be Orange product, this product, like Skittle comes in many different type. There are sour Skittle, Tropical Skittles, the list goes on. The same hold true for OSU, you can choose the engineering type, science type, this list also goes on. With in these types there are going to be flavors you don’t like. Inevitably, like a bag of Skittles, you will pick the values you associate yourself with and throw the others away. There is that saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the same can be said for being orange. Being Orange is what you make it.

Product variety is an ethically neutral decision that has no positive or negative effect on anyone. Skittles, for example, offers variety rather than diversity.  Choosing to only eat the red Skittles violates no ethical principle; it don’t hurt or benefit anyone to do this.  There is a lot of variety offered at OSU.  For example, you have your choice of different career paths, majors, and programs.  The variety of the Be Orange product has spurred tremendous growth for Oregon State University. This growth is very tangible as well; new dorms and education halls are being constructed to keep up with the growing population. It’s a proven business plan: variety equals growth. But is Oregon State University diversifying in a moral way? Be Orange is selling this flavors of diversity, but does it actually believe in its product?

To answer this question, we must distinguish diversity from variety. Diversity is the ability to except differences of value and experience that may not reflect your own beliefs. Oregon State University values diversity as a moral good, which means it is a normative, selective diversity.  There are rewards for supporting and consequences for violating OSU’s core values. While we are diverse with the students that we enroll, there are beliefs we don’t support, murder, pedophilia, and rape.  Moreover, we don’t allow murders, rapists, or other harmful people to establish themselves within OSU’s community. The “Orange” community is defined by the collective thoughts, ideas, and point of views of the Oregon State University population.

This is how “Being Orange” differs from Skittles as a product.  As a community supporting shared values, we select the kinds of differences that we value in the name of diversity.  This means that certain values are supported, while others are left out.  OSU is a very exclusive club.  To be orange, you must either buy into our values or get out. We want sustainability, success, progressions, and passion.

Diversity is allowing thoughts, ideas, and customs that don’t reflect your own take a stance within your community. Your accepting that there is more the one way to think of an idea or solve a problem. Diversity is embracing this, not simply allowing in other ideas and thoughts and then neglecting them, that’s variety.  Having diversity within Oregon State University is crucial to the development of citizens that will impact society. We need to come out of college with a dynamic way of thinking and problem solving that utilizes as many viewpoints as possible, not just our own. This creates solutions that are unique and new, their innovative.

On paper OSU is superficially very diverse; there are many flavors offered within the Be Orange product. Unfortunately, in reality, we have variety, not meaningful diversity.  Much like Skittles, Oregon State University has been adding variety and not diversity.  For example, while we accept foreign exchange students, they are housed in a separate, secluded international building. Oregon State University also houses one of the most involved and charismatic Greek systems in the West Coast. This community is responsible for donating thousands of hours of community service and money to charities like Habitat for Humanity. OSU offers Greek life, but doesn’t want students to be evolved with it. This is evident through the freshmen year experience initiative. Which bands freshmen from living in Greek housing there freshmen year.

A vast majority of OSU’s population is here for higher education, including me. We are here to ultimately earn that piece of paper that will be the ticket to a happy and prosperous life. Yet, how do we define happy and prosperous? OSU teaches us different values and beliefs that we might not have previously considered. We do become more diverse citizens while we walk these academic halls. We come here to grow intellectually and this can only happen if we are able to broaden our views of the world, to become diverse citizens.

Oregon State University, last year, relived a professor of his teaching obligation because he had as strong stance against global warming. This is why we need to be more diverse, to allow for many ideas and thoughts to be instilled into the students that attend here. Instead of trying to eliminate these ideas that go against Oregon State Universities ideas, lets nurture them. There is a lot to be learned when you study the opposition. Learning about global warming could have became more in depth and intuitive if two sides of the argument to be voiced.

In ethics class we did an assignment that was titled “get pissed”. Where we had to find an argument that we where very passionate about, then we had to watch an argument that was for the opposition and write a paper on why we agreed with the opposition. It was infuriating, gut wrenching to watch and agree with. However, I learned about my stance from the opposing argument, I didn’t agree with the opposition, but I learned from it. I learned from diversity.

While here at OSU the amount I have learned is immeasurable, I’m becoming well versed in my major and am making crucial connection that will benefit my career down the road. Some of the best lessons I have learned have come from the different people I have met and listening to their life story. That’s the beast lesson you can learn, how to view the world from another person’s eyes. This is also the hardest concept to grasp. Naturally we are all very set in our ways, with our thoughts of how things ought to be.

Moving into my fraternity has been one of the best decisions in college thus far. I say this because of how different all of the brothers are. Brothers are all the members of the house. We all come from different places, background, political views, we all hold similar and different values. This is the best learning tool. We are a house of diverse thinking and problem solving.

Again back to this Skittle idea, when I buy a bag and then tear it open I always go for the strawberry flavor first. Much like when I bought a four-year supply of Be Orange I reached for the diversity flavor. For me to be orange is to be diverse. We are here to gain a broader view of the world, so that we may benefit humanity once we have benefited from Oregon State University. We are the future, it is in our hands. Be Diverse. Be Orange.