Be Good. Be Orange.

Submitted by Leandro B. Monar

To be “Orange” as a value can be difficult to explain, mostly because to be “Orange” is not a value, but a group of values. This group of values can be compare to subjective relativism, due to the fact that they are different for every single member of the Oregon State University community (Vaughn, 2013). The “Orange” values are establish by the way people inside OSU community behave in every moment of their live. This behavior should not be confused with the behavior the OSU community has in school, which is establish by the Student Conduct Code (Oregon State University, 2014). Every person in the OSU community is different from one another, but among all the values the OSU community has, the one that most of them share and has great importance, is the value of respect.

People form the OSU community respect one another in every moment of their live and not only when they are at school and they have to follow a conduct code. In a university town, such as Corvallis, people from the OSU community can be found in very corner of the town. For this reason, the way people respect each other is noticeable in every corner of the town in every day of the year. The “Orange” value is seen in the way people from different cultures respect each other without any type of discrimination. For example, there are many Asian celebrations, such as Chinese New Year, that are enjoy by many members of the OSU community inside the facilities of Oregon State University. The “Orange” value can also be seen in the respect to elderly people and the respect to people with disabilities. This is seen a lot in the public transportation at Corvallis, where members from the OSU community give their sits to elder people and people with disabilities, and there is no need for the bus driver to interfere and ask people to give their places to someone else.

One of my favorite’s ways of showing respect is the respect to ideas and believes. In almost every part of the OSU community, people can respectfully express their ideas without the fear of being criticizes or segregated for that. Respect is an easy way to describe the “Orange” value, but “Orange” should be something more than that. “Orange” should be a permanent life style and not something that will just last while a person is part of OSU. To be “Orange” should mean that a person learn the importance of treating others with respect and will continue to do it after graduation or his entire life. It will not matter to what place that person move, what type of environment he encounters or at what age that person is, the “Orange” value of respect should continue inside that person and it should never disappear, but it should get stronger.

References

Oregon State University. (2014). Oregon State   University. Retrieved from Student Conduct and Community Standards :   http://oregonstate.edu/studentconduct/home/

Vaughn, L. (2013). Doing Ethics. New York: W. W.   Norton & Company, Inc.