Code to guide conduct overseas

While on campus, students are required to adhere to the Honor Code, the “heart of integrity at Carolina.”

But when they step off campus and are halfway around the world, there is no such code — which University leaders are trying to fix.

The executive branch of student government is working with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost to draft a new student code for UNC students abroad.

The Global Code of Student Conduct, the name given to the plan, will serve as a set of guidelines for students as they represent UNC overseas.

Dr. Ron Strauss, Executive Associate Provost, said it will be “a code of student global values, a kind of aspirational code to guide how it is that students can be representatives of the University with integrity in the world.”

At the University affairs committee Wednesday, Strauss, who serves as Chief International Officer, mentioned the code as one of several ongoing efforts to improve the University’s reputation abroad.

The committee drafting the plan is led by Paul Shorkey, senior adviser to Student Body President Hogan Medlin. The committee also includes representatives from the Honor Court and the executive branch’s Global University Committee.

“The goal is to put together a set of ideals so that when students from UNC travel abroad to other places, they can read this set of ideals and understand what their student colleagues would expect of them,” Shorkey said.

He added that the plan is not limited to students on study abroad programs, but applies to any students participating in programs or research outside of the country.

“It won’t be super specific, because people go abroad to do all sorts of things,” Shorkey said. “It’s meant to be a fairly lofty set of ideals.”

But the plan is still very much in its early stages, with minimal input from study abroad officials.

“I am not directly involved in this initiative,” said Bob Miles, Associate Dean of Study Abroad and International Exchanges.

Shorkey and the others began working on the plan in October.

“We have collected a lot of student input in the form of a student forum with students who have traveled abroad, as well as students that have never traveled abroad,” he said.

He added that after a draft is created, it will be sent to various stakeholders for feedback or revisions.

“As the University implements a travel registry, students traveling abroad will need to enter basic information about their trip,” Shorkey said.

By requiring that they accept the terms of the code, the registry will hold students accountable while they are abroad.

“As part of that process, they will be required to read through this code and accept that they have read it.”

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