university has committed to excellence in education and experience. Athletic exposure bears the Horned Frog brand to television sets and computer screens across the country. Donors flood fundraising targets at record rates. Thousands of high school seniors or transfer students focus, tour and apply in hopes of being the next pair of feet to walk onto the Fort Worth campus.

Our university has many faces and many mesures, which can define its progress and capture its aspirations, but all of them are meaningless without the thousands who populate its campus. Statements, broadcasts, bank accounts and application essays do not describe the university, nor do its world-class facilities, career placements and rise in the rankings.

What matters most in the daily life and context of our school are our values and our common bonds. If we do not share, as a student body, certain commitments and responsibilities as members of the university community, the campus sacrifices its heart.

The recent drug-related arrests and the desire to lay out distinct Horned Frog traditions are only parts of the bigger picture: the need for a student creed.

Campus leaders in the form of the organizations represented on Intercom and the academic groups given voice in Student Government Association have promoted the creation of a creed as a means of articulating values not as a creation of the university administration or as a condemnation of crimes, but as a statement of solidarity which unites students throughout their university experience.

The creed will focus on important target areas from all aspects of the university, including academic, organizational, social, religious, service, leadership and demographic.

Each university student falls into any number of these constituencies, and the common denominator between them forms the basis of a values statement.

Furthermore, the creed will reinforce, without detracting from, the meaning and purpose of students in their involvement at the university. Existing beliefs, bylaws, vision statements and other organizing principles are and already have been important contributors to the interests and goals of student groups.

The creed, therefore, is a document which any incoming university student can know and preserve as part of an open, honest community.

The creed can transcend individuals and spill out to new growth and momentum in school pride and renewal of spirit.

More important than knowing the background and objectives of the student creed is how we can have a voice in the process. Intercom and SGA represent every organization, major and class on campus and are readily available for input throughout the semester. Every comment and insight is representative of a student view and contributes to the final product.

Even more important than the feedback process, however, is making the university’s values work on the ground, in the moment. Sharing with friends, considering what it means to be a student in a university community anddiscovering the unique strengths which make the heart of the campus beat and the purposes of students take flight, form the depth and breadth of our common creed.