The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

(Chris Devlin) #1

perhaps couldn’t, do. Little did I know how right she was.
After drafting dozens of versions of the document,
constantly having to change things to appease students,
faculty, and staff, I was ready to give up. There was no way
to please everyone, and without being able to do that, I was
confident we wouldn’t be able to garner enough support to
pass the document.
Still, we tried: we lobbied the student body, wrote
articles in the school newspaper, and met with any professor
or administrator who would listen. And on the last day of
classes, during our senior year, we submitted our proposal
to the faculty for a vote. If there was a majority vote, the
honor code would be instituted.
Waiting outside the lecture hall after delivering an
impassioned speech about why we needed such a
document, I tried to listen to what the results of the vote
were. A minute later, the meeting was adjourned, and a
hundred professors exited the hall. As one economics
professor who had been a proponent of the code passed me,
he turned around and not so discreetly winked at me.
I sighed. We had done it.
But the work was far from over. All we had done was
take a theory and make it official; now the code had to be
enacted. Committees would have to be formed and
processes would have to be tested. I had no choice but to
pass the baton on to another student, a sophomore named
Josh who was passionate about our school and respecting
the honorable tradition on which it was founded. I may have

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