Iowa State has committed to academic excellence this year in honor of George Washington Carver, Iowa State’s first African American student, graduate and faculty member.

Carver, who died in 1943, defined “academic achievement” with his academic, cultural and artistic talents.

In conjunction with the university’s yearlong Carver Celebration, ISU students are being encouraged to commit to mirroring Carver’s academic integrity by taking the “Carver pledge.”

The Carver pledge challenges students to increase or maintain their grade point average or adhere to a weekly study schedule.

“My goal simply is to see students increase their emphasis activities involving learning,” said J. Herman Blake, director of African American studies and key spokesman for the Carver pledge.

“I have no numerical goals, but if I see five to 10 students improve academically, I will be very happy,” he said.

Blake said organizers are relying on “word of mouth” to recruit students to take the pledge.

Bryan Burkhardt, Government of the Student Body president and Carver Celebration co-chairman, said he has seen a great deal of interest from campus groups.

“The pledge has been adopted by many organizations on the Iowa State campus,” he said. “It’s original intent is to encourage academic excellence, to make and improve goals and to achieve success.”

Burkhardt said professors and advisers have been encouraging students to take the Carver pledge.

Anna Hammerschmidt, hall director of lower Friley Hall, said many Friley residents have accepted the challenge.

“The challenge states: ‘I will maintain a weekly study schedule of three to four hours of study for every hour of classwork,’ and we have been working to achieve that goal,” she said.

Several other residence halls were inspired by the Carver pledge to devise specific academic challenges of their own.

“We revised the Carver challenge into the Oak-Elm challenge,” said Kim Araya, hall director of Oak-Elm Halls.

She said each house sets a GPA as its goal, and the house that makes the grade will get a pizza party.

Bill Burns, hall director of Willow Hall, found another way of encouraging good study habits and academic improvement.

“We have the Willow challenge, which is basically where students turn in tests, papers and projects they have received A’s or B’s on, and [they] are rewarded each month with prizes such as gift certificates to bookstores or pizza parties,” he said.

“It has been a proposition and the students have been taking it upon themselves to strive for excellence,” Burkhardt said.

The Carver Celebration will end this year, but Blake said he hopes the progress the Carver pledge has made in achieving academic excellence continues.