We the undersigned are petitioning to have IMC 459 IMC Law and Ethics made into an elective course. We have read through the Spring 2009 course syllabus and with the full understanding of the course objectives and contents, we strongly believe that IMC 459 should be made an elective course for the following reasons: 1. While we understand that as marketers, it is critical that we are mindful of how legislation and regulations affect business decisions, we believe a large proportion of the course will be spent on the intricacies of the legal system, rather than on learning how to formulate responses to legal and ethical dilemmas. 2. Throughout our time here, we have constantly been encouraged to “make the program what we need it to be”. We believe that as we consider courses for our final quarter at Medill, we know better than anyone else specifically in what areas we lack further knowledge and would like to strengthen. Given the financial burden many of us are under, we feel it is even more important to round out our learning experience in a manner that will best prepare us for our future careers. Offering IMC 459 as an elective will provide us the necessary flexibilities and options to in fact make the program what we need it to be. 3. For a large portion of the students who have signed this petition, IMC 459 duplicates many of the learning objectives of other classes we have taken throughout our academic career.We would like to be given the opportunity to expand our learning in our final quarter. We believe that the above reasons justify our petition which would allow us the flexibility needed to maximize the value of our remaining time at Medill. We also understand that we can speak only for ourselves and not the entire student body. Therefore we believe offering the class as an elective will allow students with a strong interest in legal and ethical issues to explore that focus in IMC 459 while allowing students with a strong interest in other areas to pursue their passions as well.