Not Everyone Likes the New LogoStudents Share Alternate Ways to Upgrade ESU

ESU’s Xplosion Team poses for a photo with the mascot. Photo Credit / Lance Soodeen ESU’s Xplosion Team poses for a photo with the mascot. Photo Credit / Lance Soodeen
ESU’s Xplosion Team poses for a photo with the mascot. Photo Credit / Lance Soodeen
ESU’s Xplosion Team poses for a photo with the mascot.
Photo Credit / Lance Soodeen

By Laura Jean Null
Staff Writer

The spring is a time for a fresh start and new beginnings and that is the direction ESU was headed towards introducing a new logo for both the university and athletics programs.

Although the university’s logo appears to be appealing by students on ESU’s social medias, The Stroud Courier did some questioning on opinions of the new logos and found unsatisfied students.

In a conversation with Vincent Gervasi, a junior and Digital Media Technology DMT major, he shared a different side to the thoughts of the new logo rather than the happy goer side the school presents.

According to him, students in the DMT department had a competition and they remade the logo within 20 minutes.

He, along with multiple other students from the DMT department, argued and agreed that the university should have looked to the students for the logo to save money. As an alternative, ESU could have offered scholarship contests to students trained in that area to help out.

Referring to the university’s 2014-2017 strategic plan, Vincent later said, “I love how the school slogan is ‘Students First: Innovate ESU’ when the students really aren’t put first.”

Within a previous interview done by News Editor Janice Tieperman with university’s Vice President of Administration and Finance Kenneth Long about the new logos pricing, it was reported that the estimated cost was about $350,000 year.

With the university already being on their third year working on this project that is about $1,050,000. Or over a million dollars spent on the new logos in just three years.

Early Childhood Education major Elisa Medina said, “The logo is nice, but all the money spent to advertise it, ridiculous. I think they should spend money making the school a little better.”

Then, she went on to discuss alternative ideas the university should do and already should have done.

Some included “better chairs for the classrooms, making Stroud look nicer by painting the stairway, remodeling the auditoriums in Stroud and possibly more food options for us. And there needs to be more shuttles on the weekends, not just the late shuttle.”

Valentina Scalici, majoring in psychology, shared her thoughts on the new logo as well.

“I don’t like it because it’s so new and modern when our school isn’t. We are a very outdated school which is fine, but our logo does not go with that at all.”

Although, there was a lot of negative feed back on students’ opinions of the new logo.

Resident Advisor and Hotel Management major Montana Miller had a different opinion on it.

He said, “I thought the logo looked pretty good. I liked that it actually had a warrior in it, I thought that was a step further then just having simple ‘ESU’ as the logo.”

In relations to that, the mascot itself has caused major controversy.

As a university that takes its pride on being so diverse and high on equality chose to pick a white-male as its new representation of the school.

Additionally, there are students upset about this because they feel as though the mascot does not embody or represent the students of ESU.

Public Health major and sophomore Victoria Gordon said, “What I think about the situation is most mascots are white males–you know? Unless it’s a black university. It’s not right, but ESU’s majority is white, so that means their market is white… I feel the mascot shouldn’t have an identity. Maybe they should make it an animal or a Native American would be cool.”

Perhaps in the near future as the university continues to renovate, there will be a positive push in asking what the students want to see changed involving their educational environment.

Email Laura at:
lnull@live.esu.edu