News Editor
Washington College, home of the “Shoremen” and “Shorewomen,” is about to have an official mascot to call its own.
A campus Mascot Committee was “organized to examine the concept of creating a mascot,” said sociology professor and member of the committee Dr. Andrea Lange. “There’s a diverse group of us.” The committee consists of administrators, faculty members, and students.
“The committee started off by hearing from an outside consultant who is a professional mascot developer,” said Lange. “The important themes from his presentation were to really think outside the box in terms of a mascot, because a mascot is not just someone that appears at specific events”, she said, “but they really become an integral part of the community here in Chestertown for example, as well as part of the larger persona of the school.” The mascot should also tell a unique story about the institution, according to the professional mascot developer.
“One of our first assignments as a committee,” said Lange, “was to write some creative stories about some potential mascots, and what their historical, and sometimes hysterical connection would be to WC versus another institution.”
A student member of the committee, senior Katherine Greenlee, said that the new mascot will “promote school spirit and unity as well as providing our institution with a solid brand.”
The mascot is intended to create school wide spirit, which “extends to alumni and the community, not just students who are here”, said Lange. “The mascot might be over doing charity events at the hospital, or the mascot might be on a bus trip somewhere with students at another venue, and so on. It’s not just that the mascot sits here, but it is actually an extension of
WC into the larger world as well as here on campus”, Lange said.
Greenlee said “The creation of a mascot will provide our community with a singular and unified brand.” The ‘shoremen’ and ‘shorewomen’ are just nicknames. They are not an official mascot, said Lange.
The mascot will also be important in creating merchandise, logos, and other business objectives. “The idea is that you bring in revenue obviously from mascot related items and that you would have a brand and a logo out in the greater community. When people said Washington College, they would go ‘oh yea, that’s the turtle or the fish or the goose or the hen, or whatever it is’”, said Lange.
In deciding what the mascot will be, the committee was required to “all go back and look at the history of the school, significant things that have happened to the school over time that could be connected up to a story format, to then a current living mascot,” said Lange.
There will indeed be opportunities for students to weigh in on the decision of what the mascot will ultimately be. “There are a variety of things being considered. They would be tied with some meaning to what the college is, what it stands for, and what its principles are”, said Lange.
Greenlee said, “Right now the Mascot Committee has not yet declared a release date with the reason being that they want to make sure the process is done professionally and that time is allowed for input from everyone in the Washington College community.”
Lange said that the committee is currently working on how they will get these ideas out to the greater community, whether it will be through e-mail, in Hodson Hall, or through open forums.
“In addition”, Lange said, “it’s all about being able to rally around something that’s fun. It’s clear that you can have all these business objectives, and all these other things that you want to do with a mascot, but it also has to be fun,” she said.
Washington College is also working other ideas to promote school spirit, including a signature WC drink. “The WAC drink, “Goose Juice” was an idea developed between the SGA and SEB/OSA during our Homecoming planning process. We feel as though this is another fun way of showing our school spirit. It consists of 1/3 cranberry juice, 1/3 pomegranate juice, and 1/3 of “goose” which represents school spirit,” said Greenlee.
Also in the works is a school flag, according to Greenlee. “We have designed a WC Pride flag that will be sold as a part of our school spirit initiative developed by the SGA. We feel as though it further enhances our school pride. Once the design is finalized we will release it to the rest of the student body,” she said.