From: Susan Gary sgary@law.uoregon.edu
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 17:01:30 -0800
Subject: Faculty: the logo

My feelings after the presentation by Allan Price concerning the University logo at the recent Senate meeting, are primarily ones of sadness.

I am sad because the University of Oregon has decided that the image it should convey to the outside world should be reduced to an O.

I am sad because the University feels that brand name recognition is more important that a slightly more complicated message that suggests academic excellence.

I am sad because I listened to a 20-25 minute talk about "the need to get our mission out" and the need to "connect an image to a graphic identity" without hearing the word academic.

I am sad because the administration thinks that the professional/business cards I use should look like I work for a corporation or a football team.

At yesterday's meeting a senator asked Mr. Price what our mission is or what message the O conveys. He responded that that would have to be decided and then that message would be attached to the O.

I am sad, because I thought I knew what our mission was. I thought we were an academic institution, founded 125 years ago to provide education to the state1s citizens and to create scholarship to enrich and improve communities both local and national. I thought our goal was academic excellence.

For me, the current letterhead using the seal conveys the message that I write from an institution with a serious academic mission, an institution with a sense of its history as an academic institution and with a sense of place. Our current seal bespeaks an institution with a sense of place (symbolized by the picture) and an academic tradition (symbolized by the Latin inscription).

When I look at the newly designed letterhead featuring the 3Nike O2 the message conveyed is that the institution values athletics. The association with that letterhead already exists, and the idea that we will later create a message to go with that O will not change that association. Indeed, I suspect that that is the point: the O is recognized because of our successful athletics program, so perhaps the rest the school can benefit by association with the football team.

I am delighted that we have a winning football team. I am happy for the O to be used on football equipment, school sweatshirts, and University publications like the catalog (although the seal looks better), but I request that our letterhead and our business cards continue to convey the sense that we come from an academic institution.

Mr. Price suggested that we professors are concerned about using academic letterhead when we write colleagues at Harvard. That statement suggests that he may not understand our concerns. I want any message I send to the outside world to say that I write from an institution with high academic standards and a tradition of academic excellence. When I write lawyers in Portland, law school alumni, lawyers with whom I work in the American Bar Association, or prospective students, I want to convey the sense that the University of Oregon is an institution of higher learning, an institution that puts academics first. Thus, providing letterhead with the seal for occasional, limited use, does not answer the concerns that I raised in a prior email and that have been raised by others.

I urge that those considering this issue reject the use of the O for letterhead stationary and for professional/business cards and instead adopt/retain the seal for those purposes. I prefer the existing letterhead, but the new letterhead designed with a seal is acceptable. The O is fine for all sorts of other things, but please let us keep academic letterhead and cards.

Susan N. Gary
sgary@law.uoregon.edu
University of Oregon School of Law
Eugene, Oregon 97403-1221
Tel: 541-346-3856; Fax: 541-346-1564