Cotton Stripped from Texas Tech Seal (attempt to politically correct the South out of culture?)

Texas Tech may face a fight from cotton farming alumni after the school announced Wednesday it would pluck the symbolic tufts of the West Texas crop from the school seal.

The changes are part of a broader marketing campaign to be launched early next year that Tech officials hope will improve the university's national reputation.

Chancellor David Smith refuted rumors Wednesday that the school was abandoning its past for the marketing effort.

"It is not undoing tradition, it is not undoing pride," Smith said of the changes. "We need a platform to celebrate what Texas Tech is accomplishing as a system."

But Eddie Smith, chairman of the Plains Cotton Cooperative Association and a Tech alumnus who was honored as an outstanding agriculturist last year by the university, said the omission ignored the major contributions cotton made to Tech.

"There's a lot of us that are tied to this university that are not going to let it slide by," Smith said.

School and system officials announced the changes Wednesday in an effort to counter an anonymous e-mail and message board campaign rallying opposition to the revisions.

The Internet campaign sparked rumors of school officials abandoning the Double T trademark while retooling school marketing materials.

In a hastily organized news conference held in response to e-mails and phone calls from concerned alumni, school officials stressed that the beloved Double T logo stitched onto merchandise, emblazoned on the sides of buildings and printed in the letterhead of the press releases distributed Wednesday would not be retired.

"The Double T has an indefinite contract," said Craig Wells, senior associate athletics director. "It's going to be around forever and ever and ever."

But it will no longer represent the academic side of the university. A new seal was designed by an Austin firm as part of a broader marketing campaign that has a $450,000 budget this year. The seal will be featured on academic communications, Chancellor Smith said.

Texas Tech seal Designed in 1927 by campus master planner William Watkin. Formally adopted in 1953. The Saddle Tramps raised $24,750 in 1972 to fund the 37,500-pound granite seal at the main entrance of the campus. The monument will not be changed to reflect the new design, according to Chancellor David Smith.Source: Texas Tech Web site

The seal will replace the myriad symbols each college and program had developed and present a more uniform message, said Bill Dean, executive director of the Texas Tech Alumni Association.

"It's possible for someone to get four or five pieces of correspondence from different areas of Tech and they could all look different," Dean said. "So I think it's a step in the right direction to try and standardize this.

"As to whether they should change it or not," Dean said, "I think that's another question that probably needs to be revisited a little bit."

The modified seal must still be approved by the Tech Board of Regents, which will meet next week.

Cotton bolls that form a cross in the middle of the school shield and represent the 10 cotton-producing counties around Tech were removed from the new design. Instead, a more general "vine-like" image will represent all of agriculture.

A granite monument to the seal erected at the main entrance of the campus in 1972 would not be changed to reflect the new design, Chancellor Smith said.

Several administrators admitted that they did not realize that the round, somewhat crudely drawn shapes splitting the school shield symbolized cotton.

The new design has a clearer symbol of agriculture, and the chancellor said it reflects that Tech is no longer a regional university but a system with seven campuses.

"You've got to decide that you're going to play in that larger sandbox," Smith said.

"Vines are weeds in my cotton fields," Smith said. "I think it's a mistake, and I wish they would ask the people who've supported the university through the years."

Speculation on the changes scattered throughout Lubbock and cyberspace Wednesday. Several alumni were baffled that the changes would be made with little public input.

"Change is inevitable," said Don Harris, a Lubbock appraiser and Tech alumnus. "On the other hand, if it isn't broken, why fix it?"

W.B. "Dub" Rushing, a long-time Tech contributor, said he had no problems with the changes as long as they were for a positive reason.

The school has weathered strong reactions to other changes, such as a proposal to call the school Texas Tech and the recent revisions on the Double T logo, he said. But administrators should be careful about change for change's sake, he said.

"I don't see anything wrong with the present seal," Rushing said. "If it would only make the alumni mad, and that's where their gifts come from - all you have to do is kill off a dozen people and that could be $12 million."

More Tech faithful, including cotton farmers, would warm to the new design once they understood why the changes were being made, Chancellor Smith said.

The outcry Wednesday showed that people cared about the university, but the controversy was overblown, he said.

"A lot of people had a lot of extra time today," Smith said. "It was kind of ridiculous." OLD:

>>I said you showed no class<<

I really don't give a rip what you think. Your assessment means nothing.

>>making an assine statement regarding your feelings<<

You are the one who introduced vulgarity into the conversation, not me. And this isn't a justification for you thinking you have some right or obligation to critique my style or comments. If you don't like it, refute it. If you can't do that, which you obviously can't since you made a personal attack, ignore it. You do neither and somehow think I'm the one with the problem.

>>something that had nothing to do with the thread.<<

Oh, boy. First of all, it had something to do with the thread. Second, show me ONE thread with more than about 5 posts that stays exactly on the specific point of the article.

>>so the lack of response from them in any regard is about par..<<

Then why the hell are you making such a fuss when you essentially agree with me?

I've been called lots of things on here, but this is a first: name called by someone who supports at least part of my point.

>> Really? So what happened to the Aggie who hit this man?<<

Lubbock police were trying to find out specifically who he was so they could charge him, and ONLY him, with a crime. They were not interested in the other tech students throwing punches.

>>Why did the man lie and say it was a Tech student? <<

You misunderstood (which was my fault, since my description wasn't all that clear): the person who punched McKinney (forgot his first name) was an Aggie fan. McKinney was an A&M player's dad, and former assistant to Rick Perry. Things obviously got very confused in the melee, and after it was over, McKinney charged that a tech fan hit him -- which is what he believed (nobody lied to anyone about this). When it came to light (by a newspaper picture, I think) that it wasn't a tech fan that actually hit him, but another Aggie fan, it was like the tech administration felt that tech had been vindicated in the ENTIRE event. They made a bigger deal about McKinney's misidentification than they did about the behavior of their own students.

>> See how stupid it is to try to hold an entire school responsible for the actions of a few?<<

You aren't reading my posts: it isn't just a "few," and I'm holding the "school" responsible because 1) it happens every year; 2) they do nothing about it; and 3) whenever its brought up they try and change the subject or bring up bad behavior on the part of other students to try and minimize the damage. For example, you can't talk to a tech fan or student about this who won't bring up an early '80s incident involving an A&M corps person and an SMU cheerleader. The cheerleaders had been harrassing this individual, and he eventually pulled a sword on them. Nobody got hurt, but he obviously went overboard. I've heard various things about what happened to him -- everything from kicked out of school (don't think that happened) to suspended from the corps activities (almost certainly). At any rate, sabers were gone from anyone's side after that game.

This shows the difference in how a responsible school manages trouble: they deal with it. The Aggie wasn't on the field anymore, and the swords were gone. He might have even been charged with a crime. The only person, to my knowledge, that was charged with a crime coming out of the 1994 basketball brawl (which I witnessed) in Lubbock was an Aggie. I can assure you he was not the only one throwing a punch; just the only one that laid some idiot out!

>>I have the distinct impression none of my arguments would make a difference to you.<<

First of all, how exactly would you defend your alma mater against the events I've outlined?

Second, what exactly is bothering you about my position: is it, as you've claimed here, that anything you say wouldn't make a difference to me? OK, fine. But does that mean that anything I say would make a difference to you? I've outlined events that are inexcusable, and all I get is attacked. I'm a big boy, and if attacking me makes you feel better, that's fine. But it doesn't make any of the tech behavior problems go away, and if you want anyone to think of your school as anything but what I've outlined, YOU need to do what you can to clean it up.

>>your degradation of my school is unseemly<<

Specifically what have I said that is incorrect (and not hyperbolic)? If the truth is unseemly, then I guess that's your problem, not mine. You haven't specifically refuted any event I've outlined that has caused the way I feel.

>>I might think that you were attempting to denigrate the image of my school in order to elevate the image of your own.<<

Then you might be wrong. I don't have to elevate the image of my school. Again, unless you can point out any such denigration that is unfounded, you are arguing against fact, not me.

>>Ours is a large enough state to have several very good universities.<<

Texas has many fine universities. But that doesn't make anything I've said less true.

A glimpse of life at A&M.......... does this mean they are all furries - you know, like we are all supportive of the drunken idiots at that game back in 2001!

Get Furry - Aggies Unleash Their Animalistic Nature (Diversity is our strength?)

The Battalion ^ | 3/24/05 | Sonia Moghe

Posted on 04/18/2005 10:55:53 AM CDT by Diddle E. Squat

When Brendon Jones gets ready to leave his apartment, he puts on his pants, his shirt and his dog collar. Without the collar he feels upset; almost as though he has no identity.

Jones, a freshman computer engineering major, goes by Sakanz - the name engraved on the metallic blue bone on his dog collar - and is one of thousands of Americans who identifies himself with a group of people that calls itself the furries. He describes furries as people who like to dress up as animals and interact with each other.

"I'd say being a furry is like being something that you feel is more yourself than being a human," Jones said. "Some people identify more with animals than humans."

Jones said that a majority of furries are homosexual or bisexual, and often engage in sexual activities with each other while adapting the mindset and donning costumes of specific animals. Two furries rubbing up against each other is called "yiffing," and they sometimes make noises that their chosen animal would make.

The Internet has served as the main networking method for furries to find others with this same fetish, and people like Sakanz attend conferences specifically for furries to meet. In the Bryan-College Station community, Jones and his roommate know 12 furries and try to hold meetings occasionally. About four furries go to Texas A&M, he said.

Jones describes himself as being an "otherkin," a person who believes he or she was an animal in a past life and still carries its spirit. Jones believes he is a raptor, and wishes he had a tail and scales so he could be more like the animal he has always admired. He tries to assimilate the raptor way of life into his own because he believes it's better than the human way of life.

"(Raptors' lives are) more basic," he said. "You don't have to spend four years in college to get a good job to live. They can just hunt; they don't have to starve if they can't afford food.

At one point last semester, Jones tried to construct a raptor suit to feel more like a raptor, but the process was time consuming, and he soon gave up. Other furries, however, sometimes wear entire body suits or simply a tail or ears to identify themselves with the animal they more closely relate to.

This way of life hasn't always gone smoothly for Jones; people's reactions to his dog collar aren't always pleasant.

"One person asked if I got my rabies shot," he said. "I just ignored him."

Alex Harder, a freshman biomedical science major, lived with Jones for two and a half weeks at the beginning of the school year in a dorm room after the two were randomly assigned to live together. Harder wasn't happy with his assignment. During their time together, Harder slowly learned about Jones' lifestyle and decided he didn't want to live with Jones anymore.

"I was probably a (jerk) when he moved out," Harder said. "I was really scared. I didn't know what to do. I told him I couldn't live with his lifestyle."

Harder said that before Jones told him the specifics of being a furry, he noticed a number of drawings of foxes adorning Jones' walls, and when asked, Jones told him that they were pictures of his boyfriend.

Piles and piles of stuffed animals could be found around the room, he said, and recounts walking in on his roommate lying disrobed between the bed sheets with every single one of them.

"I didn't know what to do," Harder said. "I talked to my mom, and she said it was really gross and perverted."

Jones explained that he liked the stuffed animals because they look like animals, and they are "fun to snuggle with." Snuggling and cuddling are a big part of Jones' draw to the furry fandom, or culture.

"(Snuggling is) one of the side effects of being a furry," Jones said.

Jones' sexuality and lifestyle bothered Harder, and eventually Jones moved out of the dorm room into his own apartment.

Arnold Leunes, an A&M professor of psychology, said that because many furries are homosexual, and their behavior could be an alternate way to manifest their sexual preferences.

"It strikes me that there's a sexual motive," Leunes said. "It's not easy being gay in this society. (This) might be an attempt to find a little gentler touch to the whole thing. Americans aren't too at ease with sex anyway."

Because people like Jones and some of his other Furry friends became involved as furries when they didn't fit in with any particular clique in high school, Leunes thinks their furry antics may be an attention-grabbing mechanism.

"Kids tend to be outrageous sometimes, " he said. "That's one of the nice things about being young; you can do some crazy, outrageous things."

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