Petition wants students to design new Kean spirit logo

By: Nicole Diefenbacher | Published by Feb. 28, 2019

This semester, Kean University revealed a new “spirit” logo along with a new spirit campaign, themed “Cougars Climb Higher”.

But the new Cougar image that will make its debut this spring on Kean athletic wear is getting some mixed reviews.

The spirit logo depicts the shape of a “K” for Kean University. From the upper right-hand side of the K emerges the face of a cougar, teeth bared, face tilted upward and ears back. The lower right-hand side shows the cougar’s paw.

According to a Kean press release, “many people who voted on the logo proposals online and at Homecoming said it is important for the new Cougar to look fierce but not overly aggressive or frightening.”

“So many people told us that Kean Cougars are fierce, resilient and determined both in winning athletic competitions and overcoming obstacles to achieve their degrees,” said Karen Smith, vice president of university relations in a Kean press release. “We incorporated that feedback into the final design of the logo and went one step further in launching our new branding campaign with that message.”

The head of media relations at Kean University, Margaret McCorry, said that the response towards the new logo has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

But within days of the launch, an online petition urging Kean President, Dawood Farahi to allow graphic design students from the Robert Busch School of Design to redesign the logo began circulating. By mid-February, the petition had some 338 signatures, although some signatures were anonymous. Others identified themselves as students, professors, or alumni.

Deana Abdou, a junior and graphic design major at Kean University created the petition, but she said that she did not want others to misinterpret her intentions as malicious in any way toward Kean University. In fact, her passion for Kean led her to post the petition to push for a change.

“I was very disappointed that the president did not consider asking the Robert Busch School of Design to come up with a new spirit logo,” said Abdou. “The logo…is not an accurate representation of our school. There is no spirit or strong emotion in it, and it does not feel like something our student body can rally behind.”

“Overall, I am so happy to be going to school here and I want to make sure that the school is represented in a prestigious and well-crafted manner,” she added. “Therefore, I think Dr. Farahi needs to consider the idea of redesigning the spirit logo and giving the graphic design students a chance at doing that.”

According to the press release on Kean University’s website, “more than 2,000 students, faculty, staff and alumni provided feedback on three proposals for the new spirit logo, which is designed to replace a variety of Cougar images used over the years.”

However, Abdou said one problem was that the voting only offered the three logos.

“We were only offered three options to choose from, and among the choices, there was no option for ‘none of the above,’” Abdou said. “Therefore, many people did not vote since they did not like any of the three options presented to them.”

McCorry did not reveal who created the winning logo despite repeated requests from The Tower.

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