Blog #5

School Slogan and You

            There are many opinions on the different views of Go Cougs. HAVING A NON-OFFICIAL SLOGAN DOESN’T GIVE OUR SCHOOL A GREAT PUBLISITY, AND THAT BEING SAID OPINIONS ARE NUMEROUS AND VARRY IN THE EYES OF DIFFERENT COUGS. Last week we looked at a typical dialog a mother and son could have over the phone discussing the slogan. According to a blog site The Brothers of Judea what makes an effective slogan is that it is short and to the point. It is something that people can chant and which can fit easily on a t-shirt. After this explanation I can easily say that I personally am against the Go Cougs slogan that WSU has developed over the years. This slogan doesn’t do our university justice and causes negative light to be spread on the school that is already seen as a party school.

            The way I most commonly disagree with the slogan is that the slogan Go Cougs is more of a greeting than anything else. As was said in the interview with Julia Jans that was done last week. Go Cougs is a greeting at the point of which it’s being used on campus because it has no definition and doesn’t tell us anything about the people in our community. This statement causes people to think of what it means rather than providing an acknowledge meaning to the slogan. This is very frustrating because people say that it’s building us into a community for which it really isn’t causing any more connection than the current slogan. IT’S FRUSTRATING BECAUSE PEOPLE SAY THAT THE SLOGAN IS BUILDING US INTO A COMMUNITY FOR WHICH IT REALLY ISN’T CAUSING ANY MORE CONNECTION THAN THE CURRENT SLOGAN, MY MOM WHO I INTERVIEWED ALSO QUOTED THAT THE SLOGAN DIDN’T O WHAT WE WANTED IT TO DO OR SHOW FOR OUR UNIVERSITY.

            Another thing is that the Go Cougs slogan is over used and many people don’t understand this slogan enough to use it properly. THE MAIN ISSUE WOULD HAVE TO BE THAT THE GO COUG SLOGAN IS OVER USED AND MANY PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE SLOGAN TO USE IT PROPERLY. The slogan is used to at sports activities like football games where the crowd will yell GO and then butch will point to the adult side which will respond COUGS or vice versa. This use of Go Cougs is totally fine because the connection is clear of what is the meaning which is cheering for our team, and will cause the connection we want. However some students choose to use Go Cougs in a negative light. An example of this negative light would be the students WHOM choose to partake in the activities on game weekends or any weekend in that sense that usually happens out on Greek row, in residence halls, Or in apartment land. These activities include but aren’t limited to: Drinking, Party hoping, Blacking out and Browning out, Public escapades, Smoking, etc. These students that partake in the listed activities commonly tell each other Go Cougs, which in this sense means, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here, “I’m so proud of you for blacking out” or “I’m so drunk this is awesome”. These uses are what the public eye sees the most coming from WSU. This is a small part of the life here on the WSU Pullman campus the Go Cougs is being seen this way. THIS SLOGAN IS A PART OF LIFE HERE ON THE WSU PULLMAN CAMPUS, BUT THE SLOGAN IS BEING SEEN IN A NEGITIVE LIGHT FROM THE PUBLIC.

            The last issue is that if this slogan is really building a community here at WSU, there still aren’t any values given in this quote. Where as you can look at our real slogan which is World class face to face, which has values and states that all the students at WSU value a face to face interaction while also depicting themselves in the best light or in a world class view. The problem about Go Cougs is that there isn’t any value to it unless you’re an “insider” or attending WSU. That this is more of an internal slogan of WSU rather than an external slogan that we should be using there for Go Cougs isn’t the right slogan for us.

            In conclusion this is all my opinion and brief information taken from an outside force WHO also agreed that the slogan was stupid. ALL OF THIS BEING SAID EVERYTHING IS MY OWN OPINION AND I KNOW THE INFORMAITION IS BRIEF AND TAKEN FROM AN OUTSIDE SOURCE WHO ALSO AGREEED WITH MY OWN STANDPOINT, BECAUSE THE SOURCE WAS MY MOM, AND GRANDMOM. So I’m sure I sound a little bias. The main issue I have with the slogan is that it doesn’t provide anything back to the community other than negative light because of the way that students at the institution use the slogan. Also that there is no sense of community that go with this other than the fact that when you see another Cougar out on the adventures they all say Go Cougs which just proves that its more inclusive then exclusive of a slogan. This brings me to more of my conclusion that it’s not the slogan for WSU; it has no meaning and isn’t used properly to make it even acceptable as a school slogan.