 "Photo: Charlie DeBoyace")
For students, the university’s new catchphrase “Unstoppable Starts Here” has failed to launch.
As signs pop up in campus buildings and on buses two weeks into the campaign, students say the motto is corny, confusing and unrepresentative of the university’s spirit.
“I think it’s a silly slogan,” sophomore molecular biology major Brian Nickols said. “It’s two contradicting words in the same thing, and it’s not even remotely original or anything.”
The university kicked off the re-branding effort to emphasize academics and research, facets officials said “Fear the Turtle” failed to flaunt as the slogan has become more and more associated with athletics.
Perhaps because of a slow start to the campaign — the re-branding budget was scaled back from $1 million to the standard annual marketing budget of $250,000 — some students remain oblivious to the existence of the new slogan, which has just begun to appear on streetlight flags and banners.
“I’d never even heard of — unstoppable what? I don’t even see how that’s relevant,” junior Arabic Studies major Mariam Obeidallah said.
Other students expressed nostalgia for “Fear the Turtle” as the university’s lead motto.
“I don’t think [the new slogan] really flows well,” sophomore biology major Jay Thierer said. “I’m a big fan of ‘Fear the Turtle.’”
Some other tongue-in-cheek catchphrases have appeared around the campus, touting specific assets of the university as part of the campaign, such as “FBI – CIA – NIH – FDA – OMG. The world’s resources are in our backyard,” which highlights the university’s strategic location.
“All of them tell stories in some way about ‘Unstoppable Starts Here,’” Internet communications director Linda Martin said.
The campaign, though still in its beginning stages, hasn’t come without controversy.
One sign in the Stamp Student Union reads: “Ivy gives us a rash. World-class education: No powder blue sweaters or life-long debt,” an inflammatory phrase that Vice President for University Relations Brodie Remington said was never supposed to be used in the first place.
“We decided not to use that, so I’m surprised that it’s there,” Remington said last week. “So I trust it’s not there now, but if it is, it’s going to be down by the end of the day.”
As of publication, the sign was still in place.
“We produce dozens and dozens of those, and they’re all at some stage of a sort of draft, and out of dozens, we may end up choosing three or four that seem to really work,” Remington added. “We’re just in the process of sorting through all these possibilities.”
Martin defended the sign’s use, saying that it does not necessarily reference the Ivy League but rather a rivalry with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
“We’re not trashing anybody,” she said.
Meanwhile, students who have read the sign see it as one more failure on the part of the campaign and evidence of buying into college rankings.
“I don’t really like it,” sophomore biochemistry major Eileen Chai said. “I think they should take a different approach, maybe say we’re unique and not just compare us to different schools.”
“I think it’s kind of slamming Ivy League education ... How do you really compare us to an Ivy League school?” senior microbiology major Chris Spence said. “I think it’s apples and oranges. It doesn’t really speak to me.”
aisaacs at umdbk dot com
- Respect: for UMCP's academic successes, highly ranked programs, and Nobels/Fulbrights/etc.; and
- Fear: yes, of the type (occasionally) experienced when facing our athletic teams.Oh yeah, and also "Fear The Turtle" grew organically out of the very University community whose character UMCP seeks to project to the world through a slogan. Folks, you couldn't do any better than that. Other Universities would KILL to have a slogan as good as "Fear The Turtle." Forget $250k. You could spend $10 million and not come up with a better slogan for this school. "Unstoppable Starts Here" is also three words long -- yet it can't be adequately explained in 100 words. It's meaningless. In comparison with "Fear The Turtle," the vast majority of other alternatives will also sound hollow and generic.This is why you don't mess with a good thing, people.
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