2008 Woodie Awards
RSSBring back our engineer mascot
Letters to the editor
By Ryan Day, '98
Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: Opinion
Go Lehigh. That has always been the war cry whether at Goodman Stadium, the rugby field or the Park Avenue Country Club Bar in New York City.
Walking my dogs today in dreary Chicago on a fall day, I walked past a church celebrating its 125th year. I began reflecting on tradition and commitment when a fictitious but furious Mountain Hawk swooped in and terrorized my thoughts.
For those of you enrolled at Lehigh, our hawk mascot is probably all you know. But for those of us who are older and balder, Lehigh's mascot was once the Engineer. This mascot "rebranding" happened while I was still a student. Now, almost 10 years after graduation, I look at my missed chance to keep our grand establishment honest.
Countless times after prospective employers and friends find out I graduated from Lehigh, they usually ask about the mascot. I have to tell them it was an Engineer, but they changed it to a Mountain Hawk. "What's a Mountain Hawk?" they ask. Well, I don't know.
I am not sure who came up with the idea or even why they changed it. An engineer is not offensive, sexist, or racist, so I would think it would be a fine mascot. It has (or had) the ability to keep us all in the same boat. An engineer isn't showy, portrayed hard work and always had a good blue collar feel to combat the Range Rovers and BMWs flying down the Hill.
I bet changing the mascot to a fictional bird was a way to shift the focus from the engineering major and portray Lehigh as a world-class university. But by doing so, this quickly erased 142 years of history.
I was a finance major and Lehigh's reputation as a hard-driven engineering school did nothing but advance my chances at initial interviews.
Even now, 10 years later, it is the hard work and success the engineers have built that is the foundation on which the university rests.
I don't think any non-engineering freshman had any animosity toward engineers. I also don't think the engineers toiling away in Packard Lab had any incremental connection with the types of engineers who drive trains. It was an instant connection to all the students that passed through any one of the university's great colleges throughout the years.
In this time of flip-floppy politicians, tear-down and rebuild real estate and every other method of "progress," I think now is the time for me to try to right my wrongs and get the Engineer out of retirement.
I learned from a great professor in my Marketing 101 class that brands take time and money to build and can be erased in a blink of an eye.
I just wish that this wasn't proven so dramatically and effectively while I was there. The Mountain Hawk just feels too much like New Coke.
I am still a big supporter of the university, as anyone who has 18 other family members who attended the university will tell you. But in the spirit of brand management and social change, when I send in my donation check this year, on the memo line I will put "Go Engineers!"
Walking my dogs today in dreary Chicago on a fall day, I walked past a church celebrating its 125th year. I began reflecting on tradition and commitment when a fictitious but furious Mountain Hawk swooped in and terrorized my thoughts.
For those of you enrolled at Lehigh, our hawk mascot is probably all you know. But for those of us who are older and balder, Lehigh's mascot was once the Engineer. This mascot "rebranding" happened while I was still a student. Now, almost 10 years after graduation, I look at my missed chance to keep our grand establishment honest.
Countless times after prospective employers and friends find out I graduated from Lehigh, they usually ask about the mascot. I have to tell them it was an Engineer, but they changed it to a Mountain Hawk. "What's a Mountain Hawk?" they ask. Well, I don't know.
I am not sure who came up with the idea or even why they changed it. An engineer is not offensive, sexist, or racist, so I would think it would be a fine mascot. It has (or had) the ability to keep us all in the same boat. An engineer isn't showy, portrayed hard work and always had a good blue collar feel to combat the Range Rovers and BMWs flying down the Hill.
I bet changing the mascot to a fictional bird was a way to shift the focus from the engineering major and portray Lehigh as a world-class university. But by doing so, this quickly erased 142 years of history.
I was a finance major and Lehigh's reputation as a hard-driven engineering school did nothing but advance my chances at initial interviews.
Even now, 10 years later, it is the hard work and success the engineers have built that is the foundation on which the university rests.
I don't think any non-engineering freshman had any animosity toward engineers. I also don't think the engineers toiling away in Packard Lab had any incremental connection with the types of engineers who drive trains. It was an instant connection to all the students that passed through any one of the university's great colleges throughout the years.
In this time of flip-floppy politicians, tear-down and rebuild real estate and every other method of "progress," I think now is the time for me to try to right my wrongs and get the Engineer out of retirement.
I learned from a great professor in my Marketing 101 class that brands take time and money to build and can be erased in a blink of an eye.
I just wish that this wasn't proven so dramatically and effectively while I was there. The Mountain Hawk just feels too much like New Coke.
I am still a big supporter of the university, as anyone who has 18 other family members who attended the university will tell you. But in the spirit of brand management and social change, when I send in my donation check this year, on the memo line I will put "Go Engineers!"
