Karl Lam E3, Kaelyn Melrose E4, Shumpei Yanagihara E1, Allan Zhou E1
According to our surveys, only about 30% of WWU students recognize the fact that the Vikings never made it to Bellingham on their voyage to the Americas. In fact, they only reached the eastern coast of the continent. Why then, does Western Washington University have a Viking as their mascot? Although this is a major problem we noticed in WWU’s branding, there were also other factors that led us to want to remove the Viking from WWU. While WWU students are known as ‘Vikings’, there is one Viking in particular that represents the whole school: Our mascot, Victor E. Viking. A big problem we see with Victor is how he is shown. First of all, he does not accurately represent Viking culture, as he is depicted without a beard: “If you saw a man that had a beard, you could almost guarantee that they were a good person, that you could go to them for help” (Quote from an article we found on Viking representation). We also believe that the goal of a mascot is to represent the student body, and as a white blonde man, Victor is only representing a portion of the student body. We believe that all of these factors are reasons for low student pride. Through surveys, we decided to change the mascot to an Otter, because it is a more accurate representation of the geographical location as well as the laid back, easy going nature of WWU students.
Link to our Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1b0dTW6p6uJplGi57FpHjQgoewjNVl9Oe?usp=sharing