Why so insecure, UNCC?

[dracosinfernoweyr]

This is something that I've been kind of brooding over the past week and a halfish since I started school last Monday, and I wanted some objective opinions because it's irritating me to a point bordering on wanting to email the editor of the school newspaper about it. You're all welcome to tell me that I'm just getting my delicate little sensibilities in a bunch over nothing. :P

I'm currently attending UNC Charlotte which is not the most famous university in North Carolina. It's kind of been known as a plan C school, where a lot of kids will apply to if they're not accepted into a place like NC State or UNC Chapel Hill.

The past week there's been three or four articles in the school paper complaining about a lack of school spirit on campus. I attribute this to something called the "stake your claim" brand revamp they're trying to do, but the school paper only goes out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that means there's been an article in every single issue about it, and sometimes two per issue.

I mean, school spirit is grate u guise, I've got a couple 49er shirts, well one t-shirt and one sweater because the bookstore charges a seriously ridiculous amount for school gear. I went today to see if any apparel was on sale. Cheapest t-shirt? $18. A pair of plaid pajama/laying around pants? $35. Teeny tiny hoodies and jumpers for babies? $60+. The school hoodie I have I actually bought at a drugstore for $11, and it's nicer AND fits better than the cheapest adult hoodie in the school store ($40). The t-shirt I bought at an off campus bookstore and I think it was maybe $10. The only non-textbook thing I've bought in the school bookstore was a shot glass I got today for six bucks and a couple of UNC Charlotte stickers for my and my mom's car, probably five bucks each.

I know, going to the school itself and expecting to find cheap apparel isn't the smartest thing, but UNCC doesn't sell it's brand rights to anyone else, meaning almost no one can print or sell UNCC gear but UNCC. (how I found that sweater in a Walgreens is beyond me) They're expecting us to wear more 49er gear but... charge more than the average ramen-eating college student can afford to spend on such a frivolous thing.

My biggest issue is that articles consist of blatant threats of bodily harm to those who "look unhappy about being there" or wear clothes depicting other school teams. One actually said something like "don't go around campus looking like you wish you weren't here, that's begging for an underclassman to slap the look off your face." Not that I doubt the intestinal fortitude of the freshies and transfer students, but how is threatening them with a slap to the face exactly welcoming them to our campus? I'm a maybe-senior and I certainly don't go walking around campus with a grin on my face and green and gold rainbows of joy and spirit coming out of my butt all the time.

Another was someone complaining about people wearing clothes from other school teams on campus. Do you think that if you go to Chapel Hill, State or Duke there's students wearing clothes from other campuses? Are they bawwing all over themselves about it? I wouldn't think so. Just because UNCC isn't exactly the highest ranking school in the state doesn't mean it has to be so insecure about its identity. I always thought school spirit was supposed to be encouraged with stuff like pep rallies or other positive things, not demanded through thinly and not-so-thinly veiled threats of violence and derisive comments about those wearing tarheel or wolfpack gear off the court or field.

I know these "threats" aren't really threats in that the paper expects upperclassmen to go around snatching off t-shirts and slapping frowning faces. It's just this heavy handed and hostile take on practically ordering that people look thrilled to be at UNCC all day every day is a little overzealous and creepy to me. Spirit is a supposed to be a positive outpouring, not something so negative, or something people should be forced into because they're "supposed to".

I may be biased though, I've never been particularly interested in sports, which is where the majority of the school spirit seems to be focused toward so I don't see this need for such aggressive SCHOOL SPIRIT OR DIE AUUUGH.

Now to get a start on that French Revolution paper I procrastinated on with all this semi-indignant ruminating. XD;

[StarFyre]

Speaking as someone who's never been excited about any particular educational institution (gradeschool/highschool/OR college), and the only pieces of Saluki gear I own are T-shirts that came free for being part of certain things, like the women in engineering summer camp thing, or the t-shirt I got because my mother thought a birthday-care-package thing would be funny to send me my first year here.

That being said, I do think the articles/letters that showed up in your paper are in excess of any sort of good-taste. That's not even stretching good-taste -- that blatantly and excitedly ran past it and give good-taste the finger as it went by. Theats aren't a way to create school spirit -- in fact, threats tend to have the exact opposite effect, especially on college students who are finding themselves, usually for the first time, free of the control of their parents. They don't want to deal with threats. They want a good deal. They want to get stuff for free and told that they're the best people on earth.

Also, I feel you on the overprice-ed-ness of branded merchandise. There's less of an issue with that for SIU Carbondale, because there's like.. ten places in town that sell branded merchandise at all different prices. This entire town basically exists BECAUSE OF this college. (Carbondale was a mining city, but the economy here has shifted to revolve completely around the college instead of the mines. Carbondale becomes a ghost-town during the summer, pretty much.) And because of that, (and our cute mascot -- look up Salukis, friggin awesome dogs), there's really no shortage of school spirit around here.

[Shard]

I'd definitely take that 'report' up with someone higher up in the university. It doesn't sound friendly - I mean, "the beatings will continue until morale improves" doesn't really WORK...

Also: invent a team, logo or even a sport and make a tshirt with this fake team on it and see how many looks you get

OOOH Nexus Dragon Racing!!

[Guest]

Stupid Jocks.

At the university I was at (albeit only for a year) we only had one varsity team and the school spirit wasn't built off of that. It was actually a community that strived to make every single person's experience a /fun/ one. People are so ... pig headed about their school spirit. The issue is the rich kids all think that spirit is owning seventeen sweaters, eighty tees and nine pairs of pants. And having a complete shot-glass set for their dorm. It isn't like that, really. School spirit is a /state/. If you like the school you are at, brag about it (even a little bit. It's campus, the scenery, whatever) that in and of itself is school spirit. It sucks that you seem to only have the money-aspect there.

Letter writing=good. Taking it higher? A lot of work, but it would be worth it. Some smaller schools don't really have anyone to look after and foster school spirit but if that were put in to play, the benefits would be remarkable.

Good luck, I hope everything sorts itself out (or the idiots get hit with footballs between their eyes )

[Guest]

It could be worse. Come visit me at the University of Alabama.
Or read our student paper, the Crimson White. Non-jocks can be crazy, too.