The Associated Students of the University of La Verne unveiled a new addition to the Leopard family at the 2008 Greek awards ceremony and lip sync performances: Lea.
Lea is a female mascot, who will accompany Leo, ULV’s current Leopard mascot.
While this is a great addition to the sense of school spirit at our University, we have some suggestions to enhance the purpose and usefulness of this new critter.
1. Now that there are two mascots, we should really take advantage of them and have them attend the home games and competitions to show support for our hard working athletes.
Since La Verne does not have cheerleaders or any sort of spirit squad, the mascots should make an appearance at every home athletic event.
This would get the crowd riled up and cheering in a positive way. Everyone will want to come and see Leo and Lea and get their pictures taken with them.
These appearances will also bring something special to our games and events. Without having a cheering section, the presence of having Leo or Lea present could be a fine step in livening the crowds.
Plus, we haven’t really seen Leo appear all that much with the exceptions of Homecoming, Greek Week and maybe another special event. It would be nice to get to know them a little more.
2. Along the lines of having them attend the University’s sporting events, Leo and Lea should help promote athletic and club and organization events around campus.
Leo and Lea could wear signs with information regarding the date, time and location of sporting and other organization events during the week.
This would be one way to promote positive school spirit for our athletic contests.
Most importantly, it would get the word out in a unique way. While flyers, e-mail lists and word of mouth does attract some participation from students, what could be more eye-catching than our very own Leo or Lea strolling by Davenport during lunch, letting everyone know of the next club event or game by handing out flyers or wearing a sandwich board with the information?
Although it would not be ideal for the mascots to be out advertising all the time, there are some events and activities that could warrant a boost in publicity by having Leo or Lea help spread the news.
3. We would also love to see Leo and Lea make regular appearances around campus. Such times could be during midterms, finals week, or during breakfast, lunch or dinner at Davenport.
These appearances could possibly help boost the morale of our student body at stressful times during the school year.
4. Along with these appearances, we would like to see Leo and Lea more around campus. Leo’s Den would be a fun hang out spot for students, faculty, friends and family to visit our mascots.
Picking one day out of the week for this would be a great way to invite people to our campus and to get to know it, to get them to use the facilities and to make them aware of events going on at our campus.
5. Leo and Lea should also visit schools when the admissions department makes presentations. Having our two mascots present at these events will get potential students excited about ULV.
We know that the people who bring Leo and Lea to life are busy too, but there are many people who don’t know about them and we would love to get to know them.
They can be put to such great use to do amazing things for our campus.
Now that we have a new Leopard family member, we hope that the powers that be will take advantage of this and use both to their full potential.
We are looking forward to seeing them more around campus and doing positive things to support our student body so that we can support them too.
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.