Connecticut College’s New Camel: Hit or Miss?

The long-anticipated updated design of the Connecticut College camel has finally been revealed. On Monday, April 5, the revised camel logo made its debut at the Founder’s Day Celebration to cheers by students, faculty and coaches at the Crozier-Williams Student Center.

The camel became the official mascot of Connecticut College back in 1969 to mark a momentous occasion in the college’s history: when it became co-ed. The camel that previously represented Conn, now referred to as the “retro” camel, was introduced as the official design in 1999. The college believed it was time to update the school’s branding image and celebrate successes of the past 99 years with a new camel athletics logo.

The process of developing the new camel was a tedious one; it began with a survey in which the entire student population, alumni and other college community members were asked to voice their opinions about how the new camel design should reflect Conn. In addition, focus groups were created to discuss what people wanted and how the artist could provide a perfect camel.

The 1,445 participants in the survey were given multiple options to choose from, and designer Eric Rickabaugh, from Rickabaugh Graphics out of Ohio, was given the task of creating a camel that fit the desires of the voters.
Participants in the survey leaned strongly toward having a camel that was “strong,” “proud” and “dignified.” In addition, the participants also voted toward having a camel with a style that was “collegiate,” “traditional” and “classic,” yet would give their opponents something to fear.

So how do the students, student-athletes, staff and faculty feel about the new camel athletics logo?

Many of the student-athletes are extremely impressed with the new and improved camel mascot. Rob Moccia ’12, of the men’s lacrosse team, said, “the new camel is great for athletics; it is more fierce and aggressive, and that makes us feel like a more aggressive team.”

Similarly, Katrina Sereiko ’12, of women’s rowing, agreed that there are great things about our new mascot. She said, “Our new mascot is much sportier – it’s more like a big, Division I University.”

Hope Barone ’12, of the women’s lacrosse team agreed. “Having a mascot that makes us feel like a big university will cause our teams to play like a big university; this mascot really ups the ante and makes us want to play even better.”

But, students, as well as faculty, have also expressed concerns with the new mascot, describing it as looking like the loch ness monster, a horse and even the camel from the cigarette brand.

Philosophy professor, and president of the CC Phi Beta Kappa chapter, Lawrence Vogel stated, “It is remindful of a sea monster. It’s like one of those social psychology tests, where we’re told it looks like a camel – so we think it is – but it’s not!”

Although he thinks the mascot is lacking some sort of quintessential camel-ness, he said that “it is a suitable mascot for the teams – the old one was rather dreary. This one is fierce.”

The largest complaint from students and faculty was that they would much rather have had the camel mascot designed by our own CC art department.

Galen Byrne ’12 and Marine Van Der Eb ’12 agreed with this argument. Byrne said, “with such a talented art department, it seems that Conn would have looked to them first to design the logo. it would have been a great way to get the campus community even more involved.”

Van Der Eb, a javelin thrower for the track team, agreed. “Having the art department create the mascot would have been not only more meaningful, but also much less expensive.”

The campus is abuzz with news and opinions about the new mascot; some people love it, some people don’t. But either way, the redesigned camel logo represents a century of success at Connecticut College, and revamping it is a great way to celebrate CC’s 99th birthday.