You may not have noticed the shockingly enormous sign hanging off of Hodges, so in case you missed it, UT’s new so-called “brand” is “Big Orange, Big Ideas.”

The new motto is the part of our new brand that stands out the most, but there are also other extremely important aspects that are less well-known. We now have an official color scheme consisting of second-level and third-level color palettes to compliment the essential colors of UT Orange, Smokey and white. We also have an official group of primary and secondary typefaces to print on every UT publication. In addition, there is now an official way to take Big Orange photographs and a set of words to be used as our official lingo.

You are probably like me and basically everyone else on campus in wondering why we need a brand. The marketing office answers those questions in the shiny new Brand Book with, “It’s more than just a logo, a tagline, or a color — although all of these things are crucial. It’s about a reputation, and our brand should reflect that reputation.”

I’m going to ignore the fact that they describe a logo, a tagline and colors as “crucial” for a moment and focus on what this actually says about our reputation. These four words and all the banners that come with them are supposed to be a reflection of our outstanding, innovative reputation. But what does it really say about us that these four words cost the university $85,000 not including banner printing and manpower? And when you think about it, the slogan only has three different words, so they really got gypped.

It says we as a university are irresponsible and have values that are completely out of whack. There is no reason we needed to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on a slogan and color scheme from some consulting firm based in Chicago. We have more than enough brain power on this campus to come up with a pithy saying to represent the university if you really feel the need for one. Why not create a branding task force made of faculty and students in advertising and design? It would have been incredibly cheaper, and we would have probably gotten some much better results.

“Big Orange, Big Ideas”? If you had given me $20 and about 30 seconds, I could have come up with all sorts of slogans fitting to the university: “WHERE SPORTZ HAVE CLASS,” “Our students are so happy, they never leave!” “Big Orange, B.S.” There’s no telling what I could have done with $85,000!

The Brand Book labels taglines, logos, colors and all the other parts associated with this endeavor as “crucial.” They are right that it is necessary for UT to have an image that appears clean and professional to the outside world. We do not want to look sloppy or silly to alumni, donors, other universities and the public. But this whole campaign does just the opposite of what it intends. It makes us look ridiculously silly and frivolous.

One of the first things the little 40-second video online advertising the new brand says is, “At the University of Tennessee, we’re all about big ideas.” Obviously that is not the case if we have to get some other swanky advertising firm to tell us who we are and what we’re about.

I would love it if this motto — as cheesy as it is — could actually reflect who we are and what we do as a university. It would be great if any of us could say with confidence and pride that UT is a progressive place of knowledge where things are always happening and changing and improving. But it’s not. We are stuck in a bureaucratic backlog where the administration does not invest in its students, but instead cares more about selling us collectively as a commodity with this brand. So instead of reflecting who we are, this motto just mocks us.

All of those thousands of dollars could have been better spent nearly anywhere else. They should have put that money toward renovating the Humanities Building or toward raising workers’ salaries to a livable wage. They could have improved the sidewalks or bought new computers for the library or given away more financial aid. But instead of doing all that, they spent it on a motto and a color palette. So once again our tuition will go up, and the value of our education will suffer.

— Lindsay Lee is a sophomore in math. She can be reached at llee26@utk.edu.