News in Brief

By Rice Thresher Staff 11/12/13 6:00pm

A committee may soon be formed at Martel College to gauge whether residents would like to change the college crest, according to College President Izzy Spanswick.

"The crest is talked about every year," Spanswick, a Martel senior, said. "There has been discussion concerning the crest and potentially changing it."

Spanswick said no design is in the works because college residents and alumni have not decided whether they want to change the crest.

"The main argument in favor of changing the crest is that people feel it doesn't represent the culture and values of the college as well as it could," Spanswick said. "If we find that the majority of Martelians are interested in altering the crest, then we will move on to the design process."

Martel freshman Abbi Gutierrez said that since the crest was made before Martel culture was created, some people want a crest that better visualizes that culture, but others believe the crest should be kept the same because of tradition.

"Since we are fairly new but have a few years under our belt, we just want to explore our creative freedom to design something that may potentially represent us better," Gutierrez said. "We pride ourselves on being a family, so that really is our culture."

Spanswick said the college will vote on Wednesday, Nov. 13 on a bill that will decide whether or not a Martel crest committee should be created. She said this committee would be responsible for collecting data from current students, alumni and other interested parties to gauge interest on whether or not they want to update the crest.

"This is a very important issue to the college," Spanswick said. "Nothing will happen in regards to the crest without consent from both current students and alumni."

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