Yeah, we love UD. So What?
This February, the University of Dayton is kicking off its second annual “I Love UD” month. The aim of the event, according to a recent email from President Daniel Curran, is “to strengthen the bond you have with the University and help us build deeper relationships with alumni, classmates, friends, faculty, staff, students, and all who have shaped and support what makes our University special — the UD community.”
We, at Flyer News, love UD, but we have to admit that we can’t get too excited about the university’s new pseudo-holiday. We just don’t really see any reason to care.
Of course, there are some great things going on this month. There are some cool charity events, and it’s a nice idea to try to do some community building between students and alumni. From a marketing standpoint, it’s genius. Quite frankly, however, some of the on-campus events they have planned are just strange.
Take, for example, the Porch Sheet Contest – a university endorsement of a tradition it typically frowns upon. Or, the “break up with another school” event on St. Valentine ’s Day. Sure, it’s a nice way to encourage donations to a great charity, St. Vincent DePaul, but it’s just weird. So we’re supposed to buy the official merchandise of another school and give it to charity so we can get another T-shirt for free? How about instead, we buy two shirts for the same price from someplace else and donate them? Or, if the goal is charity, why doesn’t the university just give away the shirts that it already plans to give to students? That’s a smart charity move and a smart marketing move.
Like we said, it’s just bizarre.
Look, we’re not opposed to some school-sanctioned love for UD. It’s a shrewd marketing strategy and a clever – if sappy – way to maintain some school spirit for students and alumni. But we still don’t see much reason to get excited about it. It’s a little excessive, a little cliché and a little weird.
If the administration wants to market our love for UD, they should publicize the genuine examples of it, not create these artificial PDA’s.
