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‘December 2008

OPINION

New UPEI Mascot named ‘Pride’

Post sports editor Kate Vangerven tells the student body why the name is a great why to show spirit

By Kate Vangerven Panther Post

Pride. A noun. The state or _ feeling of being proud. It’s now so much more than

_ that, it’s the name of UPEI’s ©

panther. Get all the possible jokes and the under-your- breath snickers out of your system now, and then keep an open mind. Sure, it may not be a strong name like Richard, Luke, John or Troy but think of what a name like Pride represents.

What is UPEI without pride? We would have a historically correct and aesthetically pleasing quad, beautiful buildings, award winning professors and any number of other positive aspects. But what’s the point of surrounding ourselves with these things if we’re not willing to exhibit just how proud we are of them?

As a girl from Ontario coming to UPEI, I was often greeted with, “Good for you, but why in the world did you choose UPEI?” My answer has evolved since I’ve been here. It used to be because of the reputable professors, the class sizes and the low tuition as well as the Island itself. How- ever, it’s become so much more than that.

We have professors who know us by name, sports teams who need and value each and every student’s support, a student union _ President everyone knows to see - not just his name. We’ ve got a recently up- dated sports centre, one

of the lowest tuitions in Atlantic Canada, and we get to indulge in one-on- one relationships with the people who are here to sup- port us. So we’ve got lots to be proud of, but how do we prove it?

I’ve always found that wild and out of control demonstrations of pride are best suited to sports games. Screaming “U-P.....E-I!” through the Student Union on a Wednesday afternoon may attract some funny stares. At a sports game... you're guaranteed a better reaction. As a matter of fact, it looks even better on you if you’re with a group. The Cage Crew would be best.

This rambunctious, whole- heartedly supportive, loud, and most definitely proud group was four-men strong Friday the 14th. Not only

_ were they at the women’s

basketball game and the men’s basketball game im- mediately after, but they could also be seen running back and forth from the courts to the rink to cheer on men’s hockey in their game against St. Thomas.

With our student body numbering somewhere around 4,000, why are there only four painting their faces, losing their voices and wearing green skirts in © a public display of school pride? To the first-year students still carving their niche here, one piece of ad- vice: after NSO, everyone’s seen you embarrass yourself already (especially if you

were hypnotized) Second, - third, fourth and every other

year student, lead by ex- ample! Pride and tradition go hand in hand so show us young’uns how the Panthers do it! There’s something ev- ery UPEI student needs to remember whether you’ re in your final year at UPEI and counting down the days until you start “your real life” with a career you’ ve been working towards, or - if you’re a first year student still just learning about all the opportunities you can take advantage of. Every- one needs to think back to January of their grade twelve year and remember what it was that made all of us choose the University of Prince Edward Island. Take back that initial feel- ing of excitement and hold

Why pay any attention to the

voting age ‘debate’?

There is an interesting but pointless debate in Nova Scotia. Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil has intro- duced a bill into the pro- vincial legislature to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in conjunction with an increase in civics and his- tory education in response to the historically low -provincial and federal voter turnouts. Premier Rodney ‘MacDonald has mocked the suggestion and NDP Leader Darrel Dexter considers it a ‘drastic’ action while refus- ing to state where he stands on the issue.

Let’s take a step back. This voting age muddle is —

onto it, and when someone ~

asks what school you go to, take pride in saying “I’m a Panther!”

Kate Vangerven is the sports

editor for the Panther Post

a perfect example of why people don’t vote. A party leader introduces a bill with no hope of passing. The merits of the bill will not be freely debated in the Legis- lature. The bill is intended to be window dressing for the current political process by simply raising turnouts without getting to the root of the problem. Even in ‘dressing the window’ the bill seems ill conceived since youth tend to have the lowest of voter turnouts. But since there is no free debate on the subject voters will never know, all voters have is ‘spin’ in the media. Why would voters pay any

PANTHER POST

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attention to any of this? Raising voter turnout requires real substantive changes to invite the citizen back into the governance ~ system but that means diluting the power of the parties and the leaders, but the parties and the lead- ers control the system and change is not in their interest. So no matter which way we turn we are back to where we started; a system that cannot fix itself and is divorced from its citizens. Why would voters involve themselves in any of this?

Jonathon Dean is the leader of the Atlantica Party

sent to upeicadre@gmail.