Check out University of Wyoming’s new slogan!

Video credit: University of Wyoming

It was the summer of 2018 and the University of Wyoming (UW) had just come out with a new slogan: “The world needs more cowboys.” That didn’t sit well with roughly two dozen of its professors who protested that the term “cowboy” carried racist, sexist, homophobic, and genocidal undertones.

But the university’s Board of Trustees dug their heels and stood their ground with a unanimous vote to keep the slogan. In today’s politically correct world, that should have been a home run towards negative viral publicity. But the opposite actually happened.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The university bookstore sold out of ‘the world needs more cowboys’ T-shirts the first week they hit the shelves.point 134 | Responding to demand, the University of Wyoming put the slogan on other products and sold roughly 5,000 items in the first six months.point 246 |

Between July and December 2018, royalties were up $38,000 over the same period in 2017 as the school licensed 143 different products with the tagline to third-party vendors … A campaign ad video had half a million views online—nearly the equivalent of Wyoming’s state population.point 241 |

… Enrollment numbers won’t be in until later this year, but ‘it’s pretty clear there’s been an increase in interest,’ spokesman Chad Baldwin says.point 135 | ”point 138 | 1

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The Campus Reform reported that at the time the professors protested, Christine Porter, an associate professor of kinesiology and health, ranted, “I am not the only person for whom the word ‘cowboy’ invokes a white, macho, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, U.point 485 |

S.point 2 | -born person.point 14 | The history of cowboys, of course, is much more diverse than that racially, and presumably also for sexual orientation.point 115 | But the image — what the word ‘cowboy’ means off the top of almost everybody’s head in the U.point 198 | S.point 200 | — is the white, heterosexual male.point 231 |

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The Journal also noted that UW’s Committee on Women & People of Color had also chimed in by saying the marketing campaign “risks casting UW as a place where only people who identify with white, male, and able-bodied connotations of ‘cowboy’ belong.”

point 0 |

However, Jessie Lea, a UW student who writes for Campus Reform, told Fox & Friends, “I was born and raised in Wyoming … and I’ve never once related the words cowboy with ‘genocide,’ ‘xenophobia,’ or anything like that … The first is that these professors are completely missing the facts and the fact is when they claim that this slogan is sexist and it’s xenophobic, cowboys exist all over the world.point 503 |

But beyond that, my second reaction is they’re completely missing the point.point 71 | The point of the slogan is to say the world needs more people with the cowboy spirit and that’s the spirit of hard work, determination, self-reliance, and integrity.point 215 |

”point 3 | 1

Soon after the controversy started, UW President Laurie S. Nichols took to the university’s magazine to defend the slogan, writing:

“The controversy has ended up bringing even more attention than we expected to ‘The World Needs More Cowboys,’ as evidenced by the fact that the video has been viewed close to 400,000 times on the unpaid web platforms where we placed it—and that’s not counting the people who have watched it on the dozens of media websites around the country that posted it as part of their news coverage.point 456 |

The video and related messages are now going around the state and nation as part of a paid advertising campaign, and we expect very positive results in the form of increased inquiries and enrollment of prospective students—in addition to sales of “The World Needs More Cowboys” merchandise, excitement about the university’s direction and support from private donors and others.point 328 | 1

“The campaign takes the university’s boldest asset—our iconic bucking-horse-and-rider mark and the Cowboys mascot—and modernizes it to reflect today’s challenges.point 153 | It redefines what it means to be a Cowboy in this day and age, distilling it down to the inner spirit of curiosity and boldness that all who call themselves Cowboys and Cowgirls can identify with—no matter their race or gender, or whether they’re students, employees, alumni or other supporters.point 403 |

The Cowboy spirit is what UW helps instill in students, giving them the skills and support they need to make the breakthroughs that benefit our state and the world.point 136 | ”point 139 | 1

 

 

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