A seal of approval?

By Kevin Dicus
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 26, 1999

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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Kevin Dicus

After UA quarterback John Button Salmon uttered his famous death-bed words "Tell the team... tell the team to bear down," in the 1920's, they soon became a rallying cry. It was indicative of a pride uncommon today, but still alive in one important slice of college life: The University Seal. In this small bronze circle, the rich history of the institution is symbolically expressed - its raison d'etre is proclaimed in a succinct, lofty Latin motto. Predictably, today it is misunderstood by many and simply ignored by even more.

How many attendees of the University of Chicago actually know their motto: "CRESCAT SCIENTIA, VITA EXCOLATUR" (Let knowledge increase, let life be perfected)? It's a poetic sentiment, but has it increased knowledge? Perfected lives?

And who at Winchester College knows their motto: "AUT DISCE AUT DISCEDE" (Either learn or leave)? Indeed, after learning of such ruthless sentiment, who would even want to be around these harsh Winchesterians? We Wildcats cannot succumb to the same fate! Let us learn the obscure symbolism that so defines us!

Two books dominate the lower center of our Seal, one of philosophy, the other, history, upon which stands a Greek lamp of learning. Three figures run across the center above the lamp. A miner's pick and farmer's plow, symbolic of the two original disciplines taught here, flank a key representing the access to knowledge. So we're about philosophy and mining. Rocks and Reason.

Above all this, emblazoned within a sun representing the "bright (scorching) Southwest" is the obligatory cross and the word "SURSUM," a Latin adverb meaning "upwards," or "on high." But did our founding fathers predict how easy it would be for students to transform "on high" to "on a high," thereby leading them on an academic career of drug use?

Framing the Seal of the University of Arizona is its longest Latin inscription: SIGILLUM UNIVERSITATIS ARIZONENSIS 1885. The date clearly represents the University's founding, but what of the Latin? Translated, it becomes: THE SEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. Hmmm. A bit obvious, isn't it? Did the men who created this really fear that we would be unable to figure out that this is indeed the Seal of the University of Arizona?

At least by having it in Latin we may be saved from quite a bit of embarrassment. For we, already unable to recognize our Seal, may, if it was written in English, mistake it for the swimming, barking, mammalian seal. And what would visitors think upon seeing the students, many of them "on a high," throwing fish at the Seal of the University of Arizona?

But far be it for me to give criticism without offering solutions. I hereby humbly submit my own motto alternatives:

INGENTIA LEVITAS ET ERUDITA VANITAS (Frivolity is inborn, conceit is acquired by education): This one is so painfully ostentatious that our tuition would undoubtedly be doubled. Might be worth it.

IN TERRA INFIDELIUM (In the land of infidels) or VINUM VITA EST (Wine is life): These could be honest, viable options.

FOCA UNIVERSITATIS ARIZONENSIS (The (swimming, barking, mammalian) Seal of the University of Arizona): The academic irony is outrageous.

Or maybe one simple word can most fully express the spirit of this institution: NIKE.