Ithaca College

I was reading with interest the nomination call for outstanding students, but I got stuck on the end of the notification that mandates that the nominee be proud to call him or herself an IC Bomber. I have for a long time had a sense of both outrage and heartbreak that IC maintains a team name that has its origins in war, killing, violence, destruction, and grief that affects generations of people who carry it out or are its victims. Every time I see the slogan, "It's a great day to be a bomber," I get queasy and angry. I have tried to understand it as a team name and have tried to accept the choices of those who are more directly connected with the decision because it is their area. I was not aware that in some nameless transition we were all expected to consider ourselves "Bombers." I have been teaching here for thirty-five years, and I love my job, my students, my colleagues, my department, and the college. But I will NEVER agree to think of myself as a Bomber or encourage any of my students to do so. And sadly, if that is one of the qualifications of being a member of this group, I cannot in full conscience nominate a student, though in fact the students and alumni in our department form an active and committed network. --Susannah Berryman, Theatre Arts

I appreciate and support my colleague Susannah Berryman's comments concerning our extremely unfortunate team name that seems to have become our school's brand. I know that as I sat at commencement last year and listened to the speaker state that "It's a good day to be a Bomber", I cringed, as did many of the faculty sitting around me. I understand that there is a definition for this name which does not involve violence and destruction, but in today's world, the word bomber means one thing to the general population. How is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev referred to in the media? He is always referred to as the "Boston Bomber". In my usual struggle to get the work done that I am hired to do, I probably missed some opportunity to vote on the name of our brand. I regret that. But this name makes me ashamed, and I love Ithaca College too much to remain silent about it.