DEAD BEAR ON CAMPUS?

Upon learning that the Lundvall's 'gift' to UNC was unveiled last week this is a letter I've sent to the editor of The Mirror. It is upsetting to see money become the arbiter of taste at my alma mater. Very. This is my response to the news that a stuffed bear carcass may take space in the University Center. Shameful.

To the Editor:

A slight correction. I am a 1963 graduate of Colorado State College.

My deep concern for alma mater and tradition has been dismissed and ignored by Jerrold DeWitt because he has deemed me unlikely to donate CA$H to the university. He knows nothing of my financial situation and rudely dismissed me in email to a number of UNC recipients last spring. He believed dismissing my idea to create a 13 foot cairn to commerate Totem Teddy would have no "fallout" because he noted that I'd only donated my "art" (sic) to UNC. Sad and embarrassing for me to say the least.

How a dead bear on campus reflects Bear Spirit is beyond me. What DeWitt and the well meaning Lundvalls (who will reap a large tax deduction!) don't seem to understand is that the SPIRIT of the Bear Totem is what inspired students in 1914 to choose the bear, fondly known as Totem Teddy, for its symbolic energy. Symbols, of course have nothing to do with an actual woodland creature, especially an animal who was hunted down and slaughtered to satisfy the ego of the hunter. Did the Lundvalls kill it from a plane? Did they sustain on bear meat for a season?

This taxidermy specimen belongs in a Natural History Museum, NOT on display anywhere on the UNC campus, let alone a "prominent place."

The sad thing I've observed over the years when visiting the Greeley campus, especially last spring, is that campus morale is at a sorry ebb and few may give enough of a damn to let it be known that this sort of embarrassment is simply unacceptable.

It seems to me that DeWitt and others who have approved the acceptance of this trophy know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

This shame will probably be shrugged off by those who really should be ashamed of themselves. Are there any students, faculty or staff with enough genuine Bear Pride to call this for what it really is? It is an inappropriate hunter's trophy that has absolutely nothing to do with the Bear Spirit of the University of Northern Colorado!

Michael Sheehan
CSC '63