A popular fashion for Saint Mary's students has been clothing with an embroidered 'EMX,' which is Greek for 'SMC,' and while the logo has been seen primarily on sweatshirts and sweatpants sold at the College's Dance Marathon event, the letters may be used by groups other than Dance Marathon in the future.
Student body president Jenny Hoffman introduced the issue of the 'EMX' logo during a Student Government Association meeting on Monday. SGA is working on a resolution to allow all student groups access to this logo.
"Basically, Dance Marathon has exclusively used 'EMX' in the past," Hoffman said. "They used it as their own logo to sell merchandise. It has been brought to our attention that other groups also want to use the 'EMX.' The executive board discussed it, and we think that it is unfair that only one group should be able to use the 'EMX' logo."
The logo has not been assigned to one group, and did not originate with Dance Marathon, Hoffman said. "Every student organization should be able to use the logo as they see fit."
The 'EMX' logo is based on the Greek alphabet equivalents of 'SMC,' but the letters do not mean Saint Mary's College. The logo is a student-designed logo, and not an official trademark of the school, Hoffman said.
The Office of Student Involvement used to grant exclusivity of logos, but because the logo is not associated with Saint Mary's, other than the fact that a couple of students figured out the Greek letters for 'SMC,' the office cannot restrict who uses it, student body vice president Megan Griffin said.
Since it is a student-designed logo, the student government is writing a resolution about the logo and guidelines for its use. SGA will vote on the resolution next Monday at their next meeting.
Just because the logo will be made available to all student organizations, this does not mean that use of the logo will not be regulated. All fundraising apparel has to be approved by the director of Student Involvement, Patrick Daniel.
One result of the logo's availability to all student groups may be an overlapping of fundraising, but SGA members have talked about ways to keep the logo from becoming a conflict between organizations, but they will not be dictating which groups can use the logo on certain items.
"A group could do EMX shirts, or shorts," Griffin said. "Let students figure it out. We don't regulate what student groups use a certain design."
One way to help prevent this dilemma may be to let the organizations know what other organizations are using the logo for, and on what items it will be displayed when they are getting their project approved by Student Involvement, Kristle Hodges, admissions commissioner, said. This is to let the groups know they may have competition with fundraising, but they will not be told that they cannot sell 'EMX' T-shirts at the same time another group is selling T-shirts with the same logo.
