COLUMBUS, Ind. — Nearly every high school has a mascot and a nickname — and Columbus Signature Academy New Tech has joined in.
CSA New Tech students who attend the high school that offers a curriculum of real-world problem-solving, opportunities to work with technology and to earn college credit will now have their own official mascot and moniker — The Dragons, joining the Columbus East High School Olympians and the Columbus North High School Bull Dogs.
The process of selecting a mascot involved collaboration between students, staff and the administration. Two of the students on the mascot committee were seniors Rebecca Moore and Emma Edwards. Both have been in the CSA program since kindergarten.
“So CSA’s really been part of our identity, but we felt like growing up, especially once we reached high school, that CSA didn’t have an identity for us,” Rebecca said. “… I wanted a mascot just because I feel like it’s a big part of the identity of the school that brings you all together and really makes it not just a school but a community.”
While the other CSA programs already had mascots, New Tech has held off on having one.
CSA New Tech Principal Mike Reed said that when the school first opened, they decided not to have a mascot, mainly because New Tech students participate in sports and other extracurriculars at East and North, which could provide a sense of identity.
“Hindsight, 13 years later, it probably was not the best decision, because … while they do sports at East and North, they are CSA students,” he said. “And they want that identity.”
Reed said that students have brought up the mascot issue every year.
“As a whole school, we’d pretty well decided that we wanted a mascot … for a sense of unity and something to represent us as a community,” Emma said.
She and Rebecca are both members of CSA New Tech’s Student Voice, which splits up into different committees to achieve its goals. The two girls became part of a mascot committee.
They met with Reed and created a list of “solution criteria” for what they wanted the final product to be. Together with Reed, they created a pitch. They then presented the dragon mascot to the student body and received feedback. Emma said that there was an “overwhelming majority in favor of the Dragons.” Reed then shared the mascot proposal with Bill Jensen, the director of secondary education for the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.
According to Rebecca, Reed was the one to suggest the dragon mascot. She, Emma and Reed said that other ideas have been suggested over the years, including the compass, the bats, the ants, the navigators, the engineers and the jump drive.
“We were the first school in our district to go with laptops, to go to one-to-one computing,” Reed said. “So we provided a jump drive to every single student, and that seemed like a really high tech thing back, all the way in 2008. So I’m really glad that we didn’t use the jump drive as our mascot.”
He also noted that bats were the “leading mascot” for a while.
“But we realized that we wanted something that was a little bit bigger, more than just a bat,” Rebecca said.
Junior Thalia Boggs, who was also on the mascot committee, researched what dragons symbolize.
“What she found is that dragons represent power, wisdom and good fortune,” Emma said. “… It’s a good representation of us. We’re powerful. We’re smart. We’re resourceful. We take what we’re given, and we run with it. And we have a big community outreach. They’re loyal and fearless creatures who can handle anything that life throws at them. Obviously, this year is an awesome representation of that.”
Since New Tech is a Project Based Learning school that does a lot of group work, the hybrid has affected students there more than the other high schools.
“But we’re flexible, and we’re making it work,” she added.
Students and staff worked together to help create the design, and the final design was created by math teacher Taylor Stamper. Stamper is also licensed to teach visual art.
“I brought several images to her and asked her to make them our own,” he said. “She created the dragon in the shape of an S that mirrors our Signature ‘S’ and incorporated the CSA lettering.”
“I’m really happy with the design,” Rebecca said. “… We’ve had a lot of T-shirts with the sort of CSA logo on it. And I won’t lie; they’re not my favorite. But I definitely like the new mascot, so I’m really excited to just see it on computers, in classrooms and on T-shirts.”
The school is working on branding and is working with a company to get graphics on their walls, as well as possibly a large design for the entry floorway. A mascot suit is on its way, Reed said.
He hopes for New Tech’s mascot to become as well recognized as those of the other local high schools, to the point where New Tech Dragon shirts can be found in any retail store.
“We made our mark on CSA, and it’s just really cool, because we know that in five, 10 years, we’ll be able to look back on this,” Rebecca said. “And hopefully, when we see those T-shirts in Walmart, we’ll be able to say, ‘We did that.’”
Being involved with the mascot’s creation and seeing the school come behind it has been a special experience, Emma said.
“That makes it mean a lot more to me than just a generic mascot,” she said. “East and North were started before we were born. And I don’t remember anyone saying ‘Hey, let’s be the Torches.’ I don’t remember that process because I wasn’t here for it. But being here and getting to see the students saying, ‘Hey, we want to be the Dragons’ — this is something we’ve wanted for a long time, and getting to watch it happen, I think, just makes it mean that much more.”
