This letter was submitted to The Poly Post by Alex Dan, a third-year computer information systems student, who works for the W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library located on the first floor of the University Library.
Last week while at work, I learned that the new seal depicted the horse completely wrong. To give a little background, I work in the library, specifically in Special Collections and the Arabian Horse Library (they are the same department).
The archivists that I work with, Caryn Romo and Kimberly Erickson, informed me about this discrepancy.
On the website, the university stated that the horse on the new seal is “inspired by Antez,” who was one of W.K. Kellogg’s favorite Arabian horses.
However if you look at the new seal compared to an actual picture of Antez, they are completely different horses.
The one on the new seal is light grey/white while Antez’s color is actually “golden chestnut” (light brown).
It blows my mind that WE HAVE AN ARABIAN HORSE LIBRARY ON CAMPUS but they couldn’t even be bothered to check with the library before they designed the seal.
Take a look for yourself.
Left, CPP’s new seal; right, modified seal
The Arabian Horse Library on campus is one of the world’s largest public collections of Arabian horse materials.
The fact that the new logo committee didn’t do its research before designing the new seal is mind boggling, especially since the resources are right in front of them.
The majority of the people don’t even know that this is an issue and I wouldn’t have known this problem exists without my job.
This just shows how ignorant and lazy the logo committee is and how they wasted $150K on an ill-informed project.
With this new information, I made a post on the Cal Poly Pomona Reddit (of which I moderate) to inform the students about this discrepancy. I would like to add that I am thankful for Special Collections and the Arabian Horse Library.
Without them, issues like these would’ve never been found. The past would be forgotten without them.
In conclusion, I just wanted to make the connection between how the school/administration has all these resources in front of them but refuses to use them, especially when designing the official seal of the university.
Alex Dan
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