WSU Crest | Photo by Kayli Thompson | The Wright State Guardian
This year saw the North Lawn at Wright State University (WSU) gain a new monument: the official seal of WSU etched into a bronze plaque measuring four feet in diameter and perched atop a granite stone.
The seal prominently features the university’s motto, which is the Latin phrase “ad docendum, investigandum, serviendum.”
This feature was conceived by two members of WSU’s ‘67 Society: Markayla Clayton and Aaron Brautigam. Brautigam is the current student trustee of the Wright State Foundation and president of the society, which, according to their website, seeks to promote an “inclusive community that encourages student philanthropy and engaging with alumni.”
“We had been to other universities, like visiting friends or alumni who had gone on to grad school elsewhere, and they had these really big installations of their university and Wright State didn’t have anything like that,” said Brautigam. “We weren’t even really familiar with what the seal was at all.”
The college’s official seal is present on diplomas, transcripts and a few other areas around campus. However, it is not often recognizable to students on campus. This led Brautigam and Clayton to apply for funding through the Students First Fund, a program created by the Wright State Foundation.
A collaborative effort
When the two students began working on this project, they were assisted by Holly Mapel, a recent graduate of WSU who was the previous president of the ‘67 Society.
“Markayla and I had the idea, and since [Mapel] was currently sitting in both of the positions where I am now, she really made those connections for us,” said Brautigam.
Mapel also helped Brautigam and Clayton apply for the necessary funds, and assisted him with perfecting the application the night before it was due.
As this application was being planned, the students worked with WSU’s marketing department and Facilities Management on the plaque’s design and the location it would occupy. A location that the plaque almost occupied was Hamilton Plaza, which sits adjacent to the Student Union, though it now sits nearby.
“Originally, it was going to be an installation in the actual plaza in the front corner,” said Brautigam. “After we went back and forth and we spent quite a while walking around that side of campus, we decided to put it more in its own special area and raise it up on the angled rock. We thought that would be a much better location.”
“We were looking for high visibility with a background appropriate for photos that was recognizable as being part of our campus,” WSU Director of Marketing Mark Anderson said. “The Student Union area in our campus core is highly visible by nearly everyone on campus who attends classes, takes an admissions tour or returns for a visit as a graduate.”
Once this location was finalized, the marketing department collaborated with Kathy Warden in Facilities Management as well as Dayton Stencil and the university’s sign shop.
“Our design needed to be able to be reproduced accurately at scale, which was not possible with the existing seal design and files,” said Anderson.
Senior graphic designer with the university’s marketing department Kerry Estes solved this problem by flattening and simplifying the design, giving the seal a sleek, modern look.
Another prominent figure in the plaque’s construction was Executive Vice President Greg Sample, who supervised the Facilities Management Team. Sample helped to ensure that the seal was installed in its place without the team going over their budget.
Revealing the monument
An event to unveil the monument to the public was scheduled for Oct. 1, 2019, which was Wright Day to Give. However, the seal was delivered just in time for the Wright Day to Give celebration, forcing the team to wait through the winter. A new event was scheduled for March 27 of this year; however, the coronavirus pandemic canceled that celebration.
“Everything was very shaky, so we held off,” said Brautigam. “They had the groundwork completed and we had the seal on campus. It was pretty much ready at any time. We never really found the right time to do the event that we wanted to do initially to really celebrate the meaning of that and to thank everybody in the proper way of having the event and getting to publicly recognize their effort.”
A sense of Raider pride
Brautigam’s most prominent goal with this project was to help instill school pride in his fellow Raiders. The finished monument, along with other art projects on WSU’s main campus, accomplishes that goal, according to Sample.
“Things like the seal, and the recently updated banners and murals all pay tribute to our cultural heritage as an institution of higher education,” said Sample. “They send a positive message to those visiting campus and create a sense of pride among those who are attending or have attended WSU.”
Brautigam agrees with Sample on this.
“When you see that logo in other places like your diploma hanging on your wall, you can tie it back to all of that and really have positive memories of your time at Wright State,” said Brautigam. “You’re remembering all of the great things, and so it’s a capstone of your experiences, using that logo and tying everything together.”
