Tarleton State University has grown immensely over the past five years, and the campus has seen many changes in that time. With the 2020 plan becoming more of a reality with every passing day, updates and modernization abound, and buildings aren’t the only thing receiving a facelift – the Marketing and Communications Department has opened the floor for a redesign of the famous Texan Rider logo.

“It [the logo] is a mark that the university has used for some time,” said Harry Battson, Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications, in an interview with JTAC News. “We’re not quite sure when it evolved, but the mark has certainly been around since the 80s, if not before, in the form that it’s currently in. We thought, given the new trajectory of the university and a lot of the plans [to update campus] that are going on, the discussion about DI athletics, that it might just be time to update and take a new look at the Texan Rider image and give it a more graphic image that would be more representative of 2015, rather than 1980.”

The department is currently in the process of receiving ideas from design companies.

“At this point they have submitted some initial rough sketches, and we’ll review those and discuss whether they’re suitable for further discussion,” said Battson.

The current Texan Rider logo is not gender-specific, and features the silhouette of an individual on the back of a horse. JTAC News questioned whether a redesign would necessitate making the logo gender-specific, and Battson said it is a possibility. He noted, however, that the potential designers have not entered the redesign blindly.

“I think that may depend on what the artists have come up with, but it could go either way,” said Battson. “Vice President McGregor last spring called together a variety of people from different areas around campus and had them give their thoughts about what the Texan Rider really means, and what it should be representative of. We gave all the details from that session, which involved 25-30 people, to the artists that we asked to come up with ideas. So they had that as their background as they were trying to develop a new image.”

Battson added that a “redesign” doesn’t necessarily mean an entirely new logo.

“It could be that the existing logo is just tweaked a bit to update it for a more modern look,” said Battson, “or it could be a completely new logo.”

The department is currently developing a process for approving a new logo.

“If we thought that certain ideas were a possibility, we might go back to the artists and tell them what we might like to see changed,” said Battson, “but at some point we would put it in front of the different groups of people we have – alumni, current students, faculty and staff, maybe some other groups – and we would poll them, in a sense, to try and get some reactions before we made any changes.”

“I think sometimes it helps to energize fans when there’s something a little bit new, a little bit novel,” said Battson. “With how much the university has been changing and growing, it seemed like this would be something we could do to see if we can inject a little more enthusiasm and a little more support for the Texans.”

Though the first official mascot name for Tarleton (then known as John Tarleton Agricultural College) students was the Plowboy, a 1961 contest marked Tarleton’s transition into four-year-university status by electing a new moniker. After “Texans” became the official nickname for Tarletonites, a student was chosen every year to embody the title of Texan Rider. TSU alumna Nelda Lee designed the mosaic in front of the Tarleton Center as a gift from the graduating class of 1967, according to the Purple Book.

“We look at this as a spirit mark,” said Battson, “it’s really something that shows the spirit of the university. So we want to have a spirit that’s more up-to-date and conveys people’s feelings about the university.”

There is no definite timeline, but Battson said “it would be nice to have something ready to unveil next fall.” He noted that there is no rush or “urgent timeline” – that he intends to take as much time as is needed to come to a decision.

“It’s a project that we’ve initiated, and we want to move through in an orderly fashion,” Battson said. “We want to make sure the majority of people are behind it.”