University 'coat' change sparks uproar
Terry O'Neill
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
VANCOUVER- Simon Fraser University is in the final stages of removing images of two crosses from its four-decade-old coat of arms and replacing them with representations of books.
Warren Gill, the Burnaby, B.C. institution's vice-president of university relations, confirmed Thursday that the board of governors approved the change at its regular meeting Nov. 30.
He denied the crosses were being removed because of anti-Christian bias or political correctness.
But Gary Mauser, an SFU business administration professor, says he thinks the change is ''silly'' and disrespectful of the university's heritage.
''To modernize it in the way they suggest is to lose our heritage,'' says Mauser.
The coat of arms was granted to the university in 1965 by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in Edinburgh.
Gill explained the crosses, combined with the fact the university is named in honour of a person (explorer Simon Fraser), has led ''foreign cultures'' to mistakenly conclude the university is ''a private religious university, as opposed to a provincial institution.''
The administrator said the change has been in the works for about a year and a half.
The new design is now before the Canadian Heraldic Authority in Ottawa, and should receive final approval in April or May, Gill says.
''Anything that we do will be incremental,'' Gill said ''The cost of registering it with the heraldic authority is minimal.''
The current coat of arms features elements of the Clan Fraser crest in its bottom two-thirds, including crowns and strawberry flowers, as Fraser was said to have come from the French word 'fraises,' for strawberries.
The upper third includes a ''crosslet'' in each corner, bracketing an open book. The crosses were inspired by the coat of arms of the Clan MacDonald, the maiden name of Fraser's wife, says Gill.
The new design will replace the crosses with two additional open books. Gill says the three books could represent the university's three campuses in Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey. Both the old and new designs will be registered and copyrighted, he says.
Mauser said he's worried the elimination of the crosses will erase an important reminder of the debt all universities owe to Christianity.
''Christian influences were the shaping influences for most of Western culture,'' he said. ''So, I don't see why we want to dispense with these important shaping influences, which are good. And they are good for atheists, Jews, Muslims, everyone.''
Who are these people kidding, it's exactly what he denied "the crosses were being removed because of anti-Christian bias and political correctness"
Coat of arms don't change, stupid people and liars. 
CKA Uber 
