CANMORE -- The principal of Canmore Collegiate High School (CCHS) has sent an open letter to students, their families and staff proposing a name change from their long-standing athletic team name and logo, the Crusaders.
In his letter, which is not a definitive decision but rather an opportunity for those whom it effects to take part in a conversation, principal Chris Rogers cites many reasons as to why he thinks a name change may be due and gives students, staff and parents an opportunity to send in their thoughts.
“Our focus is to ensure an inclusive, safe and caring school for all. When creating a safe and caring environment, we must consider all aspects of school life. This includes looking at our team logo from the perspective of who we are as a school. Our current logo is a medieval crusader knight, a symbol that comes from a time in history where LGBTQ individuals were not welcome or tolerated by society. It is with this in mind that I wonder how we can reconcile the symbol of inclusion shown by flying the pride flag over our school, with asking our students, to wear a symbol of intolerance and violence (a medieval crusader) on their chest whenever they play sport at CCHS,” the letter reads.
Rogers told the Outlook the logo had been on his mind for a while through political movements like #MeToo and then when the Alberta School Athletic Association made a change to their policy handbook in terms of LGBTQ students. But it was after hanging a framed apology on behalf of Canadians to students from residential schools that he felt he needed to take action.
“I think what really struck home for me, I was putting up that letter,” he said.
“As I was reading it through, especially near the end, I thought ‘this is crazy.’ Here we are with this apology, apologizing which makes sense to me, certainly it was an injustice done to indigenous peoples, and I thought truth and reconciliation is about calls to action.”
Carol Picard, trustee chair of the Canadian Rockies Public School Board, said Rogers shared the message with her as a courtesy and she could see where he was coming from in terms of the logo potentially being offensive.
“When I saw Chris’ e-mail I went straight to the dictionary, and there’s many different meanings, and one of which is a vigorous campaign which would definitely apply to an athletics team,” she said. “But the second one is, and this is Canadian Oxford, ‘any of several military expeditions made by Europeans to take the holy land from the Muslims,’ and if you know your history, that’s very much embedded in the history of the Catholic church which was the primary operator of Canadian residential schools, so offense could be taken.”
Some students at CCHS weren’t aware that the logo they’d been wearing proudly represented a darker part of history, like Mackenzie Tidal, a co-president of student council in her grade 12 year.
“I was a little shocked… In all four years of high school that I’ve been coming to CCHS, I never really looked too much into the symbolism and what it meant in history,” said Tidal.
“But of course, our school is very diverse and that’s always been something that we celebrate and always been our values at this school, so when I found out the meaning of it I immediately became adamant, I really was passionate, like everyone else at this school, about changing the logo.”
Rogers also feels as though the Crusader’s logo isn’t a good fit in terms of the values and principals of CCHS now.
“The students will walk past this framed letter on the wall and yet we ask them to wear this Christian symbol in a dark time in Christian history when a lot of the wrongs done to them in residential schools was done through the Christian school system,” he said. “It just didn’t seem right with me… Times have changed, our community has changed, and all of those different things just came together for me where I thought this doesn’t reflect the values of who we are.”
Rogers sent out the letter because he wanted to know if people felt the same way he did. Since the letter has gone up, he’s gotten all kinds of feedback and said it’s been good for students.
“It’s been a good exercise for our students in having a conversation,” he said. “If I look at our school community, our students are doing amazing things. They’re standing up, they’re having their voices heard, they’re involved in the community, and they’re giving back to the community… I think our students are very aware of these issues.”
In terms of how students are reacting, Tidal said she thinks everyone has been very receptive to changing the logo completely.
“I can’t speak for all the students but from what I’ve heard everybody has been passionate about changing it,” she said. “Because we really want to stick to the values of our community and what our school possesses which is making sure that everybody is always welcome.”
On a similar note, Picard said language has a lot to do with the way people think.
“If it’s associated in someone’s mind with a really ugly piece of history where there were winners and losers, we have Muslims students in our school. How do they feel about it?” She said. “I think Chris is opening a very interesting discussion and I give him the props for having the courage to take this is on and at least start the dialogue.”
Meanwhile, Rogers said the dialogue has been open for most of the month now and his next steps are to sift through the responses.
“The next stage for me will be to look at all the responses, tally them up and get a sense of ‘is it time to move forward?’"
Of course in the meantime, students and staff are still welcome to comment but the letter will be coming down by next week. The main thing for Rogers is giving everyone a platform to take action where they feel action is due.
“I think certainly to us it’s what are we doing in our own small context, in our lives, in our communities to acknowledge the truth of what’s there and taking action,” said Rogers.
It seems as though the students are picking up that same momentum.
“As the times change, people also have to change. It’s not going to be the same ideals as always,” said Tidal.
