New student-designed posters promote MC Covenant
April 30, 2021
The Maryville College Covenant serves as a uniting commitment between members of the campus community. As a way to bring more attention to the three tenants of the Covenant – scholarship, respect and integrity – the Keepers of the Covenant and the Maryville College Fine Arts Division have teamed up to create a new design for the Covenant posters.
In the words of its Statement of Purpose, Maryville College “seeks to challenge all human beings to search for truth, to work for justice, to grow in wisdom, and to become loving persons.” In 1990, students adopted these ideals and created the Maryville College Covenant with the goal of strengthening and affirming the College community. The Keepers of the Covenant campus group was established in 2000 to promote awareness of the Covenant and to ensure its vitality. In 2001, a Covenant Stone inscribed with the three principles of scholarship, respect, and integrity was placed in the center of campus.
Selected by the College’s top administrators, members of the Keepers of the Covenant are faculty, staff and students who demonstrate commitment to the Covenant. The group consists of eight student members (two from each class), three faculty members and three staff members and seeks out projects to ensure community ownership and commitment to the Covenant. Beyond these projects, the Keepers also plan and organize the New Student Covenant Ceremony at the start of each year and select recipients of the Spirit of the Covenant Award at the close of each year.
“A key part of the Keepers mission is to promote the Covenant as a vital and visible part of the MC community,” said Dr. Jesse Smith ’08, alumnus, lecturer in mathematics at MC and chair of the Keepers of the Covenant. “After some discussions, we settled on the idea of creating new Covenant posters to share around campus to help keep the Covenant fresh in community members’ minds and, at the same time, add some color and beauty to a few rooms around campus. It is a personal hope of mine that the poster helps us to have a deeper understanding of scholarship, respect and integrity.”
Smith said that the previous Covenant poster design was over a decade old, so he reached out to Morgan Manning, assistant professor of art at MC, and asked if a design class would be interested in working on the poster as a real-world project. Manning decided to incorporate the project into his Design II class in the spring of 2020. Each student produced a poster, and the Keepers of the Covenant judged the posters as a group (with the students remaining anonymous).
Rebecca Branton ’22, a design major and psychology minor, created a design that stood out and was ultimately selected for the posters. After the selection was announced, Dr. Sarah Clinton and Dr. Ryan Mickey of the Social Sciences Division were tasked with the lead on distributing the new posters around campus while Brenda Eingle, administrative assistant of the Natural Sciences Division, took on the role of printing and laminating the posters.
“It’s a big honor to have my design chosen!” Branton said. “I hope that anyone who looks at the poster will look at the illustration and know that it took a lot of trial and error to reach the final product. I worked hard to create something I was proud of, and I’m happy that others will get to see it.
“I hope my poster design will help further unify the campus,” she added. “After all, every single one of us is a Scot at heart despite our differences. I hope my poster will serve as a reminder of why we’re here and what we are all working toward – to do good on the largest possible scale.”
Branton said that when she was designing the poster, she wanted to focus on laying out the three tenants in a clear way for everyone to see. She also challenged herself to illustrate the Covenant Stone onto the poster. For this design, Branton said that she leaned into a more modern and clean aesthetic to display the Covenant in a fresh way.
“The MC Covenant is a statement of unifying standards that the community has decided is vital to our growth as citizens of the world,” Smith said. “I want people to remember that they bought into the MC Covenant. I hope they remember this is an ethical framework and test that they can use in their daily lives to help them make decisions throughout their lives.
Smith said he hopes the Keepers will continue to produce the posters, updating them with new designs.
“Just like there is not one way to live out the MC Covenant, there are many wonderful ways to visualize and celebrate its spirit,” he said.
Working on the poster, Branton said she found herself thinking more deeply about the Covenant and its tenets.
“To me, the Covenant is a reminder to be the best version of myself on and off campus. Being a Scot has taught me more than I ever could’ve imagined, and I’m so grateful for those who support and uplift me here,” she said. “I strive to treat everyone with the kindness and love that I receive here through serving my community as a resident assistant and member of the Student Government Association.
“I believe offering my support to the community is a way to continuously uphold the Covenant and all it represents.”
Written by Grant Agnew ’22, Communications Assistant