By Jacob Peller, Opinions Editor

Published in print Jan. 28, 2015

With only a semester away till graduation, I’m beginning to look at campus with rose colored glasses. There are a lot of things that I’ve come to like about being on campus, though much of it will not be in the “fond” category. Obviously I won’t remember the crime around campus with fondness, although it’ll be a lifelong joke when I think back to my time here that there were daily emails about “unidentified people who may or may not be on campus with a weapon, may or may not be wearing a red shirt and may or may not have already left campus in a vehicle.” Honestly I’ve never heard of such a lack of information being given as a warning before. And it’s not the places that have made a lasting impression on me, there are some buildings around here that I have never and most likely will never step foot in. The things that I can recall on were the people I’ve met and the animals I’ve seen. Now as most of you have figured out from the title by now, I’m talking about the cats on campus. When I first moved to Greensboro four years ago, I remember seeing what could only be described as a thriving cat community, as you could see them everywhere. They were like a band of thieves, darting through the storm water drains, grabbing any food not bolted down and carefully maneuvering their way around campus. At first I thought that these cats belonged to a professor or someone as none of them look mangy.

Later I discovered that they were in fact just cats that have been well fed due to the kind hearted students on campus, leaving food and makeshift shelters out for the cats to have. The more I watched these cats and the effects that they had on the students that interacted with them, the more I felt that something should be done about them.

As of yesterday I’ve come to recognize two cats, an orange tabby and a dark haired cat that hangs out near Mendenhall and has such been named “Menden cat”. This got me to thinking, a common thing I’ve seen in most colleges, especially those with animals for mascots, is a campus animal that gets the royal treatment from its students.

Now I know we’re the Spartans and our mascot is a Spartan, but what could be so wrong with having an animal to represent us, both in academic and sport events? The orange tabby, who at this point doesn’t have an official name (at least I think so) just happens to have a very similar color to our Spartan mascot’s armor, so why don’t we make this cat our mascot? We could name him Spartacus for a male or Athena for a female, we could take this cat with us to sporting events, and we could have a “pet Spartacus for good luck on exams” event and so on. These are just some ideas but there are many ways we could make this work.

It seems to me that these cats who have in all fairness spent as much, if not more, time on campus than me deserve to be a part of the campus community rather than hiding under it. I’m sure there are many, especially in the governing body, who would only see problems with having to take and care for an animal, but those people just haven’t seen what these cats have done for the many who have interacted with them.

We should make a push towards getting these cats honored in the eyes of the entire community. Doing nothing for them would be a CAT-astrophe!