Authentic Orange

Submitted by Kelsey McCall

Student Events and Activities center instigated an idea on the Oregon State campus to unite its students and represent each student’s individuality, while creating a place of acceptance for them as well. Oregon State has a diverse population of students, not just with race, ethnicity, or sexual identification. In fact, Oregon State has a diverse level of involvement from students as well as a variety of student voices on campus. The slogan, “Be Beaver Bold” was originally created in hopes for getting all of these different students to be the best versions of themselves and to accept their peers the way they are as well.

I would argue the Be Beaver Bold slogan endorses being authentic to oneself. That is to say, Be Beaver Bold endorses the idea of acting as yourself and to be no one but your true self. In this, the idea of acceptance is created based on the notion that if everyone is acting as the truest version of themselves, they will seek acceptance in their truest form. If everyone is seeking acceptance in their truest form, we will all grow to accept the truest form of one another and, in turn, Oregon State community will grow. Anyone can be Beaver Bold by acting upon the idea of being the most authentic version of themselves. Students are not fully living and, in fact, acting in bad faith, if they are not being themselves and living authentically (Lecture, 5/26/25).

Becoming an individual in a community of over twenty five thousand students proves to be difficult. Clubs and groups help resolve this sense of not belonging for some, but for others it makes them feel more isolated than before. For many it is unnerving to fall into the herd like mentality of simply going to class every day, eating, doing homework, going to sleep and doing it all again the next day. They wish to be different and defy the herd-like mentality. “Morality is herd instinct in the individual” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, pg. 116). The moral of the Be Beaver Bold campaign is to give students an outlet to channel the change they want to see at Oregon State into a reality and in turn promote them to act in good faith.

Students on a day to day basis act in bad faith, or in other words they are not living as the truest version of themselves, and are instead acting as something they are not (lecture, 5/28/2015). A student on Oregon State’s campus may find themselves forced to assume the roles and responsibilities of a full time student and they talk to teachers and their peers as if they are only a student. Any given student is not, in fact, just a student, and by assuming the role of only being a student in that moment, they are denying their transcendence by ignoring all that they are aside from their student role.

Perhaps in being a student, one will simultaneously deny their facticity, by ignoring their previous feelings and pretending they don’t exist as they become uncertain of what they seek (lecture, 5/28/2015). This could be shown in the example of a student living in a residence hall being peer pressured to drink alcohol. The student is denying their facticity by saying yes to the pressure when they originally didn’t intend to partake in those activities, but ignored their original feelings because of the events that transpired (lecture, 5/28/2015).

The idea of being the best version of yourself stems from the notion of being bold and standing out as who you are, whether that means throwing on an orange shirt to represent Beaver Nation, or putting on your best attitude in hopes to brighten someone’s day. As displayed in class, the truest form of oneself is quirky, unique, and different from student to student, but the acceptance of their truest form is what truly counts towards developing the authenticity of the Be Beaver Bold campaign and living “Authentically Orange”.