Admissions commit 'an innocent mistake' with Welcome Weekend postcards

In the months of July and early August, around 3,000 incoming freshman and transfer students to the University of Louisville received what they thought to be a normal postcard in the mail. The Office of Admissions sent out the postcard promoting Welcome Weekend 2006. The seemingly normal postcard was, in fact, not so normal, considering the vulgarity shown in small print. Featured on the front of the postcard was "Bring It On! Welcome Weekend 2006!" in large white letters, a logo of the University of Louisville, and a red background design of doors opening to an entrance of the Student Activities Center - as well as a small bundle of blurry words containing the aberrant phrases "f-cking world" and "f-cking lies." Furthermore, the back of the postcard featured information regarding Welcome Weekend 2006 and a link to a university website that included additional information - and the same controversial design. Jenny Sawyer, Executive Director of Admissions, calls the error in the design, "a mistake, an innocent mistake." According to Sawyer, the vulgarity in the stock art chosen for the background design of the postcard went undetected by not only her, but her staff, and an electronic proof reader that all documents from Admissions must go through before disseminating to the public. Sawyer explained that it was one week after distribution of the postcards that Admissions received an e-mail from a transfer student identifying the mistake. Within 15 minutes of receiving the e-mail, the design featured on the Welcome Weekend 2006 website was pulled off, University Communications and Marketing staff were immediately notified, and the design was later modified to remove the vulgarity. In order to avoid bringing further attention to the mistake, Sawyer said that Admissions did not send a letter of apology or explanation to recipients of the postcard. Out of the estimated 3,000 incoming freshman and transfer students who had received this postcard, Admissions has received only one e-mail notifying them of the mistake. Allyson Pipta, a freshman biology major, who remembers receiving the postcard, said she was not even aware of the mistake. "It's so small. It's really easy to look over," said Pipta. The Admissions staff took about five minutes to locate the mistake on the postcard, according to Sawyer. Even though this postcard folly went considerably unnoticed, freshman political science major, Jamie Giles says it is, "shocking that Admissions would send this out." But she also understands that, "this was simply an accident." After fixing this mistake, Sawyer is adamant to prevent this from ever happening again. From now on, "I will always proof things 100%," she said.

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