Maryland Images, the university’s organization of student tour guides for the campus, has shelved their signature shirts with turtles and footprints for their new logo of choice: ice cream.
In celebration and promotion of the new dessert created by senior student tour guide Allyson Lansey, the guides will wear new T-shirts with a cone of Maryland flag-patterned ice cream and the slogan “Let’s Tour S’more” beneath it.
The new flavor — complete with graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows — will be used in part as a tool to attract prospective freshmen while they tour the campus with Images guides.
“It’s going to be something we hope gets a lot of recognition from other students but also from our prospective students,” said Peggy Tiffany, coordinator for programs and visitor services in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. “It’s a great way to be that memorable school for prospective students.”
Lansey thought up the flavor this summer, then sent her idea to administrators.
“I was hanging out with some of my friends. They were joking around about how we should have an ice cream flavor for Images,” said Lansey, an elementary education major. “I kept thinking about it that night.”
While working at a children’s camp late in the summer, Lansey said she received a e-mail with the university’s approval. “I was sure it was not going to end up being a big deal,” she said.
Like “Comet Crunch,” another student-created flavor that came out of the Residence Hall Association a couple of years ago, “Let’s Tour S’more” is available until Nov. 1, which is also the priority deadline for freshman applications.
During tours, prospective students will be given a coupon for a free scoop of the new flavor.
Some limited-edition flavors have become permanent in the past, said Joe Mullineaux, senior associate director of Dining Services.
“Based on the reaction we’ve gotten so far from ‘Let’s Tour S’More,’ it may make it to the permanent rotation,” he said. “It may appear every single fall.”
For the university’s administrative chef Jeff Russo, the flavor was complicated to execute. But his efforts seem to have paid off with positive reactions from the offices of student affairs, admissions and Maryland Image students.
“Nobody had any comments. They liked it from day one,” Mullineaux said.
Tiffany said Maryland Images members seemed excited when Lansey unveiled the flavor at their monthly meeting last Wednesday, the same day the Dairy premiered the flavor.
“We combined a great tradition for more than 80 years to an idea to get prospective students to come to Maryland,” Mullineaux said.
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