What started out as a lesson in writing legislation turned into the creation of an "adorable" new mascot for one campus organization.

According to the legislation, a sketch of an "adorable" lion cub named Cubby will now be the symbol of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Academic Assembly, the legislative body of USG.

"We were trying to teach the new members how to write legislation, but we also wanted to do something fun, since we all work so hard," Ashley Harris, College of the Liberal Arts senator, said.

One new member, Leslie Hubbard, said she found the exercise in writing legislation to be beneficial.

"I thought it was an excellent idea since I never wrote legislation before," she said. "They should do it every semester to help new members."

However, Hubbard said she is indifferent as to whether or not Cubby becomes the assembly's mascot.

"I'm rather impartial to the mascot," she said. "I don't really care."

Harris added that Cubby would serve as a marketing and morale tool for the assembly.

"We needed a mascot to make the assembly recognizable to students," she said.

Although Cubby is just a concept right now, the assembly's Internal Affairs and Operations (IAO) Committee will launch a university-wide contest for the creation of the mascot's image.

Josh Hauenstein, IAO chair, said the committee will set up a table in the HUB-Robeson Center Wednesday to hand out contest applications to students.

He added that IAO will present its top two choices to the assembly, and the assembly will then vote on a winner before the winter break.

Other student organizations at Penn State have also found it necessary to create mascots and logos to symbolize their cause.

Bob Owens (senior-biobehavioral health), also known as Blood Drop Bob, said he does not mind walking around the HUB in a puffy red outfit.

"It attracts attention when you get out there," Owens, a member of the Penn State Student Red Cross Club, said Wednesday while at the PSU-MSU Blood Donor Challenge in the HUB. "Every time one person donates, it saves three people's lives."

Owens has worn the blood drop costume during blood drives for the past two years.

Although he sometimes experiences jeers from onlookers, he said he does not let anything prevent him from doing his job.

"Some people are nice, some are mean," Owens said. "You just gotta get out there and let it roll off you."

Another organization, the Penn State Singing Lions, has a singing lion cartoon as the club's logo.

Lindsay Gaspar, Singing Lions vice president, said the singing lion was not always the organization's symbol.

She said the group was originally called the Penn State Pop Choir, but became the Singing Lions in 1985 at the decision of its director.

"The singing lion was more marketable and more identifiable with the group, since we are the singing ambassadors of Penn State," Gaspar said.

And for some campus groups, club symbols are a little bit more secretive.

Liz Cottle, president of Sigma Kappa sorority, said the symbols of Sigma Kappa are the dove and the heart, which correspond with the organization's open motto, "One Heart, One Way."

"Their significance to our sisterhood, however, is only for Sigma Kappas [to know]," she said.