The all-women's college unveiled a new sports logo and nickname Wednesday during a ceremony billed as ushering in a new sports era for the school.

"We hope this represents something that's powerful and strong -- like our athletic teams," said Kristi Eaves-McLennan, the school's marketing director and chairwoman of a committee that chose the name and new logo. "It really captures the excitement of our teams and our new conference."

The school is now a full-fledged member of the NCAA Division III USA South Athletic Conference.

As the college moved to the new conference, some close to Meredith athletics wanted to create a logo, which the school has never had, and toughen-up the "Angels" nickname, which has been associated with the school for nearly a century and was adopted officially by students in 1980.

But a bit of controversy developed as word of the change -- and some suggestions -- began circulating. Some students backed changing the school nickname to reflect the feisty African meerkat; others wanted to hold on to the angelic, and feminine, imagery the word "angel" conjures.

"['Meerkat'] is just completely different from what we've ever been," said Katie Holden, a member of the synchronized swim team. "['Angels'] is a part of our history, so why would we change it?

"It seems like as we got into bigger conferences and bigger things, it seemed like we were starting to lose our identity, so we had a crisis on campus."

Athletics director Jackie Myers said the new nickname keeps with tradition. But adding "Avenging" to the name does add some scariness to the school's sports teams, she said.

"Angels is so positive and so popular among our students that we would have lost a tremendous amount of support had we [changed the name completely]," said Myers, who began working on the new name and logo last fall.

"So we thought the best thing to do was to maintain that, because it has such a strong tradition here."