A small northern Ontario university has sparked controversy by launching an edgy new recruitment campaign that mocks U.S. President George Bush and his Ivy League alma mater.

Dubbed "Yale Shmale," the $100,000 crusade features a goofy image of Bush 'Yale University, Class of 1968' on posters that will be plastered across Toronto in a bid to attract potential new students.

As well as rolling out a series of posters, Lakehead University also took the campaign to its website, where readers are informed that "graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."

The site then directs readers to a page that says: "There are universities and then there are universities. So let's not beat around the bush. Lakehead is different."

Lakehead president and vice-chancellor Fred Gilbert said the "tongue-in-cheek" campaign by Toronto advertising agency McLellan was designed to lure Toronto students to the Thunder Bay school.

The website received more than 7,000 hits on Monday, Gilbert said, and online comments had been 95 per cent positive.

However, Gilbert, who said around 60 of the "Yale Shmale" posters will be mounted around the city, admits not everyone is happy about the new campaign.

Gilbert said the university, which has 7,600 students, had received e-mails which were "running in the opposite direction," which was a concern.

Yale reaction

Yale is not impressed with Lakehead's new marketing scheme either.

"We don't approve of other organizations using the Yale trademark," a spokeswoman for the respected Connecticut university, from which Bush graduated in 1968, told the Toronto Star Monday.

Some of Lakehead's students also considered the campaign inappropriate, Gilbert acknowledged, while the president of Lakehead's student union said it lacked class.

"It strikes me as being very repugnant," union president Isabelle Poniatowski told Reuters. "Lakehead has so many positive attributes that you could really sell to people that live down south."

Meanwhile, although Lakehead's students may have expressed their feelings about the campaign, the reaction of the university's target audience remains to be seen.

Gilbert says if the reaction in Toronto is as negative as the reaction on the university's campus, the campaign will be dropped.

The Lakehead campaign comes hot on the heels of a similar promotion that also poked fun at Bush's less-than-cerebral reputation.

Last month, simplyaudiobooks.ca, an audio book rental service, plastered posters and billboards around Toronto featuring a photograph of Bush and the words: "Don't Read Enough? Rent 10,000 books on tape/CD."

The Oakville, Ont.-based company, says the Bush billboards have been met with a positive response and that sales are up 100 per cent.