Through an online protest, a 21-year-old Windham woman recently helped convince her college in Vermont to dump a new logo.

Sarah Franco, who attended Windham High School and now majors in religion at Middlebury College in western Vermont, said the first time she saw the new logo was at the end of May.

“I thought it looked rather ridiculous,” said Franco, a senior at the college. The new logo was three M’s fused together to form a maple leaf. Franco said it was stark and corporate-looking.

“Just looking at it didn’t tell you anything about the college,” she said.

She preferred the old logo, which was a seal of an open book framed by the school motto, “Scientia et Virtus,” which is “Knowledge and Virtue” in Latin. Enciricling everything is “Coll. Med. Virid. Mon.” which is short for Collegium Medioburiense Viridis Montis; in English, Middlebury College of Vermont.

With little expectation of changing anything, Franco logged onto Facebook.com and created the group, “Just Say No to the Middlebury Logo.”

“In starting the Facebook group, I didn’t intend for anything to happen,” said Franco. “Mostly I started the group to show my friends the logo and make fun of it, basically.”

She said 814 people joined her group.

“I didn’t really expect that many people to join,” she said. She got a ton of e-mails from parents and alumni too.

Franco said one of her friends surveyed people connected with the school, including students, faculty, alumni and parents, and they sent the results to Ronald D. Liebowitz, president of the college.

She said she got a response within three minutes that said there would be an announcement later that day.

Middlebury College didn’t completely scrap the unwanted logo. Its use was diminished from representing the entire school to representing The Middlebury Initiative, a campaign to raise $500 million over the next five years.

The logo was developed by the New York firm Chermayeff & Geismar. The Associated Press reported that its cost was private, but a logo project from that firm typically costs between $100,000 and $200,000.

Franco said her online rabble-rousing wasn’t alone in sinking the leaf, but worked in concert with donors and alumni who didn’t care for the new logo.

“It felt pretty empowering,” said Franco. She said a number of faculty members have approached her as well, saying they are glad the logo will not represent the school.

Franco said she and her fellow students have new respect for the old seal that was reinstated.

“We’re so used to seeing the seal every day we didn’t really think about it,” she said.