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BY DAVID LAU

In print | April 20, 2006

This Monday, the mascot committee, made up of volunteers from the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and Garnet Club, revealed the final four nominees for the new mascot. All four choices — the phoenix, manticore, griffin, and gorilla —were picked from the 50-60 suggestions that were received.

According to Heidi Fieselmann ’06, a co-chair of the SAAC, these four possibilities were selected by SAAC and the Garnet Club based on the number of times they were suggested and their appropriateness for Swarthmore. The mascot committee decided what was appropriate by considering how a proposed mascot would represent the school, not only at both sporting and other types of events.

The committee looked favorably towards potential mascots that could serve as a ‘tangible creature’ to get people excited and enthused at different Swarthmore events, Fieselmann said. She emphasized that this mascot will not be replacing “The Swarthmore Garnet” in way. The Garnet will remain both the school color and part of the mascot name. “We’re just adding an entity to it … like the Garnet Griffin, etc.,” she explained.

“There were a bunch of really funny [mascot ideas[, but they would not pass through the Board of Managers or administration,” Fieselmann said. Among the suggestions not chosen were Mighty Oaks and Quakers.

Both the phoenix and the manticore have special ties to the college, as this newspaper takes its name from a series of events in September 1881 when Parrish Hall burned down and was rebuilt, said to be like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Manticore is the name of a popular student band.

No other college or university in the country uses the manticore, which is a Persian mythological creature with the head of a man, body of a lion and tail of a scorpion, as its mascot. The phoenix, however, is also the mascot of three other institutions of higher education, including Elon University in North Carolina, while nine other schools have the griffin as their mascot, among them local institutions like Gwynedd-Mercy College and Chestnut Hill College. The Gorilla is currently the mascot of the NBA team Phoenix Suns.

Prior to voting for the mascot, the SAAC and Garnet Club circulated a petition to support the mascot search and got 700 signatures. “We saw some opposition when we went around with the petitions, but not an overwhelming amount,” said Kristen Traband ’08, a member of the mascot committee.

According to Fieselmann, the petition was designed to gauge student support for the mascot search and did not obstruct the right of those who signed it to vote none of the above when students were given the opportunity to vote on several mascot possibilities. “None of the above is an option anyone can choose,” she said.

Most students have supported our efforts and were excited at the thought of having a mascot that the entire Swarthmore community could rally behind." Indeed, a member of the band Manticore himself voiced his support for the mascot search, although his choice was not without some bias. “I suggested [Manticore] myself,” Ben Saller ’06 said. “I think it would be a good name. No other school has it, and it would be kind of nerdy and hard-core.”

Online voting for the mascots was supposed to begin Monday, but a technological glitch that caused the “none of the above” option to be omitted and also affected the way votes were recorded, voting did not officially start until Tuesday. Students who attempted to vote on Monday will need to vote again in order for their opinion to be recorded properly.

Both students and faculty can visit www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/mascot to vote for their choice until April 23. There are five choices — the four nominees as well as a “none of the above” choice.

“We’re going to see the turnout at the end of the week,” said Zach Moody ‘07, the co-chair of the SAAC. "We’re hoping for at least half the student body." Voting for staff and alumni will be held later in the year. Despite the glitch, organizers were happy with the early turnout. “The one hundred or so people who voted will have to vote again, but we had a great turnout, so we are very encouraged,” Fieselmann said. Throughout the process, the committee has been very careful about soliciting opinion and support from everyone involved. “We have tried to be very thorough and we talked to a lot of people,” Moody said. “We talked to alumni councils, Bob Gross, Al Bloom, and it was brought up at the Board of Managers meeting.”

After voting is held for the students, faculty, staff and alumni and a clear winner is established, then the committee will present the idea to the Board of Managers for their approval at their May meeting. “Hopefully, by the time finals is over, we will have a new mascot,” Traband said.

Many members of the committee feel that in the end, the new mascot search will be a successful process. “I feel that we have gotten a lot of support for the mascot,” said Kyle White ’08, co-president of the Garnet Club. “With the petition alone, we got half the student body to show their support for getting a mascot. And, as the campus culture continually changes with each incoming class, I think that support will grow for the mascot as it becomes more of their initial identity.”

Additional reporting by Ian Yarett

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