After conducting a survey last semester to determine how students felt about the proposal by the Nicholls’ chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to update the colonel mascot, the Student Government Association is currently preparing the survey’s final tabulations whose results are to be released tomorrow.
“The Student Government Association has (not yet) officially posted results of the tabulations,” Jaret Hubbell, SGA president, said. “Until we get the results of the survey, we’re not making a recommendation to the administration.”
According to Hubbell, when the results of the survey are in, the SGA may bring forth the issue in the form of a resolution to the SGA Student Senate in a discussion to tell the administration what steps the SGA believes should be taken.
“Right now, the feeling is ‘don’t change (the mascot) to any other kind of image, just update the uniform,'” Hubbell said. “But that may change depending on what the students want.”
If the results of the survey reveal that the majority of students are in favor of changing the mascot, the SGA will begin to discuss the specifically desired changes with the Student Senate. The Student Senate may then decide that another survey should be conducted or more students should be interviewed to gain more input.
“If the vast majority of students do not want a change, we’ll file that report, tell the administration what the results of the survey are, and leave it alone until somebody else brings it up,” Hubbell said.
Eugene Dial, vice president of student affairs, said students and alumni have commented on the condition of the mascot, saying the mascot’s general condition is poor. The University is going to have to purchase in the near future a new uniform for the mascot, and according to Dial, now may be the best time to consider what that uniform will look like and if there needs to be a change.
“Not many students are one way or the other (on the issue),” Dial said. “I think that for most of our students, this particular issue is not a prevailing or dominating issue in their lives. It doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue for some students; it just means that it is not the most important thing.”
The subject of the Nicholls’ colonel mascot assumed to represent the Confederacy, a time of racial inequality and oppression for blacks, dates back to at least the 1970s. Several individual students have brought forth the mascot issue and its possible problems, but not until this year has an organization tried to make a change.
“Only twice that I can remember in 18 years, has someone brought up the mascot being an inappropriate symbol because it looks like a Confederate colonel,” Eugene Dial said. “Only twice.”
Hubbell said the NAACP is currently the only group on campus that he knows of that has taken an organizational stance on the controversy. Hubbell plans on speaking with several fraternities and sororities soon to see if any of them also have an organizational stance on the subject.
“Even if one student complains about something, that’s important to consider,” Dial said. “Especially when you’re talking about an issue for what someone believes is right and just, you have to consider every voice.