The Nicholls chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has suggested that the current image of the Colonel mascot, Tillou, be modified because, according to Paul Hypolite Jr., NAACP president, the specific Colonel depicted symbolizes a time of enslavement and oppression for African Americans.
According to Hypolite, the controversy of the Nicholls mascot has been an issue since the 1970s. Hypolite said that unlike what many students might think, he and the NAACP are not proposing to change the mascot altogether, but they are simply proposing to change the specific image of the current colonel mascot to a more generally acceptable colonel image.
“(The mascot should be modified) because of the non-diversification issue that the mascot portrays,” Hypolite said. “I don’t want to change the mascot from the Colonel to another character. I want to change the mascot from the southern image that it portrays to a more updated, positive image that it needs to portray.”
The NAACP has been in contact with several Nicholls officials and other people concerning the issue of the mascot image including Stephen Hulbert, University president; Dr. Eugene Dial, vice president of student affairs and Jaret Hubbell, president of the Student Government Association. The SGA has established an ad-hoc committee to work along with the committee that the NAACP has established in an attempt to convey the specifics of the mascot image change proposal. According to Hypolite, with this new committee, the SGA hopes to learn more about how the student body feels about the mascot controversy.
“One of the ideas that I have brought forth is to get a more updated version of the colonel,” Hypolite said. “There are colonels in the military today. That would be one of the ideas, a modernized colonel. It was stated in the yearbook in about 1996 that we could change the actual colonel to a cane husker to symbolize the area that we’re in. I don’t believe that that is going to work. I’m trying to keep the same mascot, but simply change the image.”
Danielle Falcon, a general studies sophomore from Houma, said: “I think that the colonel is a representation of what Nicholls is. The colonel has been the mascot of Nicholls for so long, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to change it. I understand what (the colonel) represented in the past, but now it represents something different.”
Amy Ford, a freshman from St. Louis, said: “I think that if the mascot needs to be changed due to the change in times, then it should be. Students are saying that the mascot represents the school, but I’m pretty sure if you ask around campus, no one owns a slave anymore. If they find a mascot that better suits the representation of everyone, then go for it.”
Hypolite said: “Nicholls is a wonderful university, and I feel that it can be even better if the image that the colonel gives would be eliminated. Nicholls needs to grow, and I feel that further growth would be inevitable if the image of the colonel is changed.”