The SGA Senate decided over the summer that to provide Nicholls with a new mascot image properly representing the University, the process would take about two years, and it must be clearly defined and planned. The first steps for determining a mascot will begin this fall, o SGA President Olinda Ricard said. The Senate will conduct a campus-wide survey online or through the Nicholls Web site to determine the criteria of the new contest. The survey will consist of four to five questions asking what the Nicholls community’s ideas are for finding a new mascot image.

“There has been no decision on when the survey will be conducted but perhaps in early November,” Ricard said.

A committee will then review the survey results, and in the spring it will determine the layout of the contest. In fall 2007, advertising and collecting of the contest entries will take place, Ricard said. The selection of the mascot will be determined in the spring of 2008.

“This plan is still in the developmental stages. It is not completely worked out yet,” Ricard said.

Last year’s contest, the “Mascot Makeover Challenge,” was kicked off Jan. 30, and the new mascot was supposed to be revealed April 27 at Crawfish Day; however, a committee of students, faculty and alumni canceled the contest due to lack of quality in the entries by the end of March.

A committee that has not been assembled yet will decide the deadline date and the rules of the new contest based on information from the survey, Ricard said.

Ricard said she was not certain of how the students would respond to the new approach to finding a new mascot.

“There will always be individuals who are for or against any given issue,” she said. “Our hope is to ensure that the process is fair and yields a definitive result.”

Nicholls has been without a mascot since the spring of 2004. The issue was raised during a regularly scheduled Student Leadership Forum, according to a 2004 President’s message addressed to the University community. An individual expressed that the present mascot was a disturbing reminder of the Confederate past.