NO EAGLE: UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WILL VOTE ON MASCOT

The eagle mascot won't fly, Southeast Missouri State University's mascot committee has discovered.

The advisory committee last week had looked at the idea of an eagle character for a mascot, but Student Government shot down that idea Monday.

The student senators acted after receiving a petition signed by 400 students opposing the idea.

Some students expressed support for returning to an Indian mascot. In recent years, Southeast hasn't had a mascot.

History professor and committee member Robert Skelton said Southeast briefly had an eagle mascot nearly 30 years ago. The eagle character marched out with the band. But it looked like a parrot and soon was dropped, Skelton said.

The student senators passed a resolution calling for the mascot issue to be put to a campuswide vote. Students could choose from a sun figure initially recommended by the mascot committee, as well as the eagle, hawk, Indian and an "other" category.

Jason Lane, Student Government president, said any referendum likely wouldn't be held until the spring semester.

Members of the school's mascot committee met over lunch Wednesday, but failed to reach a decision on what mascot to recommend to Southeast president Dr. Dale Nitzschke.

"In essence, we are on hold right now," said Jim Biundo, committee chairman and assistant to the president for university relations.

The committee met regularly during the spring semester and was reconvened this fall at the direction of Nitzschke.

Biundo suggested that Student Government conduct the proposed referendum. He said the committee doesn't want to be bound by what students may decide in a referendum.

Biundo said he and others on the committee want to make a presentation to Student Government in an effort to educate students on the mascot issue and the problems with using an Indian figure as a mascot.

This is the second time around for the committee, which last May recommended to the president that the school adopt the sun figure as its mascot.

But the committee subsequently scrapped the recommendation because it couldn't find a suitable costume.

Committee members said the sun costumes looked like flower petals or smiley faces.

Carroll Williams, Southeast's interim athletic director, said the school's coaches didn't like any of the proposed eagle costumes.

He said they don't want an eagle as a mascot because there are already two schools in the Ohio Valley Conference that have eagles as mascots.

Committee members reported that many alumni and athletic boosters still favored having an Indian as a mascot. But the committee as a whole has decided against that, arguing it would be disrespectful to Native American culture.

The committee, however, still wants to retain the school's Indian and Otahkian nicknames.

Lane told the university committee that many students confuse symbol and mascot. They don't understand that the university isn't looking to eliminate the Indian as the school's symbol, he said.