‘Protective of their cubs’: SA proposes a bear mascot for Southern

Southern Adventist University’s Student Association (SA) is developing a mascot for the university, one of the main goals of Kenneth Bautista, senior management major, as SA president. Currently, the team is having a logo and costume professionally created for a bear mascot to be introduced this semester.

According to Bautista, Student Senate and the President’s Cabinet have already given the bear mascot their approval. Thus far, SA has spent $1,600 on a logo design, Bautista said, and the entire mascot budget will come out of SA’s contingency, which is unspent money from previous years.

Though images of the proposed logo and costume were presented at a Faculty Senate meeting on Monday, Bautista declined a request to release any images to the Accent as he wishes to reveal the images according to SA’s timeline.

Bautista along with Wilson Hannawi, junior biology major, and Anna Mihaescu, junior accounting major — all three members of the Senate Mascot Committee — first presented the idea to Faculty Senate on Dec. 12 and returned on Monday to update senators about the project, now headed to the university’s Board of Trustees Feb. 26 meeting.

 From there, according to Southern Adventist University President Ken Shaw, the proposed mascot will be presented at a town hall meeting to get input from “everyone on campus.” 

“And depending on the spirit in the room, as we talk about the bear,” the university president said, “ if [those in the audience] seem to be supportive, I think at that point, we can probably embrace it moving forward.”

According to the Dec. 12 Faculty Senate minutes, Bautista and Mihaescu presented the following as places where the mascot could appear: intramurals, championship games, half-time show for the Rees Series basketball championship, ViewSouthern, SA and Student Senate events, dorm events and more. At Monday’s meeting, Bautista said the committee is not trying to replace the university’s current columns logo, but sees the proposed logo as something that can be placed on the gym floor or seen on the promenade. 

“Like God, bears are protective of their cubs, stern yet respected, loving, thoughtful, and strong.”

However, despite receiving positive feedback and support from Faculty Senate, Robert Benge, dean of the School of Health and Kinesiology, asked senators to delay a vote on the proposed mascot so he and his employees could submit written feedback. 

Benge said faculty and staff at the school, which organizes the university’s annual Duck Walk and other duck-related activities, received their first official briefing about the proposed mascot on Friday when Senior Vice President of Academic Administration Bob Young made a presentation to his faculty. 

“After Dr. Young’s presentation, I asked my faculty to reflect over the weekend and give me some feedback so that we can prepare a document that we could send to Dr. Young,” Benge told senators. “But in [Young’s] presentation, which was a PowerPoint presentation, and [from] what I’ve heard today, there seems to be a pretty big expectation of the School of Health and Kinesiology allowing the mascot to be portrayed in our facility. So that I’m clear as to how my faculty feel about it, I want to get something in writing from them.”

Following the meeting, Faculty Senate Chair Rachel Williams-Smith, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication, told the Accent that Faculty Senate had no plans to vote on the proposed mascot before it goes to the Board of Trustees.

Why a bear?

 The Senate Mascot Committee, in an interview with the Southern Accent, said they consulted with about 300 students before landing on the bear mascot. The process began in October when the three student leaders began surveying students on the promenade. 

Approximately 50 students, randomly selected at the location and willing to speak to the Senate Mascot Committee, spoke with the group in October about introducing a mascot. The students were asked questions such as: “Does Southern have a mascot, and if so, what is it?”, “What mascot represents you as an individual?” and “What mascot should Southern have?”

The general consensus the committee received, according to the three student leaders, was that students wanted Southern to have a mascot, and the top three ideas were: a duck — known by many as Southern’s unofficial mascot — a stag and a bear. Bautista, Hannawi and Mihaescu discussed the options among themselves and then presented them to Student Senate, which consists of about 25 student members in various academic departments, according to Mihaescu.  Hannawi and Mihaescu are student senators as well.

The body voted on the three options. The duck got 9 votes (36%), the stag 5 (20%) and the bear 11 (44%), as reported in Nov. 2 Senate minutes.

Next, Bautista, Hannawi and Mihaescu each conducted a focus group of between five and 10 individuals. Bautista met with the Student Development Committee, chaired by Dennis Negrón, vice president of Student Development; Hannawi met with Talge Hall residents and Mihaescu met with members of her LifeGroup and friends from the gym. They presented the groups with the three mascot ideas and, according to Bautista, dove into the question: “What’s the worst that can happen if we were to implement any of these ideas?”

As a follow-up to last semester’s survey,  the Senate Mascot Committee conducted an online survey of 208 students this semester to gauge reactions to the bear and various logo ideas, according to Mihaescu. The general consensus was positive and supportive, Mihaescu said.

The groups thought of negative connotations that could accompany the duck, such as “sitting duck,” “lame duck” and “the ugly duckling.” Bautista added that various meanings of the word “stag” were also discussed. According to Merriam-Webster, “stag” can mean: “a social gathering of men only” and “restricted to men.”

Students felt the duck and stag did not accurately represent the university, according to Bautista.

Bautista said he then took the results to Advancement and the President’s Cabinet. On Dec. 12, he and Mihaescu met with Faculty Senate, composed of about 30 full-time faculty members from various departments. They presented their survey methods to the body and why they believe a bear represents Southern. Reasons listed in the Faculty Senate minutes are: “Like God, bears are protective of their cubs, stern yet respected, loving, thoughtful, and strong.”

The two students also showed images to the senate that represented the bear mascot concept they were pitching, said Williams-Smith in an interview with the Accent. The senators gravitated toward one image, but they still agreed that Southern’s bear mascot needed to appear friendlier than what was presented, she added.

“This bear needs to be smiling. It needs to be a friendly bear,” she said. 

Bautista and Mihaescu left understanding that Faculty Senate liked the idea of the bear mascot but also believed the concept needed more work.

Williams-Smith confirmed this sentiment, stating that Faculty Senate supports SA’s continued development of the bear mascot’s logo and costume, but requested additional research and feedback from a broader segment of campus, including the School of Health and Kinesiology, Advancement and Alumni Relations, to ensure there was campus-wide support.

Mihaescu said she spoke to Darin Bissel, facilities manager, and Troy Walker, associate professor; who work in the School of Health and Kinesiology. Both reacted positively to the bear mascot idea and discussed it with their coworkers, she said. However, when Benge and Judy Sloane, professor in the School of Health and Kinesiology, heard of the idea, they felt the process of creating a new mascot was not being properly communicated to them. However, Mihaescu said the Senate Mascot Committee never intended to hide anything.

As a follow-up to last semester’s survey,  the Senate Mascot Committee conducted an online survey of 208 students this semester to gauge reactions to the bear and various logo ideas, according to Mihaescu. The general consensus was positive and supportive, Mihaescu said.

The committee also met with Isacc James and Ingrid Skantz, director and vice president of Marketing and University Relations, respectively, according to Bautista. The two granted the committee creative liberty of the mascot project, Bautista added.

According to Cheryl Torres, director of Advancement, Alumni Relations, a branch of her department, has been engaged in the mascot process to a limited degree, as the creation of a university mascot is for and by students but will affect current and future alumni.

Torres wrote in an email to the Accent that SA leadership presented the mascot concept to the Alumni Council, which represents Southern’s Alumni Association. The council members asked questions and gave feedback, which will enable them to introduce the mascot to alumni when the time comes, Torres wrote. Alumni Relations also informed SA leadership on Southern’s history, hoping to provide inspiration for the name of the mascot. 

“Our perspective in Alumni Relations is that a mascot can be a fun and meaningful way to enhance school spirit,” Torres wrote, “which benefits both students and alumni, by increasing our sense of shared community. This nostalgia and the stronger connection to their alma mater adds value for our alumni by increasing their opportunities to deepen connections with each other and may inspire them to give in more ways to help current students, through mentoring, professional development opportunities, networking, donations, etc.”

The Senate Mascot Committee also spoke with alumni, as well as students and SVAD professors, about designing the mascot logo. The professors were too busy, the majority of students were uninterested and the alumni did not send in designs that the committee felt properly reflected their idea, the committee said. So, they contacted professionals to help with the logo and costume. 

“We are working with Olympus Mascots, a company that made mascots for many D1 universities as well as professional businesses,” Bautista wrote in an email to the Accent.

Bautista confirmed that the mascot is not intended to represent a university sports team but to create a sense of community and become something with which each student can identify.

Addressing rumors

Williams-Smith addressed rumors surrounding the mascot, including that it has already been approved and officially implemented.

“I have not found truth to those rumors,” she said. “I’ve investigated. I’ve asked. I’ve talked with the president. I’ve talked with Kenneth. I’ve talked with Dennis Negrón. … I’ve talked with the three people who could represent administration and SA, and what I’m understanding has happened since then is that because there was a limited amount of time to have a visual prototype of the mascot created during the school year and under the purview of Kenneth Bautista … they had to move forward with ordering the markup. But the purpose of that is not to say, ‘This is going to be Southern’s mascot’ but rather to give people something to see to react to.”
Williams-Smith said she finds this approach to be an effective and valid next step in the development process, as she doesn’t believe campus will be able to make a proper decision regarding the mascot without seeing a visual representation. 

Although Williams-Smith has heard some negative reactions to the mascot, the general response from faculty has been positive. She believes that when individuals who disapprove now see the prototype of the bear, the idea of adopting a mascot won’t continue to be a major issue for them.

“For some reason, the idea of change just scares people,” Williams-Smith said. “ … And that’s understandable, but change is a part of life. So, the most important thing is to figure out how to do the change in a way that doesn’t, you know, smother people, bamboozle them or wipe out their voice and yet isn’t stalled by the fact that maybe there’s always going to be some people who are not going to be excited about any change.”

Stephen Bauer, professor in the School of Religion, initially had concerns with the mascot when he read that the topic was on Faculty Senate’s agenda. However, after reading the minutes, his worries were alleviated.

“I was concerned this might be a shift away from our primary spiritual mission towards SAU seeking to morph towards competitive sports with other schools,” Bauer wrote in an email to the Accent. “Religious universities doing that seem to lose their biblical grounding to become known for their sports programs, not for their service to Christ and support of Scripture.” 

“The intent in the minutes seems more related to internal use for promoting school spirit and camaraderie,” he added. “And, provided it remains in that context, would not seem to be a stepping stone to a sportsplex mentality that has potential to divert us from our reason for existing as a university.”

Bautista confirmed that the mascot is not intended to represent a university sports team but to create a sense of community and become something with which each student can identify. He emphasized in his interview with the Accent that the mascot is meant to be a positive change.

“We’re not trying to go behind anyone’s back,” Bautista said. “ … It’s hard because there’s no rulebook.”