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Apaches no more?   Mascot endangered

By The Editorial Staff

The Student Government Association has recommended that IVCC abandon its Apache mascot.

In a letter to the College President, dated Aug. 30, 2001, the SGA wrote: "We feel that the use of this stereotypical image offends and/or has the potential to offend members of our college community."

The letter continues: "We feel that we may actually be hindering our intent of fostering cultural diversity and respect with the use of such a mascot."

The letter urges the Board of Trustees to choose "a more appropriate representative for the college," and urges the college "to solicit ideas and gain support for a new mascot."

The President is expected to present the letter to the College Board at its Sept. 19 meeting.

SGA advisor Cory Tomasson said members had discussed the issue at length this fall before deciding to recommend a change. Some of that discussion was about the purpose the SGA should fulfill.

"The purposes of the SGA are clearly stated in the SGA constitution," Tomasson said. "I feel that the decision these members made and the letter that they wrote reflect a genuine loyalty to those purposes."

The Apache was adopted as a name for athletic teams in 1947 by what was then called LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College. Polls, conducted by the student newspaper as recently as last spring, have shown students to favor keeping the name although faculty and staff had tended to favor a change.

Most members of the student newspaper staff have also opposed changing the newspaper name although the advisor has favored a change. The IVCC student newspaper inherited the Apache name from an L-P-O publication which began in 1964.