Regents want opinion poll on nickname

Southeast Missouri State University will conduct a scientific poll, at the urging of the board of regents, to gauge public opinion on whether the school should scrap its Indian and Otahkian nicknames.

The regents, meeting at the University Center on Friday, said they would consider the poll results in deciding whether to adopt another nickname and a new mascot as student, faculty, alumni and athletics booster club leaders have urged.

Dr. Ken Dobbins, university president, said Southeast would likely use the school's Harrison College of Business to conduct the opinion survey. The aim would be to have the results tabulated in time for the regents to consider the data at the board's June 25 meeting.

Don Dickerson, president of the board of regents, said the board also wants to look at data from national surveys of what Native Americans think about colleges using Indian nicknames mascots, as well as any final recommendations that will be made by a campus committee.

"We don't view this issue as a popularity contest," he said.

But Dickerson said the views of thousands of alumni need to be considered, as well as "75 years of history and tradition."

The regents said they want to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

Regents also questioned the work of a university committee that is looking to recommend a new nickname and mascot.

Edward Matthews III, a regent from Sikeston, Mo., worries that the committee has presented only one side of the debate. "It seems to me we are not getting all the information we need," he said. "We are getting one-sided statistics."

Matthews said he was disappointed that the university committee didn't include keeping the Indian nicknames as one of the recommended options that people could vote on through a school Web page or by paper ballot.

Committee chairman Ed Leoni, a Southeast health and recreation professor, said the committee will use its two upcoming public forums to get public opinion on not only the five new nicknames suggested, but whether the Indian nicknames should be retained.

Leoni said the committee is seeking to decide from among five suggested nicknames: Red Hawks, Red Birds, Red Wolves, Explorers and Sentinels.

Committee members said American Indians and an NCAA committee have concluded that Indian nicknames and mascots are demeaning and schools should quit using them.

But Dickerson and other regents said the telephone calls they have received from university alumni and supporters are largely for keeping the Indian nicknames. The men's teams are called the Indians and the women's are referred to as the Otahkians, a reference to a Cherokee woman who died near Cape Girardeau on the Trail of Tears forced march to Oklahoma in the 1800s.

Dickerson, who graduated from Southeast in 1954, said the Indian nickname was a source of student pride at that time, and Indians were considered "athletic, brave people."

But Chief Paul White Eagle of AhNiYvWiYa tribe in Cape Girardeau said schools who use Indian nicknames and mascots are making "a mockery of our culture."

Regents questioned the decision of student government members to recommend the Indian nicknames be scrapped even though an informal survey of more than 600 students found that the vast majority of the students wanted to keep the Indian name.

But Adam Schaefer, student government president, said the survey also showed that students want a mascot. Southeast hasn't had a student dress up as an Indian mascot since 1985 and school administrations have quietly barred any use of the Indian and Otahkian nicknames from T-shirts, uniforms and official campus brochures.

Schaefer suggested a new nickname that would lend itself to an appropriate mascot would spark school spirit and make today's students feel more "connected" to the Cape Girardeau school.

"This is much more than a political correctness debate," he told the regents.

Don Kaverman, Southeast's athletics director, said he wants the issue settled soon. "It is a polarizing and divisive issue for the university community," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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