The following blog comment post has been copied from Ithaca College’s official IC Mascot Search website. You can navigate pages related to the mascot search process here: http://www.ithaca.edu/mascot/
With many alumni chiming in to give their opinion about the mascot search, one individual’s blog comment post on the IC Mascot Search Blog really stood out as a particularly fair inquiry. We have chosen to present the full text version of this specific comment post below. You can read other comments on IC mascot blog entries here: http://www.ithaca.edu/mascot/blogs/ic_mascot_search_blog/
The post we’ve chosen to feature…
Kim Faulkner Riley, Ithaca College Alumna, Class of ’99 posted:
Here is the e-mail I sent to the mascot committee and the president an his cabinet.
Hello Everyone,
I have waited to write my own e-mail after reading several that other alumni have sent. Since I felt the same as many others do about the Mascot search, I didn’t want to send another e-mail with the same points. However, I want to make it clear that I do not support a new Mascot. I do feel strongly that this is just one step toward “doing away with” the Bomber name altogether and the tradition that the Bomber name represents.
Here is my question: We have a Facebook page with over 2000 members who DO NOT support a new Mascot. The Ithacan has written several stories and editorials about how much staff, students, coaches, and especially alumni are not in favor of a new mascot. Even your head football coach is publicly against a new mascot. The Syracuse newspaper has written an article about the subject. And worst of all, Cortland fans has posted on their websites how sorry they feel for us. Even Cortland knows this idea is absurd. So, where are all these students who want this? Where is the “outcry” from students who desperately want this change? Where is the facebook page “We want the squirrel” or “Bring on the lake beast?” Where are the the student letters to the Ithacan asking for this change? Where are they? In several public statements from the president and the mascot committee it has been mentioned that this is student driven. Really? WHERE ARE THEY? The students who have voiced their opinions in the Ithacan and elsewhere are indifferent at best. Most who have commented are against it.
Therefore, before the committee goes any further, I ask you all why? Why make this change when so many are indifferent at best, or altogether against it? I look forward to hearing from you either individually or as a group. Thank you for your time.
-Kim Faulkner Riley ’99