 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
IUP wrestles with dropping 'Indians' name
Saturday, December 05, 1998 By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
INDIANA -- The Indians may disappear altogether.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, an oddly named school searching for better ways to market itself, will decide by March whether to drop Indians as its team name.
A sampling of schools that still use ethnic mascots
Schools considering a change
IUP stopped using politically incorrect Indian and squaw mascots years ago, but it has clung to calling its teams the Indians. That approach has left IUP without an acceptable logo or a symbol for its athletic programs.
"The situation is untenable," said university President Lawrence Pettit. "We either have to find justification to use the Indian name appropriately or we have to change it."
Dozens of colleges and universities -- including Stanford, Dartmouth, Marquette, St. John's and Miami of Ohio -- have dropped Indian mascots and nicknames over the years.
A handful of others have retained the nicknames, but a number of those have eliminated stereotypical symbols such as arrows and feathers.
Central Michigan University, for example, uses the nickname Chippewas with the approval of Saginaw Chippewa tribe members who live near the campus in Mount Pleasant, Mich.
Central Michigan has maintained friendly relations with the tribe by promising that the Chippewas will not be portrayed as characters from John Wayne westerns.
"Our logo is just a plain letter C. We've also agreed to make no tomahawk chopping motions or do anything that the Chippewas would find objectionable," said Shana Langdon of Central Michigan's sports information office.
IUP has taken a similar approach, but university marketers said that effectively leaves them without a symbol to promote the school.
A campus image committee -- created to improve the marketability of a university tortured by having two state names in its title -- has implied that the name Indians has to go. It already has suggested a number of alternatives, including Crimson Thunder.
Pettit, though, isn't so sure a change is necessary.
"Given the fact that our town and county are both named Indiana, the name Indians may make more sense here than it would for a school, say, in Milwaukee. We need to determine if we can justify using Indians and whether we have appropriate symbols to go with it."
Pettit suggested that totems might be one possibility.
Since eliminating its Indian mascot, IUP has steered clear of using tribal symbols in recruiting materials and campus publications. Instead, it often uses the campus bell tower as a university logo.
"It makes it very awkward for us," Pettit said. "We don't realize any of the benefits of having a mascot. That means promotion of our sports teams is kind of flat, and we're not making much in royalty income from merchandise sales."
At Penn State University, a prospective student who visits the bookstore can buy a stuffed Nittany Lion. IUP has nothing comparable to sell or distinguish itself with, said IUP publicist Bill Swauger.
Swauger said the name Indiana University of Pennsylvania, so confusing to people when they first hear it, complicates marketing even more.
He said the school should look at changing its entire name, perhaps to Stewart University in honor of Indiana, Pa., native Jimmy Stewart, or maybe to Western Pennsylvania University.
Pettit is not considering anything so drastic.
But he plans to make a recommendation on the Indian nickname to the board of trustees in February. Until then, he said, he will listen to students, alumni and American Indians who have opinions.
W. Ron Allen, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said Pettit seems to be stretching for ways to keep a nickname that never should have been used in the first place.
"We see the context of all these Indian mascots as derogatory," said Allen, whose organization was established in 1944 and represents 2.3 million American Indian and Alaska native nations."I know a lot of non-Indian cultures don't view the issue that way, but they're not in our shoes."
Pettit said his sense is that the 14,000 students now enrolled at IUP don't much care if the nickname Indians is dropped. But alumni from the 1950s to the 1970s appear more inclined to argue for sticking with tradition.
Chuck Klausing, IUP's football coach during the 1960s and a resident of Indiana, Pa., said he's among those who don't want to lose Indians as a nickname.
"When I was coaching here, we always had an Indian squaw as one of the cheerleaders," Klausing said. "I didn't think it downgraded anybody, but then again I'm not of Indian descent. I want to keep Indians because I'm a traditionalist."
American Indian groups maintain that IUP would lose nothing if it picked a new nickname.
"I would welcome the change," said Fred Deer, who is of Mohawk descent and serves on the advisory board of the Three Rivers American Indian Center based in Pittsburgh.
So would Vernon Bellecourt, president of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, a group affiliated with the American Indian Movement.
"Indiana University has a chance to exercise moral leadership by making this change," he said. "We're people, not mascots."
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Adams State College, Alamosa, Colo. -- Indians to Grizzlies