2008 Woodie Awards
Voters support comet mascot
Lee Brown
The results of UTD's mascot survey are in, and the students, alumnus, faculty and staff are all in agreement. They want to keep the mascot comet related.
The other available choices - hawks, coyotes and foxes - all received far fewer votes than the comet character. In many cases, they received less votes combined than the comet character alone.
The votes were broken into demographics by the voter's relationship to the university. Undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumnus were all taken into account separately.
The comet character received a simple majority, meaning at least 50 percent of the vote, across almost all demographics.
"This says we have a history and the alums and everybody else fell that this history is important," said Darrelene Rachavong, vice president for student affairs and chair of the mascot committee. "I'm glad we went through this process."
The members of the mascot committee then began discussion on how to proceed now that the mascot type has been chosen.
Rachavong said the next step would be to petition the campus community for concept sketches of the new character. The committee was generally in agreement that once sketches are collected from around campus, the group would reconvene and attempt to get a sense of what is wanted from a mascot by surveying the resulting designs.
After the designs are submitted, the committee will take elements from the best sketches and deliver them to a professional design firm, which will be responsible for creating a new costume for the mascot.
The mascot steering committee is accepting sketches through June 25. Sketches can be emailed to Rachavong at dar@utdallas.edu or delivered to AD 2.412.
Viewing Comments 1 - 5 of 6
Brittany
posted 6/04/08 @ 9:58 AM CST
I vote for Captain Comet! You know like the comic book charater from captain planet.
Matt
posted 6/04/08 @ 10:34 AM CST
Its hard to believe that the majority wanted to keep a comet as our mascot.
Elise
posted 6/04/08 @ 2:46 PM CST
I like the Captain Comet idea. It is always good to keep with tradition. Not many people like change.
Robert
posted 6/05/08 @ 1:47 PM CST
I think the University made a few mistakes with the way they handled the voting. Putting up the mascots theme without stating what direction the university would be going in with that selection was a mistake in my opinion. (Continued…)
savagesun
posted 6/14/08 @ 2:01 AM CST
Would the idea of a "Cometkazi" be offensive? Comets do essentially dive into a death run around the sun or into an unfortunately placed planet. The comet tradition stays well in place but is kicked up a couple of notches. (Continued…)
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