Sioux Mascot

[Bear55]

Good history lesson guys.

"Pucking Useless" Never heard that one before, good one Steve.

[brmuskie]

Thanks Steve, I learned a little bit tonight.

[mnorth]

As of Today 6/3.

UND's Fighting Sioux nickname transition office to close in mid-June

UND’s yearlong process of transitioning away from the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo, ordered suspended last month by the State Board of Higher Education following legislative action on the nickname, will formally end on June 15.

The transition office in the Carnegie Building on campus will close and Robert Boyd, a former vice president for student affairs named by President Robert Kelley to lead the transition effort, will end his assignment.

“We’re preparing the files and information we collected for archiving, for historical purposes,” Boyd said. “If retirement of the name and logo once again becomes an issue, there will be evidence of what did take place this round.”

The North Dakota Legislature in March adopted a bill requiring UND to retain the Fighting Sioux name and logo despite a State Board of Higher Education directive to UND to retire the symbols by Aug. 15 to comply with terms of a legal settlement between the university and the NCAA.

The athletics association had threatened sanctions against UND and other member schools that did not eliminate nicknames, mascots and logos based on American Indians, calling such imagery hostile and abusive to Indians.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem sued the NCAA on behalf of the university and the state board, and a 2007 settlement gave UND three years to win authorization from two namesake tribes to continue use of the symbols. The Spirit Lake Sioux granted such authorization through a referendum and tribal council action, but no such approval came from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

On May 9, citing the legislative action, the state board directed Kelley to halt the transition process.

Boyd said he is “in full agreement” with the decision to close the transition office, and he planned to send out a “briefing” memo perhaps as early as today to advise members of two transition task forces and others who have followed the work.

“We went through a year of fairly intensive work with no controversy, and I’m very proud of what we accomplished,” he said.

“We had people involved who obviously would have preferred the transition not take place, and I understood and respected that. We tried to be as inclusive as we could be and to respect all points of view, but we moved ahead and I’m sure we would have met the Aug. 15 deadline.”

As transition officer, Boyd supervised the work of two task groups, one assigned primarily to document and preserve the history of the Fighting Sioux name and logo and one to guarantee that the transition took place openly.

The history group included community members as well as UND students, faculty and staff. They had begun planning the identification, collection and display of documents and artifacts relating to the name and logo when the transition was suspended.

Kelley had anticipated a third task group, which would have been asked to develop new symbols for UND athletics and other activities, but that group had not been established.

Finding sincerity on both sides

Boyd said he leaves the transition office still believing that the university and state board were right to begin retirement of the Sioux name and Indian-head logo, though they are revered by many — as evidenced by the overwhelming email campaign that helped persuade legislators to enshrine them in state law.

“What I could always clearly identify with was the distraction to the university that took place because of the controversy,” Boyd said.

“As sensitivities grew on a national basis, it became more and more apparent that our institution was going to be viewed in ways that I felt very hard to accept,” he said. “I feel very passionate about this place, and to be poked fun at, to be demeaned because of this controversy, was very hurtful.”

He said he could “clearly understand the concerns that people felt, particularly students who said they felt demeaned or harassed” by the pervasive “Fighting Sioux” presence on campus. He said he had no doubt of their sincerity.

“At the same time, I had students for whom I had equal respect who wanted very much for the name to be retained — American Indian students as well as non-American Indian students,” he said.

As a UND administrator, especially in recent years, Boyd said he “kept running into the distractions, the time it was taking from my office, the time it was consuming of the president,” whether Kelley or his predecessors. “Those were efforts and resources we very much wanted to place elsewhere.”

He said he’s also concerned “that our wonderful student athletes will be caught in the middle of this,” as the state-NCAA standoff means the controversy “maybe will grow in intensity.”

He said he has spent the past two or three weeks preparing transition files and looking for documents that were often cited during the past year but not physically produced, such as actions taken by various governing bodies following a 1992 UND Homecoming incident.

In that incident, often cited by nickname opponents, several children dressed in American Indian regalia and riding on a homecoming float sponsored by UND’s American Indian Student Center were said to be taunted by some students.

“Some students very thoughtlessly made fun of them, and it created quite an incident,” Boyd said. “President (Kendall) Baker had a series of forums on campus to talk about it, and the students involved apologized,” but it still left a bad taste.

“It was probably the most significant incident in recent times that highlighted

[Bran32]

Not to sound like a total A#$ but WHO CARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sick of it already!

[PierBridge]

The North Dakota Fighting Pirates? Think of the jersey sales?

[Steve Foss]

Thanks for posting that, mnorth.

[Bear55]

The North Dakota Fighting Pirates? Think of the jersey sales?

My great, great, great, great, great, great.... grandfather was a pirate and I would take great offence to that!

[SkitterPopper]

The saga continues.....

Sioux Name