After nearly a century as the Vikings, Long Beach City College students are proposing a new mascot: Danie the Dolphin.<\/p>\n
Student body president Priince Bass is spearheading the idea. When he began asking students how they felt about the school mascot, most didn\u2019t know they were represented by Ole the Viking, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents aren\u2019t connected to it,\u201d Bass said \u2014 even though the mascot has been associated with LBCC since the school\u2019s founding in 1927, when the student body selected the Norsemen, a spokesperson for LBCC said. At that time, the city of Long Beach was predominantly white<\/a>, and the college\u2019s racial makeup would have been closer to that of the Vikings, who hailed from Scandinavia.<\/p>\n It was also an era when many colleges and universities were choosing mascots associated with violence and aggression, said Laurel Davis-Delano, a professor of sociology at Springfield College who has conducted research<\/a> on how Native American mascots affect students.<\/p>\n In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many schools chose menacing animal mascots like bears, lions and bulldogs, Davis-Delano said. Mascots like Vikings, associated with conquest, have also proven popular. Over 500 teams in the United States have been named the Vikings, according to data from MascotDB, a sports team database<\/a>; only 40 have been represented by the dolphins.<\/p>\n LBCC\u2019s demographics have changed significantly in the decades since that initial selection. Now, the college is a primarily Hispanic-serving institution, and most students identify as Latino, Black or Asian and Filipino<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI can see why they want something non-violent, something not oppressive, something not associated with only particular nations from Europe, and something that maybe isn\u2019t gendered,\u201d Delano-Davis said, referring to the fact that most depictions of Vikings represent men.<\/p>\n In recent years, many teams and schools across the country have made school spirit changes, abandoning mascots associated with histories of colonization and violence. In 2018, Cal State Long Beach retired Prospector Pete<\/a> after dissenters highlighted the realities of Gold Rush era prospectors who murdered Native Americans in their pursuit of wealth. CSULB unveiled its new shark mascot<\/a>, Elbee, in 2020.<\/p>\n Bass said these changes served as blueprints for him. \u201cIf everything else changes and evolves, why can\u2019t we?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bass said he has gathered more than 500 student signatures as part of a petition to adopt Danie the Dolphin. (Danie is an acronym spelling diversity, accessibility, neutrality, inclusion and equity, Bass said.) He added that he has received largely positive student feedback on the proposed mascot through an informal survey he circulated among the student body.<\/p>\n A social media account for Danie the Dolphin<\/a> began posting in November and recently announced a mascot design contest. Some designs, adhering to LBCC\u2019s current red and black color scheme, already populate the Instagram page and nod to the flag of the Gabrielino\/Tongva peoples, on whose ancestral land LBCC sits.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a long road ahead for a formal mascot change. The President\u2019s Leadership Council recently approved an administrative procedure for any group to request a change to LBCC\u2019s school spirit symbols, including the mascot, said Nohel Corral, executive vice president of student services.<\/p>\n That procedure must go through a subcommittee and possibly back to the Leadership Council for discussion before the Board of Trustees can take action on it. Only then, if the trustees approve the procedure, can students initiate a referendum for a new mascot, Corral said.<\/p>\n The student body would have to vote to pass the referendum, at which point the student body president would bring the issue to the President\u2019s Leadership Council, Corral said. The college would conduct a cost analysis to determine the fiscal impact, and with that information, the superintendent-president would bring the issue to the board of trustees for a final decision.<\/p>\n Bass signaled he remains motivated to navigate the process with the hopes of emerging with a mascot that better represents LBCC students and aligns with the college\u2019s effort to increase student belonging<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see something we can change or improve, instead of just ignoring it, we speak up,\u201d Bass said. \u201cThat\u2019s the power of this generation.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t