ByStephanie BauerleinSenior Staff Writer
This week may be the beginning of the end to an issue that hasplagued the San Diego State community for more than three years – orit could mark the beginning of another three years as the onlyDivision I school without an official university mascot.
Today is the first of three days students and members of the SDSUAlumni Association and Aztec Athletic Foundation can vote on whetherthey approve of the proposed Aztec Warrior put forth in UniversityPresident Stephen Weber’s referendum.
With the community learning about the referendum just three weeksago, a lot of people have been left with questions.
Associated Students President Juanita Salas said Weber informedher of this referendum just hours before sending a mass e-mail tostudents informing them of the event.
“The president has stated that the only thing A.S. has done rightin the past three years is have him make the decision,” she said.”We’ve been waiting for him to make that decision for the past threeyears, and now, with one day’s notice, he lets us know what thesolution is in his eyes. That to me is unfair.”
Weber said this referendum was not planned in secret, as some maybelieve. He said that since before the beginning of the semester, hehas been saying he would have a student referendum on the issue andthat he and Salas had discussed it when she first came into office.
“We had been talking about having a referendum,” he said, “butthere wasn’t any point in thinking very much more about it until wehad a concept.”
And Weber said he received the concept of the Aztec Warrior justone week before announcing on Nov. 13 that there would be areferendum. Weber also said another aspect was developing thecapacity to do an electronic referendum.
“We happened to have both those things come together at the sametime,” he said. We had the capacity, which has never been triedbefore on this campus, and now we have the concept. If we were to notdo it now, we would’ve had to have the vote during finals, which isnot acceptable, or wait all the way until we get into the nextsemester.”
In regard to the fact that he informed Salas of the revelationssuch a short time before informing the students, Weber said he talkedto her immediately after deciding the referendum would be scheduledand that whether having the referendum was possible was a last-minutedecision.
“We encouraged Weber to postpone until next semester until we havedue diligence of more than one option,” Salas said. “The council’sposition is no human representation is correct with this mascotissue. We’ve said it once, we’ve said it twice and we’ll continue tosay it.”
Salas also said she feels there are a lot of issues with thisreferendum, one being the representation of faculty and staff. Shesaid they have been involved in the process ever since the beginning,and Weber even took their recommendations in a resolution passed byUniversity Senate in 2000.
“We all decided we were going to move forward with informeddecisions,” she said. “This to me is an informed decision only tothose who favor human representation. An informed decision is what Iconsider taking everyone’s opinion and finding compromise. Compromiseis not what is being sought after at this university. Compromise issomething that involves everybody. If you’re going to take this issueto the masses, then you have to include everybody.”
Weber said there are a number of reasons the faculty and staff arenot voting. He said they, in fact, established the playing field bysetting criteria for what the mascot should be, which arehistorically accurate and culturally appropriate. He said the issuebeyond that in terms of how you give ownership is much more, in hisjudgement, a student and alumni issue.
“We can’t have a mascot that’s not embraced by our students andalumni,” he said. “If you look at the number of employees we have andcompare that to the membership of the student body, it’s hard to finda proper way to weight that. The faculty established the criteria andit’s been my job to fulfill those, and I think I have.”
Regardless of the concerns many people, including Salas, have, thereferendum is going forward as planned. Weber said he will be happywith the results, knowing both students and alumni had a voice in theissue. He said he wouldn’t be holding a referendum if he didn’t thinkthe Aztec Warrior was a viable idea for an official mascot.
“I think if both sides of the referendum are positive, we’llproceed to implement this concept,” Weber said. “If either party saysno, we go back to the drawing board. If the alumni love it andstudents don’t, we don’t have a mascot and vice versa.”
SDSU Alumni Association Executive Director Jim Herrick said theassociation passed a resolution supporting this referendum and thegroup is happy to have a voice in the matter.
“Alumni care about SDSU, and tapping into their expertise,intellect, networking and other resources makes our university somuch stronger,” Herrick said. “I do think they should have a voice inour traditions.”
A.S. Executive Vice President Joshua Miller said he supports thisreferendum because one of his goals for running for office wasgetting the university a mascot. Miller said this referendum isalmost to a tee what he was asking for in a resolution he authored atthe beginning of the year.
“For me, this is great,” he said. “This is what I wanted. This iswhat I asked for. This is the single best way to give all studentsthe opportunity to speak their voice.
“My goal is to get a mascot and once this gets approved, we willhave a mascot. My goal will have been met.”
For more information on how to vote, visit www.sdsu.edu/mascot.
