What is the new university of illinois mascot?

URBANA — A national endorsement may give the most recent push to introduce a new University of Illinois mascot some air beneath its wings.

On Dec. 1, the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest representative organization for tribal governments and communities in the country, urged UI administrators and the board of trustees “to take prompt and decisive action to replace and rebrand the University’s mascot.”

“When harmful Native ‘themed’ mascots are retired but not replaced, harmful imagery persists as the community fails to come together around a new identity that is truly representative of them,” reads the letter signed by Larry Wright Jr., the NCAI’s executive director.

“To that end, we understand a mascot replacement proposal has garnered significant support, including passing a campuswide referendum and faculty vote,” Wright said. “NCAI is supportive of the democratic process employed to select a replacement mascot for the University, and sees such a selection as a positive step forward for the University of Illinois community.”

The proposal the NCAI is referring to is the belted kingfisher, a mascot concept designed by UI alumna Spencer Wilken (nee Hulsey) while she was still a student.

Two years after her proposal rallied support through nonbinding votes in Illinois Student Government and the UI faculty senate, the university “has not moved forward on any proposal regarding the kingfisher, and there is no timetable” UI spokeswoman Robin Kaler said.

“We appreciate the input and perspective from the National Congress of American Indians regarding the harm Native imagery causes, and we continue to engage our campus community around new traditions that will help our university heal and move forward,” Kaler said.

Today, a growing number of University of Illinois students, alumni, even professors are wearing unofficial merchandise depicting the orange-and-blue belted kingfisher.

“They’re designing their own; they’re asking us for designs; we’re getting donations to make some,” Wilken said. “You’ll start seeing more and more kingfisher gear appear on campus — it’s definitely growing, but it’s growing organically.”

When Wilken mocked-up her vision of the belted kingfisher as a UI mascot, she based it off the birds she saw flocking to a pond near her family’s farm in Kinmundy.

To her, the case was clear. Female belted kingfishers sport bright orange-and-blue plumage. The bird is common to rivers and streams of the Midwest, and is an aggressive hunter, dive-bombing to snatch its prey. No school has adopted the species as a mascot.

In Spring of 2020, supportive allies in the Illinois Student Government put the kingfisher mascot on the ballot in a nonbinding referendum. Students voted in favor of the bird 4,222 to 3,597. (Previous mascot ideas, like ‘Alma Otter,’ weren’t as successful.)

The UI faculty senate held an advisory vote of its own in the fall, endorsing the kingfisher 105-2, with four abstentions.

In the wake of campus endorsements, Wilken and other supporters of her design formed an organization — Illinois Alumni for the Kingfisher — to generate hype and merchandise around the idea.

Wilken helps design the items, while students of the “Kingfisher Task Force” on campus handle donations, production and free giveaways.

To date, their cause has gathered nearly $1,500 in donations. The group expects to fulfill an order of more than 60 custom-made sweaters later this winter.

“That’s what a mascot is supposed to do; it’s supposed to give students something to rally around and use as a symbol for school spirit. And that’s exactly what it’s doing,” Wilken said.

The kingfisher has rallied more support than any other bid to fill the vacancy left by the 2007 “retirement” of the 81-year Chief Illiniwek tradition. The Chief, portrayed by UI students, was one of 19 mascots or symbols termed “hostile or abusive” in a 2005 NCAA ruling, which banned teams from full postseason play unless the figures were removed from the sidelines.

The UI “retired” Chief Illiniwek in 2007, after decades of controversy and debate over whether the symbol’s halftime dances and regalia culturally appropriated Native American traditions.

Sophomore Ethan Cooper joined the kingfisher’s advocacy group after visiting its table on Quad Day.

For him, supporting the bird was a no-brainer. His high school, Waubonsie Valley, has faced its own 21st-century critiques for the Native American imagery associated with its “warrior” mascot. Plus, Cooper wants something on the sidelines to keep up with conference peers.

“This is a school that officially doesn’t have a mascot, which is jarring compared to other Big Ten and Power Five schools,” Cooper said. “Getting something to essentially transition away from Chief Illiniwek into something more modern and representative of the student body is better for both college campuses and society as a whole.”

A few reputable organizations have written formal endorsements for the kingfisher: The American Indian Center of Chicago in 2020, the Chicago Tribune editorial board and the Champaign Audubon Society. (The News-Gazette’s editorial board did not approve.)

The kingfisher has also found its way into two independent murals around campus, on South Third Street and in the corner of the Skyline Tower on Green Street.

Wilken reached out to the National Congress of American Indians earlier this year, noticing their 2007 statement commending Illinois’ retirement of Chief Illiniwek.

“Since this is the clearest next step, it made sense to bring (NCAI) back into this conversation,” Wilken said.

The NCAI letter stops short of fully endorsing the kingfisher as a replacement, something Wilken thought was appropriate, even if she’s partial to her creation.

“I absolutely agreed,” Wilken said. “I am more supportive of students getting something than nothing at all.

“There will be some people in the incoming freshmen classes who were born after the Chief was already gone,” Wilken said. “Why can’t they have a mascot? They should be able to have something to rally around, to have fun with. Something goofy on the sidelines, something they could put on a shirt embroidered by their grandma.”

URBANA — A national endorsement may give the most recent push to introduce a new University of Illinois mascot some air beneath its wings.

On Dec. 1, the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest representative organization for tribal governments and communities in the country, urged UI administrators and the board of trustees “to take prompt and decisive action to replace and rebrand the University’s mascot.”

“When harmful Native ‘themed’ mascots are retired but not replaced, harmful imagery persists as the community fails to come together around a new identity that is truly representative of them,” reads the letter signed by Larry Wright Jr., the NCAI’s executive director.

“To that end, we understand a mascot replacement proposal has garnered significant support, including passing a campuswide referendum and faculty vote,” Wright said. “NCAI is supportive of the democratic process employed to select a replacement mascot for the University, and sees such a selection as a positive step forward for the University of Illinois community.”

The proposal the NCAI is referring to is the belted kingfisher, a mascot concept designed by UI alumna Spencer Wilken (nee Hulsey) while she was still a student.

Two years after her proposal rallied support through nonbinding votes in Illinois Student Government and the UI faculty senate, the university “has not moved forward on any proposal regarding the kingfisher, and there is no timetable” UI spokeswoman Robin Kaler said.

“We appreciate the input and perspective from the National Congress of American Indians regarding the harm Native imagery causes, and we continue to engage our campus community around new traditions that will help our university heal and move forward,” Kaler said.

Today, a growing number of University of Illinois students, alumni, even professors are wearing unofficial merchandise depicting the orange-and-blue belted kingfisher.

“They’re designing their own; they’re asking us for designs; we’re getting donations to make some,” Wilken said. “You’ll start seeing more and more kingfisher gear appear on campus — it’s definitely growing, but it’s growing organically.”

When Wilken mocked-up her vision of the belted kingfisher as a UI mascot, she based it off the birds she saw flocking to a pond near her family’s farm in Kinmundy.

To her, the case was clear. Female belted kingfishers sport bright orange-and-blue plumage. The bird is common to rivers and streams of the Midwest, and is an aggressive hunter, dive-bombing to snatch its prey. No school has adopted the species as a mascot.

In Spring of 2020, supportive allies in the Illinois Student Government put the kingfisher mascot on the ballot in a nonbinding referendum. Students voted in favor of the bird 4,222 to 3,597. (Previous mascot ideas, like ‘Alma Otter,’ weren’t as successful.)

The UI faculty senate held an advisory vote of its own in the fall, endorsing the kingfisher 105-2, with four abstentions.

In the wake of campus endorsements, Wilken and other supporters of her design formed an organization — Illinois Alumni for the Kingfisher — to generate hype and merchandise around the idea.

Wilken helps design the items, while students of the “Kingfisher Task Force” on campus handle donations, production and free giveaways.

To date, their cause has gathered nearly $1,500 in donations. The group expects to fulfill an order of more than 60 custom-made sweaters later this winter.

“That’s what a mascot is supposed to do; it’s supposed to give students something to rally around and use as a symbol for school spirit. And that’s exactly what it’s doing,” Wilken said.

The kingfisher has rallied more support than any other bid to fill the vacancy left by the 2007 “retirement” of the 81-year Chief Illiniwek tradition. The Chief, portrayed by UI students, was one of 19 mascots or symbols termed “hostile or abusive” in a 2005 NCAA ruling, which banned teams from full postseason play unless the figures were removed from the sidelines.

The UI “retired” Chief Illiniwek in 2007, after decades of controversy and debate over whether the symbol’s halftime dances and regalia culturally appropriated Native American traditions.

Sophomore Ethan Cooper joined the kingfisher’s advocacy group after visiting its table on Quad Day.

For him, supporting the bird was a no-brainer. His high school, Waubonsie Valley, has faced its own 21st-century critiques for the Native American imagery associated with its “warrior” mascot. Plus, Cooper wants something on the sidelines to keep up with conference peers.

“This is a school that officially doesn’t have a mascot, which is jarring compared to other Big Ten and Power Five schools,” Cooper said. “Getting something to essentially transition away from Chief Illiniwek into something more modern and representative of the student body is better for both college campuses and society as a whole.”

A few reputable organizations have written formal endorsements for the kingfisher: The American Indian Center of Chicago in 2020, the Chicago Tribune editorial board and the Champaign Audubon Society. (The News-Gazette’s editorial board did not approve.)

The kingfisher has also found its way into two independent murals around campus, on South Third Street and in the corner of the Skyline Tower on Green Street.

Wilken reached out to the National Congress of American Indians earlier this year, noticing their 2007 statement commending Illinois’ retirement of Chief Illiniwek.

“Since this is the clearest next step, it made sense to bring (NCAI) back into this conversation,” Wilken said.

The NCAI letter stops short of fully endorsing the kingfisher as a replacement, something Wilken thought was appropriate, even if she’s partial to her creation.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s senate on Monday endorsed the idea of making the belted kingfisher — a blue and orange bird native to the state and known for its high-speed dives — the school’s new mascot.

The 105-to-2 vote, though merely advisory, was a step forward in the long-standing effort to create a mascot for the university that would take the place of Chief Illiniwek, retired by the university in 2007 after the NCAA determined the American Indian-themed image to be “hostile and abusive” (advocates for the Chief reject the charge of racism and refer to him as a “symbol,” not a mascot).

The students who created and pushed for the kingfisher said the next step will be to try to gain acceptance from alumni and others in the university community.

“We’re really trying to get everyone on board with this amazing mascot," student senator Dana Yun said.

Chancellor Robert Jones will be the final arbiter of any new mascot, but no timetable or process toward making that decision has been set, a university spokeswoman said.

The kingfisher is the brainchild of recent graduate Spencer Hulsey, who often saw the birds when she was growing up on her family’s farm outside Kinmundy, Illinois. She sketched a version and took it to the Illinois Student Government, which put it to a campuswide vote in March.

The proposal passed by a narrow margin, and since then, Hulsey and others have come up with ideas on how to knit the mascot into campus life, from orange and blue kazoos that would emulate the birds' long beaks to spirit rituals students could perform during games.

“New student section traditions are a vital part of integrating a new mascot into our community,” they wrote in the proposal considered by the senate. “For example, as kingfishers are diving birds, a student could do a simple, dive-bombing hand motion that ends with a ‘splash’ noise or explosion of hands when our team scores a touchdown or a free-throw.”

The authors said some student organizations, such as the badminton and geology clubs, have already started to incorporate the kingfisher into their logos. They added that the resolution did not seek to change the “Fighting Illini” nickname.

During the senate’s discussion, some students said the Block I logo has been an insufficient representation of the university, and that the lack of a mascot has allowed Chief Illiniwek to persevere.

“Without the university taking action to adopt a new mascot, which the student body already voted in favor of adopting, it is easier for these students to hold onto this racist imagery as a symbol of Illinois pride,” said Sofia Sinnokrot, a student senator who endorsed the measure.

Faculty members had little to say on the Zoom conference other than to praise the students for advancing the concept.

“I’m mostly just speaking to thank the students for their continued and enduring leadership on doing something that should have happened 13 years ago, that I’ve been waiting for," said Jodi Byrd, an associate professor of English and gender and women’s studies who is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

“I know so many American Indian studies faculty who are no longer here have been fighting to get this addressed. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your efforts and for such a profoundly important step forward, to create this opportunity for us to finally, finally move on."

After the vote, Hulsey said she was gratified by the huge margin of victory.

“We were just so amazed by the response that it got,” she said. “It was a great validation to see that we’re on the right track.”

jkeilman@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @JohnKeilman

Illinois' campus has become swept up by the belted kingfisher. The Chicago Tribune reported Saturday about a groundswell movement for the bird to officially replace Chief Illiniwek .