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.
