In the past Saybrook College has employed “seals, lions, grapes, et cetera” as their unofficial college mascot because their constitution does not designate an official representative, according to college council members. In an effort to rectify this discrepancy, the Saybrook College Council sent out a survey Monday asking for mascot suggestions from residents.

“There is nothing in the [Saybrook] constitution about an official mascot,” said Tammer Abiyu ’14, head of the Ad-Hoc Mascot Committee on Saybrook CC. “That being said, there is a historical record of the seal playing a prominent role in Saybrook’s symbolism.”

However, most Saybrook students associate Saybrook with the lion – an animal that not only features on Saybrook’s IM shirts but also on their official college arms.

The lack of a mascot is wearing on student spirit, Abiyu said.

“Saybrook’s split image makes it hard to call ourselves anything but Saybrugians, and makes many of us feel conflicted about wearing so much lion-themed clothing,” Abiyu said. “We feel it would be best to embrace one mascot for official purposes and put this uncertainty to bed.”

In the College Council’s one-question poll asking for mascot suggestions, which remains open, the lion is currently in the lead with the most suggestions, although the seal comes in at a close second.

But beyond the first two choices, the variation of suggestions takes a turn. “Admiral Ackbar” from Star Wars weighed in as third most suggested, while “grapes” and “honey badger” rounded out the top choices. Students were not as quick to propose “poopetrator” as might be expected, with only two submissions for the villain of Saybrook laundry room. In fact, “poopetrator” tied with “Lana Del Rey” for number of submissions. Also on the list was the “Saybrook Tooth Tiger,” Icona Pop’s hit “I Don’t Care,” and a “disgruntled G-Heav employee”.

The mascots of other residential colleges are mostly animals such as the lion (Timothy Dwight), the moose (Ezra Stiles), the spider (Jonathan Edwards), the walrus (Morse), the squirrel (Branford), the bull (Trumbull), the salamander (Silliman) and the thundercock (Berkeley). Other colleges have opted to more alternative representatives including the “inferno” (Calhoun), the gnome (Davenport), and the pirates (Pierson).

An election will be held next week to determine and suggestions must reach majority vote to establish a new mascot.

MINH NGUYEN