Amherst Hamsters? College narrows mascot search to semi-finalists

By DAVE EISENSTADTER

@DaveEisen

Published: 01-10-2017 1:44 AM

AMHERST — Amherst College is on the verge of picking a new mascot, and among the front-runners is a cute, wheel-running rodent.

Following the removal of the controversial Lord Jeff as Amherst’s unofficial school mascot early last year, the college’s mascot committee received more than 2,000 suggestions, amounting to nearly 600 unique ideas. They have narrowed the field to 30 semi-finalists and will further winnow that to five for a vote in March.

The “hamster,” along with the “moose” and the “poets” (some suggested the “fighting poets”) received the most votes among those original suggestions, according to a table put together by the committee, which included the thinking behind the votes.

For some, the fact that the word “hamster” is an anagram of Amherst made up their minds.

“Hamster and Amherst are anagrams,” wrote one alumnus who graduated in 1961. “Arriving at this mixture of seven letters could only come out of a liberal education — hence only from a school like Amherst.”

A member of the class of 2011 concurred that the anagram connection was a strong reason to choose the hamster, but not the only reason. The graduate continued, “Hamsters are small, but mighty. They are nocturnal, like most undergrads. They are fuzzy and cute, entirely unobjectionable and non-lethal. Hamsters have never decimated a native population — and as far as we know, they do not discriminate on the basis of race, class or gender. That said, they can bare their sharp little teeth and inspire fear in the hands of the most powerful. They are tenacious and they never give up... even when they probably should. Hamsters! Hamsters! Hamsters!”

Hamster received 63 votes, the second highest after moose, which received 78 votes.

Lord Jeff was removed as Amherst’s unofficial mascot following a student demonstration for increased equity in the school in November 2015. Among the students’ demands was the removal of Lord Jeff as the school’s mascot.

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Many students, faculty and alumni objected to the long-used mascot because of historical evidence that Lord Jeffery Amherst had advocated the use of germ warfare to wipe out Native American tribes.

The moose has been the leading candidate to replace Lord Jeff as the school’s mascot.

“A moose wandered onto campus a year or so ago, just as the mascot issue was heating up,” wrote a 1984 alumnus. “It seems like providence.”

But the moose has had its detractors.

“The college is already a laughing stock over these events, and I see no reason to compound the problem with, for example, a moose — a dull, slow, oversized herbivore revered primarily by fans of forgotten 1960s cartoon series,” one person wrote earlier in the process.

The “poets” or “fighting poets” received 42 votes, with students and alumni saying it honors both Emily Dickinson, who famously lived in Amherst, and Robert Frost, who taught at Amherst College, along with other local poets.

“The poet would stand out in a mascot field chock full of animals, historic figures, odd amorphous things,” wrote a 2012 alumnus. “A purple-clad poet wielding a giant pen would speak to Amherst’s focus on academic excellence.... After all, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

The next tier of choices includes the hawks, which one Amherst College community member described as “a swift, noble majestic creature,” the mammoth/mastodon, which someone pointed out is in the Beneski Museum, and the purple or purple and white, which another person described as “simple, elegant and non-controversial.”

The full list of semifinalists can be viewed on Amherst’s website.

Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@gazettenet.com.

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