HURRICANE — Dixie State College will remain the Rebels, but the mascot will get a complete overhaul, the school's board of trustees decided last week.
Board president Stephen Wade cast the tie-breaking vote to keep "Rebels" as the name of school teams, but trustees then decided to drop the "Rodney" nickname from the mascot's moniker.
The decision was only reached after extensive debate, and Wade prefaced his vote by saying he believes it would be better to change the mascot.
But he said he was swayed by the results of an unscientific survey. Of the 586 students that responded, 70 percent said they wanted to keep the mascot. A survey of 125 alumni revealed 81 percent of those polled preferred to keep the mascot.
Kelly Kendall, president of the Alumni Association, said a "silent majority" of alumni would actually support a mascot change.
But Wade said the school could not let decisions be "made by a silent majority."
The same unofficial survey showed that of 65 college employees, 77 percent wanted to adopt a different mascot.
"Rodney Rebel is a thinly disguised Confederate soldier, and this, combined with our very name "Dixie," sends a clear message to most people outside of southern Utah," English professor Louise Excell wrote in an online discussion group. "Rodney Rebel is an in-your-face declaration of the school's desire to associate itself with a racist past."
Wendi Prince, president of the Student Executive Council, disputed that argument, saying she asked black students on campus how they felt.
"They asked me, 'Would we be playing for the Rebels if we were offended?' " Prince said. She also asked where the money to convert every notebook, costume and sign would come from in the face of looming tuition hikes.
Trustee Marilyn Arnold said students do not have enough experience outside Utah to witness the negative reactions to the mascot that faculty and alumni face.
A similar debate has been raging for years at the University of Mississippi over that school's use of the Confederate flag.