UVUSA Meeting discusses possible Willy name change

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Members of the athletic department met with the UVUSA student council to discuss the possibility of changing the name of UVU’s mascot, Willy the Wolverine.

Jared Sumsion, UVU director of athletics, and Kameron Dearing, UVU Athletics assistant AD / marketing, and Nicole Olanda, UVU Women’s Soccer player, attend the meeting to present their reasoning to the council, and to hear feedback from them about the concept.

Options such as: Winston, Walter, Wesley, Win, Wes, Wolf, and Webster were brought up as possible replacements. “If people knew the history of Willy and where the name came [from] they’d be more understanding,” Olanda stated. Olanda said that her team, when asked, was leaning more on the side of keeping the original name than supporting the change.

Dearing and Sumsion did a survey with the student council about the name change asking questions such as, “The UVU mascot is named after Wilson W. Sorensen, one of UVU’s former presidents. Wilson went by the nickname Willy. If the mascot name were to change would you object?”

Seemingly in violation of UVUSA Constitution, Article II Section I subsection B, concerning student rights, which states, “The right to attend any UVUSA sponsored meeting with the exception of those meetings declared as Executive Session (elected officers only).” Despite this meeting being the entire council, not only elected officers, the Review was asked to step out of the Student Council Chambers during the open door meeting while they discussed and voted on the matter in order to bring the discussion to the council. According to UVUSA sources it was allegedly upon request from the athletic staff that the Review be removed during the vote. Lexi Soto, UVU student body president, stated that while there were some discrepancies, the vote was against the name change.

Additionally, Wolverine of the Week was announced during the meeting and on their official Instagram. Jackson Krueger, a UVU student, was captioned on Instagram as being not only a great person but stating, “He’s always keeping up with his work and teachers and is struggling a lot with moving out and money and all adult things but he knows how to lift himself up and others around him.”

Upcoming events discussed at the meeting included: UVUSA student forum, Insomnia, Sustainability Conference, BachataFest, Campaign Her, and Lemonade with Lexi.

Council meetings are open to the public every Thursday and are found in the Student Council Chambers 1 p.m.-2:30 p.m.