The Board of Trustees voted to send Lord Jeff packing, and he will no longer be the mascot for the Amherst teams.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amherst-college-decides-to-drop-controversial-lord-jeff-mascot/
Sounds good to me. The majority of the student body, the majority of the alums, and the majority of the trustees all voted to make that change, so I have no problem with it. No need to keep a controversial (to say the least) mascot like Smallpox Jeff around just for the sake of resisting change.
I am glad they aren’t going to be the Moose. Mooses? It will be interesting to see what they come up with. I hope it’s not something generic like the Titans or overdone like the Wildcats.
How about the Amherst Frost? Kind of wintery and badass, but also an homage to Amherst’s most famous professor ever. Or is that too cute by half?
I favor the Frost as well. After all, they call Alabama the Crimson Tide… I also favor The Emilies, but I realize that’s probably not too likely 
I’m for Dryosauruses- or would it be Dryosauri? The Dryosaurus atlus is very cool as is the entire Beneski collection.
I guess with them no longer being the Lord Jeffs the commentator at the football games can no longer say that the team’s defense had ‘blanket coverage’ on that play.
I liked the moose since it has roots in an actual moose showing up on campus…but I guess they’ll come up with something next year.
The whole seemed to me to be very well handled, democratically, by vote, with lots of discussion.
Now THIS is important.
The five mascot finalists have just been announced. They are:
Valley Hawks
Wolves
The Purple and White
Mammoths
Fighting Poets
If one looks at the recommendations by alumni and students, I think none of the “final five” are well-represented by the suggestions. From what I found, there were 6 suggestions for the fighting poets, 17 for mammoths, 17 for purple and white, 2 for valley hawks (and more for just “hawks”), and 14 for wolves (with some for werewolves). Of the 2000+ suggestions, this is pretty weak.
Pioneers, Frost, Lord Jeff, Hamsters, Moose, etc. etc. all have way more suggestions than any of the top five. There were literally more suggestions for “Harambe” than for “Fighting Poets.”
I don’t know entirely by what metric the Mascot Committee is choosing the new mascot, but it doesn’t seem very well-represented by what the majority of those who suggested a mascot want. :-??
I think fighting poets is lovely! That’s where my vote would go. Amherst has historic roots to some of the most recognized poets in the history of the US.
Still want Lord Jeff.
The recommendations only played a role in selecting the 30 semi-finalists from the hundreds of originally suggested mascots. After that, randomly selected current students culled those 30 down to 5 (theoretically w alumni input).
Lord Jeff will never come back. Sorta like the names Bertha or Eunice. Old names that are gone, and will never be chic again.
Lovely? Data from our unofficial non-scientific sampling of current Amherst athletes shows that Fighting Poets is their least favorite choice, as they prefer not to have a “lovely” mascot.
Anyway there’s already a liberal arts college with a Poet mascot – Whittier College in CA, which was named for John Greenleaf Whittier (although he actually never made it to CA). The Whittier Poet wields a large pen (which is mightier than a sword):
https://www.whittier.edu/news/whittier-college-welcomes-john-poet
The rest of NESCAC is counting on Amherst to come up with something that outsiders will post in lists of “Oddest College Mascots”, along with the Williams Purple Cows, Bowdoin Polar Bears, Colby White Mules, Tufts Jumbos, Hamilton Continentals, or Connecticut College Camels. It would be tragic if the Amherst community settled for “Hawks”.
The decision by the committee to avoid all proper names (for example, Frost) was depressingly risk averse. These choices are lame.
The obvious winner among the Semifinalists was “Hamsters”, given that (1) hamsters are cute, (2) everybody likes them, (3) they meet the rigorous NESCAC criteria for mascot distinctiveness, and (4) “hamster” is an anagram of “Amherst”.
But somehow Amherst is stuck with five less appealing finalists. Unbiased review:
Valley Hawks: “Hawks” = cliche mascot. “Valley Hawks” is more distinctive and therefore better, but for many it will bring to mind the “Mountain Hawks” of Lehigh. Lehigh is a Division I school and presumably never plays Amherst, so there would be no opportunities for a “Battle of the Topographical Hawks”.
Wolves: another cliche mascot. Could maybe work with an adjective to make it more distinctive. Can’t go with “Purple Wolves” or “White Wolves” because Williams already has Purple Cows and Colby has White Mules.
The Purple and White. This is just kicking the can down the road. Colors don’t work as mascots, and someone will eventually come up with a better alternative, even if it is unofficial. Sure, Dartmouth is officially The Big Green and Stanford is officially the Cardinal, but unofficially they are Keggy and the Tree.
Mammoths. Distinctive, and perhaps the least bad of these options. Downsides: no obvious connection to the college; another NESCAC school (Tufts) already has large elephantine mascot.
Fighting Poets: Whittier College tries hard, but has nowhere near the endowment or ranking that Amherst does. In fact, Whittier is really known for only two things: (1) it was President Nixon’s alma mater, and (2) it has the unique “Poets” nickname. Amherst should not pick on Whittier by appropriating their nickname (or, for that matter, by issuing a posthumous honorary degree to Nixon).
Sigh, still want Lord Jeff.
I know, but I will continue to say it.
Muckrake weighs in with pro/con lists for all 5, pretty funny, as usual:
https://amherstmuckrake.com/2017/03/20/the-muck-rakes-official-mascot-selection-guide/
Oh the latest…Lord Jeff lives!
This was hilarious. =))
Amherst kids are pretty good at making fun of themselves.
Valley Hawks (discriminates against those who live in high places)
Wolves (negative connotation, predatory)
The Purple and White (Purple is royal and therefore elitist)
Mammoths (discriminates on the basis of size)
Fighting Poets (promotes violence).
Also, need to change Amherst because, after all, it is named after Lord Jeff Amherst.