The blue and orange bird known as the belted kingfisher is part of a “student-led, two-years-and-counting campaign" to make it the Univ. of Illinois’s official mascot, according to John Keilman of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. The bird has become “widespread” around campus, where its visage has been “captured in neighborhood murals and on students’ T-shirts and face masks.” It also is “now showing up around Chicago, where alumni distribute logo-laden merch.” For all the increasing visibility, the kingfisher “still appears far away from official recognition by the university, which continues to grapple with how to move on from the exiled Chief Illiniwek.” The National Congress of American Indians last week “endorsed the effort to create a new mascot,” suggesting in a letter to Illinois Chancellor Robert Jones that it would “fill a void in the university community.” The school in 2007 retired Chief Illiniwek after the NCAA found the chief to be “hostile and abusive.” Nothing has taken his place, and students and alumni say that his image is “still a common sight on campus and elsewhere.” Jones will “make the final call on any mascot," and a new committee’s deliberations “promise to stretch the timeline further” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 12/10).
