Dear Reader,

Thank you for picking up a copy of The Fenwick Review. As we go to press with the October/November issue, one “listening session” on the College’s mascot has come and gone, and the other looms on the horizon. It is now nearly a year since the College announced its intention to reconsider the issue of our traditional symbol. The Administration has implemented a “working group” to collate feedback on the topic. Students and alumni are invited to submit their thoughts: should the mascot be retained? Or should it be consigned to what is called the “ash heap of history”? Commentary is due by November 26, via an online comment form. We encourage our readers to submit their feedback.

Throughout the last year, our writers and editors have discussed the issue in some depth; all three issues from last spring contain articles on the topic. Elsewhere in this issue, Mr. Hanley and Mr. Christ address various aspects of the mascot debate. Mr. Christ discusses the administration’s handling of the issue, while Mr. Hanley offers a final examination of the arguments in favor of and opposed to the mascot. On the next page, an alumnus from the Class of 1954 offers his thoughts on the topic to the editors. We will not repeat any of that content now.

Instead, a simple note. Over the past year, we have met exceedingly few students who passionately thought that the mascot ought to go. A higher number, even at the first listening session, have argued that it ought to stay. But many, if not most, find the whole matter pointless babbling over a symbol. They simply do not care. In this minor culture war, it seems to have been forgotten that there are real problems on this campus -- housing, tuition, funding priorities. For both sides of the political spectrum, there are actual problems than need to be addressed. Let us leave the mascot unmolested, and go back to our crusade for things that really matter.

Claude Hanley, ’18
Bill Christ, ’18
Co-Editors in Chief