Mental Health | 5
Opinion | 6
Religion | 6
Lifestyle | 7
Psi Chi offers suicide prevention training
Giants of faith and ordinary saints: Choosing our role models
'I have a dream': Remembering Prathia Hall and her impact
How to get throught the inevitable low moments in life
February 15, 2023 Collegedale, Tennessee
Southern Accent
Vol. 78 Issue 16
The student voice since 1926
BLACK HISTORY MONTH McKee Southern 6 Trail Race gains new sponsors
Contestants run in one of the past annual McKee Southern 6 Trail Races. This year, proceeds from the race will go to Southern's Adventure Program Affinity Fund. (Photo courtesy of source)
Matthew Orquia News Editor The 13th annual McKee Southern 6 Trail Race will be held on Sunday, Feb. 19, at the White Oak Mountain Trails. Southern Adventist University students and faculty can run the race for free, and proceeds from the race will go to Southern's Adventure Program Affinity Fund, according to the race’s website. Online registration ends on Feb. 17, but in-person
registration will be available on race day. Prizes will be awarded to the top three male and female finishers in two categories, regular and age 50 and up, or “masters.” A $100 cash prize will be given to first place finishers, a $75 cash prize to second place finishers and a $50 Rock Creek gift card to third place finishers. The fastest
male and female finishers will also be offered a pair of Salomon shoes. The 3.4 mile course begins on Industrial Drive by the Hickman Science Center, continues run a steep climb to the White Oak Mountain Trails and is followed by a descent down the trails to finish back by Hickman. Jonathan Ziesmer, race director, said he ran the race multiple times while he was a student
at Southern and fell in love with the course. “ … You gotta work really hard in the beginning, and then you just cruise, and you can push as hard as you want for the end,” Ziesmer said. According to Ziesmer, the race started in 2009 due to a partnership between Southern and Rock Creek, an outdoor gear store. The race initially had 200 to 250 runners, Ziesmer estimated, but numbers
started to dwindle after a few years. Rock Creek stopped sponsoring the race in 2015, and Southern continued to hold the race but stopped advertising it to the public, which led to mostly Southern students and faculty running the race, according to Ziesmer. Rock Creek returned as a sponsor this year. Ziesmer wanted to bring the race See TRAIL RACE on page 2
‘Protective of their cubs’: SA proposes a bear mascot for Southern Amanda Blake Managing Editor Southern Adventist University’s Student Association (SA) is developing a mascot for the university, one of the main goals of Kenneth Bautista, senior management major, as SA president. Currently, the team is having a logo and costume professionally created for a bear mascot to be introduced this semester. According to Bautista, Student Senate and the President’s Cabinet have already given the bear mascot their approval. Thus far, SA has spent $1,600 on a logo design, Bautista said, and the entire mascot budget will come out of SA’s contingency, which is unspent money from previous years. Though images of the proposed logo and costume were presented at a Faculty Senate meeting on Monday, Bautista declined a request to release any images to the Accent as he wishes to reveal the images according to SA’s timeline. Bautista along with Wilson Hannawi, junior biology major, and Anna Mihaescu, junior accounting major — all three members of the Senate Mascot Committee — first presented the idea to Faculty Senate on Dec. 12 and returned on Monday to update senators about the project, now headed to the university’s Board of Trustees Feb. 26 meeting. From there, according to Southern Adventist University President Ken Shaw, the proposed mascot will be presented at a town hall meeting to get input from “everyone on campus.” “And depending on the spirit
in the room, as we talk about the bear,” the university president said, “ if [those in the audience] seem to be supportive, I think at that point, we can probably embrace it moving forward.” According to the Dec. 12 Faculty Senate minutes, Bautista and Mihaescu presented the following as places where the mascot could appear: intramurals, championship games, half-time show for the Rees Series basketball championship, ViewSouthern, SA and Student Senate events, dorm events and more. At Monday’s meeting, Bautista said the committee is not trying to replace the university’s current columns logo, but sees the proposed logo as something that can be placed on the gym floor or seen on the promenade. However, despite receiving positive feedback and support from Faculty Senate, Robert Benge, dean of the School of Health and Kinesiology, asked senators to delay a vote on the proposed mascot so he and his employees could submit written feedback. Benge said faculty and staff at the school, which organizes the university’s annual Duck Walk and other duck-related activities, received their first official briefing about the proposed mascot on Friday when Senior Vice President of Academic Administration Bob Young made a presentation to his faculty. “After Dr. Young’s presentation, I asked my faculty to reflect over the weekend and give me some feedback so that we can prepare a document that we could send to Dr. Young,” Benge told senators. “But
in [Young’s] presentation, which was a PowerPoint presentation, and [from] what I've heard today, there seems to be a pretty big expectation of the School of Health and Kinesiology allowing the mascot to be portrayed in our facility. So that I’m clear as to how my faculty feel about it, I want to get something in writing from them.” Following the meeting, Faculty Senate Chair Rachel Williams-Smith, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication, told the Accent that Faculty Senate had no plans to vote on the proposed mascot before it goes to the Board of Trustees. Why a bear? The Senate Mascot Committee, in an interview with the Southern Accent, said they consulted with about 300 students before landing on the bear mascot. The process began in October when the three student leaders began surveying students on the promenade. Approximately 50 students, randomly selected at the location and willing to speak to the Senate Mascot Committee, spoke with the group in October about introducing a mascot. The students were asked questions such as: “Does Southern have a mascot, and if so, what is it?”, “What mascot represents you as an individual?” and “What mascot should Southern have?” The general consensus the committee received, according to the three student leaders, was that students wanted Southern to have a mascot, and the top three ideas were: a duck — known by many
as Southern’s unofficial mascot — a stag and a bear. Bautista, Hannawi and Mihaescu discussed the options among themselves and then presented them to Student Senate, which consists of about 25 student members in various academic departments, according to Mihaescu. Hannawi and Mihaescu are student senators as well. The body voted on the three options. The duck got 9 votes (36%), the stag 5 (20%) and the bear 11 (44%), as reported in Nov. 2 Senate minutes. Next, Bautista, Hannawi and Mihaescu each conducted a focus group of between five and 10 individuals. Bautista met with the Stu-
dent Development Committee, chaired by Dennis Negrón, vice president of Student Development; Hannawi met with Talge Hall residents and Mihaescu met with members of her LifeGroup and friends from the gym. They presented the groups with the three mascot ideas and, according to Bautista, dove into the question: “What’s the worst that can happen if we were to implement any of these ideas?” The groups thought of negative connotations that could accompany the duck, such as “sitting duck,” “lame duck” and “the ugly See MASCOT on page 2
An Instagram post advertising the design competition for the mascot. (Photo courtesy of source)