Holy Cross’s mascot had been under scrutiny for its appropriateness
WORCESTER, Mass. — The College of the Holy Cross will continue to be known as the Crusaders.
A day after the college newspaper dropped The Crusader name, the Board of Trustees at College of the Holy Cross reaffirmed on Saturday its commitment to the Crusader nickname and mascot for the school.
At the same time, it also asked the college administration to assess how the visual representation of a Holy Cross Crusader can best align with the college’s mission and values.
The decision was the culmination of “an important and robust conversation” about the appropriateness of the college’s Crusader mascot and moniker that had gone on for several months
In an email to the college community of students, faculty and staff members, Holy Cross President Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., and board chairman John J. Mahoney said that, in considering the appropriateness of the school’s moniker, the board agreed by consensus on what it means to be a Holy Cross Crusader.
“While we acknowledge that the Crusades were among the darkest periods in Church history, we choose to associate ourselves with the modern definition of the work crusader, one which is representative of our Catholic, Jesuit identity and our mission and values as an institution and community,” Boroughs and Mahoney wrote.
“We are not simply crusaders, we are Holy Cross Crusaders,” they added.
The Crusader name has been used by the college since the 1920s, initially for athletic teams and then for student clubs and representing the community as “Sader Nation.”
The debate over the appropriateness of the Crusader name and mascot stems from a 2016 report compiled by a committee considering renaming a campus building whose namesake had ties to slavery, according to a summary of the issue on the college’s website. That discussion sparked wider discussion over whether the Crusader nickname and mascot was appropriate.
To investigate the issue, the college began a semester-long discussion this academic year.
Boroughs tasked a nine-member working group composed of college staff, faculty, students and alumni with gathering feedback from members of Holy Cross on the question: “In what ways do you think the Crusader moniker and mascot are appropriate, or inappropriate, representations of the college, given our mission, values and identity?”
Over the course of eight weeks, more than 1,800 responses were received and two public forums were held on campus, according to John Hill, spokesman for the college. The group presented its findings to Boroughs in January but did not make any recommendations.
The board of trustees met Saturday to consider the report and the Crusader moniker, Hill said.
The trustees’ decision comes the day after the college’s student newspaper changed its name from “The Crusader” to “The Spire.”
“No matter how long ago the Crusades took place, this paper does not wish to be associated with the massacres (i.e., burning synagogues with innocent men, women, and children inside) and conquest that took place therein,” one of the paper’s editorials on Friday said.
The debate over the newspaper’s name was kicked off a year ago by a letter from 48 faculty members calling for the paper to reconsider its title. The letter not only cited “anti-Muslim tensions” in the U.S. at the time, but also the fact that a publication put out by the Ku Klux Klan is also called the Crusader.
After the paper’s editorial board at the time agreed with the premise of reexamining the nickname, The Crusader has received and published many more letters and opinion pieces on the subject over the past year.
College officials and newspaper staff said their respective decisions on the Crusader name were completely unrelated.
“Ultimately, the nominal association with a poorly circulated KKK newspaper (which took its name far later than this paper) did not figure at all in the final decision,” the editorial said. “What did matter to us was the ultimate legacy of the crusaders themselves.”
Hill, meanwhile, said the college newspaper is an independent student-run organization, and the feedback and discernment process undertaken by the editors was entirely separate from the college’s examination of the appropriateness of the Crusader mascot and moniker.
In 1925, Holy Cross students chose the moniker Crusader to represent them. The literal meaning of the work is “one who is marked by the cross of Christ,” and it was felt at that time that such a moniker was appropriate for the college’s Jesuit and Catholic intellectual and spiritual tradition.
“Our students, faculty, staff and alumni have continued in that tradition, and through their work and lives have defined what it means to be a Holy Cross Crusader,” wrote Boroughs and Mahoney. “We are crusaders for human rights, social justice, and care for the environment; for respect for different perspectives, cultures, traditions and identities; and for service in the world, especially to the underserved and vulnerable.”
Cyrus Moulton is a reporter for the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette.