Big Mammal on Campus : CSU Students Select Dolphin as Mascot

By FRED ALVAREZ

March 31, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but they’re no match for the smart and spirited dolphin.

The sharp-witted mammal has been chosen as the mascot for the emerging Cal State Channel Islands campus, beating out the gray whale, the sea lion and the ever-popular otter for the honor of being emblazoned on sweatshirts and license plate holders when the university opens in a few years.

OK, so it’s not the most fearsome creature in the water. It doesn’t strike fear in the heart like the shark or the killer whale or even the giant squid.

But dolphin supporters are quick to point out that the animal is the smartest in the sea, agile and elusive and ready to take on all comers.

“They’ve been known to take out sharks,” said Raudel Banuelos, part of a group of Chumash Indians who nominated the dolphin late last year as a symbol for the new campus. “In the ocean they are the extreme protectors. I think it’s a perfect choice.”

Students at the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge were charged with making the selection.

After all, they will be the first to take classes at the new campus when CSUN’s satellite center moves to the former Camarillo State Hospital complex this summer, the first step in establishing a four-year campus at the site.

Over the past few months, student leaders have solicited suggestions from classmates and stirred plenty of responses.

There was support for the gulls and the whalers, the waves and the surfers. There were suggestions tapping the county’s agricultural and industrial roots, including the oilers, the drillers and the farmers.

But the dolphin clearly bubbled to the surface, a choice solidified last week when hundreds of Ventura campus students signed petitions supporting the name. Those petitions were delivered Friday to Channel Islands President Handel Evans, who quickly gave the name his blessing.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Evans said Tuesday. “There got to be a real movement for doing something about this and now we’ve put it to bed. I think what it does is signal that the campus is moving along.”

For many of the Chumash people, there is more to it than that.

The Native American people of the area have long had a special connection with the dolphin, regarding the frisky mammal as a “spiritual protector.” There is the tale of Juanamaria, the Indian woman whose solitary life on San Nicolas Island inspired the children’s book “Island of the Blue Dolphins.”

And there is a story that tells how, as the Channel Islands were becoming overpopulated, the creator provided the people with a rainbow bridge to come to the mainland.

The creator warned them not to look down, however, or they would fall through the rainbow. But some couldn’t resist and as they fell, the creator turned them into dolphins rather than watch them die.

“The dolphin was always considered to be a friend of the Chumash, if not an incarnate brother,” said Ed Pulido, a member of the Chumash tribe who is working on his bachelor’s degree at CSUN’s Ventura campus and last week was elected a senator of the Associated Students organization.

“It’s more than just a mascot,” Pulido said. “I see choosing the name of the dolphin really as a tribute to the Chumash people who are deceased but also to those still living here.”

As the Channel Islands Dolphins, the new university will stand virtually alone. There are no other dolphins in the Cal State or University of California systems.

In fact, a quick search across the country turned up only two colleges with the dolphin mascot: the College of Staten Island in New York and Delgado Community College in New Orleans.

In coming months, university planners will begin incorporating the dolphin into an official logo for the Channel Islands campus.

Christina Martinez, student body president at CSUN’s Ventura campus, said she was pleased that the satellite center played such a crucial role in bringing that about, especially since one day it will evolve into the Channel Islands campus.

“The students here really had a voice in making this happen,” she said. “It was an honor to be involved in that selection.”