Prairie Public NewsRoom
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Voters to choose new UND nickname; 'North Dakota' not an option

The University of North Dakota has released the next step in its plan to choose a new nickname.

Those eligible to vote for the new name include alumni, retirees, faculty, staff, students, donors, and current season ticket holders.  Susan Walton is Vice President for University and Public Affairs.  She says each eligible voter will only be able to vote once, and since the vote will take place online, work will be done over the next several weeks to verify the email addresses of those eligible voters.

"Voter security is important.  And this will work by confirming and identifying individual's connections to UND through email addresses.  For people currently at UND - faculty, students and staff - those people already have UND email addresses.  For retirees, alumni and season ticket holders and donors - we'll be working with them to confirm those over the next few weeks."

Voters will have five names to choose from - Fighting Hawks, Nodaks, North Stars, Roughriders, and Sundogs.  President Robert Kelly had considered adding back the name North Dakota to the options after receiving some feedback, but he ultimately decided against it.  UND spokesman Peter Johnson says the President did not come to that decision lightly.

"Where the President was at, was, he got a lot of feedback from a lot of people over many months.  We are North Dakota, we've always been North Dakota.  But North Dakota is not a nickname.  And the President feels strongly and a lot of people do that we ought to have a nickname that we can rally around, that the teams can play under.  It's difficult to be introduced as 'the University of North Dakota North Dakota,' so to have a nickname is really something we are striving for."

The vote will take place in mid October.  The name that receives at least 50 percent of the vote will become the new name.  If one name does not receive 50 percent, a runoff vote between the top two names will be held later.  Season ticket holders should call the Ralph Engelstad Arena box office any time between now and October 1st to confirm their email addresses.  For UND alumni, retirees and donors - more information will be sent to them electronically on how to verify their identities.

Related Content