Alumni, staff, and students nod to Institute’s history

SOCORRO, N.M. – The New Mexico Tech community cast over 1,500 votes, ending a two-month process and electing Miners as the official mascot for the university by an overwhelming majority.

A total of 1,562 people voted – 307 students, 199 employees, and 1,056 alumni. Miners garnered 61 percent of the vote. 63 percent of alumni voted for Miners; 63 percent of students voted for Miners; and 51 percent of employees voted for Miners. Roadrunners was a distant No. 2 candidate, with 14 percent of the vote, followed by Isopods (12.4%), Bighorns (6%), Burros (6%).

The vote completes a two-month initiative to formalize NMT’s mascot. In August, NMT President Dr. Stephen Wells and the Board of Regents put forth an initiative to adopt an official mascot. While Miners was widely considered the mascot of the university for decades, no previous administration or board action had ever formalized it. Alumni, faculty, staff, and students submitted suggestions for four weeks, then cast their ballots online for five finalists over a two week period in October, ending November 2.

More than 400 students, faculty, staff, and alumni submitted nominations for the NMT mascot during September.  All of NMT’s club sport teams will all use the new mascot as their official team name.

As to the look of the newly-formalized mascot, Tech’s Office of Communication and Marketing is working with several design options from artists both in the Socorro community and from around the state. Potential designs for the new Miners mascot will be presented to the campus community for final round of voting in December.

– NMT –