There’s another school in town going through a nickname crisis, too.

The new public elementary school currently under construction is without a name or mascot, and the Grand Forks Public School system have been holding meetings — just like UND’s been doing — to decide on something that will represent and inspire its students.

Much to my surprise, the school board was considering naming the new school after someone extremely different from the uncomfortably white, predominantly Christian, rurally “traditional” population of Grand Forks — a 17-year-old female Muslim.

Her name is Malala Yousafzai, and she’s a huge image in global education advocacy. By the age of 17, she gained global recognition in education advocacy, she survived a gunshot wound to the head during an assassination attempt and she became the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

Basically, she’s a badass.

Still, it took me off guard that the adults of this town were ready to accept a very foreign-sounding, foreign-feeling individual as a city-approved image we were agreeing to look up to.

I had a real pride in my hometown for being ready to dig themselves out of a previous funk of automatic awkwardness around anything non-white, non-Christian or open-minded. Times have changed; we’re ready to start enjoying ourselves again.

But it was too good to be true.

This week, the school board narrowly voted down the idea of Malala Elementary. And though board members also expressed dissatisfaction with the hilariously lame “Discovery” and “Dakota Horizons” ideas also on the table, I’m afraid they’re going to end up with something stale and miss a huge opportunity to start promoting open-mindedness in a city in dire need of it.

As we transition into choosing a new image to stand behind ourselves, I have similar worries for all of us associated with UND.

At the men’s hockey game against Bemidji last weekend, I took note of the crowd’s constant reminders of our old name. At every chance, the student body — and, incidentally, my mom — bloodcurdlingly scream “Sioux” over the announcer’s frail attempts to refer to the team as “North Dakota.”

From the perspective of a student body with the mindset that we lost our name because the  NCAA took it away, these rebellious shouts don’t bother me very much.

But what happens when we have a new mascot next semester? Is everyone still going to shout “Sioux” over the new name?

You know they will.

But when they do, it won’t be the same as it is now. It will show supreme disrespect for the new logo. Although it’s ironic that’s the same argument some make in advocating silence of “Sioux” cheers in the first place, it will be even more ironic when the group being disrespected is also the group doing the disrespecting.

I’m not expecting anyone to be automatically super gung-ho about the new name, but imagine how awkward it will be when the team steps out donning our new logo and everyone heckles it down and cheers for something else. It’s going to create an immensely negative atmosphere. Instead of moving on and putting out some good vibes about being united together under a common name, we’ll make a bummer out of it.

Will Beaton is the Editor-in-Chief of The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].