Voting dates for final selection of a new nickname for the UND were announced in an email sent out by UND administration this week.

According to the email, The voting process, which will be conducted entirely online, will begin at 8 a.m. CDT on Oct. 19 and will close at midnight Central Time on Friday, October 23.

Eligible voters are UND students, faculty, and staff as well as UND retirees, alumni, donors, and current season ticket holders to UND athletic events. Voters will be able to cast a single vote for one of the five nickname options; Fighting Hawks, Nodaks, North Stars, Roughriders, and Sundogs.

Eligible voters will receive an email containing voting instructions the week of October 12 from Qualtrics; a third-party survey technology provider that will be conducting the online voting process. Voters should retain the email so that they can follow the instructions it contains when the voting opens on Oct. 19.

Students will received the email containing the voting instructions through their student emails. In order to participate in the vote, UND alumni and donors should go to the web address on www.UNDalumni.org/update, retirees will need to register on the Qualtrics website, and current season ticket holders will need to contact the Ralph Engelstad Arena Box office before Oct. 1.  Once voting has been closed on Friday, Oct. 23, Qualtrics will record the results.

UND is expecting to receive the report and announce the voting results during the week of October 26. If one of the nicknames receives a majority of the votes, that will be the new athletics nickname for UND. In the event none of the nickname options receives a majority of votes, stakeholders who were eligible to participate in the initial vote, will participate in a vote between the two nickname options that received the highest amounts of votes.

UND President Robert Kelley said, “We are very pleased to be approaching this important milestone in the nickname selection process.  The five potential nicknames were thoughtfully recommended by the Nickname Committee after an extensive public comment period. I encourage all eligible voters to carefully consider these potential nicknames and choose the one that they feel best represents the University of North Dakota.”

The former UND nickname “Fighting Sioux” has been retired since 2012, and UND had been prohibited from adopting a new nickname until this year.

Elliot Golden is a news reporter for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]