Editor's note: All opinions, columns and letters reflect the views of the individual writer and not necessarily those of the IDS or its staffers.
Hoosier the Bison made his official relaunch, landing on the field via parachute at the Aug. 30 home football game, and it has left me wondering: what can the IU Bloomington faculty learn from our new mascot? Administrations may dismiss faculty (and bison) as shaggy cows, but bison are surprisingly agile. They can sprint 35 miles an hour, leap six feet, and with a single charge can crush anything in their path. Early muskets barely scratched them; bison weren’t afraid of them because their thick skins made them bulletproof. Branded incompatible with modern life, they were targeted by government officials who feared their dominance. And yet today, bison thrive. Of the 500,000 left today, the vast majority are in commercial herds, meaning they are profitable livestock in addition to being majestic national park symbols.
This is not to say that faculty would also be delicious. Simply to say, I warn others not to underestimate faculty as short-sighted, slow-moving, wallowing beasts from a past time. Faculty, like the bison, are not relics but keystones of the future — formidable in numbers, and fiercest when provoked.
Ilana Stonebraker is a librarian at Indiana University Bloomington.
