In 1937, The Mac Weekly cast a spotlight on MacQuack. The mascot — a live duck gifted to the Macalester football team — had moved on from this world: it was boiled in oil for dinner, actually. Although The Mac Weekly publicized MacQuack as “the educated duck,” it was during a time in which there was no concept of a school-wide mascot in the same way there is today. MacQuack was only really known by the football team they represented. Therefore, MacQuack’s charm and honorable personage were neglected and unappreciated — something that I am bemused to say continues to the present day. 

I distinctly remember the juxtaposition between Macalester’s internationally oriented marketing and the “Mac the Scot” that jarred me during application season. I also recall the amusement I felt when I shared a picture of Mac and turned the head of my English friend in incredulity. Contemporarily, the general student body is recontextualizing Macalester’s established core values in a climate of educational innovation and uncertainty. Macalester is approaching its sesquicentennial. Thus, now is the most appropriate time to address the bewilderment I felt upon hearing about Mac the Scot and answer two questions: “What is a mascot?” and “Why should it be MacQuack?” 

As a college, our logo and our mascot are two of Macalester’s primary means through which we can communicate our character. In the autumn of 2017, Macalester boldly refined and unified our branding, changing our colors and removing the piper logo. Older designs had served us well, but the update projected Macalester’s forward-thinking attitude to the public. Mac the Scot has similar room for supplantation. Mac the Scot has played a sizable role in recent Macalester history. However, I believe the most sincere way to honor Mac is to consider the school he has represented with such diligence and sunset his time on the field.  A culturally diminutive depiction of the Scottish people does not scream inclusivity or progress.

The esteemed MacQuack is an elegant merriment of Macalester’s legacy and its contemporary values. As an animal, MacQuack is not solely reliant on auxiliary accessories to be recognizable — in contrast to Mac the Scot. A mascot that can be both versatile and iconic democratizes its application by allowing students, faculty, staff, alumni and the wider Macalester community to project different organizational and cultural contexts onto MacQuack. By default, MacQuack can model a scarf of Macalester tartan, but alongside our sports teams or student organizations MacQuack could don a headband, binoculars, medical equipment, hiking gear, cleats or anything else. This would help to foster stronger emotional connections to our mascot and Macalester as a whole. Mac the Scot fails to meet the same criteria because he is unrecognizable without his garments. MacQuack plays nice, too! Imagine a duck wearing a scarf marching with Max the Cat, Nessie and/or Derec the Llama in tow, and see how easy it is to put them on a t-shirt. 

This facet of MacQuack’s flexibility also lends itself to fundraising and 

community-building initiatives. College students and our families are notorious for our love of pins, stickers, buttons, patches, t-shirts and all other products that can showcase our pride in our clubs, hobbies, and school. With a mascot that is still discernible through species and contextual connection to Macalester, rather than its caricature-esque accessories, an array of student and alumni groups have no limit to how they can complement their creativity with an official school mascot. I argue that there is a criminal lack of “fanart” for our school when we look at the artistic demographics of our students. A more suitable mascot could address this. The torch-passing

process from Mac the Scot to MacQuack could also be an opportunity to reinvigorate support for and pride in Macalester (especially during a time of so much flux and renovation) if it is done correctly. Ranked-choice polls could be spread in which students could decide the team name behind MacQuack — how do you feel about the Macalester Mallards? Maybe the Mac Teals? — and a farewell party could be hosted in Mac the Scot’s honor. 

To me, this potential for the dissemination of MacQuack (such as on chalkboards, posters and bumper stickers in the wider neighborhood/city) is the most profound reason in favor of adopting the mascot. Having grown up in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina — an area with numerous universities and colleges such as the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Duke and North Carolina State — I have a firsthand understanding of the extent to which good mascot design can facilitate the emergence of support and school spirit. Everywhere you go in Raleigh, you see Tuffy the Wolf and Ramses the Ram. It would make me extraordinarily proud to notice depictions of MacQuack around the Twin Cities and see visual indications of community support for our athletic teams. I posit that there may be more synergy with our school’s emphasis on our location in St. Paul if we have a mascot that relates to our surroundings — instead of a disparate rendition of people from a country across the Atlantic. Minnesota is famous for its nature, and the return of MacQuack could be an opportunity to emphasize the dedication our school parades to ecological health and sustainability. 

Macalester is leading the nation in its core values of equitable inclusion, care and diversity, but that is at odds with a reductive mid-20th-century depiction of an entire nationality. I empathize with the connection so many students, faculty, staff and alumni may have with Mac the Scot, but I beseech us to consider the affection that can go into retiring and preserving our

current mascot while maintaining a connection with our school’s past through the reemergence of MacQuack. More than anything else, I would like to appeal to the same truth that Macalester often champions — we can always do better.

• [email protected]