Conservative trustees choose ‘Mighty Banyans’ for Florida college mascot

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press

The New College of Florida trustees dominated by conservatives appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis chose a new mascot Thursday for the Sarasota school: The Mighty Banyans. The tree mascot will replace one that has been in use since 1997, which is the mathematical formulation of the Null Set. That’s usually expressed as [  ] and was seen by many students, faculty and alumni as perfectly suited to the quirky, historically progressive college that doesn’t use traditional grades. This new mascot features a brown, fierce-looking banyan tree with “arm” branches raised in a muscular flex pose. It does retain the Null Set brackets as eyebrows and sports a leafy hairdo.