For decades after the disappearance of the Ichthyosaurus, City College had no mascot. The teams were nicknamed “Lavender,” in honor of the school song, and “The St. Nicks,” in honor of Saint Nicholas Terrace, where the college had moved uptown.

All this changed in 1934, when City College acquired its first official mascot. That year the Student Life Department decided to run a contest to pick a new mascot – a football being the prize for the winner. The beaver was chosen, with the explanation that “besides being a symbol of a busy, industrious animal who would sink his teeth into a job until he finished it, the beaver is also found on the New York City seal.” (The Ticker, September 27, 1949, 7)

Another version of the origin story, although admittedly false, took place on a football field:

The Lavender squad was four touchdowns behind Columbia, but kept fighting to the last. This was supposed to have prompted the Lion’s coach to remark that the City team “keeps gnawing and chewing away at our lead like a bunch of beavers.” The tag was supposed to have stuck from then on. (The Ticker, September 27, 1949, 7)

The beaver became an immensely popular mascot, his image frequently gracing the pages of The Ticker and Lexicon. At one point, a student group calling themselves The Beaver Party secured a victory in the student elections. Eventually a statue to the beaver went up in the business school’s student center on East 22nd Street in the 1960s. Bennie the Beaver was the name of the main mascot (named after a popular football coach in the 1930s), while the evening session’s mascot was Bernie B. Beaver.

The Beaver was at its peak of popularity at the school when Baruch became an independent college. Due to the fact that the beaver was the mascot of its mother institution, a new mascot had to be found. Baruch teams became known as the Statesmen – a nod to its prominent alumnus Bernard Baruch. The difficulty in portraying a statesman as a mascot resulted in a lack of images. Only a single attempt could be found over the more than thirty years of its existence.

Bennie the Beaver remained the mascot of City College until his retirement in 2004.