Getting to Know the Sarah Lawrence Skunks

Photo Credit: Bryan Padron via Unsplash

Late at night, they skulk through Slonim Woods with a distinctive stench wafting from their streaked, grungy hair. During the day, they are very antisocial and never show up to class. No, it’s not you, it’s the SLC skunks. 

We invest in many mascots here at Sarah Lawrence College, from the old reliable black squirrels and gryphons of yore to the newer rat, bat, and slug cults, but no one is so approachable as the down-to-earth skunk family we accept as our own. Junior Allison Dennis calls them her favorite thing about campus.

Skunks have been prowling through Sarah Lawrence's history for over half a century. The first recorded relationship between students and skunks is documented on November 21, 1951 when a student wrote to the New York Herald Tribune asking where they could purchase a pet baby skunk. The education editor of the Tribune, Fred M. Hechinger, said that he hoped the school would include skunk kennels so the individualism of the students wouldn’t be “cramped by the absence of proper skunk facilities.” The only potential follow up to this incident is a brief sentence in a Phoenix article from May 7, 1952: “Mondays and Thursdays are the best days for mail and packages… only once was a pet skunk sent to the College.” 

After this incident, skunks disappear from our archive record, only to resurface in 2011 when it is mentioned that skunks often run into students on their way home. Gail Hoffmann was hired to trap skunks and other animals for the school at that time and referenced a particularly “angry” skunk who had a deep interest in the school’s crew equipment.

Now students appear to be connecting with the campus skunks more than ever. George Scott ‘21 says of the skunks, “Sarah Lawrence kids are smelly so they fit right in.” He also suggested that, in the absence of a black squirrel hangout, we should consider a skunk venue instead.

Students living in Slonim Woods and Andrews Court are the most likely to have run-ins with the campus skunks, who seem to be cohabitating with the ever-overturning student body in harmony.  A resident of Slonim Woods, who wishes to remain anonymous, fed a skunk an apple cider donut as a celebration of fall this week when he noticed the skunk eating trash. The student, a junior, said he would describe the skunk’s personality as “Skittish. A little bit kind of aloof you know? Not someone who I would particularly make an effort to become close with, but perhaps treat it like a person with respect and love and kindness.”

Sarah Gartner ‘21 observes the skunks often at her house in Slonim Woods where they enjoy her trash. She knows three of them well and calls them My Girl, My Guy, and Fatty Boi, who is apparently a large skunk. “I was watching him cross the street and he was like waddling. And then he is so fat that he had to push himself up on the curb.” Gartner recalls. “Then he fell on his back and he could not get on the sidewalk, which is pretty tight, so I named him Fatty Boi.”

Unfortunately, our skunks have experienced tragedy this semester. When news reached the student body that one of the skunks had died recently, sophomore Julian Hanes says the news was terrible. Hanes had recently attempted to befriend a skunk on the hot rock by making animal sounds back at it to try to  help it feel it was understood. “I wanted to make friends with it which provoked my initial animal sounds,” he said. His friend, junior Corinne Alexander says that for her, the presence of skunks on campus is now an integral part of Sarah Lawrence culture and the death of the skunk was very sad.

In typical Sarah Lawrence fashion, there have also been speculations as to the skunk(s’) astrological chart: their’ often standoffish attitude has led students to suspect them of being Aquariuses. Anonymous says, “It adds an odor but I’m not sure beyond that I think we’re yet to see the positive or other contributions of this aforementioned skunk.” 

Gartner describes them as Heimbros. “I feel like they all like to keep to themselves like they wouldn’t really be social with everybody so like a few people and kind of just like Sarah Lawrence everybody else.

But, despite their too-cool-for-school demeanor, they love us at heart. Micaela Eckett ‘21 recalls how her dog last year would attempt to play with the skunks and they would sulk rather than spray him away. Get to know your claw-footed neighbors, their personalities are more than just black and white.

Camryn Sanchez, ‘21

Disclaimer: This article was published under the Ashtray, the humor and satire section of the Phoenix. Please don’t take it seriously.