Saint Peter’s University hosted its first Peacock Pride Day to celebrate the legacy and the birthday of the late Rev. Robert Ignatius Gannon, S.J., former Saint Peter’s dean and the “Founding Father” of the peacock being implemented as a symbol of Saint Peter’s, on Wednesday, April 20.
Peacock Pride Day celebrates the past, present and future of Saint Peter’s University. It will become an annual event and will be hosted on a date close to Fr. Gannon’s birthday [April 20] in the future.
During the celebration, students, faculty, staff and administrators, decked out in Peacock gear, enjoyed food, giveaways and music by a DJ. In addition, the University’s new – and fiercer – peacock mascot named Peter made his debut!
Fr. Gannon, who was born on April 20, 1893, was the dean at Saint Peter’s when it reopened after being closed during World War I. It was his vision that Saint Peter’s adopt the peacock, symbolic of the resurrection in the Catholic tradition, as the school’s official mascot. Fr. Gannon passed away in 1978.
