Pacific's 16th president in 2003 and retired in 2009. Tommy Thayer, lead guitarist of the band KISS, was elected to the university's board of trustees in 2005. Pacific's 17th president, Lesley M. Hallick, was named on May 19, 2009. Mascot In 1896, alumnus J.E. Walker, who had been a missionary to China, and his mother gave the university a bronze Chinese statue. Qilin (pronounced chee-lin or ki-rin) is a mythical Chinese creature with a leonine stance, a unicorn-like horn, and deer or ox hooves from the Qing Dynasty. During this period, qilin were often represented with a dragon head, fish scales, ox hooves and a lion's tail. Said to be a good omen of wisdom and prosperity, the Pacific qilin was nicknamed Boxer by its Chinese and Japanese students as an embodiment of the community's cultural diversity. In the first half of the 20th century, the original mascot was the center of informal "Boxer Toss" events, where different clubs and groups scrimmaged for the statue as a tradition of passing its care from one group to another. In 1968, Boxer became the university's official mascot, replacing Benny Badger. The next year, the statue disappeared, and only small pieces of have returned over the years. In the 1980s, the statue was recast as Boxer II; after supposedly enjoying an epic road trip across America, it too disappeared in the mid-2000s. In 2006, the university commissioned a 12-foot tall sculpture to replace the missing Boxers, which now stands in a central park welcoming students to the residence halls. An alumnus returned parts of the original statue to the university in 2012. In 2018, alumni funded the design and casting of Boxer III by artist Pat Costello, unveiled during Homecoming weekend. Kept in trust as part of the university's art collection, the statue and exhibits on its cultural and community history are on display in the Tran Library. Academics Pacific is home to five colleges, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. College of Arts & Sciences Organized into 3 schools—Arts & Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences—the college offers over sixty undergraduate degree options, including unique options in Asia-Pacific studies, communication sciences & disorders, creative writing, editing and publishing, music therapy, outdoor leadership, nonprofit leadership, social work, and a suite of sustainability-centered art and science programs. The low-residency Masters of Fine Arts in Writing program, one of the earliest in the nation having begun