<\/p>\n
Fort Lewis College has begun its process of considering renaming the school, in part to counteract enrollment decline.<\/p>\n
Talk of a name change has been taking place for at least the last five years. Now it is in action. One of the college\u2019s first actions was appointing an 11-person name change committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a whole bunch of moving parts to this,\u201d said Mark Jastorff, vice president for advancement and committee chairman. \u201cWe started by talking to Native American alumni and had some preliminary discussions with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The college recently posted an online survey targeted to alumni, students, faculty and staff to gauge feedback.<\/p>\n
Jastorff said FLC has about 28,500 alumni. The survey reached about 14,000 alumni with active email addresses. The remaining alumni will get the survey by mail.<\/p>\n
FLC spokesman Mitch Davis said response to the surveys has been \u201cvery good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of good discussion, but it is so early in the process that we haven\u2019t evaluated the data yet,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are people who feel very strongly on all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school could transition to a university, or undergo a complete name change depending on feedback.<\/p>\n
Davis said some students are confused when they hear the word \u201ccollege,\u201d and depending on where they live, it can have different meanings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the East Coast, there is that perspective of private, elite, prestigious and expensive,\u201d Davis said in a previous interview. \u201cIf you\u2019re from California, college means community college. At FLC, we\u2019ve seen that from students. They don\u2019t realize we are a four-year school.\u201d<\/p>\n
FLC\u2019s wide-reaching efforts to garner feedback on the name change will include a series of focus groups on the Front Range, in the community and on campus. Davis said those focus groups will take place January and February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are curious about the words \u2018university\u2019 and \u2018college,\u2019 and whether that has any impact on students being hired,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The college will also speak with prospective students and high school counselors about the name change.<\/p>\n
Davis said the institution currently does not have any replacement names in mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you asked 100 people what they thought the name should be, you\u2019d get 100 different answers,\u201d he said. \u201cOur first step is to find out what stakeholders feel about a change, period.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the data leads the college to change its name, it must be approved by the Board of Trustees before being handed to a legislator.<\/p>\n
\u201cPending approval from the board, a bill would need to be voted on to change the name,\u201d Jastorff said. \u201cIt is a very involved process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jastorff said the goal is to present the data to the board and decide whether to change the name by late spring or early summer 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a perfect world, we would like to carry it into the Legislature in January 2019 if we go forward with a name change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Davis said it is \u201centirely possible\u201d the college will not change its name at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are gathering data to see where it leads us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe could stay Fort Lewis College.\u201d<\/p>\n
The naming consideration committee is:<\/p>\n
\u2030 Faculty members:<\/em> Jennifer Gay and Tomasz Miaskiewicz.<\/p>\n \u2030 Students:<\/em> Dustin Fink and Jacob Harrison.<\/p>\n \u2030 Staff members:<\/em> Davis, Derek Kosty, Lindsay Nyquist, Jastorff and Steve Schwartz.<\/p>\n \u2030 Community members and\/or alumni:<\/em> Jack Llewellyn and Meredith Mapel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" could help boost enrollment, image<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[132],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fort-lewis-college"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75863"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}