WEBER UNIVERSITY: WEBER A ‘Public Ivy’ In the Intermountain West A Proud Tradition of Academie hanging the name of the institution to Weber University is an idea germinated during a recent identity study as the consultants searched for ways to represent more accurately the image of the University. During their interviews both on and off campus, the consultants were told repeatedly that one of Weber’s most telling qualities was a feeling of smallness and close contact among faculty, staff, and students in the midst of a large public-university environment. The consultants came to believe that eliminating the word “State” would help convey that strength to the general public. The notion of the name change has attracted a devoted following among some faculty, staff, and students, and is no longer merely one of many recommendations from the identity consultants. Some of the thinking in support of the notion, summarized below, has generated a sometimes passionate advocacy, perhaps more than equalled by a fervent resistance. Viewed dispassionately, however, some compelling reasons for the change come forth rather clearly. The community college in Utah County recently became a four-year institution. The institution immediately added “State” to its name. Although it really has no statewide mission, it believed correctly that a name change would dramatically alter its image. But the change of name symbolized even more. Almost at once, Utah Valley State College began to make noises about being in the same category as Weber State in terms of its mission. College officials said they will seek to raise levels of state funding, faculty salaries, and teaching loads to a par with Weber. In the meantime, Southern Utah University, which wisely dropped the word “State” from its name when it rode the wave to university status, finished well ahead of Weber and just behind Utah State in a statewide poll of respectability. While other factors were involved, there can be little doubt that the absence of the word “State” has enhanced SUU’s reputation among people who know very little else about the relative qualities of Utah’s institutions. It seems beyond dispute that when a college has the word “state” in its name while lacking the actual name of the state (e.g. Wright State vs. Ohio State), it is automatically relegated to a lower-tier status in the minds of the general public. On the other hand, stateowned institutions known as “Something University” (e.g. Purdue) tend to enjoy membership in the same public image league with such state and private universities as Miami (Ohio) and Brown. This is true despite the fact that some of those “Something States” have superb programs and good reputations among their academic colleagues (e.g. Ball State in science). Many of those who were either neutral or opposed to Weber’s change from “College” to “University” now frankly admit to the salutary effects of that seemingly cosmetic adjustment. Weber has a small-college feel, despite its rather large public-university reality. People routinely refer to the institution with the single word “Weber” anyway. Athletic teams commonly leave “State” off uniforms. The peculiar local pronunciation of “Weber” gives it a uniqueness that argues for highlighting reference to it. Weber University rings with power and defuses the ongoing mental tendency to add “College” to “Weber State.” The name Weber University helps emphasize the institution’s talented and caring faculty, as well as its typically small classes. Weber University could even become known as a “Public Ivy.” Name changing always incites emotion, as we saw so clearly with the “university” issue in 1989. But then as now, many thoughtful members of the campus community believed that when the fervor died down, the reasons for working to create a new, more dynamic name dramatically outweighed whatever molluscan attitudes that mitigated against it. Indeed, one might argue that the passion that went into getting “university status” helped obscure the fact that the job was then only half finished. Abandoning the inaccurate and denigrating term “state 99 would complete the job. STATE UNIVERSITY: hirty years of graduates are affectionately attached to the name Weber State. They will soon replace, in influence and contributions, the older alumni, who knew our institution as Weber College. The large majority of faculty have been proud to Excellence are so lacking in confidence in ourselves that we agree with whatever negative things might be said about us and that we ignore the fact tMat an institution that has an open admissions policy but honestly judges its students, helping the capable and motivated to achieve and refusing credit and certification serve under the name Weber State. For them, the name to the incapable and unmotivated, inevitably will be change is a shameful declaration that their achievements under that name were far less than they had believed and that their pride was unjustified. There is highly positive feeling in the community from which we draw students about the word “state in our name. The large majority of citizens in Utah would be puzzled by a name change, especially one coming so soon after our successful battle to rename ourselves Weber State University. They would attribute to us an indecisiveness and lack of confidence which at present they do not associate with us. Far from improving our public image, the proposed name change would diminish it. The word “state” makes it unequivocally clear that we are a part of the Utah system of higher education. It clarifies the difference between the present institution and the private, church-owned college from which our institution grew. It also candidly admits who we really are, an institution with strong undergraduate programs in both the liberal arts and the vocational, applied, and professional fields, an institution ready to advance into graduate programs when local conditions permit, and an institution with the happy tradition of preserving an intimate, student-oriented atmosphere in our classes. The assumption that the word “state” in our name will cause people to suppose we think of students as impersonal products to be ground out on an academic assembly-line is simply unfounded and erroneous. It must be remembered that our present reputation for intimate classes and concern for students was built with the word “state” as part of our title. Changing our name implies an unwise response to a small minority of unknowing critics. It suggests that we criticized and thought ill of by some. In particular, there is no reason to be influenced by the lack of self confidence that characterizes some of our students when they arrive on our campus. There is much reason to be proud of the fact that we help great numbers of students to overcome their lack of self confidence and go forward to success in the academic and professional world. Keeping our present name obviates a repetition of the enormous effort and expense we recently went through in changing signs, symbols, stationery, publications, and so forth. It also puts the matter of symbols into proper perspective. Dissatisfaction on the part of some with the University’s present graphics and icons is a trifling matter and certainly shouldn’t be entangled with the question of a name change. Keeping our present name demonstrates that we discern the unseemly and often inconsequential reasons advanced for changing it. The fear that public universities with “state” in their name are of lesser status is irrational and unsubstantiated. The objection that the word “‘college” is still associated with the word “state” in our name is so trifling as to be ridiculous. The contention that the frequently used abbreviation “Weber State” is offensive and that the proposed new name is somehow more euphonious is equally ridiculous. It is our via) achievements in teaching, scholarship, and service, rather than our name, whatever it might be, that will give us recognition both within and beyond the borders of Utah. = — ine 2s = ca on me,