Alumni struggle to keep the name
Lizzie McQuillan
Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: News
Jim Kennelly insisted that his evening began as any other until he received the e-mail from President Linnane concerning the possible name change from Loyola College to Loyola University. "It just pains me that I got this e-mail out of the blue," he said. "After I put my kids to bed I typed out a response in the dining room… first to the message board, then a letter to the editor and then to feedback… it doesn't feel like anyone is listening."
A member of the class of 1988 who served as the President of Student Government in 1986, Kennelly is a publicist and lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his family. Kennelly stands among a large crowd of alumni, students and faculty disheartened by the name change. Over the past weeks the alumni reacted in various ways, such as setting up an online petition, creating an interest group on Facebook and flooding e-mail inboxes and message machines of both the president and the Alumni Relations department.
"We can explain that Loyola is an outstanding multi-unit university without changing the name of the school," said Kennelly. "This is a reductionist approach to a marketing problem, and shows no respect for the history of the school."
The name change is part of the college's strategic plan conducted by the steering committee and has been under review by the board of trustees. The plan, implemented in 2006 with the anticipated approval date in October of 2008, includes necessary steps to embrace the future by staying rooted in the school's core Jesuit values.
The overreaching goal of the plan is to establish Loyola College as the leading Catholic university in the United States. Focusing on ideas for global, graduate and undergraduate initiatives, the draft of the plan went through several revisions over the past year. According to the calendar posted on the plan's website, the proposal is to go under review by the faculty assembly, alumni, student government and finally the school's cabinet and senate before the spring semester comes to an end.
A member of the class of 1988 who served as the President of Student Government in 1986, Kennelly is a publicist and lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his family. Kennelly stands among a large crowd of alumni, students and faculty disheartened by the name change. Over the past weeks the alumni reacted in various ways, such as setting up an online petition, creating an interest group on Facebook and flooding e-mail inboxes and message machines of both the president and the Alumni Relations department.
"We can explain that Loyola is an outstanding multi-unit university without changing the name of the school," said Kennelly. "This is a reductionist approach to a marketing problem, and shows no respect for the history of the school."
The name change is part of the college's strategic plan conducted by the steering committee and has been under review by the board of trustees. The plan, implemented in 2006 with the anticipated approval date in October of 2008, includes necessary steps to embrace the future by staying rooted in the school's core Jesuit values.
The overreaching goal of the plan is to establish Loyola College as the leading Catholic university in the United States. Focusing on ideas for global, graduate and undergraduate initiatives, the draft of the plan went through several revisions over the past year. According to the calendar posted on the plan's website, the proposal is to go under review by the faculty assembly, alumni, student government and finally the school's cabinet and senate before the spring semester comes to an end.
Viewing Comments 1 - 6 of 6
Jim Kennelly
posted 4/29/08 @ 12:03 AM EST
Lizzie--
Sorry to nitpick but if you check your tape, you'll see that I said I was the president of the Class of 1986 for two years but graduated in 1988. (Continued…)
Greg Miller
posted 4/29/08 @ 8:27 AM EST
I am amazed by the controversy the proposed name change has caused. No amount of marketing will change the experience of being on campus. If you are trying to lure students from west of the Rockies, marketing comes into play but having just been through the marketing process placing 4 kids in college the past two years, it's the on-campus experience that makes the final decision. (Continued…)
Laura
posted 4/29/08 @ 9:29 AM EST
"It's discouraging that this keeps coming up," said Linnane, who has addressed the argument in many forums in the past few weeks. "Loyola as a comprehensive university puts a focus on undergraduate education and highly personalized education. (Continued…)
John
posted 4/29/08 @ 1:15 PM EST
"The debate of a name change has come up at various other universities over the past years. Several schools have experienced immediate success to the change. (Continued…)
Jim
posted 4/29/08 @ 4:45 PM EST
It's worth noting that the NYT article cited in Lizzie's story also went on to discuss how Beaver College, which faced a very real resistance to it's existing name --more than 30 percent of prospective students polled said they wouldn't even consider the school because of the name-- Beaver College still sent out over 6,000 questionaires to alumni, students and parents to solicit their thoughts about a name change and spent a year as a educational community discussing the name change idea fully and openly. (Continued…)
Disgusted Alum
posted 4/30/08 @ 4:26 PM EST
As stated on the About Loyola page at www.loyola.edu:
"Loyola offers a liberal arts undergraduate program with majors and minors in 36 academic fields. (Continued…)
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