FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[D3fanboy]

Thursday evening, the North Central College Board of Trustees voted to change the name of the institution to North Central University Naperville. This change will go into effect July 1, 2027.


Not a fan.

been there man, it sucks.  Mount will always be MUC to me, UMU is trash.  NCUN...yikes.  Just wait for the logo changes that are certainly coming

NCC is going to be fine, but the caNCUN memes if they ever drop an early round playoff game, etc are sitting on a tee

[CCIWFan69]

I wonder if any other names were considered and NCUN was the best they could come up with....  ouch

[Gregory Sager]

Been there, done that.

A fair number of North Park College alumni were in a tizzy when our alma mater swapped out "College" for "University" thirty years ago. I was not one of them, because there were a couple of very valid reasons that led to the name change, and also because they kept it simple and didn't add an extra geographic qualifier, as some people on the Board of Trustees whom I felt were misguided were speculating that the new name would be "North Park University Chicago" (with a preposition such as "of" or "in" possibly preceding "Chicago" as well).

(I understand that North Central is in a different position, since there already is a school called North Central University, and, even  worse, it's a fellow D3 school. At least, that's my guess as to why the new name includes the word "Naperville".)

Thirty years ago, in an attempt to help some of my fellow NPC alums get used to our school becoming NPU, I told them to hang on to their North Park College sweatshirts and paraphernalia, and to buy up whatever was left of it in the bookstore, because it might be worth some good money someday. Well, I've never checked eBay to see if that's come to pass, but every now and then I'll see a current student walk around campus in a North Park College t-shirt or sweatshirt, and I smile at the thought of a legacy student stealing mom's or dad's old "College" clothing while packing to head off to NPU.

[CCIWFan69]

Been there, done that.

A fair number of North Park College alumni were in a tizzy when our alma mater swapped out "College" for "University" thirty years ago. I was not one of them, because there were a couple of very valid reasons that led to the name change, and also because they kept it simple and didn't add an extra geographic qualifier, as some people on the Board of Trustees whom I felt were misguided were speculating that the new name would be "North Park University Chicago" (with a preposition such as "of" or "in" possibly preceding "Chicago" as well).

(I understand that North Central is in a different position, since there already is a school called North Central University, and, even  worse, it's a fellow D3 school. At least, that's my guess as to why the new name includes the word "Naperville".)

Thirty years ago, in an attempt to help some of my fellow NPC alums get used to our school becoming NPU, I told them to hang on to their North Park College sweatshirts and paraphernalia, and to buy up whatever was left of it in the bookstore, because it might be worth some good money someday. Well, I've never checked eBay to see if that's come to pass, but every now and then I'll see a current student walk around campus in a North Park College t-shirt or sweatshirt, and I smile at the thought of a legacy student stealing mom's or dad's old "College" clothing while packing to head off to NPU.

North Central University Naperville does have a satellite campus vibe after recalling that there is a North Central University in MN.

[Gregory Sager]

Yep. And you can bet dollars to donuts that that UMAC school is not going to add "Minneapolis" to its name, either. The Rams will simply say, "We've had this name since 1998, so why should we change just because you've decided that you like the name, too?"

Dibs. They're a wonderful thing to have when they're on your side.

[ncc_fan]

Not happy with the NCUN name. I do understand that the President and Board of Trustees felt it was important to work university and Naperville into the name while retaining North Central, but this sure seems like the clumsiest of ways to do it. As others have pointed out, North Central University Naperville seems to label us as another school's branch campus.  I'm not sure that's an improvement on the community college-esque North Central College.

Personally, I prefer the branding contained in the current logo, which keeps the NCC name, includes the founding year (1861) to avoid misidentification as a community college, and identifies the school as Naperville's University.

[mr_b]

Been there, done that.

A fair number of North Park College alumni were in a tizzy when our alma mater swapped out "College" for "University" thirty years ago. I was not one of them, because there were a couple of very valid reasons that led to the name change, and also because they kept it simple and didn't add an extra geographic qualifier, as some people on the Board of Trustees whom I felt were misguided were speculating that the new name would be "North Park University Chicago" (with a preposition such as "of" or "in" possibly preceding "Chicago" as well).

I was in the faculty meetings for the discussions about changing the name, and it was interesting to hear the arguments against as well as the different choices for a new name.  There was a big debate over "North Park University" vs. "The University of North Park": one argument against the latter was that prospective students were still using print guides, such as Peterson's Guide to Colleges and Universities, to compare institutions.  The guides usually ordered schools alphabetically, and prospective Vikings would expect to find North Park in the "N" section rather than clumped together with all of the other "University of..." schools.  One proposal even touted a completely new name, "Nyvall University," in honor of North Park's founder, but that was ruled out because very few people would make that connection. 

In US higher education, there is a distinction between the two, with a university offering more graduate program options, while a college suggests a smaller or even more selective type of institution.  Furthermore, in many countries, as "college" is synonymous with secondary and not higher education. That said, schools can use "College" or "University" without having to meet any external conditions -- for example, Wheaton has chosen to keep "College" as their name.  North Park had expanded its graduate degree programs in the early 1990s, so it wanted its full name to reflect this fact.