Green River Community College is dropping the “community” from its name, choosing to follow schools like Highline, South Seattle and Bellevue colleges.
The new name reflects the college’s increased focus on four-year possibilities through three new bachelor’s of applied sciences programs: two in information technology and one in marketing. The three programs are the first four-year programs that have been offered at Green River ever since it was founded in 1965.
Green River President Eileen Ely did not return phone calls for comment on the name change, instead deferring questions to new communications director Allison Friedly.
While there’s no timeline for implementing the name change, Friedly said, the school will work with committees to transition the college over to the new branding.
Friedly said that the name change is in line with a host of other colleges in the country, and that Green River will be the 19th community college in Washington to make the change.
According to Friedly, the rebranding effort hopes to lend more legitimacy to the degrees from the school, including its new four-year degrees.
“A bachelor’s degree from a community college doesn’t receive as much credence as a bachelor’s degree from a university,” Friedly said.
“It’s the name,” she said, “it doesn’t change the mission.”
The name change hasn’t been received positively by everyone at the school. In a recent opinion piece submitted to the Reporter, teacher Stephen Kinholt criticized the college’s choice to make the decision without sharing campus-wide polls on the change.
Kinholt spoke for a side of the school that worries about losing the “community” feeling by eliminating the word from the college’s name.
“To me, we’re giving up a lot more than we’re getting back,” Kinholt said. “There’s no reason that we can’t have these four-year degrees and not have the community name.”
He says that community colleges, by name, are a unique institution in the world that fill a very specific and important niche. By removing the name community, Kinholt says that it changes the nature of the school and orients it more toward students from outside of the area.
“It conveys a sense of the community,” Kinholt said.
He was also frustrated with college officials for not notifying faculty of the name change, and only just now are communicating the change.
“I don’t think a lot of the people in the community know. The only place I saw it was in the student school newspaper,” Kinholt said.
Matt Swenson, college grant director, said that the name change won’t affect grant funding for the school because the name change won’t affect the college’s category in public education.
“There’s no immediate evidence that it will have any significant impact either way,” Swenson said.
Swenson said that his office will continue to look into how the name change could affect grant funding.
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