Mike at Night What's In A Name? What's in a name? For most of us, EVERYTHING is in a name. In fact, we pay more attention to naming things than we do just about anything else. My wife and I labored over naming our children for weeks before their births. We wanted their names to be perfect. We all like to hear our names, to be called by our names. One of the most important things we can do when we meet a new person is to remember their name. That impresses people more than just about anything else because our names are so important to us. We have had quite a controversy brewing at the college for a couple of years now over the name change. Some people underestimated the fervor that the people of this community and the staff and faculty of the college have for McCook Community College, the oldest community college in the state. The name is important, just as our own names are important. There was no reason for the change. As pointed out in an earlier editorial in the McCook Daily Gazette, there was no dictate by the North Central Accreditation Team that MCC's identity be stripped away. I've read all the statutes pertaining to community colleges in Nebraska including Legislative Bill 344, which was approved by the Governor on May 22, 1975. This particular bill defining technical community colleges and technical community college areas in Nebraska says absolutely nothing about individual campuses being required to give up their individual identities. It simply placed different community colleges in particular regions of the state into "areas", i.e. the Mid-Plains Community College Area. There were no committees formed at any level of the Mid-Plains Community College Area to study the feasibility and desirability of changing campus names. There was no action taken, formally or informally, by the Mid-Plains Board of Governors to change the name of McCook Community College. I t was simply done by administrative fiat and acted upon. There was little attempt to gauge the sentiment and the rationale of the community about a name change nor was any attempt made to involve the faculty and staff in this effort. It was simply done. Stationary was changed, phone messages were changed, signs were changed, diplomas were changed. No one graduating from MCC will have anything on their diploma indicating that they even went here. They will be getting a diploma from MPCCA, not MCC. That's bad enough but take a look at the MPCCA course catalog. In listing faculty members, the catalog states that Lance Creech, Kathy Dernovich and Jim Garretson all received their Associates degree from MPCCA-McCook Campus. They did no such thing. They all received degrees from McCook Community College and that's what their degrees say. I was always told when I was growing up to pick my fights wisely. I later found out that meant to only pick fights I could win. I'm not sure that whoever was ultimately responsible for doing away with McCook Community College picked that fight wisely. Frankly, we never should have reached the current situation to begin with. When told the name change was occurring due to an accreditation mandate, the McCook Foundation or the Board of Governors or the Faculty and Staff or the community in general should have verified that mandate, but we didn't. Now, after the fact, we discover there was no mandate. The new reason is that it was mandated in Legislative Bill 344. It wasn't. Look it up yourself. Someone up north just wanted the history and tradition of McCook Community College to go away. To go away and be replaced by a campus designation that shortchanges and demeans decades of students, faculty, staff and community members who have given their hearts, their money, their support and literally their souls to McCook Community College. I suspect it's not too late to have the proud name of this grand old institution reinstated. That is, it's not too late if enough of you care.____________ Mike can be e-mailed at mikeatnight@hotmail.com |