Thanks for your thoughtful response. It is very helpful to me and the board. You raise many of the issues we’ve been considering through this deliberation.

Let me relieve your fears about the money. I plan to share more about this later, but the costs for the change have been carefully calculated. Students will not be asked to pay one dime more if we decide to change to university. Overall the cost of a change is fairly minimal because so much of the work we do is electronically based.

We expect to raise gifts for the construction to replace the sign (which has been on the drawing board for replacement for some time no matter what.) The BC on the gates was done very low cost by our physical plant department. We will use up most of our printed materials with stickers announcing the name change on prospective student material – and we don’t stock pile those materials anyway, printing only enough for one year at a time. The bookstore has more “Belhaven” or “Blazers” stuff than it does “College” and those costs will not increase if this decision to change is made.

We’ve looked at all those angles of costs and would not even consider this if would make the cost of your education more expensive.

I appreciate all the important points you raise in your comment here on the blog, and will consider them carefully along with the responses and ideas from the 900 people who have responded so far.

RP

All these changes would cost a lot of money for the school. That would put financial need on the school and therefore most likely raise tuition. We, the students, are already paying a lot for the education here, and it was our choice to come here, but if the tuition goes up too much, you will lose a lot of students because we just won’t be able to afford it. We want to stay, but we have to think about our future. A lot of loans to pay off is not something we want. Many of us are coming here with the help of loans.

I have no problem with the school changing its name as long as tuition doesn’t go up. But I really do like our BC. Just thinking about small things like saying, “We love our BC!” would be lost. It doesn’t sound right saying, “We love our BU!” It changes the feel of the school.

I respect the fact that foreign students might not realize that we are not a high school, but if they are coming to a different culture, they should respect that our culture IS different than theirs. We should not decide to change our name simply because their colleges are called universities. I know before I went overseas, I researched the culture of the places I was going, and I was only eleven years old! Anytime anyone crosses cultures, it is their responsibility to research where they are going. If they do that, they will see that college is the same as university. That’s why there are no stipulations to becoming a university. They’re the same thing. And when you look up a college on their website, it tells you if it’s a four-year, two-year, or tech school. Of course, all universities that I know of are four-year institutions. If they decide not to come here because we are called college, then that’s their loss. They did not do their duty and research.

The ultimate reason always comes down to money. Please don’t make us pay more. The economy is too hard to start off as college graduates with large amounts of money owed. We came here because of the academic quality and we want to stay here. But we will leave if there is no other choice. We have to think of our future.

Thank you for listening.
Deanna Jean Vanderver

roger you are a man of God. take the longview i know it
will be the right decision.

tom maynor

the sights and sounds of the Belhaven campus i hope

you can still hear the sounds of the ducks on the Belhaven

lake… so fat from eating the Sunday evening sack

suppers they could hardly swim. the walk around the

lake in the fall was one of Jackson’s prettiest walks. we

especially enjoyed the benches along the path