Dixie State University Still at War With Itself Over Proposed Name Change
“Jordan Sharp, DSU’s vice president of marketing and communication, said the name is becoming an impediment to recruiting out-of-state students.”
This battle has been going on for over a year now. Every time this comes up, I am reminded that Yale is not changing its name, despite Elihu Yale’s involvement in the slave trade.
Deseret News reports:
Proposed Dixie State University name change evokes emotional debate
As student body president of Dixie State University, Penny Mills says she loves everything about the rapidly growing public institution.
But she notices that when she visits her home in Utah County, she rarely sees students wearing apparel emblazoned with the university’s logos.
“I can count on one hand the times that I’ve seen it out of St. George. … As a student body president, I want everyone to know the university that I go to. I want everyone to be proud of the university because of how proud I am of it. But that’s not the case. Students don’t do that. The alumni don’t wear the apparel. That is not good for a brand,” Mills said.
Mills was part of a panel discussion on a proposed name change for the university hosted Thursday by Dixie State University’s Institute of Politics & Public Affairs.
Both the university’s trustees and the Utah Board of Higher Education voted recently to support changing the university’s name. A name change would require a statutory change approved by the Utah Legislature.
Beyond issues with the brand, some panelists addressed the name’s impacts on students, faculty and the university.
Jordan Sharp, DSU’s vice president of marketing and communication, said the name is becoming an impediment to recruiting out-of-state students.
“Forty percent of our recruiting area is outside of the state. Twenty percent in Utah are saying, ‘I’m probably not going to come there because of that name,’” Sharp said. “Every 1% that we don’t get or lose is about $350,000 to the institution.”
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The opening paragraph says that DSU is a “rapidly growing” university, but then near the bottom DSU’s VP of marketing and communication says the name is hurting recruitment of new students.
Which is it?
If the name offends them, be honest about it. Don’t make up excuses to change the name.
How did a college in Utah get the name Dixie State?
I would approve a name change. But, I am biased. One Great-grandfather was in 1st Connecticut Volunteers, Heavy Artillery, another in 24th Michigan, and the brother of a great grandmother was a color bearer with the 53rd Illinois and mortally wounded at Vickburg.
It got the name because the climate in southern Utah was conducive to cotton production. Brigham Young wanted the people in the Utah Territory to be self sufficient and they needed to have textiles manufactured locally. Young said, “What now can we do? Why, instead of being merchants, instead of going to St. Louis to buy goods, we can go down to our Dixie land, the southern part of our Territory, and raise cotton and manufacture goods for ourselves.” This was a geographical designation, not a political one. But, college students are standing in line to have their feelings hurt. After they get rid of “Dixie” they’ll go after “southern” Utah…
Thanks for the explanation. Learn something new everyday.
Tell them the university is really named after Dixie McCall, the head nurse on the TV show “Emergency!” played by torch singer Julie London, opposite her jazz pianist husband Bobby Troup as Dr. Joe Early.