While administrators at other universities across the country overwhelmingly support a name change for the School of Speech, many Northwestern alumni said the school shouldn’t change its name, according to a study released in December.
More than 90 percent of administrators surveyed said a name involving the term “communication” would suit the school better than its current name, the report said. Less than 5 percent of the administrators said that School of Speech was a descriptive name for the school.
Among the alumni surveyed, half of those who graduated before 1970 said the school does not need a name change. One third of the alumni graduating in 1970 or later also said the school does not need a new title.
About 85 percent of alumni said a name change would not affect their support for the school, the report said.
Speech Dean Barbara O’Keefe said the consensus among administrators outside NU surprised her, as did the lack of “brand recognition” that surfaced in the report. The study found that more than 75 percent of university administrators and 85 percent of corporate recruiters did not know the name of NU’s school.
“You tend to think that even if (the name) has liabilities, at least we have a name that’s recognized by people that deal with Northwestern,” said O’Keefe, who favors a name change. “We really have no brand recognition.
“In a sense, it’s a relief to know we’re not giving up brand recognition if we take a new name.”
Overall results were not surprising, and will allow the school to move forward in its discussions of a name change, she said.
“We were pretty sure before we started the study that we would get those kinds of results,” O’Keefe said. “It’s just a process we need to go through.”
O’Keefe said the names being considered for the school all include the term “communications.”
“Other schools like ours all have communication in their name,” she said. “Every name that looks appropriate to people has the word communication in the title.”
Speech sophomore Patricia Huie said that although she is studying communications sciences and disorders, the name did not affect her school search.
“I don’t particularly care, honestly,” Huie said. “I see how ‘School of Speech’ is kind of generic. But it seems like it would be hard to do an all-inclusive title.”
Once the school reaches a decision, administrators will present the name to the Board of Trustees, most likely at the April or June meetings. The trustees will make the actual decision on the change.
“All we get to do is make a request,” O’Keefe said.
The school’s name was last changed in 1920, before the school included departments such as theater, radio-TV-film and communication sciences and disorders, O’Keefe said. The amount of modification in the school throughout the last 80 years makes a name change likely, O’Keefe said.
Arbitron, Inc. and Edison Media Research conducted the survey of administrators, employers and alumni during the fall as part of an identity study of the School of Speech. O’Keefe worked with the two companies to design the identity study during the summer.
The School of Speech provided a random sample of between 500 and 600 alumni names to the companies, who also surveyed 78 chairmen of communications program departments across the country. The communications programs reflected in the study resembled the programs found in the School of Speech, the report said.
