When Rahel Stanford was a high school senior looking at colleges, she was surprised to learn Mississippi University for Women was a coed school.
Learning otherwise did not factor into her decision to go to the university, since at the time she wanted to enroll in its nursing program. (She graduated in May with a degree in Business Administration instead.) However, after getting a job in the campus bookstore, she began to notice a difference between alumni and some students shopping for apparel.
“A lot of students come in, especially male athletes, … they don’t want to get certain apparel that has MUW,” she said. “They would rather have The Owls.
“But a lot of alums … they prefer (apparel that says) MSCW,” she said, referencing the old name of the university, Mississippi State College for Women.
The name “Mississippi University for Women” has been a contentious topic among alumni and students since the early 1980s when the first men were admitted, even leading to a breach between alumni and university administrators in the mid-2000s when then-President Claudia Limbert pursued a name change.
The question came up again this semester when the Student Government Association released a poll asking students one question: “Would you support a University name change?”
More than 79 percent of students on campus answered, said SGA president and MUW senior John Jacob Miller.
“It’s the largest we’ve ever had, at least that anyone can recall,” he said.
A consensus was less clear, with about 41 percent saying they would support it, about 35 percent saying they would not and almost 24 percent reporting no opinion.
Miller said SGA does not have a position on the university’s name one way or the other, but they are planning to host discussions next semester to educate students more about the issue and the university’s history.
It’s a student-led initiative, not one administration came up with, said university President Nora Miller.
“We’re not taking any actions on this,” she said. “(But) it’s always something that’s circulating.”
History of ‘The W’
The school began in the 1880s as the Industrial Institute and College, the first state-funded school of higher education for women in the country. For some alumni and students who want to keep the current name, that history is important.
“I went out and got my master’s in Pullman, Washington, at Washington State University and they were talking about The W in my class,” said April Boudreaux Clayton, a 2011 MUW graduate. “The W is the first of women’s colleges in our nation — not just our state, but in our nation — and it’s known and it’s respected for that.”
As the school became more academically-focused, it changed to MSCW in the early 1900s, which is what it was when alumna and former Alumni Association President Beverly Jones graduated in the 1950s. Then when the Institute of Higher Learning pushed all eight state colleges to become universities in the 1970s, “The W” landed on its current name.
“You don’t change the name lightly,” Jones said. “When you see the name ‘Mississippi University for Women,’ or ‘The W’ as it’s branded, it has history. … If you lose all that history and all of the sudden you’re a new name that nobody knows, you’ve got a problem.”
The university began admitting men in 1982. Now the population of male students is about 20 percent — including those participating in the university’s newly revamped athletics over the last three years.
President Miller said admissions counselors have reported the name is an issue when recruiting students — both male students, and female students who actually are looking for an all-women’s college.
“Everyone talks about your elevator speech, your two-minute speech (to describe the university), and our’s is about what we’re not,” she said. “That’s a difficult place to be in. … It puts us at a disadvantage.”
Some of the students feel sports and other activities would increase if the name changed.
“I know my roommate would support (a name change) for sure, and a few others as well,” said sophomore Aaliyah McPhail, who answered “yes” in the SGA poll. “Mainly because we don’t have a strong male population on campus.”
With 2,813 students, MUW is not a particularly large university anyway, which is one of the attractions for some students. Alumna Audra Odom, who graduated in 1992, said the men she attended school with were never bothered by the name — or the lack of other men on campus.
She and other alumni pointed out MUW is one of only three public universities in the state that saw an enrollment increase this year, indicating the name is not hurting enrollment.
“If they’re not coming to the W because of the name, that’s a pretty shallow reason not to go to the W,” she said.
Odom, Jones and Clayton all support keeping the university’s current name — as does Clayton’s husband, Greg Clayton, who graduated in 2011.
Greg attended MUW because of its small population and class sizes. The name didn’t factor into his decision at all.
“It didn’t put me off,” he said.
He and Jones pointed out with the return of athletics three years ago and the rebranding the school underwent as a result, it would be fiscally irresponsible to rename the university now and have to rebrand all over again.
But not every alumnus agrees. Liza Cirlot Looser, founder and owner of Jackson-based marketing company The Cirlot Agency, said her firm donated about $500,000 worth of marketing research during Limbert’s push to change the university’s name and found that a vast majority of Mississippi high school students, teachers, parents and school counselors had no idea The W was coed. At the time, ACT had just published a report saying the 97 percent of female students would not consider going to an all-female school.
“Our business is to help people get more business,” Looser said. “… When a single name can cut you out of 97 percent of your market, then you change your name.”
Student opinion
Freshman basketball player Jacquette Young says he doesn’t have a strong opinion on his university’s name, but some of his teammates do — especially during away games when the announcer introduces the men’s basketball team from Mississippi University for Women.
“Some of them do (want the name to change),” he said.
“I just look at it on both sides,” he said. “Because it’s the history of the school, so they probably don’t want to change it.”
Other students fall squarely on the “no” side of the argument, like Ali Mara Easley, who is graduating today.
“I just don’t see the reason to change something that’s not really broken,” she said. “I understand there’s probably some men here that feel they should cater to them as well, but they knew when they came here, even though it’s a coed school, (that) back when it opened, it was … the only school around that would allow women to … continue their education.”
John Jacob Miller said SGA circulated the poll in late October and early November, after multiple students approached him and other SGA members about the issue. After seeing the poll’s results — and particularly the 24 percent who answered “no opinon” — he and the other students in SGA decided to plan a series of sessions for students next semester. One will be an educational session in January, taught by English and Women’s Studies professor Bridget Pieschel Smith, about The W’s history. There will also be a series of “listening sessions” for students to debate and hear each other’s opinions on the topic, he said. After that, they will hold another poll. Only then will SGA vote, probably in March, whether to recommend a name change to university administrators.
Even if the organization did recommend a name change, it would take an act by the Mississippi Legislature to actually change it.
President Miller said at this juncture, SGA is just gaging student opinion and using the opportunity to educate their fellow students about the university’s history. She doesn’t think a name change is coming now — but it will come eventually, she said.
“I’m in no hurry,” she said.
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