What's in a name?

On March 6, an article ran in the Arizona Daily Star explaining that "The University of Arizona Honors Center is getting promoted this summer to the distinguished position of Honors College." The article goes on to explain that there won't be any new administrators, departments, faculty or courses. It states that "advocates for the new name freely admit the change is a matter of semantics."

If the change effects nothing more than the name, why is the change necessary?

The leader of the proposed change, Roger Dahlgran, explains the need for the change saying that "many high school students BELIEVE that an honors college serves them better than an honors program." Is he suggesting that we should change the name of our honors program to fool incoming high school students into believing the program actually holds some redeeming worth?

Patricia MacCorquodale, the head of the Honors Center, said that "the name change will give the program more input on curriculum decisions."

However this is not consistent with the stated position of the faculty committee supporting the change, that the change is semantic. Is the change perhaps to fool our own power-driven administrators into believing their sphere on control has expanded in power, when in fact it has only changed in name?

I think we should be asking, is it worth the cost of reprinting ALL of the Honors Center material to reflect the change, worth the cost of manufacturing a new sign for the Slonaker House, worth the time of the faculty senate and worth the confusion of students accustomed to the Honors Center (for whatever it's worth) to make a change with the sole purpose of fooling the university community, and falsely boosting the power-driven egos of university officials?

Zachary Neal
Philosophy and Latin sophomore