NOW THEY'RE UNIVERSITIES!

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

The late Rev. Dr. Carl H. Stevens, founder and president of Greater Grace Christian Fellowship, used to say that, “The Bible is the highest form of education”. I quite agree with Stevens’ statement. Unfortunately, probably 95% of the students and faculty at Massachusetts’ State Colleges would NOT agree with me, but they HAVE taken what many believe is a big step forward: Governor Patrick has signed into Law the changing of the names of most of Massachusetts State Colleges to be “Universities”. My understanding is this does not affect ALL of them. Mass. College of Art and Design in Boston will keep their name as will Mass. College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. Many schools, however, such as Framingham State, and my daughter Rachel’s alma mater Westfield State will now be known as “University”.

There’s been quite a move of changing the names of “colleges” to “universities” over the past fifteen years. One case in point is my other daughter Amy’s alma mater “Evangel University” which was known as “Evangel College” until the late 1990s. Many of the other Assemblies of God schools have made the same change. It has NOT affected my alma mater Central Bible College, however, nor has it affected my OTHER alma mater, Stonehill College.

It’s become the sort of rule of thumb that an institution of higher education which issues EARNED Masters’ Degrees (and in some cases, Earned Doctorates) AND which offers a wide variety of majors of both arts and sciences is REALLY a university, and thus many are making the change. Evangel, for instance, DOES offer several Masters’ Degrees and offers a wide variety of majors in the arts and sciences. Central Bible College, however, may confer honorary Doctorates, but offers only earned Bachelor’s degrees and most fall somewhere in the categories of either Bible & Theology, Christian Education, or Music. It’s just to narrow a focus to TRULY be a “university”. Likewise, Stonehill College of North Easton, Mass. which has been called one of the best small colleges in the country, does not offer any earned Graduate degrees, although they DO offer a very wide variety of majors in both the arts and sciences.

This DOES become somewhat confusing, however, to schools such as Boston College and Emerson College. Each of these schools, ESPECIALLY B.C., is truly a “university”. Well, why doesn’t Boston College change its name to Boston University? Well, duh, I think you know why... there already IS a Boston University! I guess the Methodists who founded B.U. were a bit more forward thinking than the Catholics who founded B.C.! Now, B.C. COULD change its name to something like “Chestnut Hill University”, but it would be throwing around a hundred years of tradition out the window. And, what would B.C. High School in Dorchester THEN be called?! Emerson has become known as a very “artsy” school and a very prestigious “artsy” school, at that. Some of the finest talents in entertainment and communications have graduated from Emerson, including my son, although the school was ORIGINALLY famous for training speech therapists and audiologists, which it STILL does. They DO offer Graduate Degrees. I think TECHNICALLY they’re a university, whether or not they change their name.

One of the other reasons Massachusetts changed the names is that we, along with Nebraska, were one of the ONLY states still using the moniker “state college” rather than “state university”. Most other states made that change over twenty years ago. I mean, we’ve all heard of Ohio’s Kent State University, for instance.
So, get used to it, it’s now Framingham State University, Westfield State University, etc.!