Hey Friends Worlders thought you might wanna know!

To: Friends World Community
From: Robert Glass, Dean
Re: an update on the program name change
Date: November 7, 2006

For the last two years there have been formal and informal discussions
within the Friends World community regarding the possibility of
changing
the name of the Program. This topic has been brought up at community
meetings at some centers (the Japan and China Centers), or over student
lunches at other centers. More recently, it has become an item of
concern in marketing studies of how best to increase enrollment in the
Friends World Program. As such it has been discussed at a number of
meetings of both World Council and the Council of Overseers. As the
Director of one overseas center put it to me this past spring after a
community meeting:

"the majority of our students seem to feel strongly . . . [that] the
name Friends World on their transcript might lead a potential employer
or graduate admission committee to question if ours is a theological
program, which we are not, or perhaps if unfamiliar with Quaker
terminology, assume we are a "hippy school" that does not take academic
standards seriously, which in my estimation we are not. As familiar and
fond as many of us must be of our present name, new students appear to
have strong (and negative) first reactions to the name, and often talk
about it in jest. This concerns me especially because of our falling
enrolment, and if we are to increase our attraction to prospective
students I feel we need to further reconsider our name."

The Friends World Program is almost totally supported by the funds it
receives from student tuition. Friends World has neither an endowment
nor a large group of wealthy alumni who support the program with large
annual gifts. (As our alumni often seek out careers of service to
others
rather than careers in the business world, annual alumni support totals
less than the tuition from one student.)

As the name of the program is now seen as a contributing factor to low
enrollment, and enrollment is at a ten year low, the decision has been
taken to seriously entertain proposals to change the name of the
program
before the next marketing and admissions cycle. The new name would
better reflect the mission of global engagement to those external to
the
program.

I write now to give the community a short update on the change of name
-- prominent on the agenda of the next meeting of the Council of
Overseers this Saturday November 11th at 10 am. The Council of
Overseers
will sort through the various suggestions and forward a few final
choices to Long Island University.

There are three parts to the discussion on the name change:

First, there is a discussion of the title of the academic unit itself
--
program, center, college, institute etc. It seems that it will not be
possible to use the term "college" instead of "program," which likely
leaves us with either center or institute (though other suggestions are
welcomed). Retaining the term program seems to have less support.
Second, the next part of the name seems likely to be global,
comparative
or international.

The third part of the name will likely be either studies or education,
with a fourth consideration being whether or not to include the term
"experiential."

Two of many examples: Institute of Global Studies; Center for Global
Experiential Education

As we need to have the final name to LIU Marketing Services in the
first
week of December in order to make the deadline for revisions for next
year's marketing and admissions cycle, the Council of Overseers will
make a decision at the meeting this Saturday.

Please do give this some thought, or weigh in with your comments even
now, by sending suggestions to the student executive, Paul Cox at
paulcox72@gmail.com . Paul will collect the responses and forward them
to the Council of Overseers.