By MELISSA NIX
It's been two years since Mary Washington College became the University of Mary Washington. And despite some promises to the contrary, the most prominent signs around the Fredericksburg campus will no longer bear any reference to Mary Washington College.
The brick sign on the corner of William Street and College Avenue, which bears the old name of the school, is being replaced with one carrying the university's name and logo.
President William Frawley, who replaced William Anderson on July 1, said he is sensitive to the controversy that surrounded the change to university status. However, he inherited a university, he said, and is moving forward accordingly.
At a mid-July board of visitors retreat, Frawley asked if there was a consensus to change the signs.
"The fact that there were going to be new signs is something that had already been decided [before I arrived]," Frawley said. The wording on the signs came out of the retreat discussion, he added.
Frawley said he knew of discussions last spring in which the landscape architect hired to design the signs, William Spell, suggested the new signs read University of Mary Washington, College of Arts and Sciences.
But at the recent retreat, "I had indicated that I thought this is a single university," Frawley said, noting the Fredericksburg campus's activities encompass all of the university.
"Planning, admissions, finance, operations--they are all coordinated out of here. This is where the University of Mary Washington, in its fullest extent, is located. This doesn't devalue Stafford or the College of Arts and Sciences, it's just accurate," he said.
The move to change the name of the school itself was controversial. Anderson, the former president, led the charge.
Administrators initially said the name "University of Mary Washington" would be an umbrella linking the school's undergraduate campus in Fredericksburg and the graduate school in Stafford.
In a memo Anderson circulated to the Mary Washington community in 2001, he wrote:
"All discussions about university status and an umbrella name have been with the assurance that the name 'Mary Washington College' must be retained forever, that the name always be highly visible for purposes of marketing the college, and that the name will always be used to refer to the undergraduate liberal arts program as it exists on the Fredericksburg campus."
When the school officially became a university in July 2004, the Fredericksburg campus, historically known as Mary Washington College, was renamed the College of Arts and Sciences. The graduate school, then called the James Monroe Center, became the College of Graduate and Professional Studies.
Steve Watkins, associate professor of English at Mary Washington, led a committee of students pushing to save the original name.
"They were going to put the word 'university' in there somewhere," Watkins said this week, referring to the name change activity more than two years ago. "The explicit promise was that the Fredericksburg campus would remain Mary Washington College of the University of Mary Washington."
He mentioned a Faculty Senate resolution passed last year, after faculty members were instructed to drop references to Mary Washington College in voicemail messages and stop using MWC stationery.
"They were erasing the name," Watkins said. "We asked that the board direct the administration to retain references to Mary Washington College."
He said the board responded in support of the resolution, but later "changed their story and now they're changing it again. Sadly, there has been duplicity in the way the administration and board has handled the name change all along."
In response, Frawley said he prides himself on "straightforward communication and delivering on what I say.
"I see what I'm doing as standing on the decision to advance the institution as the University of Mary Washington," he said. "I'm not trying to erase the college name or say Bill Anderson was right or wrong."
Recent graduate and former student-government president Frank Puleo said, "It's the same great place no matter what you call it. It's the people who make it the place that it is."
Puleo's classmate, Benjamin-Josiah Huff, said he thought the new signs are a good thing for the university.
"They do have a new identity now," he said. "You don't want incoming students to have mixed signals. Having correct signage is important."
The new William Street sign is scheduled to be finished by the end of September, said Ranny Corbin, Frawley's executive assistant. Corbin is overseeing the project.
Construction cost is estimated at between $80,000 and $90,000, and will include brick sidewalks and landscaping.
"It would have been nice to have it completed before the students come back to school," she said, but a backlog on ordering bricks pushed back the schedule.
Corbin said the sign will be ready for the school's presidential inauguration weekend, Sept, 30-Oct. 1.
Plans have been approved to change the signs at the corners of William Street and Sunken Road, and at College Avenue and U.S. 1, as well, she said, but there is no timeline to do so.
The plaques at the main, back and Goolrick entrances to the Fredericksburg campus will remain, said Ron Singleton, senior vice president for advancement and university relations. Brass plaques on the brick columns at each of these entrances bear the name Mary Washington College.
To reach MELISSA NIX:
Email: mnix@freelancestar.com
| 'I had indicated that I thought this is a single university.' William Frawley New president, University of Mary Washington |