It took just a few minutes Tuesday night for Grayson County College’s Board of Trustees to decide to drop the word “county” out of the name the college uses in its everyday life. Like most people, the college will retain its formal name of the Grayson County Jr. College District. But from now on, it will be known simply as Grayson College.
GC president Alan Scheibmeir said folks shouldn’t expect to see big cranes roll up anytime soon to start changing out signs at the college.
“We will take it as it comes,” Scheibmeir told the board after they voted. He said signs will be replaced as they wear out.
Scheibmeir had told the board the college staff was in favor of the change in the name, but he added that there were likely to be plenty of people on both sides of the issue. He said dropping the “county” out of the name would better reflect the students who come to the college since many of them are from outside Grayson County. A fair number of them are even from outside the United States. He said a number of other county colleges have dropped the word out of their names.
“But (the name change) is not something we are going to wall to defend,” Scheibmeir said. He said if the board wanted to stay with the old name, they could probably find plenty of people to agree with them and justify not changing. If the board, however, wanted to go for the more modern sounding name, there were probably plenty of people who would support that step as well.
When it was time to take a vote, none of the trustees voted against the change.
The board received information from Shelle Cassell, GC marketing director, on the process for changing the name. According to that information, after Tuesday night’s vote, there are just three steps left the school needs to complete before the change is complete.
The college will notify the Texas Higher Education Coordinating board of the change by submitting a copy of the resolution certified by the secretary of the board. The college will then submit a substantive change request to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and notify the Metroplex Higher Education Council.
“The hardest part of the change,” Cassell wrote in her material for the board, “will be cultural.”
Bill McFatridge, vice president of the GC Board of Trustees, seemed to personify that thought when he implored, everyone to forgive him when he slips up and calls it GCC.
