I WAS SURPRISED by a recent story in Metro that reported a decided coolness by students at Community College of Philadelphia (above) to Mayor Nutter's idea to change the name of the school to City College of Philadelphia. Few of the students quoted in the article seemed to engage the name-change idea enthusiastically, a typical reaction being that of a 19-year-old freshman who dismissed the mayor's new name proposal in an almost aggravated manner, "It won't make any difference," said Terell Watson of North Philadelphia. "If you want to change something, change these murder rates."
You were expecting, maybe, "Huzzah, Your Honor!"?
Young Mr. Watson can be forgiven for his rather impatient assessment. As a first year student, the name Community College of Philadelphia still seems freighted with delicious possibilities. It is, after all, College. It looks like a college and feels like a college. It's his college and he's proud to be there. Will changing the name to City College of Philadelphia give him a better education?
Well, maybe not him, but perhaps his younger brothers and sisters.
Forgive my bias as a proud graduate -- and current adjunct faculty member -- of Montgomery County Community College, but the label "community" college has sort of outlived its 1960's fuzzy-wuzzy inclusiveness. The architects of Pennsylvania's Community College Act in 1964 used the word "community" as a way of signalling taxpayers that "Hey, this is your college too! Come on over and take a course. It's just like a Big Y, except you can transfer the credits to Temple or Penn State." Or Harvard or Yale as it turns out.
"Community" college sounded so much more progressive and grown up than "junior" college, which is what most two year colleges were called back in those days. This was back when West Chester University was known as West Chester State Teachers's College, which in itself was a great improvement over it's original designation as neither a "university" nor a "teacher's college" but rather a "normal school." Teachers recieved degrees to teach at state normal schools, a name that sounds as strange today as community colleges will in another couple of decades.
Even when I was a student at Montgomery County Community College in the late '60's I didn't like the name. I loved the school; it changed my life. But the name sucked. In those days we attended classes in what had been Conshohocken High School on Fayette Street in downtown Conshy. I'm sorry, but the Montgomery County Community College of Conshohocken was a mouthful I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. "Where do you go to school?" asks a LaSalle student at a kegger. And I would reply, "I go to Em Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee (I never knew when to stop.) Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee Cee . . ."
These days students, faculty and administrators refer to the sprawling campus off Rte 202 in Whitpain Township as Mc3, which is easier written than abbreviated in spoken language (Em Cee Cubed?).
In those innocent Conshy High days we called it Montco, even though that name was better known and trademarked as a bargain brand of canned fruit and vegetables in all caps -- MONTCO. Others chose to refer to it in its fully abbreviated and awkward sounding nickname, "Montco Com Co." And there were a diabolical few who made it sound like a Latin dance craze: "Mo Co Co Co."
Oh, No No No.
In Philadelphia (Phila Co Co?) the college is known universally by the appellation "Community." Which is fine. Except if you walked into a Foot Locker and ordered a pair of sneakers with the brand name "Community" all the other college customers would be snickering "Bobos." And, frankly, bobos are fine. I made my kids wear them all through high school just to prove that footwear does not make the boy or girl. Of course they are now man and woman and they haven't spoken to me since.
I like the name City College of Philadelphia. It's classy. In New York, where City College is known simply as "City" rather than its full name (the City College of the City University of New York), the institution of higher learning shares a level of prestige and respect enjoyed by Temple in Philadelphia. Of Pennsylvania's 67 counties eligible under the Community College Act, Philadelphia is the only city that is also an entire county.
Why not celebrate that distinction? City College of Philadelphia. I could get used to that.
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