Two local colleges are in the process of joining the growing ranks of universities, and one of them is contemplating changing its entire name.
As universities, Villa Julie College and Loyola College in Maryland would be part of a national renaming trend that includes state institutions like Towson University, Morgan State University, Coppin State University and Salisbury University.
For Villa Julie, the change could be more radical, as the Baltimore County college's board of trustees is expected to decide tonight whether to adopt a new name as it becomes a university.
The trend of colleges taking advantage of the prestige and recognition that many think come with being a university has been going on for years, experts say.
About 120 public and private four-year colleges changed to universities between 1990 and 2002, according to a study in The Review of Higher Education, and Christopher C. Morphew, the study's author, says the trend is continuing.
"There still seems to be a relatively large number of institutions looking into doing it," said Morphew, an associate professor at the University of Georgia's Institute of Higher Education.
Loyola's board of trustees voted in April to move forward with the renaming process, pending the results of research on how the change will be taken by college community members. If the research "continues to bear out that the name change is a good idea," the college will request university status from the state later this summer, said spokeswoman Courtney Jolley.
Villa Julie has already received state approval for university status.
Administrators say Villa Julie's current name doesn't reflect that it separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1967, went coeducational in 1972 and became a four-year college in 1984. It was started by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1947 as a women's school.
"We had to look at names that represent our organization," said Glenda LeGendre, vice president of marketing and public relations. Four names will be considered today: Tufton University, Greenspring University, Stevenson University and Rockland University, all names with geographic or historic significance.
Administrators at Villa Julie and Loyola said the word university better represents their institutions. Generally, universities are bigger institutions with a broader spectrum of academic offerings.
