Finding an appropriate name for the new college joining the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and the College of Education commanded much of the discussion during a faculty and staff open forum Wednesday.

Preserving the identity of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences is important for the college’s reputation, and part of that will come through preserving the name, said Gretchen Mosher, lecturer of family and consumer sciences education and studies.

“Our name has a lot to do with how we are perceived,” she said. “We were the first school to change our name from home economics to family and consumer sciences. Nationally, our program continues to be out in front of everyone else’s. We need to keep our name at the top of the heap.”

Mary Gregoire, professor and chairwoman of apparel, educational studies and hospitality management said when her department combined three different programs — family and consumer sciences education and studies, textiles and clothing, and hotel, restaurant and institutional management — those in the department had a hard time at first in choosing a name.

“It will basically come down to the philosophy of the new college how the new name is formed,” Gregoire said.

“When my department combined, we had three different departments, each with a unique identity. We decided to have an overarching title but keep the individuality within our programs. It’s like when you buy a package of Kraft Cheese [& Macaroni], you don’t see the Phillip Morris logo displayed on the box.”

Although the larger number of students contained within a combined college has been regarded as a positive outcome of a merger, Janet Brown, alumna of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said it could also have a negative effect on programs.

“If we focus on adding more and more students, we could be stretching ourselves so thin we lose focus on family and consumer sciences,” she said. “Numbers don’t necessarily build a quality product — I want quality.”

Mosher said she has two degrees from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and she valued the smallness of the college then.

“The advisers are very close to the students; they work hard to make sure students reach their full potential,” she said.

“I had two sisters who went through the LAS college, and they just kind of floated their way through. But I never felt lost in the system here.”

The forum was the last of four sponsored by the Planning Committee on the Combination of the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, and Susan Carlson, associate provost and committee facilitator, said she is happy with the input she and the rest of the planning committee has received.

“The planning committee meetings have been so wrapped up in planning that we haven’t been able to have discussions like these,” Carlson said. “I think we’re all trying very hard to be open to every idea and not to put blinders on.”

She said that, even when the forums would become tense, she was glad people wanted to come together to talk.

“In an academic environment, people should care about issues. Concerns are not problems, concerns are an engagement of important issues,” she said. “I feel like we’re in the middle of a conversation, not a struggle, and that’s progress.”