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Alumni trying to block change of NCSA name
They call idea poorly researched, say it will weaken school's brand
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Published: May 8, 2008
Updated: 05/08/2008 01:25 am
Last month, the trustees of the N.C. School of the Arts voted to recommend changing the school's name to the "University of North Carolina School of the Arts."
Now, as the UNC board of governors prepares to vote Friday on that request, a group of NCSA's former students and others are doing their best to prevent the change.
Supporters say that the change would make the school better known, help with recruiting, raise its stock among donors and clear up confusion among people who think that NCSA is just a high school. NCSA is both a high school and a university.
Opponents, however, say that the name change would discredit the school's history and weaken an established brand.
They also say that the idea was poorly researched and has no financial muscle behind it.
NCSA alumnus Matt Sherman has circulated a petition against the name change on Facebook, a social-networking website. More than 300 people have signed it -- including Skip Sherman, Matt's father, who is also an alumnus and a former board member.
Almost 40 letters have been sent to the Winston-Salem Journal about the issue, most from people who oppose the name change, such as Gretchen Wolf, a parent of a former student who wrote that the name change "effectively erases the reputation and recognition of this wonderful school" and "confuses (its) mission … with that of the more pedestrian university system."
J. Craig Souza, the vice chairman of the UNC board of governors, said yesterday that he had received letters from alumni opposing the name change.
"I'm interested in hearing both sides," he said.
At this point, school officials appear unconcerned about the opposition to the name change. Suzanne Hilser-Wiles is the chief advancement officer at NCSA, overseeing the school's fundraising, marketing and communications arms.
"If all the (petition) signatures are authentic and actually from individuals who are alumni of the school, they still only represent 3.6 percent of the 8,590 alumni to whom we mailed a request for input," Hilser-Wiles wrote in an e-mail. School officials said that their request for input yielded responses from 261 former students. Fifty-six percent favored the name change, with the rest opposed or taking no position.
John Mauceri, NCSA's chancellor, called the reaction of some alumni to the proposed name change "a standard thing." He did take issue, however, with those alumni who have made him out to be the villain, saying that although he supports the name change, "this is the board's initiative, not mine."
Michael Pulitzer, the chairman of NCSA's board of trustees, said that the school "as an institution, has sought a broad spectrum of input, including alumni, as part of this discussion."
Some alumni think otherwise. Take Alexandra Sokol, who studied dance at NCSA in the 1970s and now works at two companies, including The IMBrand Group, a brand-communications consultancy.
"The North Carolina School of the Arts is a solid and respected 40-plus-year brand that carries weight in the international performing-arts community and beyond," she wrote from Los Angeles in a letter to the Journal. "As a brand strategist, I would never change an established name without deep research on the implications of that change and without assurance of a solid budget to market the new brand."
Hilser-Wiles conceded that there "is a group of people who know about the School of the Arts and its excellent reputation," but that it's "relatively small and generally composed of alumni who are working in certain sectors of the performing arts."
NCSA officials say that the school is still working on its marketing budget and has not earmarked money "specifically" to market the name change.
If approved, the new name will be incorporated into existing marketing plans, which include "already-planned" updates of such marketing vehicles as the school's recruitment brochures, advertising, Web site and logo.
These are part of what Hilser-Wiles called "the long-term plan to help strengthen the school's brand through a consistent look and language" and "are done without incurring additional costs for marketing."
As for research, Hilser-Wiles pointed to in-house data to bolster her case that the name change will aid in recruiting. The data suggest that the school's "applicant pool is not increasing in a manner that would allow us to be more selective in our admissions process."
She blamed this on "a growing perception" that NCSA "is just a high school" and is therefore "not on the same level as our peer institutions."
"We hear this often from those deans, faculty and staff who are regularly engaged in recruiting for the school," she e-mailed. Formal market research, as she wrote to Skip Sherman in an e-mail April 18, "would be a waste of money" because "we would be trying to prove what we already know -- we are frequently misunderstood to be a high school."
Robert Beseda, an assistant drama dean, said that many students now mistake NCSA for one of a growing number of high schools with a "School of the Arts" name or for a conservatory that does not grant degrees.
"It comes up all the time," he said. "Students don't realize that we're an accredited university."
■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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