[B]For all those who want to contribute to the name change campaign, this is the thread for you.[/B]
To start, I want to inform all students (and interested alumni in the area) that we will be having a meeting this coming Tuesday to start getting everything together and organized for the campaign ahead. The time will be in the evening around 6pm but that’s not firm, and the location will be on campus somewhere convenient. I apologize for the short notice, but this has been hard to set up with everyone’s busy and rapidly changing schedules. If you are unable to attend or you just want to help a little, please just send me a PM with your email or say something on here and I will be sure to keep you informed.
In general, the biggest thing we are going to have to do is inform the people. There are lots of misconceptions and just an all around lack of understanding on the situation that a lot of people have and we need to show them all the facts so that they can make an informed decision.
There will be a student vote in the fall of '08 and this will be our first biggest target. If we can’t get this to come back with an overwhelming positive vote in favor of the name change, our campaign may be sunk. I personally think we may need more time than this, but some have argued otherwise. If we do decide we need more time at the end of summer, the opportunity is there to go to the SGA and ask for a suspension of the vote until later.
We need to collect as much information as possible and spread it as well we can. A website, fliers, and any other way we can think that will get people to understand the facts is huge. We also have over a year’s worth of Name Confusion Log entries to put on the table. We can show how other schools have been affected by a name change and show how the Prefix/Modifier system denotes inferiority.
One thing I think we need to do is public surveying. Try to use scientific surveying tactics so that we have legitimate results. Gather information on what people think of the school, whether they know who we are or not, whether they know that we are not part of UNC-CH, and questions similar to this. I especially think we need to poll the alumni on this because a large portion of them have an attachment to the UNCC.
We also need to ready ourselves with answers to the arguments against the name change. These consist of stuff like:
- The UNC does more good for us than harm.
- No one will know who the University of Charlotte is.
- It will be expensive.
- I went to UNCC and I want it to stay that way.
- It will be time consuming and this time could be better spent elsewhere.
- It will take up time with the BOG and we need them to worry more about giving us adequate funding than changing our name. (This argument comes straight from Phil Dubois.)
- It will increase this whole “Great State of Mecklenburg” thing that has been going on with Raleigh. (Also, straight from Phil Dubois.)
(There are arguments out there so if you can think of them please post them.)
As for the website, I think we need to load it with information. We also need to make a list of people who are for the name change and keep its numbers public. We can also keep track of who of these people are alumni.
Some name ideas are:
www. universityofcharlotte.org
www. simplycharlotte.com
www. justcharlotte.com
www. nomoreunc.com
www. ucharlotte.com
Please voice your opinion on the website’s name if you have one.
We also need to pick a name for the group and at least two of us have agreed we like the name “University Name Change Commission.” This way we can be UNCC and have it be a play on the whole name confusion issue. Then we can also go around changing the second ‘C’ and call ourselves the “Universtiy Name Change Committee” “… Council,” “…Confederation,” etc.
Please give your opinion on this as well if you have one.
Not sure where this fits in other than in spreading the word, but we have the Mayor of Charlotte’s support on this, so as long as he stays mayor we need to try to get his help as much as we can. If he is elected governor, this can only be a good thing for us.
Finally, this is my take on what we need to do to be successful:
- Inform the people and have a strong, positive return on the student vote.
- Gather strong Alumni support.
- Use the student vote, Alumni support, and newfound organization of the people to put the chancellor in the same position he is in now regarding football (this being that if he passes on football, frankly, all hell breaks loose).
- Take this new found unification on the issue to the BOT and get their approval.
- Go to the UNC BOG who has basically stated ‘if the school is united on the issue, then we will pass it’ and get them to finally change our name.
(All easier typed than done.)
I’ve probably forgotten some things, but I think this is a good place to start. Just remember that every bit of assistance helps and [B]WE CAN DO THIS[/B]. If you ever have any ideas on this matter that you want to share or you want to help in any way, please do. As long as we work together and get organized, we have the power to fix this issue.