Beaver College to Get New Name
July 15, 2001
Beaver College to Get New Name
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:39 p.m. ET
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Beaver College graduates who have been the brunt of jokes and
snickering over the name on their diplomas will soon be able to start anew.
After months of focus groups, town meetings and questionnaires, the suburban
Philadelphia college becomes Arcadia University on Monday. Soon after, alumni who
want them will begin receiving new diplomas.
``When they put their degrees up on their wall, particularly if they were not local, they
found people saying, 'That's a joke, isn't it?' or 'That's not for real,''' university President
Bette E. Landman said.
More than 800 alumni of the college, which opened in 1853 as a women's college in
Beaver County and later moved across the state, have already requested replacement
diplomas.
The name change was meant to counteract years of abuse that went as far as jokes on
David Letterman's TV show and ``Saturday Night Live.'' The name often elicited
derogatory remarks pertaining to the rodent, TV's ``Leave It to Beaver'' and a vulgar
reference to the female anatomy.
But many of the students living on the Glenside campus took pride in the name.
Graduate Melissa Greco, 22, said many of her friends think the change ``stinks.''
``We went to Beaver College. It kind of feels in a sense that it's no longer our college,''
she said.
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On the Net:
Arcadia University: arcadia.edu
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press |
