President Taylor held a town hall meeting on Friday, Sept. 18 to discuss the possible idea of changing Cabrini’s name from college to university. The lecture hall was packed with faculty and staff who were excited to hear about the changes that have been taking place and will take place in the next few years.
Taylor is discussing a potential name change from college to uni- versity with various constituencies.
Taylor assured the audience that Cabrini will continue its nurtur- ing manner and undergraduate class size. The possible change to uni- versity status reflects the expansion of academic programs that have already taken place, including the addition of doctoral programs.
“This will actually allow us to double down on our revenue streams and allow us to improve the overall campus quality and campus life,” Taylor said. “It’s a way for us to improve our overall student experi- ence, because it opens up some other avenues for us to that we do not currently have access to. The things that we do very well by being a smaller campus we want to enhance those, not go the other direc- tion.”
President Taylor is also planning to bring in more international students, especially those who go to Cabrini schools worldwide. With the “college” in the name, international students believe Cabrini is a secondary school or vocational institute. If the name is changed, then international students will see “university” and they will know that Cabrini can be the next step of their journey through higher educa- tion.
Taylor has gone through a name change already at his previous institution and said that alumni can find more value with the upgrad-
ed name. He said that at his previous institution, some students even chose to get a diploma with the new name for a small fee.
“Students have always been drawn to Cabrini because of its small class size and most importantly how the faculty interacts with the students on a personal level,” Maria Cedrone Garrison, class of 1982, said. “This decision would benefit students, faculty and alumni. I hope to hear more about the outcome.”
With the process of the name change, Taylor has no intentions of changing the Cabrini culture and how students are treated around the campus.
“I just want to reenforce to the students that we aren’t trying to become the next West Chester,” Taylor said. “We aren’t going to have large class sizes or having anyone other than professors teaching our classes.”
He mentioned that the potential changes will help give students further resources and more support as additional students come onto campus. Within time, more services and programs will be available to be offered to students and the overall campus experience will be enhanced.
In the time between now and next fall, new college items will sim- ply say Cabrini, instead of Cabrini College. If and when the college be- comes a university, the logo and name plate will be modified to reflect the change. The new designs developed for the college will be more modern and up to date to the college development.
The president’s office is in the process of scheduling undergradu- ate and graduate open forums within the next few weeks to discuss the ideas and process for this plan with students.
