Posted by
Howard Denson III on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 3:19:25 PM
An Accurate Name for a College
By HOWARD DENSON
Recent stories in the media in the First Coast of Florida have reported on the growth at the University of North Florida and Florida Community College at Jacksonville. The stories usually say that FCCJ's headcount enrollment is now at 80,000 students, and that seems impressive until you recognize that FJC had that many students 25 years ago.
The full-time equivalent enrollment of FCCJ today is about 25,000. If you were figuring FT customers at, say, a grocery store, you might have, say, 20,000 kids coming in to buy a piece of bubblegum for a penny or nickel ($200 to $1,000), but only 5,000 adults spending $150 each for their weekly groceries at the store. Clearly, it's not the customer count that matters, but the customers' total purchase amount.
For either higher ed institution, we should not feel that we need to slap up buildings right and left. At UNF, the campus is so packed with rabbit-warren-like buildings that it reminds you of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter tales.
If we must build, let's have JOINT buildings used by UNF and FCCJ, as Broward CC has done with the University of South Florida, as Brevard CC has done with its university counterpart.
With the four-year programs at FCCJ, we really should look at the name of the college. The administration has said it wants to keep "community" in the name because it expresses an attitude. That's pointless and counterproductive. Folks in our area may remember that FCCJ is now a four-year college, but, when our graduates apply for a job in Richmond, Memphis, or Walla Walla, an employment screening committee may well throw out their job applications, saying, "This clown says he has a four-year degree, but his application says he attended a community college."
A name should be accurate, whether it's "First Coast College of Jacksonville" (FCCJ, get it?), "Duval-Nassau College," or whatever. The other CC's in Florida with four-year programs have changed their names to Miami-Dade College, Chipola College, Edison College, St. Petersburg College, and Okaloosa-Walton College.