Please, can someone tell me when "community" became a dirty word?

Community policing remains a well-respected concept in law enforcement, Sheriff Doug Gillespie assured me. Most definitions of "community" reflect a shared cohesiveness of some sort, whether people or organisms.

But somehow in academia, community college has become a negative, a put-down, somehow suggesting that community college students are lesser beings. So, as of July 1, Community College of Southern Nevada will be no more. No, we're not blowing it up. It's being renamed the College of Southern Nevada.

A more distinctive name would be College of Many Colors, to reflect the eye-catching, love-it-or-hate-it palette used on the Charleston campus, but then nobody asked me for my suggestions. That would reflect the wide diversity of the campus, too. (Hey, maybe I have something here. Send me your own suggestions; maybe we can make another run at this.)

This is the third name for the same institution.

The school opened in 1971 as Clark County Community College, or CCCC. In 1991, the negative words then were "Clark County," so it became Community College of Southern Nevada, or CCSN. This was to reflect that it went beyond Clark County. Right.

Now the pejorative word is "community" because it fails to reflect that it is no longer only a two-year college. CCSN has one four-year program in dental hygiene. Just one.

CCSN student body President Presley Conkle made the name change one of his five priorities. Armed with 10,000 signatures, he persuaded 10 university regents to approve the change.

These are the regents who used to head the University and Community College System in Nevada (UCCSN) but now head the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE). Can you keep the abbreviations straight?

I'm not against all name changes. The decision in 2000 to rename a small women's college in Pennsylvania as Arcadia University made sense. No woman wants to graduate from Beaver College.

But some name changes seem to be merely a fad and a reflection of weak egos. Junior college went out of style because it seemed to suggest lesser. Changing the name to College of Southern Nevada isn't going to stop students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from feeling superior. Of course, those in the know call UNLV the "University of Never Leaving Vegas," so how superior should those folks feel? Oh, that's right, the Rebels are winning on the basketball court. They can feel real superior ... for the moment.

There's a University of Southern Nevada and a Las Vegas College, both private schools that sound like public schools. College of Southern Nevada doesn't sound too different from those schools.

The other four-year state college is Nevada State College in Henderson. Confused yet?

While students drove this change, the administration (for now) supports it and even said it won't cost much. Just order new stationery when the old stuff runs out and send someone out to change a few letters on a building. No big deal at all.

Nobody seems to think the changes in today's computer world are going to be a problem, either. Just a few flicks on the keyboard by the IT guys, and it's all done. They always talk about how easy those things are.

Conkle is proud of this accomplishment of changing the name of his school, and I admire him for having the gumption to lead the charge, even if I don't agree with the need. He believes the change "shows we're on a par with schools across the nation."

Now, as a proud graduate of Washington State University (aka Wazzu and Moo U), I don't think the national trend to drop "community college" is necessary. Nor do I think it's as easy or low-cost as administrators and students believe. There are costs involving rebranding the college and developing a new logo. The name CSN won't mean much for a while.

Does dropping a word from a name really improve a school's academic reputation? Does it make it more likely that it will offer another four-year degree?

A name change isn't going to make one bit of difference to someone who can't get into classes they need. Please, stick with a name and make it stand for something.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.