Keene State College students can now use a preferred first name to identify themselves on campus if they do not wish to be called by their legal first name.
This academic year is the pilot phase of the “Preferred First Name” option that the college launched in August, 2015. This option allows transgender students and other students to indicate a preferred first name regardless of whether they have legally changed their name.
KSC senior, Andy Marion, said, “I think it’s huge, honestly. Especially for the trans community, having your legal name up on the screen the first day of class, that’s just a really rough day, just to have that every single class at the beginning of the day. I’m really happy that it’s going through. I think that it’s going to help a lot.”
Once students fill out the online name-change form on the Registrar’s website, their preferred first name will be entered into select KSC Information Technology systems. The systems that will change include KSC email addresses, owl cards, class rosters, Canvas, advise details, on-campus housing information, the KSC directory, and the commencement program and cards that announce the names of graduating students.
Indicating a preferred first name at KSC does not constitute a legal name change.
KSC Information Technology systems that must still use legal names due to federal regulations and other college business procedures include financial aid and student account information, payroll, federal immigration documents, student health forms, official transcripts, enrollment and degree verification and diplomas.
This preferred first name option for students was a combined effort made possible by students, staff, administrators, and faculty from across campus as well an anonymous donor. For example, work was done by members of KSC Pride, the IT Group, the Registrar’s Office, the Safe Space Subcommittee of the Campus Commission for Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness, the Diversity and Multiculturalism Office, the Dean of Students Office, the Office of Academic and Career Advising, the Admissions Office, the Provost’s Office, the Deans of the School of Arts and Humanities and the Mason Library.
For the past several years, KSC students expressed the need for the college to recognize preferred first names.
In KSC Pride’s two consecutive Pride Parades, the group protested for the preferred first name option. This past year, members even collected over forty signatures in support of it.
“The students asked for and need this,” said Associate Professor of Communication, Jamie Landau, who chairs the Preferred First Name Working Group.
Landau continued, “As the adviser to KSC Pride and an ally, I wanted to help make this happen. For several years I tried hard to get the right people around the table, and by last fall the working group starting making a lot of progress. We researched how other universities addressed this issue and modeled what we did off theirs, but also always turned inward to look at the processes here at KSC and work with what we had.”
KSC staff noted the hardships of being called by a name with which one does not identify. Program Support Assistant for LGBTQ Students in the Office of Diversity and Multiculturalism, Hunter Kirschner, said, “If you’re sitting in class and you don’t feel safe by being called by the wrong name, that directly interferes with your ability to learn and grow and be present for an experience that should be so life changing and empowering.”
Students say this is option is beneficial for the transgender community and other students on campus.
“Especially for the transgender community because they don’t go by their legal names, I know it’s really hard to change your legal name. So it would be perfect for them to actually experience college with their preferred name,” Angel Ortiz, KSC sophomore, said. Ortiz said he utilized the preferred first name option the minute he heard about it.
“When I first got the e-mail about it, because I came to school, I had [legal name] on my ID and that’s not who I am. When I got the e-mail about it, I fell in love with it. I automatically got my name changed and they did it really fast. It makes me feel like I am who I am,” Ortiz said. Some students shared what it was like be identified by the wrong name on campus in past years.
KSC junior, Trisha Valentine, said, “I was one of multiple cases at the time where we were just running into trouble with financial aid, communication with teachers and stuff like that, because name conflicts would rise. When you let a student have their preferred name and you don’t force it to be legal, it just makes it much simpler for communication with professors, faculty, staff, any of them.”
The next goal of the Preferred First Name Working Group is to determine if there are other information technology systems at the college that can recognize preferred first names and whether to make this option a new policy in the student handbook.
With questions about indicating preferred first names at KSC, visit: http://www.keene.edu/campus/diversity/preferred-first-names/
Jacob can be contacted at jknehr@kscequinox.com
