For many students, finding themselves placed on the Dean’s List is an immense source of pride and honor, but for others, specifically transgender and gender-nonconforming students, it can bring about confusion and harm.
The Dean’s List is a publication released at the end of every fall and spring semester that lists the names of students taking 12 credits or more who achieved a 3.5 GPA or higher, according to Keene State’s website.
While other areas of campus allow for students to use a chosen name, the Dean’s List only allows for the use of the student’s birth name or an opt-out of being listed entirely.
Junior Fynn Stauber, a transgender student, spoke about his experience of having his birth name displayed on the list.
“This year and in my [first year], I noticed that the Dean’s List had me listed under my legal name with my hometown next to it, and I did not like [that] … I’ve been the victim of harassment on the basis of the fact that I’m trans before on this campus, and so I didn’t feel safe,” Stauber said.
In an Oct. 11, 2023, Keene State College Senate meeting, Academic Policy Committee (APC) Chair and Professor of History Greg Knouff spoke to roadblocks that emerged when attempting to change the Dean’s List policy to reflect chosen names.
“The bottom line with the transcript is that legally, the only thing that can appear is the student’s legal name … the only way to change what appears in any transcript-related document is to change your legal name, which is a pretty onerous process,” Knouff was quoted as saying in previous Equinox reporting.
Ultimately, the KSC Senate decided to allow students to opt out of being listed entirely to avoid potential harm with the display of a birth name.
When it comes to the student information system, KSC has allowed chosen names since 2015, according to a Sept. 27, 2015 Keene Sentinel article.
In more recent years, KSC’s admissions office has also allowed for chosen names for applicants to the college.
With chosen names not carrying over into the Dean’s List, Stauber said he felt blindsided.
“It was really jarring because obviously, I’ve been called Fynn everywhere. It’s on my school ID, it’s in my e-mail. It was really confusing to me as to why it would be so consistent everywhere else and then not there,” Stauber said. “It left me feeling really confused.”
A May 16 Instagram post by KSC highlighted the release of the spring 2024 list, to which Stauber commented asking the college to allow students to be listed under chosen names.
The college replied, stating, “We apologize your chosen name wasn’t included Fynn. We’ll look into making sure the list is updated!”
However, the college was not able to make the change, as the policy only allows for a birth name or an opt-out. Stauber said he was frustrated by the miscommunication about the policy.
“It was very clear to me that the person who was talking to me was not aware of the policy and thought that this was something that could be changed and then later found out that it was in fact that they couldn’t do anything about it,” Stauber said.
Ultimately, he opted not to be listed.
“I chose not to be listed on the Dean’s List which sucks because I want to be able to share that with people and be like, ‘Hey, look, here’s my name on this website.’”
In an October 2 email to The Equinox, Knouff stated the committee addressed the Dean’s List policy in relation to the Registrar’s office policy that legal names had to appear on official transcripts.
In regard to state law preventing a shift to a chosen name policy with Dean’s List, University of New Hampshire Registrar Steve Neer stated in an email, “UNH only uses the Legal Name on official transcripts. I’m not aware of any legal requirements for that, at least not in New Hampshire, just best practice recommendations from [the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers].”
In an interview, Knouff said he also could not find a state law requiring legal names to be listed in documents relating to academic transcripts. “I did some just general research and what I did see is that the only legal responsibility that I could find in terms of state law was that students have to maintain a record of the students’ [legal] name. That’s it. That’s all I could find,” he said.
Knouff added there is a Chosen Name Work Group reviewing all name-related policies at the college, and the Dean’s List name policy would be within their purview of work.
Any recommendations made by the committee will be referred to the APC, Knouff said.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
nhope@kscequinox.com
