Newsline: Manchester trustees approve name change to 'university'

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl 
Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

Manchester trustees approve name change to 'university.'

(May 7, 2012) Elgin, IL --Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind., will 
change its name to Manchester University on July 1, to reflect the growing 
complexity of the institution, the Board of Trustees decided at its spring 
meeting on April 21.

The timing is optimal as Manchester grows in complexity beyond its 123-year-old 
undergraduate, residential liberal arts core with: a new professional doctoral 
program in pharmacy, with faculty engaged in research agendas; a new 
non-residential campus in Fort Wayne; graduate programs in athletic training 
and education, with more possibilities.

A name change to university is strategic, said president Jo Young Switzer. "A 
new name will help us communicate our expanding academic competencies and goals.

"What we will not change is our mission to graduate persons of ability and 
conviction who will work to improve the human condition," Switzer said. 
"Manchester's reputation for exciting learning and service opportunities 
supported by faculty mentoring will continue in the undergraduate, graduate, 
and School of Pharmacy programs."

Switzer's recommendation and the Board of Trustee's decision were presaged by 
conversations with members of the Manchester community--alumni, faculty, 
current students, and staff--as well as surveys by a research firm of potential 
students and community leaders.

Manchester currently offers more than 55 areas of academic study, including 
master's degrees in athletic training and education. A total of 1,320 
undergraduate and graduate students study on its North Manchester campus.

In August, the first 70 students in Manchester's new doctoral pharmacy program 
begin classes in a new facility in north Fort Wayne. When that first class 
graduates in four years, 280 students will be enrolled in the Pharm.D. program.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing 
the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in 
community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith 
traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 
300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across the United 
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, 
Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and India.

(Jeri S. Kornegay, director of Media and Public Relations for Manchester 
College, provided this release.)

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org