By Donna Fowler

A group of volunteer faculty, staff and students has been formed as the Name Change Transition Team to oversee the many tasks, issues and questions that are sure to arise as Metro State transitions to university status.

“Our name change involves so many elements, from a new typeface to licensed merchandise to funding, it was important to bring together a representative group to help us handle all the details and provide feedback,” says Cathy Lucas, associate to the president for marketing and communications, who is chairing the transition team.

The team held its first meeting on April 30 and will meet weekly at least through the end of June. A full list of the other 21 team members can be found at transition team.

The team’s first order of business was to approve the policy and guidelines, which faculty, staff and students are asked to follow during the eight weeks before July 1, when the institution officially becomes Metropolitan State University of Denver, and through the transition period that ends June 30, 2013. In particular, the Metro State community is strongly encouraged to read the policy regarding the funding of items related to the name change and the timeline of implementation.

The second order was to provide feedback on a new typeface and seal that is being designed by Affiliate Art Faculty member Scott Surine, with Professor of Art Communication and Design Lisa Abendroth serving in an advisory role. Once the team agrees upon the typeface and seal, it will be presented to the Board of Trustees (BOT) for approval at their June 7 meeting.

In addition to teaching in the Communications Design Program, Surine is founder and president of Sonova Corp., an 8-year-old brand consulting, product design and graphic design firm that has worked for numerous high-profile clients, including the Mayo Clinic, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Avis.

Surine has taught as an affiliate art professor at Metro State for 15 years.

The domain name
The team also discussed issues surrounding a new domain name. Results of the online survey held the previous week were:

Out of 4,130 respondents –

· 57.6% (2,379) voted for msud.edu

· 24.5% (1,012) voted for msudenver.edu

· 17.9% (739) voted for metrostatedenver.edu

Because of the low approval for metrostatedenver.edu, it has been dropped from consideration. The team also discussed the msud acronym as being problematic, as it stands for a rare condition called maple syrup urine disease, which is what comes up currently if you Google msud. Best practices would dictate that Metro State would not “google bomb”—artificially increase the number of hits to have a high ranking for google searches. Rather, the hope would be that over time, a search on msud would bring up Metro State as the No. 1 site on the page.

The survey is one tool that the Board of Trustees and President Stephen Jordan will use in making the final decision.

The survey results and other considerations will be discussed at the BOT meeting on June 7, with the trustees and President Stephen Jordan making the final decision.

Watch @Metro for continuing updates or visit the website.