What's in a name?

Tomorrow I have my five year reunion from college. Five years really doesn't seem like that much time until I stop and realize all of the things that have happened in the last five years: going through three jobs, getting engaged, getting married, moving out of my parents house, buying a house, deaths of family members, friends getting married, births of friends children...alot of things happened in five short years!

At any rate, I am looking forward to being back on the campus of St. Catherine University. Oh are you confused? Are you saying, now wait a minute Beth, didn't you graduate from the College of St. Catherine? What's this St. Catherine University you speak of?

This week my beloved alma mater officially changed it's name. It is their hope that they will attract a broader, larger base of students and they feel it will keep them current in today's changing world.

I didn't really like this idea when they first announced it. I was kind of feeling like - what's wrong with being a college? And then I started saying, is my education not good enough now because I graduated when it was still just a college and not a university?

But then I was filling out my registration for this weekend's reunion events and there was a question "What comes to mind when you think of your time spent at St. Catherine's? The first thing I thought of was "home". From the day I walked into my first class to my last visit to campus for an alumnae wine tasting event just last February , I always feel like I'm coming home. I made the most of my college experience - singing in choirs, participating in Campus Ministry, pledging the sorority and immersing myself in sisterhood, being an orientation leader and later and Orientation co-coodinator, living on campus my final two years, working in the Student Affairs office and of course the many hours I actually spent in classes. They really were some of the best days of my life.

I have maintained many relationships with friends and have tried to be somewhat active in the alumnae association. I have returned on a couple of occaisions to sing with the Choral Society, a group comprised of students, alums and the community at large. I even took voice lessons from my voice teacher a couple of summers after I graduated. I have never once felt like I didn't belong on campus just because I wasn't a student any longer. I have never felt out of place. It's a community that I love and always will.

A new name will not change that. It will not take away my memories, my relationships or my hard earned degree. A name is just that. A name. My home will always be my home. Nothing will ever take that away.

St. Catherine's University. As Sister Andrea Lee, SCU president was quoted on the day of the unvailing "it has a nice ring to it." And now I say, thank you St. Catherine's for still being a place I can call "home" no matter what your outside gates read.