The Student Association is working with the LGBT Resource Center and Information Technology Services to give students at Syracuse University and SUNY-ESF the ability to change their names on class rosters and university email addresses.

SA’s Student Life Committee has been working on the initiative in an attempt to be more inclusive to all students on campus, committee chair Keelan Erhard said. In particular, it aims to help transgender students who have changed their preferred names since enrolling at SU.

“On their emails and on class rosters, their birth names are still what is presented,” Erhard said. “We don’t want an awkward situation in class when the teacher calls out a name and that person has to correct them.”

When SA pitched the idea to the LGBT Resource Center, the center had already begun working with SU’s Office of the Registrar and ITS on a similar initiative.

Erhard said SA will be helping with the initiative however it is needed. He added that SU has been especially inclined to do something because a number of other schools — including Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh — already allow students to go by a different preferred name.

SA Vice President Jane Hong met last week with Huey Hsiao, the associate director of SU’s Office of Multicultural Affairs; Katie Oran, an SA assembly representative who also serves in SUNY-ESF’s Undergraduate Student Association as a liaison between SU and SUNY-ESF; and Derrick Rice, USA’s director of student affairs and diversity.

During their meeting, the group discussed making the name change policy applicable to SUNY-ESF students. Hong said SA is also in communication with Scott Blair, SUNY-ESF’s director of student diversity and inclusion, about the initiative.

SA President Aysha Seedat said if a name change policy were to be implemented, SU students would ideally have the option to change their preferred name through MySlice. Currently, students have the option to update other pieces of personal information via MySlice, including ethnicity and religious preference.

Erhard said another option would be requiring students who request a preferred name change to fill out a form and turn the form in to the Office of the Registrar, which would then approve or deny the request.

Erhard added that the goal is for students to be able to change their names on class rosters — which will include a preferred name column — beginning next semester and on their email addresses before the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year.

Said Hong: “We really want to make sure it’s done as soon as possible because this has been an issue for a long time.”

Published on November 1, 2015 at 11:07 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu