Laramie County Community College has decided it is no longer Laramie County's community college. As of its rebrand, it is Wyoming State College. Not a Wyoming college. THE Wyoming college.
There are eight community colleges in this state. Seven of them woke up to discover that the one in Cheyenne had promoted itself to represent all of them.
Casper, Northwest, Western, Eastern, Central Wyoming, Sheridan, Gillette — every one of them serves students who will never set foot in Laramie County, and not one of them got a vote on who gets to wear the state's name.
So where does that leave the rest of us? If the school in Cheyenne is THE Wyoming State College, what is Gillette College? What is Casper College, or Sheridan in Sheridan, or Northwest in Powell?
The off-brand? The generic aisle?
A kid in Hulett looking at two brochures now has one that says Wyoming on the front and one that says the name of a county he does not live in. That is not an accident of design. That is the design.
That is a fine way to treat your neighbors. Nothing says “we're all in this together” quite like planting your flag on the whole state and letting the other seven read about it in the paper.
It is also not the Wyoming way. Out here we pull the other guy's truck out of the ditch whether we like him or not, and we brand our own calves and leave everybody else's alone.
You do not get ahead by climbing on top of your neighbor, and you surely do not do it while he is having a hard year. Every one of these colleges is having a hard year.
Enrollment is soft everywhere and budgets are tight everywhere. Cheyenne looked around at seven institutions in the same bind and decided the smart play was to take the name off the barn.
The rebrand is about survival in the face of declining enrollment, LCCC President Joe Schaffer said last month.
Think about that. Enrollment is down. Fewer students are walking through the door. And the response is to change what it says on the door.
If a college is not attracting students, you would think that retooling the programming would be item number one on the agenda.
Look at what the state's employers are hiring for. Look at what kids actually want to study. Look at the price. Instead, the institution went with perfuming the pig.
Here is why students go to community college. They go because it costs less. They go because tuition is affordable and there are no housing fees if they live at home.
They go because of transfer agreements that let their core classes count at a four-year school.
They go for vocational certificates and degrees that put them into a trade. They go to get their hands on the equipment instead of reading about it.
Nowhere on that list is “because the name sounds impressive on a sweatshirt.”
Not one eighteen-year-old in Wheatland has ever said, “I was going to go into the welding program, but honestly, the county in the name gave me pause.”
What the new name does accomplish is confusion with the University of Wyoming, the only four-year university in the state.
Which, one suspects, is the point. If you cannot be the university, you can at least dress like it and hope the mail gets misdelivered.
In that spirit, I have some suggestions for the folks in Cheyenne. If you are going to commit to the bit, commit all the way.
Change the school colors from blue and gold to brown and gold. Half the work is already done.
Retire the Golden Eagles and become the Community College Cowboys. Since the college believes it speaks for Wyoming, it may as well borrow Wyoming's colors and Wyoming's team name while it is helping itself.
The mascot needs adjusting too. Cowboy Joe is taken. But Junior Joe is available, and it has the advantage of being accurate, this being a junior college.
Or go the other direction entirely. Fort Collins is two miles closer to Cheyenne than Laramie is. Two miles.
If geography is going to drive the branding, rename the place Colorado State College, Wyoming, adopt the Rams, and adjust the fight song accordingly.
Students could live by the motto Josh Allen offered up at his jersey retirement: “It always sucks to be a CSW Ram.”
And why stop at the college? If the people of Laramie County have concluded they are the true Wyoming county, the honest move is to finish the job.
Rename Laramie County as Wyoming County.
That frees up the name, so Albany County can become Laramie County — and after all these years, the city of Laramie would finally be in Laramie County.
Everybody wins. The maps get redrawn, the letterhead gets reprinted, the consultants get paid, and not one additional student enrolls in a single additional class.
That is the whole trouble with the exercise.
A name change is something an institution can do by itself, in a conference room, on a schedule it controls.
Fixing the programs means admitting the programs need fixing. One of those is a press release. The other is work.
Wyoming has eight community colleges. Now we have one that thinks it is all of them.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 to 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
