Time may be starting to wear down even the harshest alumni resistance to a potential name change for the Mississippi University for Women.

Even if some are warming to the idea by small degrees, MUW President Nora Miller is taking the victories as they come.

“I think taking this additional year through the process has been a really good thing,” Miller told Columbus Exchange Club on Thursday at Lion Hills Center. “One of the alumni, every time we talked about a name change, she cried. I was with her a couple Saturdays ago, and she did not cry.”

A task force of MUW faculty, staff, current students, alumni and Foundation members is considering a shortlist of name change options, Miller said, and plan to announce one or two recommendations by November. From there, the legislature must approve the new name, which Miller hopes it will do in the upcoming session.

If approved, the new name would take effect July 2024, Miller said.

Started as the Columbus Female Institute in 1874, MUW was the first state-supported college for women in the United States. It was later known as Industrial Institute and College, then Mississippi State College for Women, and began bearing its current moniker in 1974. However, the university began accepting men in 1982.

In October 2022, with the purpose of seeking a more inclusive name reflective of a fully integrated student body, MUW sent out more than 39,000 surveys to students, staff, alumni and community members. There were roughly 4,300 responses. Of the eight names suggested, the most popular were Callaway State University, Weathersby State University and University of Northern Mississippi.

The original eight suggestions proved “too divisive” among some alumni, Miller said, which sent planners back to the drawing board.

Miller did not share with the Exchange Club or The Dispatch what names are on the current “short list,” but she said some are variations of the eight on last year’s survey and others are brand new.

Once a new name is chosen, Miller said the task force will also help with making sure the branding and marketing align with the university’s core values.

“(MUW) is empowering,” she said. “We are innovative. We are forward-looking. That’s what we’re looking at and what we’re kind of building (the name’s) narrative around.”

MUW has been known under the current moniker since 1974.

Culinary Art Institute

Miller told Exchange Club members the school also opened its new Culinary Art Institute facility, a $15 million project to build a new facility for the culinary art program, which currently enrolls about 70 students.

The new facility, which runs parallel 15th Street North, totals 40,000 square feet. It features four commercial kitchens, including a baking kitchen, a chocolate-making room and a demonstration kitchen. The second floor features a library, classroom space, two conference rooms and offices for culinary faculty and staff.

“We went from being in the Shattuck Annex where we had one functional kitchen and one small demonstration kitchen to now have these huge prep kitchens,” she said.

Miller said she expects to recruit more students into the program now that the facility has been built and will work with faculty to promote the program come the fall 2024 semester.