On Thursday, the task force assigned to come up with a new name for Mississippi University for Women will submit its choice to the president Nora Miller. A renaming bill is expected to be submitted to the legislature by mid-February.

That’s the conventional wisdom, at any rate. One thing that can be said about this year-and-a-half process is that no part of it has been easy.

After the blowback from the proposed “Mississippi Brightwell University” caused the administration to abandon the name in early January, a new expedited process, which allowed community suggestions followed by a survey on the top three submitted names, was put in place. The three “finalist” names were selected from 237 suggestions from alumni, 61 suggestions from faculty and staff, 17 from students and 18 from the communications agency assisting with the process.

The finalists are Wynbridge, Welbright and Wynbright.

There are a couple of things to be noted about the three finalists.

The first is that all three names are inventions, not to be associated with historic figures or geography. It can be safely assumed that all three names were put through a search on urbandictionary.com to avoid the silliness associated with the Brightwell name.

There is nothing particularly wrong about inventing names. It happens all the time with brands and businesses, and the university is both a brand and a business of sorts.

Second, and perhaps most important, all three start with the letter “W,” a nod to the university’s history and the colloquial name for the school, “The W.”  A university name that begins with a “W” validates continued use of the familiar “The W.”

A fourth suggestion, not listed as a finalist, but with a strong following from a vocal portion of the alumni is “The W: A Mississippi University.” Consider that a dark horse candidate.

All of these names are intended to strike a balance between honoring the school’s unique history and recognizing the need for a name that accurately describes the present and future of the university.

There are, of course, those who are opposed to any name-change at all. This group is passionate, but — in our eyes — wrong. The university is not a museum dedicated to honoring the past. It is a fully-functioning educational institution whose focus must be devoted to the future. The name should reflect that. That doesn’t mean the school’s significant history must be abandoned, though. In fact, the university has devoted much time, energy and passion in honoring that history.

Whatever name is chosen will not be immediately embraced. Let’s face it: If there was a name that would satisfy everyone, it would have been adopted in 2002, when the university last explored a name change but dropped the effort in response to bitter criticism (from alumni).

The students of today and tomorrow will not be invested in the name of the university in the way alumni are (consider that only 17 students suggested names). What will matter to students are the quality of education they receive and all the things that are a part of the university experience. Their needs should be the highest priority.

Circumstances change, and universities need to reflect that change.

This will be the fourth name change for the university. None of those previous changes were made on a whim. Each change was adopted to reflect a new reality.

Mississippi University for Women became an obsolete name the moment the Supreme Court opened the door for male students 42 years ago.

The impending name change will not be universally embraced.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.

We encourage university leadership to stay the course.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.