Tallahassee Community College's new name is expected to be “Tallahassee State College” — TSC — after the Board of Trustees approved the recommendation from President Jim Murdaugh.
The board’s approval came after three different names and logos were proposed during a presentation by Pace Branding and Marketing, a consulting firm that has been working on the rebranding project with the college.
At the same time, trustee Frank Messersmith — one of the longest-serving trustees in Florida who was appointed to TCC's board in 1999 — was not impressed with the choices.
The other two proposals were Tallahassee College (TC) and The State College of Tallahassee (SCT).
But Murdaugh says the TSC acronym “rolls off the tongue easily.”
“I happen to like the idea of the fact that we were TJC (Tallahassee Junior College), and now we're TCC, and we could be TSC,” Murdaugh told trustees during their Tuesday afternoon meeting in the college’s Student Union Ballroom. “It continues to sell the Tallahassee brand no matter where you are. It's a subtle difference.”
Previous coverage:'It's time': TCC President Jim Murdaugh announces plans for a new name
The renaming plan comes as a result of new bachelor's degree programs — a bachelor of applied science in business administration, a bachelor of science in elementary education and a bachelor of science in exceptional student education — that were recently added to the college that contribute to its evolving status in Florida.
“This is about the future,” Murdaugh said. “It's about how we can take advantage of the momentum of the institution and draw attention to us in some way that we can capitalize.”
In addition, studies show that students don't want an upper-level degree from a community college, according to Pace President Diana Riser.
“One thing that stood out was that Tallahassee is extremely important,” Riser said. “And obviously, the word college must be used since we're not a university, and the current brand colors must remain.”
“We don't want it to look like a new college or have issues where a larger divergence has happened,” Riser added.
A visual of the TSC logo consists of the acronym being largely displayed in blue with yellow outlines. Underneath the three letters is the word “Tallahassee,” and the words “State College” are directly under it in a smaller font.
During the consulting firm’s presentation, images were also presented of how the logo would look on merchandise such as water bottles, hats and polo shirts.
But the logo displays were only shown for illustration and discussion purposes and are not final, according to a TCC spokesperson.
Although the board took the step of approving TSC as the recommended new name, Messersmith made his concerns known but did not vote against the recommendation.
“I’m not really impressed with any of the three of those,” he said at the meeting.
Messersmith also suggested waiting until the board’s Nov. 27 meeting before voting on the suggested name to hear any potential public comments in advance, but Murdaugh and the majority of trustees agreed that the nature of the Tuesday meeting was “clearly advertised” to invite the public ahead of discussions about their single-item agenda.
There were no public comments heard at Tuesday's meeting about one of the proposed options being favored over another one.
“I'm not sure why we would continue to kick the can down the road,” Trustee Charlie Ward Jr. said. “I don't know if there's any more to say about it.”
Vice Chair Karen Moore agreed with Ward.
“We cannot do any more due diligence than what we’ve done right now, or it would be duplicative,” Moore said.
On top of town hall meetings that were held in Leon, Wakulla and Gadsden counties, over 2,000 people were surveyed to gather responses and feedback from the community before coming to a decision, Pace Account Manager Merry Starr said at the board meeting.
“It's the folks in south Florida and folks in north Georgia that we don't want to lose based on a name change, and in all of these, I see that you all have taken that into consideration," TCC Board of Trustees Chair Jonathan Kilpatrick told the firm members, referring to the proposed names.
Trustee Eugene Lamb agreed that the firm did a “good job” of creating the name and logo proposals.
TCC's renaming and rebranding costs — which include signage, publications, documentation and advertising — are estimated at $500,000 and will be expended over two fiscal years, according to a TCC report.
When it comes to the community’s thoughts on the potential new name, Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Port St. Joe, said he was excited about the vote to name the school Tallahassee State College.
"I got a TCC degree," Shoaf said. "I love the school we're going to start calling TSC.”
Now that a name change has been approved by trustees, it will also need approval from the Florida Legislature. On Thursday, Shoaf filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session that begins in January to officially change the name of the college in state law.
Capital Bureau Reporter James Call contributed to this report.
Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_.
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