Shakespeare had it wrong; names mean everything: acceptance, financial success, loyalty or rejection, satire, failure and abandonment. A quick search turns up the five or twelve rules for naming a company or organization:
• has to be memorable
• should have a visual element
• has to have a positive connotation
• needs to include a hint about what the company does
• has to be fairly short
Colleges, today, will name anything for a specific contribution. In a Los Angeles Times article (November 30, 1999), about the practice of naming objects on a campus, the following list of examples is compiled:
• Your name on an elevator -- $50K
• Your name on a scholarship to put a quarterback through school -- $350K
• Your name on a street light -- $15K
• Your name on a bench -- $12K
• Your name on a School -- $45M
Naming something like these provides proof of generosity, a kind of immortality, family recognition, and evidence of being on the cultural pecking order.
Thus, it should come as no surprise, that the naming of Stockton has become a legendary event. There are, for example, at least three publically told stories about how Stockton got its name.
One First Cohort faculty tells the story of the Stockton Board meeting at one of the service areas on the New Jersey Turnpike. Not yet having a name for the College they decided to name it after the person for whom the service area was named – Richard Stockton.
Both Dick Bjork – the First President – and his wife Joan have told the story about having a small boy in their Lawrenceville, NJ neighborhood coming to their house. He had heard that the College was looking for a name and he told the President that he had a couple to suggest. Neither the President nor his wife remembered all of the names; the one they did remember was Richard Stockton State College – thus naming the college after one of the five signers of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey.
Another First Cohort faculty says that he heard that there had been a disagreement from the beginning of the College as to whether it was going to be a distinctive liberal arts college, which would draw from all over the state, and perhaps beyond, or whether it would be a college that would cater primarily to the needs of South Jersey. Dungan and Bjork favored the former position and some of the trustees, supported by many in the outside community, favored the latter. These trustees were putting pressure on Bjork to name the college in a way that would identify it with South Jersey and so he asked Dungan to preempt that discussion by imposing a name that would not identify the College with South Jersey. Dungan had to do this in a hurry in order to close off the discussion before the next meeting of Stockton's Board of Trustees. He and the folks at Department of Higher Education grabbed Stockton's name, as a signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey, to meet the deadline without undertaking a thorough investigation of Richard Stockton’s credentials.
The Board of Trustees had previously requested suggestions from the pubic in the spring of 1969. By August they had received 64 names, which fall into three general categories: places, things and people.
For places there are the expected South Jersey shore areas:
Atlantic Highlands College
College By the Sea
Garden State College
New Jersey East College
Ocean Sands State College
Southeast College of New Jersey
For things there are some unusual suggestions:
Berry Bottom Bog State
Blueberry State College
Boardwalk College
College of the Sand
Gull College
Sand Piper State College
Jersey Tomato College
For people, there are also some strange possibilities:
Einstein State College
Farley State College
Pinky’s Corner College
Virgil I. Grissom State College
Woodrow Wilson State College
Richard Stockton State College
Some brief explanation seems warranted. Berry Bottom Bog State or Jersey Tomato College cannot be considered as serious suggestions. Einstein was living in Princeton, NJ at the time, and though Woodrow Wilson was long deceased he, too, was connected to Princeton. Pinky’s Corner is a long-running interview show on radio and tv in Atlantic City. Farley State would have been named for an incredibly powerful State senator who was instrumental in getting the legislation establishing the College passed in Trenton. Finally, Virgil Grissom -- an Astronaut -- has no connection to New Jersey and is a strange suggestion perhaps based on the fact that his death was in 1967 – two years before this list was collected.
The process following the public request for names was this:
1. In June, 1969 the Board of Trustees had received 30 names from its public request.
2. In July, 1969 Jim Judy (Secretary to the Board) reported that 40 names had been received.
3. In Aug, 1969 there are 64 names included in the Board of Trustees minutes (see below).
4. By the Sept. 1969 meeting, the Board had received a list of 12 names and the Trustees chose five to vote on.
5. By Oct 1, 1969 the Board of Trustees has decided officially on RSSC.
The name RSSC is in the original list of June, 1969 so it seems to be a contender early in the process. Given this fact, the question of who came up with the name is perhaps less significant (since the name was offered up early in the process) than why it was that the name progressed from being at the bottom of the major contenders to being picked, This certainly lends credence to the story about Dungan making the decision.
The other question is why none of the other four signers of the Declaration – Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, and John Witherspoon – were ever contenders as possible names for the college. Each one of these men might have been appropriate for different reasons, bringing something different to the college – Francis Hopkinson, for example, was a musician, composer, and a man of letters; John Witherspoon, for another, was President of New Jersey College.
What was clear, however, was that no investigation was undertaken about any of the names offered and certainly not that of Richard Stockton. He, after all, was the one signer who had signed an oath of loyalty to the Crown after he had signed the Declaration of Independence. There were extenuating circumstances for this act (which are contested), nonetheless this might well have given the college founders pause had they known about it. Moreover, the fact that the college was being established in the immediate aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement and at a time of growing awareness about the history of slavery in the United States, would perhaps have led the Board to shy away from Stockton, had they known that he had been an unrepentant slave owner.
SUGGESTED NAMES FOR NEW COLLEGE – ADDENDUM
(presented to the Board of Trustees in Aug, 1969)
A-1 COLLEGE
ALL WARS MEMORIAL COLLEGE
ATLANTIC BEAUTIFUL COLLEGE
ATLANTIC CITY COLLEGE
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS COLLEGE
ATLANTIC LIGHTHOUSE COLLEGE
ATLANTIC-SEABOARD COLLEGE
BARREN PINES COLLEGE
BEACH COLLEGE OF SOUTH JERSEY
BERRY BOTTOM BOG STATE
BLUEBERRY STATE COLLEGE or BLUEBERRY COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY STATE BLUEBERRY COLLEGE
SOUTH JERSEY BLUEBERRY STATE
BOARDWALK COLLEGE
CAPE SECURITY
COASTAL PLAIN STATE
COLLEGE BY THE SEA
COLLEGE IN THE PINES
COLLEGE OF THE SAND
CONVENTION CITY COLLEGE
DELANTA STATE COLLEGE (Delaware and Atlantic)
EASTERN COLLEGE
EDGE STATE COLLEGE
EDISON STATE COLLEGE
EINSTEIN STATE COLLEGE
EXCELSIOR STATE COLLEGE
FARLEY STATE COLLEGE
GARDEN STATE SOURCE
GARDEN STATE SOUTHERN COLLEGE
GREAT EGG HARBOR BAY COLLEGE
GULL COLLEGE
JERSEY TOMATO COLLEGE
JONATHON PITNEY STATE COLLEGE
LEED COLLEGE
LENAPES STATE COLLEGE
LOWER JERSEY LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE
MCKEE STATE COLLEGE
NEPTUNE SHORE COLLEGE
NEW AIR COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY BAYSIDE STATE COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY COLONIAL COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY EAST COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY SOUTHERN COLLEGE
NEW JERSEY STATE BELL COLLEGE
OCEAN SANDS STATE COLLEGE
OCEAN STATE COLLEGE
PINKY'S CORNER COLLEGE
RESORT COLLEGE
RICHARD STOCKTON STATE COLLEGE
SAND PIPER STATE COLLEGE
SANDY HARBOR STATE COLLEGE
SEABREEZES COLLEGE
SEASHELL COLLEGE
SEA SPRAY STATE COLLEGE
SOUTH ATLANTIC DELWARE COLLEGE
SOUTHEAST COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY
SOUTH JERSEY COLLEGE
SOUTH JERSEY COLLEGE BY-THE-SEA
SOUTHERN PINES OF KNOWLEDGE
STAR OF THE SEA_COLLEGE
TRIANGLE COLLEGE
TRI-COUNTY COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH JERSEY
VIRGIL I. GRISSOM STATE COLLEGE
WHITE CAP STATE COLLEGE
WOODROW WILSON STATE COLLEGE
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
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