The Red Deer College has officially announced its new name and thereby advanced its progress in becoming a university. In the near future, the college will be referred to as the Red Deer University.

“We felt really grounded in Red Deer University,” said Morris Flewwelling, Board of Governors Chair.

Although, the name may not appear all that unique or different Flewwelling believes that remaining authentic was probably one of the most important aspects about naming the institution.

Only about a year ago was Red Deer College given university-status but after a long 25 years of trying to achieve the status.

“One of the first big issues was ‘how academic is this college going to be?’ because the originators of the college thought of it only as a feeder to the University of Alberta. It had to be an academic feeder. There was only the University of Alberta in the whole province and this was going to be one of the handmaidens to it.”

Flewweling and Joel Ward, President and CEO believe that they were successful in their latest attempt at changing the college into a university because they were backed by the community.

“When it is the need and the desire of the communities that we serve if that’s what it takes. Then we will not take no as an answer and we will fight until we get the right answer and we did, finally. University status, new name, work to do, but we're moving forward,” added Ward.

Now that the institution has been named, new courses, curriculums, and programs will be developed. Students, staff, and faculty are excited for the new programming and opportunities that will be coming to RDU.

“Students are so excited just because it shows the commitment that we have to expand as a university now. The city will be expanding as well and will present more opportunities as well as presenting more educational opportunities for students,” said Esther Schilling, Vice President of Academic with the Students’ Association of Red Deer College.

In the past, a large percentage of students would leave Central Alberta for university degrees, or in some cases, students would begin their degrees at RDC and would be forced to finish elsewhere through their transfer program.

“Red Deer was losing its best and brightest out of Central Alberta. So we were actually selling off our birthright all the time here in Red Deer because all of our young people were attracted to University of Alberta, Athabasca, Calgary, and Lethbridge and so on,” commented Flewweling.

“I think it’s going to be a big thing for attracting students just because the university itself and having university in the title will attract more students...” added Schilling, “For example, at the Canada Winter Games a lot of students were already talking about how we have university status here and how they are thinking about coming here.”

RDU still has a lot of work ahead in order to fully be established as a university but with that hard work will come to an abundance of new opportunities both educationally and economically for Red Deer.