August 26, 2019

New Policy Adopts Official Use of Chosen Name for Campus Identity

The policy allows students, employees, and alumni to identify themselves within the Lewis & Clark community using a chosen name that differs from their official/legal name.

Earlier this month, Executive Council adopted a policy that better supports individuals’ identities and improves communication to our campus community. The new campus-wide Chosen Name Policy allows students, employees, and alumni to identify themselves within the Lewis & Clark community using a chosen name that differs from their official/legal name. The chosen name will appear instead of the person’s official/legal name in most of the College’s systems and documents. An online form with instructions on how to select/change a chosen name will be made available before the end of September 2019. 

Community members are now free to determine the chosen name that they want to be known by as long as they act in good faith and the name is not being used for the purpose of misrepresentation such as attempts to avoid a legal obligation.  

When implemented, a chosen name will be displayed in the following areas: 

  • Class rosters
  • Grade rosters
  • Diploma
  • Commencement program
  • Moodle
  • Self Service
  • Parts of WebAdvisor
  • Workday

Documents and processes that require a legal name include (but may not limited to):  

  • Official transcripts
  • Enrollment verifications
  • Federal Financial Aid forms
  • Tax documents to the IRS, for example 1098T forms.  
  • Payroll documents

The proposal for this policy was prepared by the Name Usage Data Standards subcommittee of Lewis & Clark’s Institutional Data and Standards Council. Subcommittee members included: 

Charlie Ahlquist, assistant dean, Student Rights and Responsibilities

Karen Fobert, senior associate director, Financial Aid (Project Lead)

Seneca Gray, registrar, law school

Becky Haas, director, Graduate School Admissions

Robin Jarecki, associate registrar, College of Arts and Science