Metropolitan State University of Denver

The committee's 11-0 vote, with two absences, follows approval last month by the state Senate Education Committee and the full Senate. If the measure is approved by the full House, it will be sent to Gov. John Hickenlooper, whose signature will make the bill law.

The bill was presented in the house committee by Rep. Crisanta Duran, a primary sponsor along with Sen. Lucia Guzman. Duran cited one of the principal themes of the testimony: that by designating Metro State a university, students and alumni will be better prepared to compete for jobs.

“This name … will serve the institution well and also serve employers in the state well, so that they know exactly the value of the degree of students that graduate from hopefully soon-to-be Metropolitan State University of Denver,” she said.

Jordan echoed that remark, saying a degree that shows that a person graduated from a university is attractive to employers.

“Our students and our alumni both tell us that when they go to compete for jobs they are told … that employers are often sorting their continued interest … by whether the degree says college or whether it says university on it,” he said. “Why would we want to disadvantage 20 percent of our Colorado students by not allowing them to compete on a level playing field for those high-paying jobs?”

Jordan told the committee the name change resulted from a broad-based outreach that included surveys, focus groups and conversations that involved more than 10,000 people as well as successful negotiations with the University of Denver, which had originally balked at some of the proposed new names.

He said the change reflects the evolution of Metro State, from the initial enrollment of 1,187 students who attended classes in rented downtown buildings to an institution serving a diverse student body of 24,000. Jordan also noted growth from an academic perspective, citing as examples recent achievements by the Nursing, Aviation and Aerospace Science, and Math and Computer Science departments.

“We will continue to provide our students with a robust academic experience,” said Board of Trustee member Dawn Bookhardt, testifying for the name change. “We’re Metro and will continue to be the Metro we’ve always been except we’ll be better and we’ll have the name to prove it.”

Also testifying were Roy Alexander, a 1974 graduate and former CEO of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority; Caitlin Gibbons, a Metro State senior majoring in journalism, and Jesse Altum, president of the Student Government Assembly.

National Women's History Month

March is officially WOMENS NATIONAL HISTORY MONTH. It is my pleasure to highlight the achievements and social justice movements that women have paved along the way. From the earliest pioneers like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and to our present day Michelle Obama and Angela Davis. Women have always had a voice that men are constantly trying to suppress. But I must admit times have gotten better and we have grown as a society. There several pros and cons but at the end of the day no one can question a women's worth.


 Although women now outnumber men in American colleges nationwide, the reversal of the gender gap is a very recent phenomenon. The fight to learn was a valiant struggle waged by many tenacious women—across years and across cultures—in our country. After the American Revolution, the notion of education as a safeguard for democracy created opportunities for girls to gain a basic education—based largely on the premise that, as mothers, they would nurture not only the bodies but also the minds of (male) citizens and leaders. The concept that educating women meant educating mothers endured in America for many years, at all levels of education.


Pioneers of secondary education for young women faced arguments from physicians and other “experts” who claimed either that females were incapable of intellectual development equal to men, or that they would be harmed by striving for it. Women’s supposed intellectual and moral weakness was also used to argue against coeducation, which would surely be an assault on purity and femininity. Emma Willard, in her 1819 Plan for Improving Female Education, noted with derision the focus of women’s “education” on fostering the display of youth and beauty, and asserted that women are “the companions, not the satellites of men”—“primary existences” whose education must prepare them to be full partners in life’s journey.


The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society