Winona Daily News: Eagle Bluffs? Great River? Winona's Southeast Tech picks finalists for new name

Jerome Christenson
Feb 18, 2016 

Offer your opinion on the proposals for Southeast Technical's new name and expanded mission by voting online at southeastmn.one/name.

You can also participate in the community forum from 6-p.m., Monday, Feb. 22, in the main lobby of Southeast Tech in Winona.

Great River State?

Maybe Eagle Bluffs?

Or Southeast Minnesota College?

A new mission calls for a new name, and Winona's Southeast Tech has narrowed its options down to five from a pool of about 80 submissions. With its proposal to expand its academic offerings to include an Associate of Arts degree, the school is looking to choose the name that will best reflect its vision.

The college solicited suggestions from students, faculty, staff and the public, and on Thursday released its five favorite names, to be voted on by the general public.

"We want to include the entire community in the discussion about changing our mission and our name," Southeast Tech president Dorothy Duran said. "We value public insight into the entire process."

The five names under consideration are:

• Great River State College

• Southeast Minnesota State College

• River Bluffs College

• Southeast Minnesota College

• Eagle Bluffs College

To participate in the survey, visit southeastmn.one/name by Sunday. Then on Monday, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., participate in a public forum in the main lobby of the college at 1250 Homer Road. A similar forum will be held on the Red Wing campus the following evening.

If all goes as planned, the college will confer the Associate of Arts degree beginning with the 2016 fall semester. The new degree program may make it easier for technical college students to transfer to a four-year college, Duran said.

Holders of the two-year liberal arts degree will be readily accepted with junior class status by most four-year colleges and universities, Duran said. The degree program is intended either as a terminal degree, or for students intending to transfer into a four-year degree program.

Southeast Technical opened in 1949 as the Winona Vocational School. Over the years it has gone by several names as it expanded its offerings and mission. In 1992, it merged with Red Wing Technical College, the merged institution taking the name Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical in 1999.

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