LEWISTON, ID – The State Board of Education has already signed on, but Lewis-Clark State College President Cynthia Pemberton spent part of Wednesday’s board meeting pressing her case for a rebrand.
Renaming LC State as a university would help recruit students and student-athletes to campus, she said. The new name would draw a distinction between LC State and Idaho’s four two-year schools, all dubbed colleges.
“We are constantly confronting the clarification that we are indeed a four-year institution,” Pemberton said during a State Board meeting held on LC State’s Lewiston campus.
LC State officials have been discussing a name change since 2023, and the State Board gave the proposal the green light in April. However, the Legislature and Gov. Brad Little also need to sign on. It will take a state law to rename the college.
Pemberton is planning to start early. She said she will have a bill before the Legislature in January, during the opening weeks of the session. She has lined up two co-sponsors: Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins, and Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls.
If the bill passes, Pemberton hopes the rebranding will be completed by spring — in time for a baseball-themed LC State homecoming in conjunction with the NAIA national championship, which is held each May in Lewiston.
Pemberton calls the name change her top priority — a message echoed in LC State’s “institutional progress report” to the State Board.
The move to university status would bring LC State in line with its national peer institutions, according to the report. LC State’s mission wouldn’t change, and the school wouldn’t walk away from its target student demographic: Idaho graduates, first-generation college students and students with high financial need.
“LC State is and remains committed to providing an outstanding small school experience, serving and serving well, Idaho students, first-generation, low-income, traditional and nontraditional students,” the report says.
During a panel discussion Wednesday, a group of LC State staffers voiced their support for the name change.
The rebrand would help with fundraising, said Robert Clifford, president of the LC State foundation’s board of directors.
Alumni say they like the proposal, said Allison Silvestri, LC State’s associate director of development and alumni engagement.
Heidi Greene — an associate professor of nursing, and an LC State alum — said the rename sounded strange at first. But she has come around to the idea. “It just makes sense, with the growth we’ve seen as an institution.”
Other State Board business
Enrollment growth, budget fallout. LC State President Cynthia Pemberton reported an enrollment milestone Wednesday. For the first time, fall student headcount eclipsed the 4,000 mark.
First-time student enrollment is up by 8%. Enrollment in professional studies, such as nursing, is up 9%. And the five-year growth in headcount is outpacing Idaho’s population growth — and comes as population numbers are essentially stagnant in Nez Perce County, LC State’s home county.
“We have been defying the odds and punching well above our weight,” Pemberton said.
But during a panel discussion Wednesday, LC State staff offered candid assessments about morale — and the fallout from the 3% state budget cuts to higher ed and much of state government, imposed in August.
The budget cuts are already making it difficult for the nursing department to keep the adjunct faculty members who help with student clinical rotations, said Heidi Greene, an associate professor.
Charles Bell, an assistant professor of engineering technology, said LC State is “maturing,” attracting students who consider the school their first choice. But times are challenging.
“Our morale is better than it should be,” he said.
CTE director. The State Board formally named Peter Risse to head the Idaho Division of Career Technical Education.
Risse had been Boise State University’s director for government and industry relations. He was hired in September, pending board approval. The board unanimously approved the hire Wednesday.
The CTE post had been vacant since November.
Risse will make $164,299 a year in his new position.
Coming Thursday: a search update. The State Board meeting will resume Thursday morning, with a Boise State University presidential search update on the agenda.
The State Board has little about the search — which began this spring, after Marlene Tromp accepted the president’s job at the University of Vermont.
The search hit a snag earlier this month, when a State Board-appointed committee said it needed more time to come up with a list of five finalists for the job. Under state law, the committee is required to publicly release a list of five finalists — or release the names of all applicants.
