The University of Connecticut’s Undergraduate Student Government is striving to obtain student support to rename Koons Hall, named after Benjamin Franklin Koons, a professor and the first president of the Storrs Agricultural College.
In recent years, the president’s name has become an offensive slur for minority communities, promoting USG to take action to change the name of the building home to the Department of Allied Health Sciences.
USG released a survey on Oct. 15 to gather student opinions on the name, with the hopes of gaining support.
Andy Zhang, the director of communications for USG, said it is important to balance the changing landscape of words and create an inclusive and equitable college campus.
However, Zhang said the process has been challenging, because the name only affects a small part of the school’s population.
“It is hard to really understand or emphasize with why it may be a problem or how it feels to have a slur embedded in a buildings name, if it doesn’t apply to you,” he said. It is hard to emphasize when demographically wise, black students make up a small proportion of campus than a lot of other demographics.”
Zhang notes there has been some push back against USG’s initiative, arguing that changing the name would no longer honor the first president of UConn, who authorized the admission of the first women into the college, among other achievements.
However, he said there can be other ways to honor the president besides a building name, which a lot of students don’t even think about when walking into them.
“But I think, in essence, when we think about building names as current students on campus, a lot of the students don’t care, or even know, that a lot of these things are named after people in the first place,” Zhang explained, adding that many students don’t know who McMahon or McHugh Hall are named after.
66 percent of students believe the university should consider renaming Koons Hall, according to the USG survey totaling 39 responses.
“I would like the university to take into consideration the historical and systemic impact that names like ‘Koons’ have on marginalized communities,” an anonymous survey respondent said.
But I think, in essence, when we think about building names as current students on campus, a lot of the students don’t care, or even know, that a lot of these things are named after people in the first place.
Andy Zhang, Director of Communications for USG
The survey is still active and can be found on USG’s Instagram @usguconn.
In addition to student feedback, Zhang said faculty support is also crucial. He has plans to speak with the Associate Dean of the College of Agricultural, Health and Natural Resources, because the college includes the Allied Health Science department in Koons Hall.
Once USG gathers enough student and faculty support, Zhang and USG plan to draft letters and bring the proposal to the Board of Trustees.
When asked about what the name should be changed to, Zhang said USG has been looking into who else they can honor at the university.
The process for changing a building name is a long process and requires different intermediaries before it is approved and implemented, according to previous reporting by the Daily Campus.
UConn has commonly renamed buildings to recognize important faculty and university leaders throughout the years. Last year, UConn renamed Oak Hall to Susan V. Herbst Hall, recognizing the first woman to serve as president from 2011 to 2019. In 2017, UConn renamed Laurel Hall to Lawrence D. McHugh Hall to honor the former Board of Trustees chair.
Exactly what crime has President Koons committed? The fact his name is the same as a term some jerks use to demean a racial group? This is the sort of crusade that gives the people on Fox News ammunition regarding “Woke” or “The Wacky Left”. If you’re looking for prominent names to question, perhaps you could start with the town of Cromwell. It’s named after Oliver Cromwell, a man who carried out a program of extermination against the Irish people a few hundred years ago. In Ireland he is ranked right up with Hitler as a war criminal. To some in England he’s a great hero, to the Irish, not so much. Will this post generate a wave of indignation and concern within the UCONN student body about a real insult to an ethnic group? I doubt it, because it would be too hard, and you probably don’t really care.