What’s In A Name

Emily Carr Institute’s recent “upgrade” to university status – and concomitant name change – is the fourth identity morph for the school since I began my journey towards BFA accreditation in 1992.
I was accepted sixteen years ago into Emily Carr College of Art & Design. In my third year, the college became Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, endowed with the ability to grant not only diplomas of art, but degrees as well. Between the time I graduated (1996) and 2005, ECIAD was shortened to the trendier ECI (I still wonder where the Art & Design went).

I fully expect the new and improved identity to be shortened to ECU before I have completed the final 9 credits for my BFA.

NOTE: Those of you who have even rudimentary math skills will deduce that I have been pursuing my fine arts degree for 12 years (16 if you count the four years it took to obtain the initial diploma). Yes, it is true.

THE EXPLANATION: After four years of post-secondary tutelage, I couldn’t face yet another year of higher education. I just couldn’t do it. Three years ago I decided I needed my BFA. I needed it. I wanted it. I had to have it. Being the Bringer-In-Of-Bacon the only way possible was to start chipping away at the 9 academic course requirements bit by bit.

So, instead of being Upwardly Mobile, I am Sidewardly Mobile At A Barely Perceptible But Steady Incline (I will explain the logic of this tactic in tomorrow’s post).