Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Gumby College

     Evidently, among the names suggested for Irvine Valley College back in the spring of 1985 were "Gumby College" and "El Torito College."
     Check it out:

Saddleback North: New Name and a New Valley (LA Times) - May 15, 1985
     After a short search that yielded suggestions such as Gumby College and El Torito College—Home of the Nachos, the Saddleback Community College District board has voted to rename Saddleback College's north campus Irvine Valley Community College.
. . .
     Two of the other names offered by students, teachers and administrators were Rancho Irvine College and Modjeska Community College. Modjeska had a nice ring, [spokeswoman Susan Clark] said, but it presented technical difficulties. "There was a lot of trouble with the spelling, and we couldn't fit it into a fight song."….
     Yeah, spelling trouble.
     At a college.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those who have been around a while may recall that Dr. Joshua Smith, then Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, was the guest speaker at the IVC inauguration as a separate college. Yes, there had been a lot of talk, and even controversy, about nomenclature, some arguing that there was no "valley" in Irvine, so why name the new college "Irvine Valley College? But Dr. Smith, in his characteristic acerbic sense of humor, calmly noted that if the dead have their valley, if the kings had their valley, and if the dolls had their valley then, heck, why not give Irvine its "valley" too? End of story.

Roy Bauer said...

Yes, we've presented that occasion and his words here.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...