The document above provides some important clues as to why the name change occurred.

The reasons given in this piece are:

• We didn't really fit the picture of what a university looked like anymore, since we had gotten rid of most of our graduate programs.
• Something about the Association of American Universities?
• Other schools were switching names back to college, too- it was trendy!
• It simply made sense - "This is what we always have been."

Let's break down these clues a little further.

When we first made the switch to university, we initially made an effort to increase our academic programs to live up to the name. That didn't last long, however. In 1908, one of the core departments of the university, the theological seminary, moved to Dayton and merged with the Ursinus School of Theology. Then, our "Heidelberg Academy" (our charter school for high school students) closed, as a result of a downward trend in attendance as the quality of public high schools improved, and then officially closing in 1917 in response to the start of American involvement in World War I.

Now, what is this about the Association of American Universities? There had been a growing trend in higher education to create standards to hold schools to, and Heidelberg became a member of several of these standardizing and evaluating organizations. The first of these was the North Central Associations of Colleges and Secondary Schools during the 1912-1913 school year. These rating agencies marked the school as a college.

The article was right- it was, in fact, trendy for universities to go back to college, as the standards for what each meant became more clear. And we had phased out our graduate programs, and didn't really fit any other marks of a university.

It makes sense to switch back to college. But why did the change occur that specific year, when the reasons to switch had been building for years?

The movement actually began back in 1922, when the Board of Regents prepared a committee to amend the charter. By January of 1926, the wider Heidelberg University would be informed of the plan. On October 29, 1926, the report to change the name was proposed to the Board of Regents, and three of the five members of the board approved it.

How did the school actually go about changing the name?

Of course, there would be a whole legal process with the Ohio Synod of the Reformed Church and then the State of Ohio, but once the Heidelberg community had decided to make the switch, there really wasn't any going back.

The President would praise the Heidelberg community for the change in his address the next year. Notice that France Hall and Campus Center also broke ground in the year of 1926!

The 1926 name change overall was influenced by many different factors, and didn't have a specific person leading the cause like the John Kost case or function as a marketing campaign like in 2009, but can be used as a way to look into how Ohio colleges thought of themselves.