New policy offers privacy for students of the transgender community

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Before the student preferred name policy, Drake was accommodating students who sought out a name change on a case-by-case basis.

The new policy, Overberg explained, simply makes the name-change an easy, recognized option for students.

“I do know multiple people who would benefit from this,” Radtke said. “I know that, even though if I don’t know them, I know there are other people on campus who would take advantage of this, even if it is to explore their gender identity.”

Tyler said that 1,300 students currently have a different preferred name in the system from when they came to Drake. Of those, 900 preferred names are “significantly different” from the legal name.

Tyler said that this is not an indication of all transgender students who may take advantage of the policy. International students who take on a more common ‘American’ name are included in the figure. Campus Pride reports on its website that nearly 160 colleges have a similar policy or option in place already.

Tyler said that if students submit a “goofy” name, it could appear odd to potential employers and new professors.

“If they want to put something sort of goofy into the system… you can put that in there,” Tyler said. “There are some natural ramifications.”

While many steps are still needed to make Drake more inclusive to the LGBT community, Tyler said that he is looking to reassess the campus pride index.

“It’s hopefully something we could do this semester is to reevaluate that score we got a few years ago,” Tyler said. “I think we’ve moved up some.”

Emails are being sent out to campus to further explain the policy and how it will work.

Students can expect to find the preferred name submission in MyDUSIS under personal information once it has been implemented. There they will find the form to submit a name and will be able to check if they already have a preferred name. If a preferred name is entered, it will automatically be updated on all applicable platforms once the policy goes into place.

Students can change their name at any time but should expect a few days for the name to update across all areas.

In addition, emails sent to the student’s address before the change will still be delivered. For example, emails sent to Anthony Tyler@drake edu will still be delivered to Tony.Tyler@drake.edu if Tyler decided to change his name to Anthony.