Before a new change to the way teachers receive class rosters, it wasn’t unheard of for transgender students to disappear from class. This was because students couldn’t identify with the name being called for them.

“Back in the day we didn’t even have nickname(s). So can you imagine how embarrassing that is for a student? I’ve had students not show up, years ago like seven years ago, they don’t show up again,” said Trina Sotirakopulos, an English Instructor at the College of DuPage.

When a student first signs up for classes at COD, the student creates a myACCESS account that links to Blackboard. Within this a student can decide if they want to add a nickname. If filled out, this nickname will overlap a student’s legal name in a class roster so a teacher can see what the student wants to be called.

However, this only applied to in-person classes. In early November, Information Technology implemented a change which allows students to have their nicknames overlap their legal name in Blackboard and online classes. Additionally, Information Technology updated myACCESS to display the chosen nickname on roster verification, midterm verification, and final grading. This request for change was initially “brought forth from counseling and advising,” according to Donna Berliner,  assistant vice president of information systems.

Students had come to counseling and advising requesting the change, and one of the counselors had championed the request. Previous to this change, students didn’t have the option to use anything but their legal first name in the Blackboard roster. For many students, this change went unnoticed due to the fact that most people go by their legal first name. However this change heavily affected the students who did utilize this new change, many of whom are transgendered.

Before, if a transgender student took an online class, the teacher and students could only refer to that student by their legal first name. This is because student nicknames were not implemented into the system, and only legal first names could be utilized. This could be potentially very embarrassing for a transgender student to be called the wrong name, for example if a teacher calls a student Alex when their name is actually Alexa.

In an interview with Sotirakopulos, she later explained a predicament she experienced first hand. “Teaching online, we have many students who identify as a different gender, or have a different name, and they were only allowed to go by their legal name. I have a student right now who identifies as female but has a legal name that’s male, and so everyone in the class has to address her as this male name.”

It was only later that this same student came out to her teacher and explained her situation. Sotirakopulos also explained that this “meant a big life change for many students.” Being transgendered typically creates many problems for one who decides to undergo this change. So for the college to implement this change to myACCESS it had no doubt alleviated some of these problems for students experiencing difficulties being called the right name in class.

It isn’t just transgendered students who are happy about the change. Many other students who simply just prefer to be called a different name such as Jonathan to J.J., love the change as well.

“When we get to college we find ourselves right?” Sotirakopulos said. “This is the formative place where we realize maybe I’m known as Thomas, but I realize I want to go by Tom or Tommy, or whatever it is. This is the time where we start to realize, that legal name that we were given at birth might not be who we are.”

When asked “Do you think students and staff will be accepting of this change?” Berliner replied, “Absolutely. When I sent out that email announcement I received a number of replies from faculty saying this is fantastic.”

COD is not alone either. Around the same time COD implemented the change, NIU did the same. This new change seems to be widely accepted by a number of students and faculty at the college, and more accommodating changes similar to this one could be seen in the near future.

“We are looking at widening where the nickname can be available within the system as well. So if a person in registration is working with a student at the counter, they are able to see the nickname as well,” Berliner said.