The possibility of a name change from NIU to UNI has raised student’s concerns about the costs of changing signs and stationary, but NIU department heads don’t see any cause for alarm.

With the changing of the university’s name comes the altering of items with the old name. With this change, NIU might incur some costs, but several department heads said there was no reason to worry.

NIU Transportation Manager Bill Finucane expressed little or no concern. He said the department currently has 220 vehicles and if the name were changed, there could be some phasing in.

Finucane said cars usually turn over every five or six years, and the new name could be placed on the car when it is purchased. He said if the names were changed on the vehicles, the cost would be five dollars a vehicle for a total of about $1,000.

Judd Baker, director of the Holmes Student Center, said, if necessary, there would be a phase-in similar to what Iowa State did when in the same situation. The phase-in would absorb the costs of replacing forms and stationary with the old name on it.

In reference to the bookstore in the Holmes Student Center, Baker said he didn’t see the store taking a loss because of items with NIU’s current name on it, such as sweatshirts and stationary. He said he felt there was enough time to sell the items, and the store didn’t carry that large of an inventory anyway.

He said he felt items with the old NIU name on it would sell well as collectors items.

SA Public Relations Adviser Anna Bicanic said she didn’t feel there would be much, if any, cost. “I don’t think it will cost anything. When times came to reorder anything then we’d get the name changed,” she said.

Robert Woggon, director of the Office of Public Information, said any cost would be minimal. “If they did it there would be a phase-in where you would use up or stamp paperwork,” he said. He compared the phase-in to the situation Carol Moseley-Braun is in now. He said she still is sending press releases with former Sen. Alan Dixon’s name on it.

Mike Malone, assistant vice president in Development and University Relations, also said the cost would be minimal. He said he was working at Moraine Valley Community College when the school changed its logo, and they just let the old paper run out.

“As a rule you don’t go out and reprint everything, it may take one and a half to two years to purge itself,” he said. In reference to the signs which say NIU, such as the one on Castle Drive, he said there weren’t too many to change.

In a previous story in The Northern Star about the proposed change of the university’s name, NIU President John La Tourette said the cost of switching over to a name would be “very little.”

“The cost of the change can’t be too large compared to the benefits,” he said.