Members of the Johns Hopkins University community now have the ability to designate a preferred name in university databases, following a recent university-wide push for greater inclusion on campus.
According to an official university release, the move will enable students, faculty and staff to all input a preferred name via the university's myJHU webportal. The profile page now includes two new fields: "preferred first name" and "preferred full name."
Prior to the update, the webportal only offered a nickname field in addition to legal name. University officials say the nickname field didn't "accurately describe the full range of reasons someone might go by an alternate name."
The university's new preferred name policy is aimed at those who go by a different name as a reflection of their gender identity, or those who use an Americanized alternative to a name in their native language. Once updated in the myJHU portal, the preferred name will be used in the portal search, university directory, and the university's Global Address Book.
The preferred first names established in myJHU will also auto-populate in other campus applications, including Outlook and Office 365, CoursePlus, StarRez Housing Portal, and Degree Audit for all schools except the School of Nursing and School of Medicine.
University officials are planning for more systems to pull the preferred name data field automatically by the fall 2019 semester. For now, students will have to manually input their preferred name for it to appear in the following areas: