The Office of Multicultural Enrichment has changed its name to the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Prentice Ashford, director of OMA, said the change came from the decision to better define what the program does. After evaluating the program and deciding what needed to stay and what needed to go, Ashford decided the title no longer fit the bill.

“OMA, I feel, is more recognizable across higher education than ‘enrichment,'” he said. “By adding multicultural affairs, it gives us more ability in the future for our office to be viewed as a resource rather than just an ambiguous ‘What does your office do?'”

The idea to change the name was formed by Ashford and solidified by student voices and leaders’ input.

Sheila Haines, junior nursing major from Dallas, was one of those student leaders. Haines is one of three student workers in OMA and is the vice president of the Black Students Association.

“If you look at other campuses, the offices they have have something to do with affairs, so to be more uniform, and for people to recognize what it is, we changed it,” Haines said.

Along with changing its name, the office also received a new logo and mission statement.

“Our biggest focus is building an OMA community and defining more of what OMA as an office does,” Haines said.

Though the program has rebranded itself, Ashford said it is essentially the same.

“We’ll continue to do the same things, but we also want to add an educational component through some of the events and programs we do,” he said. “We felt that ‘affairs’ offered more flexibility in that area.”

For more information about OMA, visit http://www.acu.edu/campusoffices/multicultural/.