The new community college in the Treasure Valley is being called the College of Western Idaho, or CWI. Considering that the two existing community colleges are the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) in Twin Falls and North Idaho College (NIC) in Coeur d’Alene, how did they pick CWI over WIC? “I don’t really know why … there wasn’t any specific reasoning or thought process behind it,” said state Board of Education spokesman Mark Browning. Asked if perhaps it was because WIC is already a well-known acronym for a different government program, the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, Browning said, “I’d like to say that there was that much forethought in it, but I think it was just sheer luck.”

M.C. Niland, one of the CWI’s newly named trustees and co-chair of the campaign to create the college, said organizers had no particular name in mind when an attorney reviewing the petition for the election told them they needed a name. “Just without any discussion, we just said, ‘Let’s call it College of Western Idaho,’” Niland said. The new college will serve the entire Treasure Valley, but the name Treasure Valley Community College was already taken – that’s the name of the community college in Ontario, Ore. “Obviously that would have been maybe even our first choice,” Niland acknowledged. But she called CWI “a great name,” and added, “We loved it!”

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