The School of Continuing Studies, as old as Tulane itself, underwent a complete rebranding. During a private ceremony on Thursday, President Michael Fitts announced the school’s new name, The School of Professional Advancement.

The school is one of six undergraduate programs at Tulane and offers 26 undergraduate and four master’s degree programs intended for working adults in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast area. The new focus will be working more intently on career achievement and workplace skills.

“This school is about education,” Fitts said. “You remember the Socrates line, “Education is the kindling of a flame not the filling of a vessel.’ It’s about educating individuals who truly love education and thinking of ways to satisfy those needs across the age spectrum and really servicing the needs of the community in that way.”

Suri Duitch, the dean of the school, presented the plan to rebrand to Fitts and the Board of Tulane, and the resolution passed on March 17.

“I want to thank … President Fitts and Provost Robin Foreman who are really champions of the idea … that there is no single way to go to college, and there is no single set of standards by which we should judge whether or not people are prepared to go to college,” Duitch said. “There are multiple pathways.”

The school, created in 1884, was one of the first in the nation to offer courses for teachers and young male professionals. Previously called University College, the name was changed after Hurricane Katrina to the School of Continuing Studies.

The school is expanding its degree program offering in digital design and homeland security and adding an option for cybersecurity studies in the fall.