Carnegie Mellon University

Enrollment Services

Information for Faculty & Staff

Name Pronunciation Tool Introduced in SIO & S3

November 02, 2018

Name Pronunciation Tool Introduced in SIO & S3

NameCoach Takes Uncertainty Out of Name Pronunciation

Carnegie Mellon is pleased to introduce a new tool in Student Information Online (SIO) that gives students the ability to record the preferred pronunciation of their name, as well as provide the phonetic spelling. Through NameCoach, the recorded name and phonetic spelling is then made available in the S3 Admin Console for faculty, advisors and others, removing the guessing game of how to correctly pronounce student names.

With the goal of improving the student experience and creating a more inclusive campus community and classroom, NameCoach directly addresses the problem of name mispronunciation. Recent research on student success, persistence, and yield asserts how important a sense of belonging is for students and shows that pronouncing names correctly is critical to a student’s sense of belonging.

Faculty, advisors and others are asked to encourage students to use NameCoach. Once available, be sure to use NameCoach to learn how to say your students' names to make them feel welcome in the classroom and campus community. When a name pronunciation is recorded by the student, faculty will see a "play record" icon next to the student's name on the course roster page. Pronunciations and phonetic spellings will also appear on the S3 student summary page for faculty, course instructors and other S3 users. 

NameCoach, part of the latest S3 release, was made available through a joint effort by the University Registrar’s Office, Enrollment Services, Vice Provost for Education, Heinz College and Tepper School of Business.