We've fractured our identity. From the looks of things, the fracture isn't going to heal anytime soon. If you bring up name-changing, people go rigid and head to their corners. Names aren't the only thing that people in the field can't agree on. The influx of scholars from other disciplines created a rift within home economics.
Some professors still identify with the synthetic notion of a home economist.
Most do not. At times, Ms. Brumberg has had to struggle to get historians to take her work in human ecology seriously. People are satisfied to run a federation of specialization. But you can't fragment the field. You can't teach nutrition without caring about family-resource management.