(05-29-2018 08:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We've seen a rebranding elevate programs like Texas St, Missouri St, and others but I wonder what others might be more successful (or would have been more successful) under a different name?

In most cases, U of is the most prominent, followed by State. Tech seems fairly well regarded as well. Directionals and City names seem to be frowned upon.

Cincinnati---Ohio Tech
UC Davis---(U of) California A&M
Central Connecticut St---Connecticut St
Northern Arizona--Arizona Tech

What others are there out there?

(05-29-2018 08:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We've seen a rebranding elevate programs like Texas St, Missouri St, and others but I wonder what others might be more successful (or would have been more successful) under a different name?

In most cases, U of is the most prominent, followed by State. Tech seems fairly well regarded as well. Directionals and City names seem to be frowned upon.

Cincinnati---Ohio Tech
UC Davis---(U of) California A&M
Central Connecticut St---Connecticut St
Northern Arizona--Arizona Tech

What others are there out there?

(05-29-2018 09:49 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  City names are fine as well as unique names like Stanford, Duke, Wake, Notre Dame, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, etc.

Schools that would be better of with a better name
UAB - Birmingham
ULL - Louisiana
UCF - Orlando or should have kept Florida Tech Citronauts. Best name ever
USF - Tampa Bay
UConn - Connecticut
Southern Miss - Mississippi Tech
ECU - Carolina University
App State - Appalachian (unique name should drop the state)
ODU - Shoild go by as Old Dominon. Its a unique name and they should use it
UTSA - San Antonio
Western Michigan - Western University

(05-29-2018 10:53 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  I'll add to the chorus of those saying that there's nothing wrong with the name UC Davis. The UC system has enough prestige to overcome whatever ideas people have about system schools with city names, hyphenated or non-hyphenated.

The CSU system, on the other hand, lacks uniformity in its naming formats and suffers a bit for it, I think. At least Cal Poly grabbed a cool name for itself.

If Stanford and the University of California hadn't lobbied to block the state's acquisition of what would become Caltech, we may have ended up with a much more confused university name landscape in California. It might have started a system to rival UC in a way that the CSU system has never been allowed to. Or maybe not. Maybe Caltech would just be a standalone public school.

(05-29-2018 11:55 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-29-2018 10:53 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  I'll add to the chorus of those saying that there's nothing wrong with the name UC Davis. The UC system has enough prestige to overcome whatever ideas people have about system schools with city names, hyphenated or non-hyphenated.

The CSU system, on the other hand, lacks uniformity in its naming formats and suffers a bit for it, I think. At least Cal Poly grabbed a cool name for itself.

If Stanford and the University of California hadn't lobbied to block the state's acquisition of what would become Caltech, we may have ended up with a much more confused university name landscape in California. It might have started a system to rival UC in a way that the CSU system has never been allowed to. Or maybe not. Maybe Caltech would just be a standalone public school.

The CSU system is too varie, and the charter too restrictive. Branding is a big issue, as the oldest schools want to keep the Prestige of being <City/county> State University. So SFSU, SJSU, SDSU, SSU, HSU are not going to change. Others like the State name and don't use the CSU such as Stan State, Chico State, Sac State and Fresno State in their names. Other proudly use it as Cal State (LA, Fullerton, East Bay, San Marcos) or CSU (Bakersfield, San Berandino, Channel Islands or CI, Monterey Bay, Northridge who go by CSUN). Then there is Long beach which can best be described as confused, so much so we don't know what to call the Beach.

Cal Poly markets itself as separate and flaunts it's semi-independence from the CSU charter, with it's own separate admission standards and program structure. Pomona piggybacks on Cal Poly.

The basic problem is everyone wants to disassociate from the CSU name because it implies regional admission and minimal standards, a commuter school, and no research. The gap to the UCs is enormous. Cal Poly and then SDSU form a partial bridge, but it only gets ahlf way there.

What needs to happen is the State of California should recognize one size does not fit all, and the overflow in the highly urban State of resident ready students is far greater than the UCs can accommodate (which creates near Ivy League standards of admission, absurd for a publicly funded University system, which is supposed to be for the general public, not just the few Erudite class of a Veronica Roth novel). Splitting the system into say three systems of more similar schools makes more sense, each with their own charter.

The naming mess can probably never be cleaned up fully. The UC system has it's prestige because it is restricted to Veronica Roth's HS Erudite class, and unobtainable for mere 3.5 GPA students (who are not star athletes). Prestige by name comes when it is associated with exclusivity. Even if every Cal State went by Cal State, they would find they are associated with the regional schools such as East Bay and Bakersfield, and their lack of prestige sticks on them like glue. The only way to gain prestige is to separate some of the CSU schools from the rest, put them in a different administrative system with a different charter than allows them to separate and truly be Statewide schools and not regional. Prestige has to be earned. You can call them Stanford University (at Fresno or at Long Beach, etc) but they will not attain the prestige of the farm under the current system (although Stanford could make a killing licensing the name to somebody in Sacramento stupid enough to think branding was the root issue).

Charter, not brand is the issue.

(05-29-2018 11:55 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-29-2018 10:53 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  I'll add to the chorus of those saying that there's nothing wrong with the name UC Davis. The UC system has enough prestige to overcome whatever ideas people have about system schools with city names, hyphenated or non-hyphenated.

The CSU system, on the other hand, lacks uniformity in its naming formats and suffers a bit for it, I think. At least Cal Poly grabbed a cool name for itself.

If Stanford and the University of California hadn't lobbied to block the state's acquisition of what would become Caltech, we may have ended up with a much more confused university name landscape in California. It might have started a system to rival UC in a way that the CSU system has never been allowed to. Or maybe not. Maybe Caltech would just be a standalone public school.

The CSU system is too varied, and the charter too restrictive. Branding is a big issue, as the oldest schools want to keep the Prestige of being <City/county> State University. So SFSU, SJSU, SDSU, SSU, HSU are not going to change. Others like the State name and don't use the CSU in their (branding) names such as Stan State, Chico State, Sac State and Fresno State. Others proudly use it as Cal State (LA, Fullerton, East Bay, San Marcos) or CSU (Bakersfield, San Berandino, Channel Islands or CI, Monterey Bay, Northridge who go by CSUN). Then there is Long beach which can best be described as confused, so much so we don't know what to call the Beach.

Cal Poly markets itself as separate and flaunts it's semi-independence from the CSU charter, with it's own separate admission standards and program structure. Pomona piggybacks on Cal Poly.

The basic problem is everyone wants to disassociate from the CSU name because it implies regional admission and minimal standards, a commuter school, and no research. The gap to the UCs is enormous. Cal Poly and then SDSU form a partial bridge, but it only gets half way there.

What needs to happen is the State of California should recognize one size does not fit all, and the overflow in the highly urban State of resident ready students is far greater than the UCs can accommodate (which creates near Ivy League standards of admission, absurd for a publicly funded University system, which is supposed to be for the general public, not just the few Erudite class of a Veronica Roth novel). Splitting the system into say three systems of more similar schools makes more sense, each with their own charter.

The naming mess can probably never be cleaned up fully. The UC system has it's prestige because it is restricted to Veronica Roth's HS Erudite class, and unobtainable for mere 3.5 GPA students (who are not star athletes). Prestige by name comes when it is associated with exclusivity. Even if every Cal State went by Cal State, they would find they are associated with the regional schools such as East Bay and Bakersfield, and their lack of prestige sticks on them like glue. The only way to gain prestige is to separate some of the CSU schools from the rest, put them in a different administrative system with a different charter than allows them to separate and truly be Statewide schools and not regional. Prestige has to be earned. You can call them Stanford University (at Fresno or at Long Beach, etc) but they will not attain the prestige of the farm under the current system (although Stanford could make a killing licensing the name to somebody in Sacramento stupid enough to think branding was the root issue).

Charter, not brand is the issue.

(05-30-2018 12:46 AM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  It's funny. Growing up I never associated even a tiny bit of prestige with those older CSU names, but maybe that's because I'm from the LA metro area.

(05-29-2018 10:00 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  UC Davis is only incidentally an Ag school, it's a generic UC school, with well over 95% of the students in fields not Ag related. It is impacted for all majors and very well thought of, with perhaps the 4th most difficult admission of any public school (after Cal, UCLA, and UC San Diego). We think of it as the school you go to if you want to open a winery (yeah it's California, it has the Robert Mondavi Institute and a great major in viticulture https://www.ucdavis.edu/majors/viticulture-and-enology) -- if any name change it would be California Vintner University. But in truth the UC name is all the advertising any school needs to have nothing but Ivy League level applicants, and too many to accept them all. There wont be any change.

Now should there be a Chancellor change, I'm right there with you.

(05-29-2018 08:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We've seen a rebranding elevate programs like Texas St, Missouri St, and others but I wonder what others might be more successful (or would have been more successful) under a different name?

In most cases, U of is the most prominent, followed by State. Tech seems fairly well regarded as well. Directionals and City names seem to be frowned upon.

Cincinnati---Ohio Tech
UC Davis---(U of) California A&M
Central Connecticut St---Connecticut St
Northern Arizona--Arizona Tech

What others are there out there?

(05-29-2018 11:06 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(05-29-2018 09:49 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  City names are fine as well as unique names like Stanford, Duke, Wake, Notre Dame, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, etc.

Schools that would be better of with a better name
UAB - Birmingham
ULL - Louisiana
UCF - Orlando or should have kept Florida Tech Citronauts. Best name ever
USF - Tampa Bay
UConn - Connecticut
Southern Miss - Mississippi Tech
ECU - Carolina University
App State - Appalachian (unique name should drop the state)
ODU - Shoild go by as Old Dominon. Its a unique name and they should use it
UTSA - San Antonio
Western Michigan - Western University

UConn is Connecticut. It's been on the jerseys and everything.