Every time I see someone mention St. Olaf, my mind goes to Betty White's character Rose Nylund. I have wondered if any parents have been influenced by this. Doesn't exactly inspire thoughts of "higher education."<<
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Wow, to me it does-- it’s a pretty great school. Ha, ha, I guess it must be a bad name, though.
Smith. Sounds like they want to be incognito.
We had a local school that changed their name to make it more appealing. It went from Cal State Hayward to Cal State East Bay. I’m not sure that helped recruiting.
Haven’t seen Morehead State. And not exactly related, but I love that LaSalle’s teams are the Explorers, even though the school is named for St. John DeLaSalle, not the explorer.
To go off on a tangent… what about unfortunate initials…
My alma mater is FU.
Totally agree about Cal State East Bay. Terrible name.
@GnocchiB : Yes! You win the prize, although I think of the graduate’s name as Drac U. La. Transylvania University is tops with the American Red Cross – really great blood drives, I hear.
Blood drives :))
Not an especially common view, but I’ve always said Harvard in my head as HARDvard.
@m0minmd: I’ve long thought the public institutions in Florida should go by “University of Florida”+cityname, so that the University of North Florida would become UFJ (the University of Florida Jacksonville), the University of South Florida would become UFT (the University of Florida Tampa), and the University of Central Florida, in Orlando, would become [drum roll /]…UFO.
So who gets to be University of Florida - Tallahassee? Both Florida State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University are in Tallahassee.
I don’t think Salisbury State University (now Salisbury University) has been mentioned – sounds almost like Salisbury steak.
Trump University - the name, the fact its not really a university, and because it just sucked.
Harvard University which gives locals a perfect chance to show off their Boston accent: Hahvahd.
@skieurope what’s weird to me about The College of New Jersey is that Princeton was chartered as the College of New Jersey and changed to Princeton in the late 1800s. I guess Trenton State thought the unused awkward name was still perfectly good when it got it out of the recycling bin in the 1990s.
These college re-namings (TCoNJ, Cal State East Bay) remind me of the rebranding of the Patagonian Toothfish into the more-stylish sounding Chilean Sea Bass.
North Adams State College became Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. It didn’t stop the enrolment decline despite offering in state tuition to residents of adjacent counties in New York.
University of Phoenix reminds me of crashing and burning.
Knox College: “The School of Hard Knox.”
To help reduce the pain, Knox could hold an annual scholarship essay contest: “How Gelatin has Enriched My Life.”
My understanding is that Beaver College changed its name less because it gave teenagers the giggles than because of what started popping up on searches once the Internet emerged…
Rust College in Mississippi.
There are lots of Concordia Colleges inthe USA, and even one in Canada.
Babson sounds like.it should.be a women’s college to me.
Stetson sounds like your new spouse’s kid.