Proposed name change stirs controversy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A proposal to change the University of Missouri-Columbia name by dropping the Columbia designation has upset faculty at the three other campuses in the University of Missouri system.

The proposals from Columbia include naming that campus the University of Missouri, or even capitalizing it to The University of Missouri. The idea is to avoid confusion with Missouri State University in Springfield, said Frank Schmidt, president of the MU Faculty Council.

Faculty leaders from each of the four campuses plan to discuss the proposed name change Monday at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Guy Bailey, chancellor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said the proposed name change would put pressure on other campuses to change their names. He said UMKC may be encouraged to change to The University of Kansas City.

On Tuesday, a group representing the faculty, staff and students at the University of Missouri-St. Louis adopted a resolution opposing the name change.

"Our position is we are not trying to stop them from changing their name, but the issue is that this is a name that is already in use by other campuses, and they don't have a right to take it," said Tim Farmer, chairman of the Faculty Senate and University Assembly at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton proposed dropping the Columbia from the university's name to eliminate any regional designation. But the idea came from the steering committee for the $1 billion For All We Call Mizzou fund-raising campaign.

"We believe the regional designation was a hindrance to some fund-raising efforts," said Cynthia Brinkley, president of AT&T in Missouri and one of three leaders of the campaign.

"What we are doing is going back to the original name for the university," she said. "It is not designed to be punitive to any of the other universities in the system in any way."

Brinkley said the University of Missouri-Columbia should be set apart from the other campuses because it is the only Missouri public university among the 62 research institutions in the Association of American Universities and it is the state's flagship institution.

The University of Missouri Board of Curators would have to approve the name change, but curators have not set a date to review the proposal.

Farmer said simply changing the name is not the problem. He said all the campuses approved when the University of Missouri-Rolla changed its name to Missouri University of Science and Technology to better reflect its mission. That change takes effect in January.

"Rolla didn't try to take someone else's name," Farmer said. "We just think that the University of Missouri name is owned by all four campuses. We are all collectively the University of Missouri. The Columbia campus is saying, 'No, we are really the University of Missouri and the rest of you are not.'"

Gary Ebersole, chairman of the UMKC Faculty Senate and president of the four-campus Intercampus Faculty Senate, agreed.

"I don't think they have the support of any of the other campuses on this," he said. "It is demeaning to the other campuses. It says that we are satellite campuses and not real institutions, and I don't think it will fly."