A university by any other name...

Missouri Tech? University of Missouri Institute of Technology? The MIT of the Midwest?

One of these names could be in UMR's future. Chancellor John F. Carney III has asked the campus community to enter into a discussion about changing the name of the University of Missouri-Rolla.

In his State of the University Address today, Chancellor John F. Carney III suggested that UMR's name doesn't reflect the university's mission. He then asked the campus community to "start a conversation" about changing the institution's name.

“The University of Missouri-Rolla is unique among the four University of Missouri campuses because of our focus as a technological research university,” Carney says. “We believe a more distinctive name would afford UMR several advantages in recruiting students on a national level.”

Noting that his vision is to make UMR one of the nation's top five technological research universities by 2010, Carney displayed a list of other similar universities and noted that many of the schools include terms such as "technology," "technological" and "polytechnic" in their names.

Carney plans to gather input about the possible name change from the campus over the coming weeks. He plans to send a survey to alumni later this month and also survey students, faculty and staff. Any name change would require approval from the University of Missouri Board of Curators.

What do you think? Should UMR change its name to something that better reflects its role as "Missouri's Premier Technological Research University"? Maybe a more descriptive name would mean a shorter tagline in our future.