re: ULL and name history....

Ulm has worn Louisiana on their jerseys and potentially could have a uniform nearly identical to yours. As has been pointed out to you LSU has nothing to do with your identity or school name. ULM also has a great engineering program and one of two Pharmacy programs in the state and which is nationally renowned. None of which is relevant to the decision of the legislature and the Louisiana University School System.

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P.S. A media guide from Fall 2000 at USL states nicknames, enrollment, etc. It states: call us Louisiana-Lafayette.

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It is more about money and protecting the preferred position that LSU has among the state's public universities. LSU's statutorily preferred position is something that LSU supporters want to maintain because it is important to the continued role of LSU as the state's flagship university and to its success. Just like McDonald's jealously guards its name to protect it market position because it is in a competitive world, LSU supporters want to protect LSU's position in competition for scarce resources. I doubt very much that Tulane would be tolerant of another school using the Tulane name to try to horn in on Tulane's status and competitive position in the world of higher education. You can bet that Tulane would have a bevy of lawyers descending on the hapless school that would try such a thing. (What would Tulane alums think of Southeastern becoming Tulane State University?) While UL is not same name as LSU, the name would tend to create more confusion in the marketplace and would not be helpful to LSU. Call it insecurity if you want, but it is practical business in a competitive world.

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As he said, insecurity. If the LSU legislators and supporters were confident in their status and their ability to remain the flagship school, a name change wouldn't pose a threat.

The Tulane example is ridiculous. There's a world of difference between someone taking a name that has nothing to do with their school, and USL dropping the Southwestern from their name.

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Basically, if folks (mainly from LSU) weren't so defensive about ULL wanting to be UL, they would indeed by UL. I really don't see why folks from LSU are so against it.

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ULL supporters love to ask this question. What does LSU care about what a university in Lafayette calls itself? The reason it was canned in the legislature is because they understood the objective. USL was a regional university that wanted to become a “state” university, and receive funding on a bigger scale. They are not a "state" university anymore than the other regional schools. Just because they are the biggest of those schools doesn't change anything. It just means they are the biggest regional university! The reality is that we have too many four year colleges in Louisiana already, and it makes no sense to boost the status of a university 55 miles from the flagship university.

The reality is that ULL has some very good programs, as does LA Tech, ULM, and Southeastern. You may have some students from north LA go to ULL for their computer science program, just like you may have some students from south LA attend Tech for their Aviation program. That doesn’t make them “state” universities. UNC and NC State are about 25 miles apart, but UNC is a liberal arts university with a business school, and NC State doesn’t have a business school but has an engineering school. The point is that they offer very different curricula. You might see that those at LSU could be concerned that making ULL a “state” university might take funding/programs from LSU. It’s not paranoia.

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You might see that those at LSU could be concerned that making ULL a “state” university might take funding/programs from LSU. It’s not paranoia.

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As long as you're the only one in the race, you win every race.

We should do this on a local level as well. Put our funding into one high school in each community. We hurt the system as a whole, but at least we can brag about our local flagship school.

Embarrassing that the goal of so many is to maintain a high level of mediocrity.

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The Tulane example is ridiculous. There's a world of difference between someone taking a name that has nothing to do with their school, and USL dropping the Southwestern from their name.

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Not ridiculous. To say that the change from University of Southwestern Louisiana to University of Louisiana is just a simple dropping of a word is disingenous. The whole purpose is to create an entirely different image of the school from a regional/directional school to one that has some specially mandated mission broader than any other UL system school. It isn't just dropping a otherwise insignificant word from the title. ULL is still a primarily regional school, bigger than ULM, yes, maybe even somewhat more prestigious. But it does not have a flagship agenda that makes it the premier public university in the UL system or even a mission that make its role somehow superior to every other school in the UL system. ULL wants the name change solely for its competitive advantage and its aspirations to be on par with LSU as a flagship school. It isn't about dropping a single word, but about creating an image that the school has a role that is superior to its sibling schools. If it wasn't a big deal, then why doesn't ULL simply abide by the rules that are in place regarding its use of the name University of Louisiana. In reality the name change to UL probably has more significance than if Southeastern decided it wanted to honor a distinguished philanthropist named Tulane.

You all are laughable arguing about whose johnson has the most miles.

LSU is the flagship everyone in the state wants to pull for and go to, b/c it makes them feel good about the place they live.

Tulane is the academically rich school that the NE yankee kids want to come to. Get away from mom and dad, do a lil coke, and go slummin on the weekends.

ULaLa is the commuter school kids go to when mom and dad cant drop 20k a yr to send them to state and wish 'they would stay close to home'

Good nite, see ya next yr, thanks for coming.

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We should do this on a local level as well. Put our funding into one high school in each community. We hurt the system as a whole, but at least we can brag about our local flagship school

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Actually, many rural communities would be better off with consolidating schools rather than trying to maintain inefficient and ineffective schools just because residents like having a "local" school. They may try to maintain a local school, but it will not have the same resources as the consolidated school. Similarly, with limited funding, not every university can be a flagship school.

One of the frequent criticisms of Louisiana higher education has been the unnecessary duplicaton of some programs that are wasteful, inefficient and of poor quality at the various universities. Of course all the the universities should have the basic curriculum necessary for any college, but more specialized programs might well benefit from elimination of duplicative, poor quality programs.

We all know that the state has limited funding to support higher education. LSU supporters see no particular reason to give up money to another school and dilute the quality of the programs at LSU without an overall benefit to higher education in Louisiana. It is hard enough now to get sufficient funding. If the goal is to maintain a high level of mediocrity, taking money from LSU to give it to ULL to support its pretensions makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, not so much.

It isn't that I don't want ULL to be as good a school as it can be or that I want it to fail as a solid institution of higher education. But I don't want to see LSU's efforts to fulfill its legislatively-mandated role sacrificed to fulfill the ambitions of ULL supporters because they are in essence jealous of LSU. And that is what a lot of this argument seems to be about. Some ULL supporters seem to want to build ULL up at the expense of LSU. LSU folks naturally are opposed to that. This doesn't mean that LSU should have first dibs on everything. LSU doesn't have a pharmacy school for example. But Louisiana is not in a position to support two fully-funded flagship schools. If that is the ultimate goal of the efforts to change the name at ULL, it isn't a good one.

If the name change really isn't all that big a deal in the first place, why are those who insist on calling ULL the University of Louisiana so adamant, when it simply isn't?

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My point was that there is a world of difference between dropping one word from your name and pulling a completely foreign name out of the thin air. I stated your same reasons for UL's name change pages ago. The Tulane argument is a far fetched, worst case, nuclear bomb level of an example.

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Of course the Tulane example was far-fetched. It was meant to be. But the point is that the dropping of Southwestern from University of Southwestern Louisiana has great symbolic significance, and in actuality more profound significance than changing Southeastern to Tulane State. Why? Because the dropping of Southwestern says something profound about the mission of the school. To say University of Louisiana, without qualifying with Lafayette indicates that the school, at least if a public one, has been given a mandate to be a flagship school or that it has a broader status and mission that is different from a school that has a city or region in its name. But the fact is the ULL has no broader mandate than McNeese or ULM within the UL system. Changing Southeastern to Tulane State says nothing about the mandate or mission of the school. But just like LSU supporters seek to preserve it unique legislatively mandated status, Tulane University would seek to protect its position against a school that wanted to adopt the Tulane name. Obviously the example is extreme, but it serves the point. Each university wants to preserve and protect its position from confusion. It should not be surprising nor is it irrational of LSU supporters to seek to preserve its position as the sole flagship school of the state against what appears to be the agenda of at least some ULL supporters to undermine that status.

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One of the frequent criticisms of Louisiana higher education has been the unnecessary duplicaton of some programs that are wasteful, inefficient and of poor quality at the various universities. Of course all the the universities should have the basic curriculum necessary for any college, but more specialized programs might well benefit from elimination of duplicative, poor quality programs. We all know that the state has limited funding to support higher education. LSU supporters see no particular reason to give up money to another school and dilute the quality of the programs at LSU without an overall benefit to higher education in Louisiana. It is hard enough now to get sufficient funding. If the goal is to maintain a high level of mediocrity, taking money from LSU to give it to ULL to support its pretensions makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, not so much. It isn't that I don't want ULL to be as good a school as it can be or that I want it to fail as a solid institution of higher education. But I don't want to see LSU's efforts to fulfill its legislatively-mandated role sacrificed to fulfill the ambitions of ULL supporters because they are in essence jealous of LSU. And that is what a lot of this argument seems to be about. Some ULL supporters seem to want to build ULL up at the expense of LSU. LSU folks naturally are opposed to that. This doesn't mean that LSU should have first dibs on everything. LSU doesn't have a pharmacy school for example. But Louisiana is not in a position to support two fully-funded flagship schools. If that is the ultimate goal of the efforts to change the name at ULL, it isn't a good one. If the name change really isn't all that big a deal in the first place, why are those who insist on calling ULL the University of Louisiana so adamant, when it simply isn't?

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You're focusing entirely on UL's name change as a threat to LSU's share of state funding. The main reason for the change was to present UL in a better light outside of Louisiana. UL is going to lobby the state for more money no matter what their name is. And their name will have little pull with legislators that have their schools and districts' best interests at heart.

By attempting to keep UL named as a regional school, LSU would not only put them at a disadvantage when in competition with LSU for outside funding and partnerships, they would also keep them at a disadvantage when LSU isn't after the same target. You would rather have the money go to Ole Miss or Alabama than to have it go to another Louisiana university.

It's a case of LSU and the legislature putting LSU's interests ahead of those of the state.