A group of students and faculty members have initiated discussions about changing the name of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Wisconsin State University.

A measure was introduced at the April 2 Student Association Senate meeting that would have supported changing the name. The measure was amended to have a choice of names put on the SA ballots as a referendum on April 26 and 27.

Rally starts discussion

The group held a rally in Spaights Plaza on Thursday, April 6, to announce to the UWM campus their proposed name change.

Group members at the rally referred to the university as the “University of Wisconsin (hyphen) Milwaukee.”

Jim Price, a lecturer in the Journalism and Mass Communication Department, said that the rally was “like taking a temperature” of the campus on the proposed name change.

Sen. Neal Michals, who introduced the legislation to the SA, said at the rally that the UWM community needs to “move beyond the hyphen.”

Many students at the rally said they were open to the idea of changing the name of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Wisconsin State University. Others who did not necessarily like Wisconsin State University said they were still open to changing the university’s name.

Michals said the move to rename the university to Wisconsin State University would “establish our own identity as an urban university.”

Group members said that more students from the state of Wisconsin graduate from UWM than from UW-Madison.

“That truly does make us a Wisconsin state university,” Journalism and Mass Communication professor Joette Rockow said.

Many students were receptive to the idea, chanting “WSU” along with some of the Panthers cheerleaders.

“I do think it would add prestige,” said Land Johnston, 19, a freshman.

Yet there were pockets of resistance to the idea of changing the name.

“I think it’s kind of drastic to get rid of a hyphen in a name,” said Andrew Beron, 18, a freshman.

Texas-sized change

Other universities have undergone similar name changes.

In the late 1990s, Texas State was named Southwest Texas State University. The full name of the new Texas State is Texas State University-San Marcos.

Mark Hendricks, interim director of Media Relations, said that the university is generally referred to as Texas State.

Hendricks said that talk about renaming the university had been going on for years. But after a while, the talk would quiet until a few years later, when it would pick up again.

In the late 1990s, it “seemed to snowball and gain a little strength,” Hendricks said.

“The university was growing by leaps and bounds” around that time, he said, including adding doctoral programs.

Before the bill was signed into law on Sept. 1, 2003, Hendricks said the campus was a “small, inconsequential, regional university.”

“It’s (Texas State) short and easy to say,” Hendricks said. “It screams well at a football game.”

At the time of the name change, Hendricks said the university’s enrollment hovered around 25,000. Since the name change, he said, the university has had six straight years of record enrollment.

Hendricks said that even if a name change at UWM does not take place, it’s important that everyone share thoughts on the issue.

“You like to see everybody on board, but also, it showed that people cared,” he said. “Nothing can be worse than people who don’t care about you.”

Name should reflect change, some say

“I think that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is changing,” Rockow said. “The dynamics of the area is changing. It’s moving in a very positive direction. We need to have a name that gives us the status that we deserve.”

The group began as a grassroots effort, primarily in the Journalism and Mass Communications Department, with Price, Rockow, Geralyn Flick and several students, including Michals, a political science graduate student, and Bradley Wooten, who also serves as the managing editor of the Post.

Michals said at the April 2 SA Senate meeting that UWM would keep the same colors and mascot — only the name would change.

“If you don’t start the discussion, it’s not going to go anywhere quickly,” Rockow said. “The real important thing is that the students get behind this. It has to come from their voice.

“If you think about where would you like to tell someone you graduated from: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or Wisconsin State University — where do you want your identity to be?”

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