Don’t know if this counts or not, but I swear the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign used to be at Champaign-Urbana.
And East Texas State University (which, um, isn’t actually in East Texas by the standards of anyone I’ve ever met) changed its name to Texas A&M University - Commerce, in '96. They’d changed their name a few times before, too.
Thanks kunilou, next time he brings it up I’ll point out that SMS won’t even be in the same class as Mizzou until it can at least break 20k for enrollment.
Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto is now Ryerson University.
In Ontario, there has been a lot of blurring between community colleges and universities recently.
Traditionally, colleges (formally, “Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology”) offered night courses, job-specific training, and anything up to 3-year courses. Universities offered four-year courses, graduate courses, and did research.
Sheridan College of Applied Arts and Technology* is now the Sheridan Institute of Applied Technology and Learning, and offers graduate courses. It still has its Skills Training Centre and night courses and everything, but I suspect it’ll eventually be a university.
A number of other colleges have partnered with universities in the Toronto area, sometimes even in shared facitilites. Durham College is across the street from the new University of Ontario, for instance, and they share facilities.
Then there’s the Ontario College of Art and Design, which conferred its own unique degree (Associate). Recently they received permission to confer Bachelor degrees in fine arts and design. On their website, they number themselves among “professional art and design universities”.
[sub]*Electrical Engineering Technology class of '85! Yay me![/sub]
Florida Technological University in Orlando, FL changed its name to University of Central Florida in 1978. Current enrollment: 42,000 students.
Your definition may correlate with most institutions, but it’s not strictly accurate per US usage. A university is composed of multiple colleges (e.g. College of Liberal Arts, College of Engineering, etc.) There are several prestigious, four-year, degree-granting colleges which are named Such-and-Such College simply because they are entirely composed of a College of Liberal Arts and don’t have additional colleges which warrant the name university. Also, there are some universities which have no graduate programs and offer only undergraduate degrees.
The dictionary definitions of these words are vague on the specifics, but the above is the generally accepted use I’ve found in my time in academia. I don’t think you want to assume that an institution which calls itself a college is necessarily the same as a community college or junior college (both of which tend to fit your definition of less-than-four-year programs). There is some discussion of this here.
True, micco. In Ontario, the usage is different. The disctinction between community colleges and universities was originally quite precise (originating in their founding legislation, I believe). Ontarians will always say that they “went to university” if they went to a four-year institution.
There are private institutions in Ontario that are called “College”–anything from public- and high-school equivalents (Upper Canada College, the school of the upper crust for the last 150 years) to trade schools (Radio College of Canada or DeVry). I don’t believe there are any private universities in Ontario.
Ontarian universities tend to be divided into “Schools” or “Faculties” rather then “Colleges” (the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo, for example), but this is by no means an absolute rule.
1899-1918 Southwest Texas State Normal School
1918-1923 Southwest Texas State Normal College
1923-1959 Southwest Texas State Teachers College
1959-1969 Southwest Texas State College
1969-2003 Southwest Texas State University
2003- Texas State University-San Marcos
North Adams State Teachers College became State College At North Adams which became North Adams State College, and just a couple of years ago became Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA).
The Regents College of New York became Excelsior College a few years ago.
…sharing three parking spots. :mad:
Carnegie Mellon used to be simply Carnegie until the Mellon family gave lots of money greatly uspetting the Carnegie family
A few years before my time at Agnes Scott College, evidently there was a certain amount of controversy over whether to drop the old-fashioned-sounding “Agnes” from the name. Evidently several women’s colleges have done just that - I believe Smith used to be Sophia Smith? Anyway, the idea was tabled among strong feelings, I understand, and has never been brought up again.
My alma mater, NC Central University, has had no less than 7 names over the years. Given that it only dates back to 1910, that is all that much more amusing.
The original name was National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race, Incorporated. Other names have included The North Carolina College for Negroes.
A short history is available here:
http://www.hbcunetwork.com/modules/Education/schoolprofiles/schoolprofilesdisplay.cfm?school_name=North%20Carolina%20Central%20University
My brother graduated from NE MO state when it changed to Truman State. His graduate school apps all got rejected because they Truman State wasn’t an accredited college name. :eek:
I think they got it all ironed out, eventually.
Really? Why is that?
There was nothing particularly ‘forward-thinking’ about the decision. The problem they had was that the Government (in the form of the Privy Council, which had to authorise any change) was reluctant to allow any name that included Cambridge/Cambridgeshire, Essex or East Anglia, in case it got confused with Cambridge University, the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia. (Oxford Polytechnic had a similar problem, but was able to argue that Oxford Brookes was sufficiently distinctive.) The ‘University of Chelmsford’ option would have ignored the Cambridge branch. Allegedly, Anglia Polytechnic then decided that they wanted to be the ‘University of the Eastern Counties’ until they realised that the ‘Eastern Counties’ name had already been taken by another prominent local institution. So APU it had to be.