University of Texas at El Paso used to be Texas Western, and University of Nevada at Las Vegas used to be Southern Nevada (which is why their mascot is the Runnin’ Rebels).
Geographical names often are subject to anomalies if you take their literal meaning. “Making progress” doesn’t necessarily mean renaming regions just for the sake of geographical precision.
The Midwest is the Midwest. There’s no real reason to get annoyed about its name and its relative relationship to “west” in a literal sense.
Agreed. It’s a faux peeve carried over from childhood. Childhood being a time when your worldview is highly conditioned by where you happen to live and what year it happens to be. Had I been age 7 in Boston rather than SoCal the idea that Ohio was called the Midwest would have seemed pretty sensible, given how very far west it was from my house.
As you say, renaming the Midwest now would be silly. The name is the name because that’s what folks named it. Nothing more to be seen here. Understanding how the name came to be isn’t essential but can be useful.
Many of us still “dial” our phones or “hang up” when we’re done talking on them. The fact children learning to phone need to have these quaint terms explained to them is nothing more than that: quaint.
You got it in one. LSL, how did you get so smart? 
This. For me, the midwest can never start east of the Mississippi. It stops east of the Rockies. And yes, I learned and accept all the historical context of why.
This. Exactly.
Do you live in the Sandhills, or the Cape Fear River basin? Because that’s another geographically distinct region of North Carolina.
Cape Fear.
I was once informed that people from the West are mountain snobs, calling the Appalachian range glorified hills because they lack snow in August.
But when it was founded, as I understand it, there was nothing further south full-fledged-university-wise in the state. So it was a failure of imagination about the chances of any nucleus of higher intellectual achievement developing in what most of us call South Florida.
…or maybe it wasn’t…
They’re hills because they’re hills. Satsop Hills in my state of Washington get over 2,000’ in elevation for example, while there are “mountains” in Appalachia less than 500’ tall.
It’s less a matter of snobbery and more a matter of perspective. It’s like calling someone from a tropical region a “snob” if they call a summer day in a temperate region cool; to them it is.
I assume you mean in the state university system. University of Miami was already there, but is a private college. But with that caveat, you might be right.
The University of Western Ontario (“Western”) is in south-western Ontario (Canada). There’s a lot of Ontario territory further west of it - but much further north.
Well that’s the 3rd time this thread I’ve had my ignorance exposed and fought, so I’ll just be over her in the corner lurking.
I can’t parse how these sentences fit together. Do you or do you not accept that the region called the “Midwest” includes Ohio at its eastern extent?
Sure. Thank you for asking.
The Midwest starts at the Mississippi River, westward through Iowa and Nebraska to the foothills of the Rockies.
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois are the Mideast, as I used to say before that label started to mean a whole different troubled part of the world. So, for me, the Mississippi is the easternmost edge of the Midwest.
West Texas A&M used to be West Texas State, famous for producing several famous pro wrestlers from their football program including Tully Blanchard, Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase, Bobby Duncum, Tito Santana, Barry Windham, Bruiser Brody, Dory Funk Jr, Stan Hansen and others.
As for the “point” of the OP, there was really none. I was just trying to create conversation. My basketball comment was meant to be facetious.
I’m not sure how Northeastern made your list and Southern California didn’t. One is a national academic and athletic university and the other isn’t.
What’s weird is that it’s squarely in the Panhandle, just a few miles south of Amarillo, not out in West Texas like say… Sul Ross State in Alpine, or Angelo State in San Angelo.
That’s a fine, logical label that virtually no one uses because it’s not accurate.
The Great Plains are between the Mississippi and the Rockies. They are almost always included as part of the Midwest, but any definition that excludes Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan is just not useful or descriptive.