University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students voted to keep their university's name as it is, according to voting results revealed late Sunday.

The name-change referendum was listed on the student election ballot last week after the UWM Student Association Senate voted to put the bill up for student opinion. With a margin of nearly 500 votes, the school's current name beat out runner-up Wisconsin State University — the name originally lauded by the referendum's drafters.

The entirety of the results is as follows:

– University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1,286 votes
– Wisconsin State University, 804 votes
– University of Milwaukee, 312 votes
– Milwaukee State University, 82 votes
– Milwaukee University, 28
– Jedi Academy (write-in), 10 votes

"These election results are a bit of a setback, but it's not the end all, be all," Neal Michals, member of the senate and author of the bill, said. "We're going to keep the discussion moving."

Michals and the senate cited UWM's hyphenated name as a hindrance to the school's ability to establish a respectable national identity.

According to the original draft's wording, hyphenated names signify "second-class" status and the current name does not offer enough distinction from other UW System schools because "when one references UWM, people from outside of Milwaukee assume one is talking about Madison."

Despite the win for UWM's name to remain the same, Michals maintains there is still a significant student constituency that would support a name change, as evidenced by the vote's results.

"[The results] set it back, but I don't think the issue is completely dead, especially because it was about a 50/50 split between people who voted to change the name in some way and [those who voted] to keep it the same," he said.

Michals said he and the senate will continue to gather input from students and alumni, adding that the alumni association has not officially weighed in on the subject yet.

But, according to UW System spokesperson Doug Bradley, the school's current moniker is likely to hold up.

"Our sense of this, from survey work and focus groups that have been done in the past, is that [the University of Wisconsin] is a fairly strong brand," he said. "You have to appreciate the power of that brand."

Yet Michals maintained the bill's supporters will learn from the elections and press on with the issue.

"I don't think we did the best job of getting the message out of its importance," he said.

And UWM senior Collin Witherow echoed this sentiment, saying that while he did not vote for the referendum, he would have had he known when and where the vote was taking place.