Voting ended yesterday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for a referendum that could result in a new name for the school.
The UWM Student Association Senate voted earlier this month to put a name-change referendum on the student election ballot to gather input from the student body. While voting ended yesterday evening, student senate speaker Raymond Duncan said the final tally would not be available until next week.
The drafted bill cited UWM's hyphenated name as a "second-class" distinction, adding other postsecondary institutions with non-hyphenated names are better respected.
"When you think of a doctoral university, you don't think of a hyphenated name," Neal Michals, member of the senate and author of the bill, said in a previous interview. "The idea is to get a name more in line with our being a prominent research university. [A new name] would give us distinction — more of an identity."
The drafted bill also suggests the current name hinders the university's attempts to establish a national identity because "when one references UWM, people from outside of Milwaukee assume one is talking about Madison."
Michals' original draft proposed the name be changed to Wisconsin State University. However, the senate decided on a list of additional options to be included on the ballot, including: University of Milwaukee, Milwaukee State University and Milwaukee University. Keeping the current name UWM and a write-in section were also options.
Once tallied, the vote results will be forwarded to Gov. Jim Doyle, the Wisconsin State Legislature, UW System President Kevin Reilly, the UW System Board of Regents, UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago, Provost Rita Cheng and the United Council of UW Students.
Regents President David Walsh said the Board of Regents will certainly listen to what the student senate proposes to them, but added any decision would have to be carefully considered.
"We'll listen, but there are so many other issues involved," he said. "This is a system, and we need some consistency."
Walsh went on to say that a name change would likely require a large physical cost — including expenditures such as sign and logo changes at the university — but also in "good will," especially in regards to alumni.
"We have to consider UWM alumni who have deep ties to their school," Walsh said.
At a lecture on the UW-Madison campus yesterday, UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago fielded some questions about the possible name change, at times joking that he did not know what his school's name would be by the time he got back.
"I keep reminding people this is not a binding referendum," he said.
— Dan Powell contributed to this report
