La Louisiane morphing into "at Lafayette" Magazine

[ZoomZoom]

Hell, when I get enough "Lafayette", I quit reading or turn the sucker off. Nothing like the talking heads on 3 or 10 adding Lafayette. I know where they are broadcasting from, where the university is and where I live. They wasting valuable air time!

[ZoomZoom]

It's time to stop regionalizing the second largest school in the state. I will never buy promotional items that have Lafayette written on them!

THIS!!!!!!

[HoustonCajun]

I hate to reconstitute an old thread but, I've recently been in a lot of heated arguments with folks that do not know that the University of Louisiana (formally USL) is by far the second largest school in the state and has been that way since the late 70's.

I graduated from USL in the early 80's and always hoped that we would take over the University of Louisiana name. The main reason for my passion to drop "at Lafayette" is because of an experience I had with my first out of state job interview with a large company. Upon looking at my diploma the recruiter told me that they do not hire from junior colleges. I had to explain our place in the Louisiana and that we were second in size to LSU with post graduate programs. This experience showed me that the school's name is critically important to not only sports but, academics and accreditation too.

Here are a list of just a few University of (state) schools that are in systems. There are many more.

University of Alabama ....at Tuscaloosa (UA) Crimson Tide
University of Arkansas ...at Fayetteville (U of A) Razorbacks
University of Massachusetts ....at Amherst (UMass) Minutemen
University of Michigan ...at Ann Arbor (UM) Wolverines
University of Nebraska ...at Lincoln (NU) Cornhuskers
University of Texas ...at Austin (UT) Longhorns

Note: The largest schools in these systems simply drop their regional name. Example, When you're referring to the University of Texas everyone knows you're talking about the Longhorns at UT-Austin and not the Miners at UT- El Paso.

With all this said, UL Lafayette is more than twice the size of UL Monroe.

It's time to stop regionalizing the second largest school in the state. I will never buy promotional items that have Lafayette written on them.

W E A R E L O U I S I A N A ..............period!

The law only dictates that a city tag accompany use of "University of" or "UL". Therefore, use of "Louisiana" is not in violation of the law. We are using it athletically, on our stadiums, fields, uniforms, and athletic news releases. Surely, this was properly vetted by the univeristy before using. If "Louisiana" is legal athletically, it is legal academically as well. All of the schools you mentioned have official names similar to ours, but refer to themselves by the name of the state only and most go by a single letter, e.g. Alabama "A", Arkansas "A", Texas "T", Tennessee "T", Michigan "M", Nebraska "N". Even schools like Virginia Tech, whose official name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University", goes simply by VA Tech with NO USE of "University". Fresno State is California State University at Fresno. Fresno State does not contain "University". There is a common theme here. All of these schools use a reference sans "University" athletically and academically. Visit their academic websites. They reference their official names ONCE, then use their preferred reference. There is no reason "Louisiana" cannot be used on our main website as it is on our athletic website. All we need is an initial reference to our official name and use "LOUISIANA" thereafter. BTW, what is our university website? www.LOUISIANA.edu.

A letter or letters to represent our university is another matter. Use of UL does legally require a city tag. So, don't use UL. UL Acadiana instead of UL Lafayette would have solved that problem. Since Cajun Country is Acadiana, it made sense and would have allowed use of ULA. We would then be in the same unique company of Georgia "UGA" and Virginia "UVA". But after all the years following 1984, no one apparently gave much thought to the aftermath of our new name in 2000 and look what that has led to. So, what letters do we use legally for our university if not UL? We could do like the Universities of Oklahoma (OU), Kansas (KU), and Colorado (CU) and go with "LU". Or, we could use only an "L" like Michigan "M", Nebraska "N", or Alabama "A". We could just use LA as an abbreviation for Louisiana, which it is. We have been indoctrinated in use of UL over the past 14 years. Not an easy thing to change. But, will it ever by universally used and recognized? If not, time to move on.

Look at the Alabama logo attached. Simple, clean and the "A". For that matter, their logo is very similar to ours, only cleaner with two colors instead of the multi-colored atrocity we use. Why not simplify our logo to something similar and either use an "L" or keep the fleur de lis in it like the attached logo someone designed?

When the Sun Belt Conference asked each university what it wanted to be called, here was our opportunity to capture the "Louisiana" name. Instead, what do we give them? After an original submission followed by a correction, we said our preferred reference is UL Lafayette. Our nickname is Louisiana Ragin Cajuns. Our letters are UL-L. WHAT???? What is the point of BRANDING if you don't follow your own brand? An opportunity within the conference was lost and anything sent by the conference to the media was lost with this. All we had to say is:
Our preferred reference is LOUISIANA. Our nickname is Ragin Cajuns. What we told them, in effect, is we are the UL Lafayette Louisiana Ragin Cajuns, as rediculous as that is. Any wonder the confusion on a national level as to what to call us?

We still don't know what letters we want to use. We tell the media not to call us ULL or Louisiana Lafayette. Yet, we give them UL-L, like the hyphen makes a difference and say that our prefered reference is UL Lafayette where the emphasis is always on the city, hence the confusion with Lafayette College. It has been 14 years since our name change and we still have not fully addressed who we are. The "LaLouisiane" issue that started this thread last year was all about branding and that we were branding ourselves as LOUISIANA athletically. Then, we have this brain fart.

It's been over 14 years since our name change to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. But, it's been 30 years since we were the University of Louisiana with a graduating class, a name we captured the exact same way Louisiana Polytechnic Institute changed its name to Louisiana Tech University. If the process we used was not legal, then LA Tech's wasn't legal either. And, for that matter, neither was UNO's change from LSUNO. Why were we the only school that had to revert to its original name?

As you stated, we are the 2nd largest school in the state. Does anyone realize we are about the size of ULM and LA Tech combined? And, we are larger than all of the UL System universities combined (including Tech & ULM), in research and in endowment. We have unprecedented national exposure as the #1 baseball team in the country, #17 softball team in the country, NCAA basketball participant and National Defensive Player of the Year, and 3 time bowl winner. If we are ever going to capture "LOUISIANA", now is the time.

[CajunNation]

THIS!!!!!!

I don't buy anything that has lafayette, the color yellow, the flaming vegetable, or "louisiana's" anywhere on the item.

Consequently, I buy very little merchandise.

[Turbine]

I hate to reconstitute an old thread but, I've recently been in a lot of heated arguments with folks that do not know that the University of Louisiana (formally USL) is by far the second largest school in the state and has been that way since the late 70's.

W E A R E L O U I S I A N A ..............period!

Certainly not by far (then) but UL has been the second largest public University in the State of Louisiana since 1939 or for seventy-five consecutive years, this year.

[ImperialCajun]

Y'all are way too sensitive about this "Name" thing. It was a mistake to change name from USL back in the 90's.

WE are not sensitive. WE are pis--d off! We changed our name in the early 80's. We got no support from the rest of the state Universities because of jealousy that we thought of it first, then got railroaded by LSU, who fears any competition. You get LaTech, MSU, NWU, ULM, Nichols, Grambling, Southern, UNO, and SLU to support us and the controversy is over. But they fear that someone will rise out of the group and leave them behind. Petty jealousy! The name means something more to them than to us. We just wanted to lose the regional name to improve our Academic profile. If it was up to me I would change it to Acadian University, because it then sounds like a private school. You want to stop the complaining, then help us fix it to the way we originally, legally changed it! Thanks for the help!

[HoustonCajun]

WE are not sensitive. WE are pis--d off! We changed our name in the early 80's. We got no support from the rest of the state Universities because of jealousy that we thought of it first, then got railroaded by LSU, who fears any competition. You get LaTech, MSU, NWU, ULM, Nichols, Grambling, Southern, UNO, and SLU to support us and the controversy is over. But they fear that someone will rise out of the group and leave them behind. Petty jealousy! The name means something more to them than to us. We just wanted to lose the regional name to improve our Academic profile. If it was up to me I would change it to Acadian University, because it then sounds like a private school. You want to stop the complaining, then help us fix it to the way we originally, legally changed it! Thanks for the help!

And we did it the exact same way LA Polytechnic University changed their name to LA Tech University, and UNO from LSUNO. Why were we the only one that had to change its name? How did they escape the same law?

[Turbine]

And we did it the exact same way LA Polytechnic University changed their name to LA Tech University, and UNO from LSUNO. Why were we the only one that had to change its name? How did they escape the same law?

There was no law.

In fact the Judge reversed logic on the issue when he said "no law says you can" he omitted a usually stronger logic 'no law says you can't.'

[HoustonCajun]

There was no law.

In fact the Judge reversed logic on the issue when he said "no law says you can" he omitted a usually stronger logic 'no law says you can't.'

Then, why was our name changed and not LA Tech's or UNO's?

[ulforlife]

...

Sorry but I'm not a fan of the copying Alabama's logo idea

Hot Wheels has got to go but I don't dig the fan-made one, sorry to hurt anyone's feelings

Just use the Ragin over Cajuns logo until we step up and rebrand ourselves properly