MUW changing name to....

[Shmuley]

Mississippi Brightwell University, pending Legislative approval

MUW chooses new name, asks lawmakers to approve

Mississippi University for Women announces its selection for a new name. University President Nora Miller unveiled the name on Monday morning during convocation.

www.wcbi.com

"Mississippi State-Columbus" is the most obvious choice, imo

Legislature to MUW President: "Thank you for your suggestion. Can we speak to your husband?"

 

[Dawgg]

Legislature to MUW President: "Thank you for your suggestion. Can we speak to your husband?"

ETA: Bleh, I thought it embedded. Not worth clicking on. It's a clip from 30 Rock where Chet Huntley and David Brinkley tell a female reporter something like "Doll, you got a nice shape on you, but I'm gonna need you to go find a man to tell us what's happening there. Is a policeman or your father nearby?"

Now, is your father or a policeman nearby?

30 Rock (2006) - S06E19 Live From Studio 6H clip with quote Now, is your father or a policeman nearby? Yarn is the best search for video clips by quote. Find the exact moment in a TV show, movie, or music video you want to share. Easily move forward or backward to get to the perfect...

trailers.getyarn.io

 

[Tractorman]

they are getting smoked in the comments by alumni on their facebook announcement

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

I don't care what the legislature does, It will always be the " W".

 

[Dawgg]

Hahahahhahhaaha

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

This is the result of some Presidentially-appointed-squirrellya$$ed committee that fell victim to some seriously 17d up GroupThink. Hilarious!

MUW, STATE, MVSU, The Corn and the good folks in Stoneville should all be part of the Mississippi State University system, focusing on Ag and Mechanics, Engineering, Computing and Tech. Just one set of athletic teams.

DSU, OM, the Med Center, and USM should all be under JSU and call them all the U of M, U of M-Oxford, U of M-Hattiesburg, and U of M-Cleveland. Again, just one set of athletic teams.

Repurpose the Vaught and build a new stadium in Jackson for Lane's Landsharks -- or maybe they could get primetime back. They'll be playing for the National Championship every year by then -- imagine their NIL money.

Maybe we survive in the SEC or join some other conference or move down to division 2.

The IHL goes from 8 universities to 2. that would save a ton of dollars and improve the product, the output, and probably the state considerably.

 

[willi13]

Mississippi Brightwell University, pending Legislative approval

MUW chooses new name, asks lawmakers to approve

Mississippi University for Women announces its selection for a new name. University President Nora Miller unveiled the name on Monday morning during convocation.

www.wcbi.com

"Mississippi State-Columbus" is the most obvious choice, imo

They should first open a satellite campus in Kosciusko. Then name it Female University of Columbus and Kosciusko.

 

[theoriginalSALTYdog]

I dated a really nice girl from there. She was neither a feminist or a B, so perhaps she didn't last long there.

Not sure why but nurses tend to be somewhat "easy". There weren't any males at the DUBYA when I was in school so there was plenty of action to be had.

 

[Guy From Gulfport]

My then girlfriend (now wife) attended the W. She shook her head upon hearing of the name change bomb.

Speaking of bombs...

When I took speech under the late Dr. Hank Flick, I told a cringey W joke during my introductory speech. To regurgitate...

"My girlfriend is at MUW, and she is on a minority scholarship. She is hetereosexual AND non-obese."

It landed just as flat then, as it does now...

 

[Maroon13]

Btw. From a guy that knows, the university approached the Welty family years ago to ask permission to use their name for naming the school. The Welty family said no, as they did not feel it was right since Eudora Welty transferred after one year and didn't graduate there.

 

[theoriginalSALTYdog]

My then girlfriend (now wife) attended the W. She shook her head upon hearing of the name change bomb.

Speaking of bombs...

When I took speech under the late Dr. Hank Flick, I told a cringey W joke during my introductory speech. To regurgitate...

"My girlfriend is at MUW, and she is on a minority scholarship. She is hetereosexual AND non-obese."

It landed just as flat then, as it does now...

Certainly no offense GfG......Good story too....

 

[aTotal360]

My wife is a Dubya alum. She said they sent out surveys with potential names on them. Brightwell wasn't on it. So all of her college buddies are like WTF.

At some point, she was told the Eudora Welty estate was approached for naming rights because of internal pressure. They declined it. Supposedly EW hated her time at the W and didn't like the university.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

And whatever happened to tradition, could have at least gone back to its original name!****

“Mississippi University for Women, originally the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls, was the first taxpayer supported college for women in the United States.”

MIICEWG?

 

[The Cooterpoot]

Cooterpoot University North of 'Tibbeha would be my choice

 

[Dawgpile]

Mississippi Brightwell University, pending Legislative approval

MUW chooses new name, asks lawmakers to approve

Mississippi University for Women announces its selection for a new name. University President Nora Miller unveiled the name on Monday morning during convocation.

www.wcbi.com

"Mississippi State-Columbus" is the most obvious choice, imo

Told my dad and he said "Brightwell sounds like a laundry detergent".

 

[theoriginalSALTYdog]

Mississippi Brightwell University, pending Legislative approval

MUW chooses new name, asks lawmakers to approve

Mississippi University for Women announces its selection for a new name. University President Nora Miller unveiled the name on Monday morning during convocation.

www.wcbi.com

"Mississippi State-Columbus" is the most obvious choice, imo

University of East MS......

 

[Called3rdstrikedawg]

It’d have to be part of a plan to scale them down and reduce fixed costs. Sucks but at the end of the day, you’re going to have some relatively expensive buildings without a real purpose. Maybe in Cleveland you could recoup some costs by leasing out dirt cheap office space. MSVSU could maybe ultimately be made the new campus of Mississippi delta community college and just abandon the Moorhead campus?

Actually, Valley is essentially a 4 year JUCO.

I was eating in a restaurant in Greenwood a few years ago and 3 professors who teach Junior/Senior level classes were discussing their class sizes. None of them had more than 5 students in their classes. None of the 3 were from Mississippi and were all 1st year professors. They were shocked at how few upperclassmen were enrolled in a School where scholarship was almost 90% government funded at the time. Essentially Free tuition and still hundreds dropped out after 2 years.
I'm sure it is better now though.

 

[lanceharbor7]

How many woman, man, They/Them hours were wasted on this endeavor? The idiotic conversations leading to this decision could probably be a good SNL skit.

 

[MagicDawg]

"Mississippi Brightwell"
- a Damon Runyon character cut from Guys & Dolls during early out-of-town tryouts
- a seedy pool hustler from the outskirts of Yazoo City
- a professional (lady?) wrestler active in the 40s
- the man Prissy eventually married after Rhett left Scarlett
- Huckleberry Finn's long-lost cousin

 

[OG Goat Holder]

How many woman, man, They/Them hours were wasted on this endeavor? The idiotic conversations leading to this decision could probably be a good SNL skit.

They are about to find out that wokeness doesn't save you from stupidity and pride.

 

[wasabaka]

If they were going to try to name it something so stupid and arbitrary, why would they not do the inverse? Wellbright sounds just as made up and out of left field, but they could still be the W.

 

[johnson86-1]

This is the result of some Presidentially-appointed-squirrellya$$ed committee that fell victim to some seriously 17d up GroupThink. Hilarious!

MUW, STATE, MVSU, The Corn and the good folks in Stoneville should all be part of the Mississippi State University system, focusing on Ag and Mechanics, Engineering, Computing and Tech. Just one set of athletic teams.

DSU, OM, the Med Center, and USM should all be under JSU and call them all the U of M, U of M-Oxford, U of M-Hattiesburg, and U of M-Cleveland. Again, just one set of athletic teams.

Repurpose the Vaught and build a new stadium in Jackson for Lane's Landsharks -- or maybe they could get primetime back. They'll be playing for the National Championship every year by then -- imagine their NIL money.

Maybe we survive in the SEC or join some other conference or move down to division 2.

The IHL goes from 8 universities to 2. that would save a ton of dollars and improve the product, the output, and probably the state considerably.

Ignoring the political impossibility of that, I think I'd divide it a little different. Give MSU the W and USM. Then you'd have starkville about an hour and a half from Meridian, which is about an hour and a half from Hattiesburg, which is about an hour from the Gulf coast campus.

Then you could give Ole Miss DSU, MVSU, and JSU. Ole Miss would essentially get the delta, Jackson, and Oxford. MSU would get the eastern half of the state down to the coast. That would let each school economize on what they offer at each campus and ideally share as many resources as possible. Alcorn could go either way.

Bringing politics back into it, I think that could possibly mollify the UM and MSU rivalry as that seems like a decently even mix between the two?

Of course USM still has enough clout to stop that and having any of the HBCU's brought under a non-HBCU is a political non-starter, both because I doubt MSU or UM want the headache and the optics of it. But if we were going to dream about doing something that was good for Mississippi, I think that's the way I'd approach it.

A slightly less impossible approach might be to give Ole Miss DSU and MSU the W and USM, and cosolidate the HBCU's under JSU. Ole Miss would not like that because it'd put a lot of power under MSU, but the flipside of that is it would divide resources between Starkville and Hattiesburg, so maybe you could convince them that's ok.

 

[mstateglfr]

They are about to find out that wokeness doesn't save you from stupidity and pride.

Is this wokeness? How is it woke?

Its just a university that is changing its name to more accurately reflect who it is and who it intends to be instead of being named for what it was in the past. That happens all the time- they go from 'college' to 'university'. They go from 'Cal State Hayward' to 'Cal State East Bay' or from 'University of Missouri - Rolla' to 'Missouri University of Science and Technology'.

The planned name change for The W isnt great, but it doesnt seem to be 'woke'.

Admittedly, at this point that term has been so overused and misused that this may actually be a time when it is used properly and I just cant tell since its become largely meaningless.

 

[was21]

So, they'd go from calling it "The W" to the "The B"?
Bold strategy.

Seriously, that's a terrible name. It sounds like a Daycare/Pre-K. I thought maybe it was named after somebody, but no, it's just to highlight that the students are "bright" and "well".
“We are about brightness, enlightenment and wellness,” Miller said. “We are empowering and enlightening. We started looking at our traditions. We study light to bless with light.”

(fart)

It reminds me of one of the Marx brothers films where Groucho was the head honcho of a university. Brightwell would have been a great name for it.

 

[Mr. Cook]

Mississippi Brightwell University, pending Legislative approval

MUW chooses new name, asks lawmakers to approve

Mississippi University for Women announces its selection for a new name. University President Nora Miller unveiled the name on Monday morning during convocation.

www.wcbi.com

"Mississippi State-Columbus" is the most obvious choice, imo

Let's be honest: Mississippi has never had a proven track record in marketing of any form. Especially the universities -- they all suck at it.

 

[dorndawg]

Is this wokeness? How is it woke?

Its just a university that is changing its name to more accurately reflect who it is and who it intends to be instead of being named for what it was in the past. That happens all the time- they go from 'college' to 'university'. They go from 'Cal State Hayward' to 'Cal State East Bay' or from 'University of Missouri - Rolla' to 'Missouri University of Science and Technology'.

The planned name change for The W isnt great, but it doesnt seem to be 'woke'.

Admittedly, at this point that term has been so overused and misused that this may actually be a time when it is used properly and I just cant tell since its become largely meaningless.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Ignoring the political impossibility of that, I think I'd divide it a little different. Give MSU the W and USM. Then you'd have starkville about an hour and a half from Meridian, which is about an hour and a half from Hattiesburg, which is about an hour from the Gulf coast campus.

Then you could give Ole Miss DSU, MVSU, and JSU. Ole Miss would essentially get the delta, Jackson, and Oxford. MSU would get the eastern half of the state down to the coast. That would let each school economize on what they offer at each campus and ideally share as many resources as possible. Alcorn could go either way.

Bringing politics back into it, I think that could possibly mollify the UM and MSU rivalry as that seems like a decently even mix between the two?

Of course USM still has enough clout to stop that and having any of the HBCU's brought under a non-HBCU is a political non-starter, both because I doubt MSU or UM want the headache and the optics of it. But if we were going to dream about doing something that was good for Mississippi, I think that's the way I'd approach it.

A slightly less impossible approach might be to give Ole Miss DSU and MSU the W and USM, and cosolidate the HBCU's under JSU. Ole Miss would not like that because it'd put a lot of power under MSU, but the flipside of that is it would divide resources between Starkville and Hattiesburg, so maybe you could convince them that's ok.

MSU and USM are two totally different universities, not to mention the geography, may as well just leave that alone. Same with Ole Miss and Delta State - DSU serves its purpose, as does USM, and they help the economy of Cleveland/Hattiesburg. They have some good niche degrees at both.

Consolidating universities to save money, and basically get rid of having to govern a place, is dumb. It's chasing something that doesn't move the needle. The epitome of short term gain. If combining can make the 'new university', such as MSU and the W, more attractive for the future, it's a great idea. Not everything can be measured in terms of immediately money in minus money out.

This is why Mississippi conservatives cannot be trusted and can't make anything happen, even though they technically are better for the state than Democrats. They cannot get past simple math and understand that sometimes, as government, you must INVEST in certain aspects, especially in education. Not in stupid boondoggles for buddies.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

View attachment 500832

That got a legit LOL.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Is this wokeness? How is it woke?

Its just a university that is changing its name to more accurately reflect who it is and who it intends to be instead of being named for what it was in the past. That happens all the time- they go from 'college' to 'university'. They go from 'Cal State Hayward' to 'Cal State East Bay' or from 'University of Missouri - Rolla' to 'Missouri University of Science and Technology'.

The planned name change for The W isnt great, but it doesnt seem to be 'woke'.

Admittedly, at this point that term has been so overused and misused that this may actually be a time when it is used properly and I just cant tell since its become largely meaningless.

Golfer, with all due respect, my main indicator that this probably is "woke" up to this point is you showing up and exclaiming it's not "woke". LOL

 

[johnson86-1]

MSU and USM are two totally different universities, not to mention the geography, may as well just leave that alone. Same with Ole Miss and Delta State - DSU serves its purpose, as does USM, and they help the economy of Cleveland/Hattiesburg. They have some good niche degrees at both.

They would still serve their purpose, just more economically.

Consolidating universities to save money, and basically get rid of having to govern a place, is dumb. It's chasing something that doesn't move the needle. The epitome of short term gain. If combining can make the 'new university', such as MSU and the W, more attractive for the future, it's a great idea. Not everything can be measured in terms of immediately money in minus money out.

That's the entire point. First, it would give some extremely minor cachet to degrees from DSU and the W. There's not much cachet to an MSU or UM degree, but it better than DSU or the W and I guess USM also. Second, we are spreading our resources too thin. It's not going to be some transformative thing, but it's just a way to spend money better. We don't need 8 different university presidents, Controllers, General counsel, etc.

This is why Mississippi conservatives cannot be trusted and can't make anything happen, even though they technically are better for the state than Democrats. They cannot get past simple math and understand that sometimes, as government, you must INVEST in certain aspects, especially in education. Not in stupid boondoggles for buddies.

Again, there is nothing about disinvesting here. You can spend the same amount of money or more. It would just be more efficient and provide a governance structure more likely to benefit the whole state rather than squabble over limited resources and turf protection.

And if you'll notice, conservatives haven't wasted any political capital trying to address this issue. That's probably smart because it'd be a contentious political issue that is in no way transformative. It's just another good thing, if relatively minor, that we can't do because of politics.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Golfer, with all due respect, my main indicator that this probably is "woke" up to this point is you showing up and exclaiming it's not "woke". LOL

Fair point.

With that stated, Genghis Khan would be considered woke by people here.

 

[Dawgbite]

My niece is a graduate of The W and is a faculty member currently. She said that they called all the staff into a meeting to announce the new name. After a rambling rah rah speech the new president finally announced the name, silence. After a little while one person finally started clapping and a few joined in. Sounds like it went over like a turd in a punch bowl.

 

[Ranchdawg]

As an alumni I am appalled. The W will always be the W as far as I'm concerned.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

We don't need 8 different university presidents, Controllers, General counsel, etc.

We diverge here, man. Just such a minor expense in the big scheme of things, that will just get wasted elsewhere, and maybe in WORSE ways. Probably something that gets sent out of state. At minimum, we are supporting decent jobs in those communities. Again, just doesn't move the needle....at all. It's the wrong boogeyman. I feel the same way about consolidating all these high schools too, unless a specific circumstance where you have like 4 1A schools or something. But again, this doesn't move your needle, if anything, it points to the fact that yo *** has trouble in your country, if you are resorting to saving a little admin costs by consolidating schools. Short....term.....

Again, there is nothing about disinvesting here. You can spend the same amount of money or more. It would just be more efficient and provide a governance structure more likely to benefit the whole state rather than squabble over limited resources and turf protection.

Don't disagree fully, but there's a lot of middle ground. MSU and the W, within 25 miles and both considered in the same GTR region, is in that middle ground. We may never be able to consolidate anywhere else, but that one made too much sense.

Of course the best consolidation back in the day would have been to never split Ole Miss and MSU.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Re: @johnson86-1 & @OG Goat Holder consolidation discussion.

Seriously though, you’re shuffling chairs on the Slytanic.

Even if the campuses are merged, that simply means that employees would get title changes.

Presidents would be Vice Presidents in charge of the campus and would have to have counsel — who if they’re not based in the area — would become associate counsels.

And as to a potential argument about you don’t have to have a campus vice president, the answer to that is that there’d need to be someone who people at that location could call upon because Presidents are busy and are not often available.

 

[mstateglfr]

Golfer, with all due respect, my main indicator that this probably is "woke" up to this point is you showing up and exclaiming it's not "woke". LOL

Ha, touche.
I did view it as me asking how is it woke and pointing out that from what I have now read, the name change seems like just another name change, which are common at regional and smaller private universities.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Ha, touche.
I did view it as me asking how is it woke and pointing out that from what I have now read, the name change seems like just another name change, which are common at regional and smaller private universities.

Yep.

But to be fair, the name change was supposed to be more inclusive.

Men are people too after all.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Seriously though, you’re shuffling chairs on the Slytanic.

And what is the Slytanic? My belief is, it is the state of Mississippi.

So what's the best way to try and keep the Slytanic afloat? It ain't to play defense and cut admin positions at the colleges. That's like trying to put a tarp over the hole cut by the iceberg. Hell we talk about needing jobs in the state, now we're going to cut them?

I think we'd be better off using the colleges to team up with economic development entities to try and develop around your college towns, since that's about all the economy we got.

ETA: This is probably a side thread, but people in MS talk about muh public schools like that's the biggest indicator of a small town's success. People are so misguided here. But I'll say this - yeah, they ARE important to them, but not because of some misguided ideals about muh public schools, it's because the schools themselves are EMPLOYERS.

Now you may say, well why do you think colleges are beacons for innovation and not high schools? Fair point, but I would say there is a much higher level of that at the institutes of higher learning. But hey....that's why I'm not about cutting schools even at the high school levels either - I just don't believe there's some innovation going on in high schools that may save the state. There's at least a glimmer of hope at the universities.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

@OG Goat Holder — My point exactly.

What you say is a decent start.

Unfortunately it ultimately won’t work.

Too many people in Mississippi are anti-growth.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

It sounds like a technical college. It's bad!