We don’t often do editorials at Bear Insider but rather usually just cover the news and maybe flavor it with our opinion. The views expressed here may or may not represent the views of our full staff but they certainly represent this writer’s view along with a large swath of passionate Cal Athletics fans.
We are the University of California. We are the flagship university of one of the most renowned academic institutions in the world and the flag bearer of one of the oldest and most storied athletic programs in the country, yet in one of the goofiest and egg-headed decisions to come down the pike in many years, a 19-member task force released a recent report recommending that the University of California athletic teams rebrand to the name Cal Berkeley.
In the immortal words of tennis legend John McEnroe: Are you kidding me?
Fight For California. Big C. Sons of California. Hail to California. Toast to California. California Marching Song. California Drinking Song. A collection of some of the most heart-stirring fight songs in all of college athletics and all are California. Not Berkeley but California.
Forget that the Berkeley moniker is tied to an 18th-century Irish bishop who ostensibly supported slavery and reportedly purchased as many as five slaves during his brief tenure in the United States. With the progressive nature of our great university, the Berkeley name may well be abandoned at some point near in time and where would that leave our confused and beloved Cal Berkeley Bears?
The recommendation was made to help prevent the confusion that Cal’s many common monikers have engendered over the years. Cal. Cal-Berkeley. UC Berkeley. The University of California. The Univesity of California Berkeley. The list goes on.
People are confused. We get it. What graduate of our great university has not had to offer a second or third version of our university’s name to help quell the confusion of a conversation partner when referring to our university? No rebrand or committee recommendation is ever likely to end that confusion.
Well, let me unconfuse you. Cal Athletics has always been and always should be CAL Athletics. Not Cal Berkeley Athletics. Not UC Berkeley Athletics or anything but Cal, short for California, the flagship school and program of our university. You know, the athletic program that brought you the Big Game rivalry with Stanford that started in 1892. The Wonder Team led by legendary head coach Andy Smith in 1920 that won the Rose Bowl and started a 5-year run of undefeated football. A basketball program started in 1907 and the 1959 team led by legendary coach Pete Newell who won the national championship over a loaded Cincinnati team led by future NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Roberson and national runner-ups the following season. A baseball program that’s been around since 1892 and won two national championships in 1947 and 1957 and has been to the College World Series 6 times overall and the regionals 6 times in the last two decades. Men’s aquatic programs -swimming, water polo and crew who won unprecedented back-to-back national championships the last two years and many more besides that. A men’s rugby program that has won an astounding 33 national championships since 1980. And that’s just for starters.
All of them were won under the banner of California. What makes anyone believe that changing our athletic program’s name to Cal Berkeley - to directly contradict our name of the last nearly century and a half of athletic competition will make people less confused?
This is a bad idea and one that is hopefully destined for the dustbin of bad ideas of history.
Cal, California or bust.
There is that. From a branding standpoint there is no ideal solution (as you point out, Cincinnati makes UC a central part of its branding).HearstMining said:
My wife's family is from northeastern Ohio so I get back there occasionally and when you read the local newspapers, UC = University of Cincinnati. I have no idea whether this common use extends into neighboring states.
But, But, But there are 3 of Knowlton's staff on the list....Doesn't that insure some kind of a SNAFU?stu said:
Thanks for that!
I see mostly marketing and administration people on that list. One lawyer. One student. The two faculty are a marketing person and a specialist in 19th Century opera. No alums. No donors. No athletes. No spirit groups.
I think we need a voice vote at every home football and basketball game.
socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
All very nice if you're talking about university systems, governance and maybe even academics. But this entire thing strikes me as fretting about something that doesn't need changing on the sports front. At all.socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
Actually, many in academia care in the sense that they wish we didn't have a football team. And the unhappy reality is that decades of institutional apathy/antipathy have left us with a football program seemingly capable only of random success.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
Except the whole debate about branding flies in the face of the governance model. The lack of resrouces - the governance model. The willingness to accept poor sports - the governance model. One of the factors (not the only one but a decent one) why flagships get attention and resources to "not suck" is that it is a black eye on the entire state when they do. But again, UCB is NOT the de jure flagship.bluesaxe said:All very nice if you're talking about university systems, governance and maybe even academics. But this entire thing strikes me as fretting about something that doesn't need changing on the sports front. At all.socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
I got that point. Mine is that I don't need it to be. It's Cal or California for sports because it has too much of a tradition with that identity to chuck it for some half-assed committee/focus group branding effort.socaltownie said:Except the whole debate about branding flies in the face of the governance model. The lack of resrouces - the governance model. The willingness to accept poor sports - the governance model. One of the factors (not the only one but a decent one) why flagships get attention and resources to "not suck" is that it is a black eye on the entire state when they do. But again, UCB is NOT the de jure flagship.bluesaxe said:All very nice if you're talking about university systems, governance and maybe even academics. But this entire thing strikes me as fretting about something that doesn't need changing on the sports front. At all.socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
"For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon."calumnus said:socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
"Flagship" here refers to the founding campus of the university. However, my whole point is academics and sports are separate. Who cares if we lost our official flagship status on the academic side and the office of the UC President is now in Oakland? . We are "California" in sports, always have been, for 150 years or so. It is embedded in fight songs. We own the brand.
For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon.
It is stupid to give up "California" as our sports brand due to bureaucratic decisions and technicalities.
Did you know that technically the San Francisco Forty Niners do not actually play in the City and a County of San Francisco? So what? They would be stupid to voluntarily give up their brand.
Again, we are the founding campus of the University of California. That is who we are in sports.
socaltownie said:There is that. From a branding standpoint there is no ideal solution (as you point out, Cincinnati makes UC a central part of its branding).HearstMining said:
My wife's family is from northeastern Ohio so I get back there occasionally and when you read the local newspapers, UC = University of Cincinnati. I have no idea whether this common use extends into neighboring states.
But Cal Berkeley is just DUMB.
Again, I am a system-centric guy.
UC Davis
UCI or UC Irvine
Riverside (or UC Riverside)
UCLA (and interestingly very rarely UC Los Angeles)
UCSF
UCSD or UC San Diego
UC Merced
UCSB (sometimes UC Santa Barbarba and really UCIV ;-)
UC Berkeley.
Seems usually "Santa Cruz" or UC SantaCruz. a quick glance on their website promotes the brand "UC San Cruz"dimitrig said:socaltownie said:There is that. From a branding standpoint there is no ideal solution (as you point out, Cincinnati makes UC a central part of its branding).HearstMining said:
My wife's family is from northeastern Ohio so I get back there occasionally and when you read the local newspapers, UC = University of Cincinnati. I have no idea whether this common use extends into neighboring states.
But Cal Berkeley is just DUMB.
Again, I am a system-centric guy.
UC Davis
UCI or UC Irvine
Riverside (or UC Riverside)
UCLA (and interestingly very rarely UC Los Angeles)
UCSF
UCSD or UC San Diego
UC Merced
UCSB (sometimes UC Santa Barbarba and really UCIV ;-)
UC Berkeley.
UCSC?
socaltownie said:"For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon."calumnus said:socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
"Flagship" here refers to the founding campus of the university. However, my whole point is academics and sports are separate. Who cares if we lost our official flagship status on the academic side and the office of the UC President is now in Oakland? . We are "California" in sports, always have been, for 150 years or so. It is embedded in fight songs. We own the brand.
For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon.
It is stupid to give up "California" as our sports brand due to bureaucratic decisions and technicalities.
Did you know that technically the San Francisco Forty Niners do not actually play in the City and a County of San Francisco? So what? They would be stupid to voluntarily give up their brand.
Again, we are the founding campus of the University of California. That is who we are in sports.
I don't mean to be obtuse but I DO know. I work tangentially in higher ed and the business of higher ed. In the case of North Carolina its system is governed by a board of trustees (aka our regents) but Chapel Hill is explicitly given greater autonomy from the baord in the 1971 statutes. Moreover, while the member institutions have seperate board of trustees many of the members of the UNC system also serve as trustees on the board of Chapel Hill. It has been a few years since I looked at per pupil spending and some other metrics but at the time Ch was FAR better resourced.
Virginia - is not even a system. UVA is governed by a seperate board and under seperate statute than the other public universities in the state. It has a small branch campus in Wise.
What you seem to fail to comprehend is just the challenges that would ensue if Berkeley went around and called itself "The university of California" hard stop. Essentially it is likely either the regents would explicitly wack Berkeley OR that the President would call up THEIR EMPLOYEE the chancellor and have a talk about how Berkeley's actions are creating headaches with the other 8 units. Berkeley has no special protections (see Virginia) or political power (see UNC) to protect it. So we get "Cal" but that, as the report points out, continues to create confusion.
Really what you all need to do is go talk to undergrads. A lot of them. Most applied to "Berkeley" or UC Berkeley and that is how they think about the school they attend and for whom athletics is supposed to be for.
calumnus said:socaltownie said:"For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon."calumnus said:socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
"Flagship" here refers to the founding campus of the university. However, my whole point is academics and sports are separate. Who cares if we lost our official flagship status on the academic side and the office of the UC President is now in Oakland? . We are "California" in sports, always have been, for 150 years or so. It is embedded in fight songs. We own the brand.
For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon.
It is stupid to give up "California" as our sports brand due to bureaucratic decisions and technicalities.
Did you know that technically the San Francisco Forty Niners do not actually play in the City and a County of San Francisco? So what? They would be stupid to voluntarily give up their brand.
Again, we are the founding campus of the University of California. That is who we are in sports.
I don't mean to be obtuse but I DO know. I work tangentially in higher ed and the business of higher ed. In the case of North Carolina its system is governed by a board of trustees (aka our regents) but Chapel Hill is explicitly given greater autonomy from the baord in the 1971 statutes. Moreover, while the member institutions have seperate board of trustees many of the members of the UNC system also serve as trustees on the board of Chapel Hill. It has been a few years since I looked at per pupil spending and some other metrics but at the time Ch was FAR better resourced.
Virginia - is not even a system. UVA is governed by a seperate board and under seperate statute than the other public universities in the state. It has a small branch campus in Wise.
What you seem to fail to comprehend is just the challenges that would ensue if Berkeley went around and called itself "The university of California" hard stop. Essentially it is likely either the regents would explicitly wack Berkeley OR that the President would call up THEIR EMPLOYEE the chancellor and have a talk about how Berkeley's actions are creating headaches with the other 8 units. Berkeley has no special protections (see Virginia) or political power (see UNC) to protect it. So we get "Cal" but that, as the report points out, continues to create confusion.
Really what you all need to do is go talk to undergrads. A lot of them. Most applied to "Berkeley" or UC Berkeley and that is how they think about the school they attend and for whom athletics is supposed to be for.
For the 1 millionth time, I am fine with split identities for academics and sports.
We are "The University of California, Berkeley." "UC Berkeley" or "Berkeley" in academia. Be technically correct there.
However, in sports we have always been, "California" or "Cal" for short. "California" is embedded in every single one of our fight songs. There is no need to change that due to any academic bureaucratic technicalities in which I am sure you are very well versed. If any other state system ever changed their academic organization you can bet they would not change the name of their sports team to conform. Illinois will always be Illinois. Texas will always be Texas. North Carolina will always be Carolina. "California" and "Cal" is our sports brand. No one can take that away from us and we would be crazy to give it up voluntarily.
dimitrig said:calumnus said:socaltownie said:"For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon."calumnus said:socaltownie said:the problem (god this board is insufferable on this point) is that the campus is NOT the flagship. It was....70 years ago. But the creation of the system created equal units.calumnus said:socaltownie said:
The interesting thing is just how much the board diverges from the opinions of current students, faculty and staff. See pg. 12.
Really the solution is UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley for academics. California (with Cal as a nickname) for athletics. They are great brands in their respective arenas. Nobody in academia cares that we have a football team and we don't get extra points on the scoreboard for Nobel Prizes. All of our fight songs refer to us exclusively as California with no mention of Berkeley. The point is, the sports teams of a flagship public university represent their state, not just their school or campus. Now that we are going to the ACC and the east coast, and apart from UCLA and Southern Cal, it is time to reassert our birthright and compete as "California."
By continuing to embrace that it flies in the face of how the system is actually goverrned and leads all of you to the gnashing of teeth and the roaring of terrible roars.
Read the report - it is a pretty nice and pithy summary.
Now what you COULD argue is that UCB is the strongest overall unit of the system. That probably is true if what we are talking about is breadth of stregnth (there are individual units that do individual things better than UCB but not as much and as wide). But it isn't governed or funded or treated like a flagship and that is by explicit design.
"Flagship" here refers to the founding campus of the university. However, my whole point is academics and sports are separate. Who cares if we lost our official flagship status on the academic side and the office of the UC President is now in Oakland? . We are "California" in sports, always have been, for 150 years or so. It is embedded in fight songs. We own the brand.
For all we know UNC-Charlotte is equal to UNC-Chapel Hill in the UNC system. If they are or not, Chspel Hill will always, always compete as "North Carolina." Similarly, in the Virginia system, all their schools are equal, but Virginia is not giving up their name anytime soon.
It is stupid to give up "California" as our sports brand due to bureaucratic decisions and technicalities.
Did you know that technically the San Francisco Forty Niners do not actually play in the City and a County of San Francisco? So what? They would be stupid to voluntarily give up their brand.
Again, we are the founding campus of the University of California. That is who we are in sports.
I don't mean to be obtuse but I DO know. I work tangentially in higher ed and the business of higher ed. In the case of North Carolina its system is governed by a board of trustees (aka our regents) but Chapel Hill is explicitly given greater autonomy from the baord in the 1971 statutes. Moreover, while the member institutions have seperate board of trustees many of the members of the UNC system also serve as trustees on the board of Chapel Hill. It has been a few years since I looked at per pupil spending and some other metrics but at the time Ch was FAR better resourced.
Virginia - is not even a system. UVA is governed by a seperate board and under seperate statute than the other public universities in the state. It has a small branch campus in Wise.
What you seem to fail to comprehend is just the challenges that would ensue if Berkeley went around and called itself "The university of California" hard stop. Essentially it is likely either the regents would explicitly wack Berkeley OR that the President would call up THEIR EMPLOYEE the chancellor and have a talk about how Berkeley's actions are creating headaches with the other 8 units. Berkeley has no special protections (see Virginia) or political power (see UNC) to protect it. So we get "Cal" but that, as the report points out, continues to create confusion.
Really what you all need to do is go talk to undergrads. A lot of them. Most applied to "Berkeley" or UC Berkeley and that is how they think about the school they attend and for whom athletics is supposed to be for.
For the 1 millionth time, I am fine with split identities for academics and sports.
We are "The University of California, Berkeley." "UC Berkeley" or "Berkeley" in academia. Be technically correct there.
However, in sports we have always been, "California" or "Cal" for short. "California" is embedded in every single one of our fight songs. There is no need to change that due to any academic bureaucratic technicalities in which I am sure you are very well versed. If any other state system ever changed their academic organization you can bet they would not change the name of their sports team to conform. Illinois will always be Illinois. Texas will always be Texas. North Carolina will always be Carolina. "California" and "Cal" is our sports brand. No one can take that away from us and we would be crazy to give it up voluntarily.
Unless our brand is so associated with failure that we wish to distance ourselves from it like Andersen Consulting becoming Accenture
And even if the academic bureau-techni-crats have their way.....calumnus said:
For the 1 millionth time, I am fine with split identities for academics and sports.
We are "The University of California, Berkeley." "UC Berkeley" or "Berkeley" in academia. Be technically correct there.
However, in sports we have always been, "California" or "Cal" for short. "California" is embedded in every single one of our fight songs. There is no need to change that due to any academic bureaucratic technicalities in which I am sure you are very well versed. If any other state system ever changed their academic organization you can bet they would not change the name of their sports team to conform. Illinois will always be Illinois. Texas will always be Texas. North Carolina will always be Carolina. "California" and "Cal" is our sports brand. No one can take that away from us and we would be crazy to give it up voluntarily.
