Louisiana

What's in a name? Perhaps a reader can straight this out. The University of Louisiana Lafayette was known as Southwestern Louisiana until April 27, 1984, when the Board of of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities voted by a 17-1 margin to drop the "Southwestern" from USL's name. On that date, the University of Southwestern Louisiana became the University of Louisiana. The move lasted only a few days, as administrators at other state schools worried that UL’s new name would diminish their directional image. In May 1984, the Board Regents, with the strong support of powerful Louisiana State backers on and off the Board, took the issue to district court, asserting that only the Louisiana Legislature could rename state universities. Yes, they won, and the University of Louisiana was stripped of its new name.

Through a series of court cases and legislative acts since then, we now have something called the "LSU Rule," which requires all universities that change their name change it to "University of Louisiana at [city designation]." Seriously, we never realized that the folks at LSU were so insecure about such matters and because of that, the Wiz will now refer to Louisiana Lafayette simply as Louisiana, which is the way the folks in Lafayette want it to be. Take that, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge!

As a run-up to the start of the season, the Wiz will display one poster each day until our supply is exhausted.

Then we turn it over to readers, who will vote on the poster of the year. In the meantime, send your team's poster schedule to jayzuma (at) gmail.com.

Last year, the site displayed 69 posters. This is poster No. 46 for 2010. Thanks to RaginCajuns.com.

Comments

[Todd]

Thanks for clearing that up. I had wondered about that as I would see them be referred to as Louisiana or University of Louisiana once in a while. I always thought they were ULL or Louisiana-Lafayette.

[NLU_Hawkeye]

Thanks Wiz! The name thing is not an LSU Rule but a State Law!! USL tried to change their name in the 80's unsuccessfully...so the State passed a law that states no university could pass themselves off as the University of Louisiana without the city designation. It's an uphill battle for ULaLa but it's a fun one for ULM!!