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Indiana University is in what state again?
Friday, March 05, 1999 By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Indiana University of Pennsylvania may top the charts of schools with confusing names.
Then again, maybe not.
With two states in its title, IUP is still not a known quantity throughout the Northeast, much less across the country.
"I tell my friends I go to Indiana of Pennsylvania and they say, 'Great, you're a Hoosier,' " said Richard St. Paul, an IUP senior from Montclair, N.J.
When Christopher Darden, one of O.J. Simpson's prosecutors, lectured at IUP, he said the school had held great mystery for him.
"I'd hear Indiana University of Pennsylvania mentioned on ESPN and I'd wonder if this place really existed," Darden said. "Now I know that it does."
IUP is not the only school with an incongruous name.
Imagine Northern State University. Now think of it in South Dakota - in Aberdeen to be exact.
Then there are the two Miamis, one in Oxford, Ohio, the other in Coral Gables, Fla.
Miami University of Ohio, founded in 1809, is 116 years older than the University of Miami in Florida. Despite its name, the Sun Belt school is not in Miami but in neighboring Coral Gables.
IUP's name is dear to alumni. Their school is in Indiana Borough and Indiana County, both of which existed before the state of Indiana.
IUP grads were rattled when the Post-Gazette in December quoted a campus publicist who speculated that a new name could work to the school's advantage.
Bill Swauger, just for the sake of discussion, said some think changing IUP's name to Jimmy Stewart University might give the school national attention and a clearer identity. Stewart, the late actor, grew up in Indiana, Pa.
Swauger and IUP took heat over idle talk of a Stewart University.
The school has since posted a statement on its Web site to reassure students and graduates that there is no possibility of IUP changing its name.
Tradition went down more easily at two other universities.
From 1867 until 1996, the select public university in the town of Kirksville was known as Northeast Missouri State University.
Then, with the wave of the governor's pen, it became Truman State University.
Northeast Missouri State changed names because universities with similar names - Northwest Missouri, Southwest Missouri, Southeast Missouri and Central Missouri - had left it without a strong identity.
Rowan University was Glassboro State College until 1992, when husband-wife benefactors gave the public school in Glassboro, N.J., $100 million. Two months later, the school's name was changed to honor Henry and Betty Rowan.
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