Mizzou 38, OU 35

No, this is not a post about football.

The University of Missouri?Columbia has won approval to drop the hyphen from its name, in all but its most official communications.

This name change follows a series of identity crises suffered among Missouri universities. The University of Missouri?Rolla recently changed its name to Missouri University of Science and Technology; Southwest Missouri State University is now Missouri State University; and Central Missouri State University is now the University of Central Missouri.

OK, good — I’m glad that we’ve got that all cleared up now.

This name change bothers me. Yes, Mizzou, we all realize that you’re the flagship school of the University of Missouri system, but do you really have to change your name to prove it? UM?Columbia fears that the hyphen gives it the appearance of being a “regional” school.

Yes, in the same way the University of California?Berkeley is a “regional” school. Or how about that regional school, the University of Michigan?Ann Arbor. And UNC?Chapel Hill?

Maybe now that the “University of Missouri” has solved its name issue, it can concetrate on competing with those other “regional” schools in the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings.