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I've been trying to "claim" this blog on the blog monitoring website Technorati. But using the recommended "quick claim" method doesn't seem to be working. So I need to try a different tack. Plan B means publishing an entry that contains this bit of code:
That is all.
A commenter to this blog recently asked why we now list street addresses on the new campus signage. "Why a shift from 1870 Miner Circle to having individual addresses for each building?"
Good question.
The reason has to do with assisting first responders in the event of an emergency. As we discovered during an incident that occurred on campus in February 2007, some emergency responders had a tough time finding the right building. In addition, providing specific street addresses for buildings, rather than the generic but descriptive "1870 Miner Circle" address, will make it easier for freight deliveries.
More information about the new address system, including a listing of all the street addresses, is available online at the printing and mail services website.
Yesterday (Jan. 30, 2008) marked the one-year anniversary of this blog. It all began with a post I called Welcome to the conversation. With that note, we encouraged readers to visit this blog for updates on the name change process and to share their views about it.
Did we accomplish what we had hoped? Let's look at the numbers.
Over the past year, we've posted 83 entries on this blog. Those entires received a total of 494 comments, giving Name Change Conversations a conversational index of 0.17. (The conversational index is calculated by dividing the number of posts by the number of comments or trackbacks. An index of less than 1 is considered very good. A more intuitive way of calculating the effectiveness is to look at the ratio of comments per post. In that case, our "index" is 5.95 comments per post. Again, a pretty good indicator of reader interest.)
Based on this simple metric -- measuring the level of conversation we've had on this blog -- I think it's safe to say that we accomplished what we set out to accomplish.
With most of our name change work now behind us, I don't know how much longer we'll keep this blog online. But I'd like to keep it around for historical purposes.
What do you think? What should become of Name Change Conversations? Tell us in the comments section. The usual rules apply, as spelled out on day one: "focused on the topic, cordial and respectful in tone, and as brief as possible."
We interrupt this blog to tell you that, with only 68 "daze" left before the 100th St. Pat's Celebration in Rolla, the Best Ever Blog has emerged from the primordial ooze of virtuality. No blarney.
The Best Ever Blog will be your source for information about this year's event. We hope you'll also use the blog to share your St. Pat's memories, photos, thoughts, etc.
Not only will it be the 100th year of the famous or infamous celebration, but it also will be Missouri S&T's first ever Best Ever.
But is the Best Ever Blog the best blog ever? We're a bit biased toward our own brand of social media, but we're willing to give the new kid on the blog a shot.
When we developed our case for a name change last fall, I thought one of the most compelling arguments -- at least from a PR and marketing standpoint -- had to do with how the national news media so often confuse us with the University of Missouri-Columbia, or just "University of Missouri," which in the minds of many, means the campus in Columbia.
"The UMR name," we wrote back then, "is well known in our geographic region and among the research agencies and corporate recruiters aware of our areas of expertise. However, beyond those areas, the name and reputation are either confused with MU or unknown by uninformed students, corporate partners and opinion leaders." We also pointed out that "Alumni, faculty and staff report the campus confusion, as they are often referred to as being associated with the 'University of Missouri' in edited biographies, introductions and news media reports."
It's that association that really sticks in my craw as a PR guy.
Case in point: The latest edition of Wired magazine carries a nice article about last spring's Regolith Excavation Challenge, a program put on by NASA that is "aimed at applying outsider ingenuity to space colonization." One of the teams was from this campus. (We blogged all about it before, during and after the competition, and got some pretty nice media coverage about our Lunar Miners team and their excavation craft. We even got a mention on the Wired Science blog.)
But in the September 2007 edition of Wired, our team is known merely as "11 University of Missouri students." Here's the context, from the story's opening paragraphs:
Four couch-sized contraptions, all clearly homebuilt, sit inside a cavernous building at the Santa Maria, California, fairgrounds. One, made of unfinished wood, has denim conveyor belts running over purple and orange plastic beads. It's the brainchild of a boiler engineer from Michigan, whose girlfriend sewed the belts. Another, cobbled together by a systems analyst from nearby Arroyo Grande, features a set of steel trays attached to a long bicycle chain. A team of Los Angeles engineers used precisely machined aluminum and incorporated a toothed rotor that spins like a waterwheel. The tallest of the bunch, standing about 5 feet high, is a clattering assemblage of aluminum scoops mounted on a red conveyor. It represents a year and a half of work by 11 University of Missouri students, two of whom drove 30 hours to get the thing here. They're still scrambling to apply the finishing touches, slapping masking tape on the cups and adjusting bungee cords to keep it upright.
That really sticks in my craw. But perhaps it will drive home at least one of the points we made in the rationale for the name change.
Readers of this blog might be interested in the latest from our sister campus in Columbia: The University of Missouri-Columbia is considering a name change of its own.
The Columbia Tribune reported on Friday (Aug. 3) that the Columbia campus -- more often referred to as MU or Mizzou than UMC -- is considering dropping the "-Columbia" from its name. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reports on the proposal, quoting MU Chancellor Brady Deaton as saying, "Our aim is to properly brand it as the major university in the state. It should be the University of Missouri, period."
Deaton isn't billing the change from "University of Missouri-Columbia" to "University of Missouri" as a name change, but a "name restoration." That's because, until the creation of the "University of Missouri System" in the early 1960s, there was only one "University of Missouri" designation - one university with several schools located in two areas of the state. The first campus was established in Columbia, and it housed several of schools (medicine, agriculture, journalism, etc.). In 1870, a second campus -- the first technological school west of the Mississippi -- was established in Rolla and was called the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy.
The proposal to alter the Columbia campus' name, Deaton notes in the Post-Dispatch, is "really a restoration of the original name of the university."
Some of you may have seen news reports about the arrest of a UMR student on campus early Tuesday morning, Feb. 27, after the student allegedly claimed to have a bomb and anthrax. Classes are now back in session, after investigators determined that the threat was a hoax. For the latest information on this situation, please visit http://news.mst.edu.