The university is going through a trial period on changing its official acronym.
The media relations staff is marketing OCU as “OKCU” to incoming freshmen and transfer students. Depending on how well the term is received by incoming students, officials will determine whether the acronym change should be permanent.
The university has used the acronym “OCU” since 1924. So far, officials have experimented with the new term for six months.
The proposed acronym change came from prospective students being confused by the name, said Leslie Berger, senior communications director.
“The acronym ‘OKCU’ is in our web address, in the student’s email address and in our social media,” Berger said. “Prospective students would come in and call it ‘OKCU,’ so we started using it in our prospective student communication.”
Feedback on the acronym is informal at this point since it’s still in a trial run and test phase, Berger said. She said an acronym change clears up some confusion for students who may not be familiar with the school.
“It’s pretty early to tell,” she said. “2018 will be interesting, because it will be the first year that the freshmen class will not be familiar at all with the old acronym.”
The plan for the trial phase is to test it for two years, then make the decision on whether or not it will be kept. There is no specific end date planned yet.
“I’m not entirely sure how we will test it,” Berger said. “We will decide that when it gets planned.”
Some freshmen expressed mixed feelings about which acronym is better.
“‘OCU’ is easier to use in convenient conversation,” said Maxwell McIntire, acting freshman. “For more formal stuff, like applications, I prefer ‘OKCU.’”
McIntire said he prefers ‘OKCU’ to be the final choice.
“It makes it clearer for people outside of the university and people inside the university can still use the original acronym if they want,” he said.
Others disapprove of the new acronym.
“I feel it’s unnecessary,” said Simon Gomez, music composition/music theater freshman. “‘OCU’ just has a nicer ring to it.”
interesting knowing this fact!
I am an alum. I don’t like the new acronym. At all. Period. It is evocative of Oklahoma STATE, the state of Scott Pruitt, of climate change deniers, of religious oppression that reflects everything that Scott represents in “power over” shallowness with its big desks and small hearts and minds. In my time as a student, and at the interfaith and cultural events I have attended at my school over the years, OCU has set itself apart with its classic gentility. I love my university, and I hope it will continue to distinguish itself as being in a city name Oklahoma, and apart from the only state, \(referenced “OK”,) with no counties that voted for President Obama.
“What would Dr Carlton say?”