Northwestern University has carried the same name since 1851, but what if students got to rename it today? WNUR’s Darasimi Bankole hit campus to hear some creative suggestions and learn where the name actually came from.
[Northwestern fight song]
DARASIMI BANKOLE: Northwestern University: the name is iconic…if also a little geographically misleading. So we hit the campus walkways to ask: if you could rename this place, what would it be?
DB: I’m here with…
ONYINYE OHANAKA: Onyinye Ohanaka
DB: “If you had the ability to rename Northwestern, what would you rename it?”
OHANAKA: Northcentral
ISAIAH THOMAS: Hi, I’m Isaiah Thomas. If I had the ability to rename Northwestern, I would rename it as Wonderland. Every time I come on this campus, I see some more exotic out of this world stuff. Like we have castles, we have some nice overly grown trees. We have a lake that’s filling. And I don’t know, it’s like, it’s pretty interesting.
DB: I’m here with…
CATHERINE NDOVU: Catherine Ndovu.
DB: If you had the opportunity to rename Northwestern, what would you rename it?
NDOVU: I would rename it Lakeford playing off of Stanford because we are next to Lake Michigan and I feel like the lake is a really defining part of our school.
DB: With homecoming weekend coming to a close, many alumni graced the Northwestern campus. So what did they think about renaming the school?
MIKE GAVELEK: I’m from the class of 1985 and I just came up with a new name. I would call it THE University. Just capital T-H-E ‘cause it’s the best school in the country and it’s gorgeous, it’s right on the lake, I mean you can’t beat it.
DB: And for others such as Scott Rumery, from the class of 1985, renaming Northwestern wasn’t something he wanted any part of.
SCOTT RUMERY: Since I grew up in Maine, this was western for me. This was the western most place I’d ever been when I first came here and it’s in the north I think, so Northwestern it is for me. Purple, and white, and black, and go ‘cats!
DB: The same goes for Thomas Massey, also from the class of 1985.
THOMAS MASSEY: What would I rename Northwestern? I wouldn’t because I don’t like all the new names for things that are just made up and fun sounding things. I love the tradition of Northwestern and I look fondly back on my time here and have no interest in renaming it.
DB: But then…Massey had a change of heart.
MASSEY: After giving this question a little more thought because it’s an interesting question, I’m thinking The Q after quae cumque sunt vera.
[Sounds of the lake]
DB: But where did the name Northwestern actually come from? Northwestern historian Kevin Leonard attended Northwestern himself, graduating in 1977 with a degree in History. He explains how the university got its name in the first place.
KEVIN LEONARD: So the founders of Northwestern University wanted to plant a flag in higher education for the Methodist episcopal church in the rapidly growing city of Chicago. Why they chose that name? They could have called it Chicago, Chicago Methodist, Illinois, Northern Illinois. In the mid-nineteenth century, the area that we know as the middle west, most of that was known as the Northwest, it’s the heritage of American history – the old north west territories. The name doesn’t make sense today because we should be Midwestern university, right?
DB: And to sophomore Jonah McClure, this is in fact right.
JONAH MCCLURE: I would rename it Midwestern University because it’s more locationally accurate than Northwestern as we have more country than we did at the time of the creation of the university.
DB: Northwestern has stood the test of time until today, with little to no debates about changing the name. However, at one point in time, during the Great Depression — a union with a nearby school was heavily considered.
LEONARD: There was a proposal to merge Northwestern University with the University of Chicago and had that happened there would have been some changes, but it didn’t happen so here we are and we remain Northwestern.
DB: Many also confuse Northwestern with other similar sounding schools including Northeastern University in Boston.
LEONARD: There was a Northwestern College not far from here, name has been changed, there’s Northeastern University in Boston, that people were not paying attention to the spelling and whatnot will often confuse Northwestern with. Northwestern Louisiana, there have been lots of Northwesterns.
DB: And what would historian Kevin Leonard rename it if it was up to him?
LEONARD: I would name it Leonard University after myself. What would you call it?
DB: That’s a question for you listeners. If you had the chance to rename Northwestern, what would you rename it?
DB: For WNUR News, I’m Darasimi Bankole.