UMass Alumni Contest the 'Amherst' Name
Reader Comments
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UMass Amherst
There is significance to include Amherst in the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Most important it identifies the 200,000 alumni with the flagship campus. It provides the mechanism for alumni to gather and express their affiliation with the campus of graduation. Alumni engage with a campus and not some broad System of educational institutions. It also creates the process and procedure for alumni and other benefactors to contribute financially to UMass Amherst. Alumni and other donors want to ensure their gift remains on campus that their degree was awarded. Alumni also know that the value of their degree is related to the academic reputation and the academic success of their campus, not some large system. Including Amherst in UMass Amherst identifies the campus and serves as a delineation from other system campuses that have different roles, scopes and missions.
For any state system of higher education, role, scope and mission identifies the purpose of the campus. UMass Amherst, a national and international university identified as a Carnegie I Research University. There is no other university in the UMass System that has this role, scope and mission.
If the System office eliminated Amherst from UMass Amherst, the System would also be eliminating Boston, from UMass Boston; Lowell from UMass Lowell and so forth. Exactly what would this accomplish?
No raging debate here
The debate isn't actually "raging". In fact its barely being had at all. I am a student of the University and a very keen observer of UMass news and politics and I had yet to hear about this debate until the Globe published its article yesterday. Before then, I hadn't even encountered the idea.
Personally I believe its a ridiculous idea. We should think about properly funding the University before attending to its name. Besides, Amherst is a well known academic town and it gives the University a prestigious luster by associating it with the likes of Amherst College, Hampshire College and Emily Dickinson.
