Staff writer Chris Trainor — who, in addition to covering everything from city government to haunted houses, also runs our social media — ambled over to my desk yesterday.
“So, we have a decision to make,” he said. “Are we going to use ‘UofSC’?”
UofSC, is, of course, a name for the University of South Carolina. I hesitate to say a new name, because it’s been the university’s Twitter handle for some time. But last week the school — long known across South Carolina as “USC” — debuted a new logo prominently featuring the “of”.
The name was rolled out in logo form, but it quickly became clear that the university intends to use it in place of the acronym "USC." The logo, according to the school, is part of a larger brand refresh.
Indeed, what prompted Chris’ question was that University of South Carolina spokesman Jeff Stensland had given The Post and Courier a quote about a new hire in which he casually refers to the school as "UofSC."
Stensland confirmed to me today that "UofSC" is the new official usage — but he says the school intends for its use to develop organically. He directed me to a long Q&A with the university's director of brand strategy, who says university communications staff will begin receiving training in February on how to use the new brand.
At least in that document, nobody is telling faculty, staff or anyone else to use "UofSC." Instead, there are statements like: "Ultimately, branding goes beyond communications into interactions. The hope is that the brand platform stands as a model of how to refer to and to represent the university. Some of the brand personality traits are ‘optimistic,’ ‘committed’ and ‘welcoming.’ Those are the types of things that we should model in our behavior with visitors to campus, whether it is a visiting professor or a visiting speaker or a prospective student. Be optimistic, welcoming."
A screenshot from the University of South Carolina's website on a mobile device showing the new logo and use of UofSC
Anyway, what should Free Times do? It’s a tough question.
I told Chris that, for me, the decision falls somewhere in between the “realtor” quandary and a regular name change.
The National Association of Realtors has trademarked the word “realtor” to refer only to members of its organization — and for years has insisted that it should be written in all caps, with a “registered” symbol at the end, like this: REALTOR®. That looks dumb. The Associated Press Stylebook — the guide used by most newspapers — advises us to use "Realtor," if we use the word at all. When we remember, we just use “real estate agent” instead. You have to draw the line somewhere, and capitalizing Realtor is just too depressing.
On the other end of the spectrum are normal name changes. Following a merger with Greenville Health Systems, local hospital network Palmetto Health is now Prisma, and we got a press release this week explaining how to use the new name. Whatever you may think of the name, it’s uncontroversial that Palmetto Health is no more, and the hospital where my kids were born is now called Prisma Health Richland Hospital.
But UofSC?
We’re going to wait and see on this one.
There’s been enough backlash from fans and alumni that the name could conceivably be tossed out down the road, whatever the university's current intentions.
We'd also like to wait and see how far the university takes the use of the name. Early reports suggested it would not apply to athletics. But if the change is partly to distinguish USC from USC, well, sports are the arena where that's most salient.
Anyway, for now we won't be changing the way we refer to USC, though you'll probably see plenty of "the University of South Carolina" and, on second reference, simply "the university." Our archives will remain unchanged. And we'll remain agnostic — but openminded — on UofSC until usage dictates otherwise.
