Who are we?

In Korea, there is a very famous poem about what a name really means. The message it delivers is interpreted: "I was nothing before you gave me a name, but I became something meaningful when you named me and called me by my name."

The misuse or inappropriate use of our school's name has deeply concerned me since I began my graduate studies here in August 2003. If you were asked which school you attend, most of you would probably say, "I go to UB." In fact, there are as many as 18 different names (more may exist) by which our school is called by our own people as well as those outside our school community.

Now, do all of these refer to the school we are all affiliated with? Are all of these appropriate? They could all refer to the same school that all of us attend, but they do not all necessarily name our school appropriately. No matter in how many ways our school may be referred, it should be named appropriately in every possible situation. I personally think that either The State University of New York at Buffalo; The University at Buffalo, State University of New York; or UB in certain cases are right (or at least better than others) because of the uniqueness of our school.

I should admit that I was once pretty upset when I found that people, who were not directly related to our school, called our school by whichever name that they found easy or convenient. I was upset mostly because they confused my, your and our identities. I am not sure if they did this because they were not aware of our school's official name or because they did not fully respect us, or our school.

Based on my experiences, many of them did not seem to be aware of our school's official name, but this still appears to be a big and serious problem because our identities are obviously being confused. The issue is not limited only to those who are not a part of our school, but it also concerns people within our community, who do not know the official name of our school.

The source of this problem is us. It can be easily observed that we, as students, faculty members or staff, often mistakenly or even intentionally use incorrect (or less appropriate) names for the sake of our own convenience. Some people may say, "Who cares?" However, it is very important because our school can become something meaningful only when being called by the correct name, and this is how we keep our identity unconfused. Identity is something very important which we all should preserve and keep unconfused at all times.

I admit that I complain very often about our school, when it does something silly or wrong, like giving me a parking ticket at 10 p.m. for a questionable violation. My general feeling is that the school does not really care about our students (probably because I am a student). Nevertheless, I still love this school. The fact that I attend this school is not the only reason why I love it, but it is enough of a reason. We should all love our school because it is our school and it will be our alma mater. It is about time that we should all start to think about the issue of our school's name, and we should also think about ways to make our school better. I am sure that if we put our efforts together, our school will soon become among those schools with the highest reputations. In return, these efforts will pay us back well with a better future.

Before we can move forward as a university, we must settle on a name and solidify our identity. We should let people know that we have been here and we will be here forever. I am proud of being a part of this school.

To find out how many names our school is actually called, I did a little research. All of these names are from our own Web site and others:

The State University of New York at Buffalo; State University of New York at Buffalo; SUNY at Buffalo (also written as Suny at Buffalo); The SUNY at Buffalo; SUNY Buffalo (sometimes pronounced as SUNNY Buffalo or even SUNNY B); The SUNY Buffalo; The University at Buffalo, State University of New York; University at Buffalo, State University of New York; The University at Buffalo, the State University of New York; University at Buffalo, the State University of New York; University of Buffalo; The University of Buffalo; Buffalo University; The Buffalo University; The University of New York at Buffalo; University of New York at Buffalo; Buffalo; and UB.