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Rename med center?

Heck no, unless we just want to promote confusion

Rocky Mountain News

Published May 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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O UCD, UCD! Wherefore art thou University of Colorado Denver?

Well, why not University of Colorado Aurora? That's what Aurora Rep. Karen Middleton and some of her colleagues in the state legislature want to know. After all, that's where the school's Anschutz Medical Campus is located. Why shouldn't the high-profile institution bear the name of the city that surrounds it?

In late April, Middleton, along with Rep. Nancy Todd and Sens. Nancy Spence and Suzanne Williams, met with the University of Colorado Board of Regents and pressed them to "entertain changing the name." Spence is a Republican from Centennial; the others are Aurora Democrats.

But the regents decided to steer clear of the issue, at least for the time being.

Still, Middleton is not so easily dismissed. So determined is she to somehow rebrand the school's medical facilities with Aurora's name that she has said she will introduce legislation next year to do just that.

Forgive us, but this strikes us as rather silly - and incredibly parochial. Surely there are more pressing matters deserving of legislative exertions.

It was only six months ago that the regents finally relieved us of the cumbersome "University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center" sobriquet by renaming the whole shebang - both the Downtown Denver Campus and the Anschutz Medical Campus - simply the University of Colorado Denver. (We hesitate to mention any lingering confusion over the Auraria and Aurora campuses.) Now someone wants to rekindle the schizophrenia?

We hope not.

And we don't blame the regents for making it clear that they'd oppose any legislation to change the umbrella name. If nothing else, we're sure they want their institution to be widely recognized. Let's face it, Denver is pretty well known around the country - and even in some other parts of the globe - while Aurora isn't. It's no slap at Aurora if CU officials want their medical facility identified with a place already known, say, to stellar researchers the university might seek to recruit.

It's the Denver metro area, like it or not, whether you live in Littleton, Lakewood, or Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers are certainly free to dictate a new name for the campus, but they should remember that the regents are elected in their own right. Any effort to overrule the regents should arise from extraordinary circumstances, not from a misguided attempt at bolstering the self-esteem of a suburb that seems to be just doing fine without artificial stimulants.

Of course, if Middleton presses ahead and exhausts all other arguments, she could always turn, as we did above, to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Rose? Sorry - another local hospital already has that name.

Comments

  • May 1, 2008

    7:29 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    If they attempt this it should be noted that it will cost many millions to change the name. Anyone supporting this costly move without the approval of Presdient Benson, the Regents and anyone else who'll have to spend money in a name changes must be held accountable and a social misfit and overbearing govt autocrat.

    How can we do this when the coalition of do gooders is faced with so many critical issues like healthcare, education, blah, blah, blah.

    Face it marketeers - Aurora is a name that drives a discount. You buy a house out east and if the address is Aurora then people feel sorry for you. They instantly say, yes, but Cherry Creek Schools.

    Think of the savings and unified democratic control they could spin if Denver annexed Aurora.

  • May 1, 2008

    11:12 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ladida writes:

    This is new rep Karen Middletons first big issue??? How about dealing with some of the real problems we have in Aurora?

  • May 1, 2008

    1:47 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    peterpi writes:

    Agreed, ladida. Maybe because she can whine without any effort, while tackling real problems would require brain cells.
    This to me smacks of a very parochial mindset by some suburbanites who want nothing to do with the City and County of Denver, despite the fact that if Denver literally ceased to exist, all 100 square miles of it instantly reverted to prairie, a lot of suburbanites would have a hard time justifying their existence along with trying to pay the rent or mortgage. I don't suppose it ever occurred to Aurora to create conditions to induce investors to build a new medical school and hospitals rather than stealing them from Denver.

  • May 1, 2008

    1:49 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    peterpi writes:

    "I attended the University of Colorado at Aurora"
    "Where the heck is that?"
    "It's in metro Denver."
    Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?"

  • May 1, 2008

    6:24 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    nimbusco writes:

    Agreed... this is silly.

    Although to the earlier poster, I don't blame Webb for the loss of the HSC, I blame the Congress Park Neighborhood Association, who did everything they could to prevent the continued existence of the HSC on Colorado Blvd.

  • May 4, 2008

    11:48 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    anarchist writes:

    ladida, Aurora has problems? I am shocked, shocked I tell you to find out there are problems in Aurora,does Mayor Tauer know of this? What next, the state as a whole has bigger ones? As for Aurora being a boil on the glutes of denver, keep sending your medical institutions our way to cure that condition, thanks