<p>Just to add a little bit to Dad’s post. While the “The” had always been an official part of the school’s name, it’s recent emphasis is more a result of the actions of the Ohio Governor in the sixties and seventies, and Ohio State’s reaction to those (misguided) policies.</p>
<p>Emphasizing the “The” was done at the behest of OSU President Ed Jennings in the early 80’s as a subtle refute to the policies of Governor Jim Rhodes whose higher education policies had sought to negate Ohio State’s historic “flagship” role in the state’s higher education system and replace it with a system based on mass quantity, competition between the various state colleges and a (false) veneer of no qualitative differences between the state colleges.</p>
<p>Using the “The” was a subtle reminder to the citizens and, more importantly, the legislators of Ohio that Ohio State had been founded and legally recognized to fulfill a different role in the state’s higher education system than “the other state universities.”</p>