<p>Does anyone know why it is "the University of Wisconsin-Madison" as opposed to just "the University of Wisconsin" as it is commonly referred to? I've noticed that older documents tend to refer to Madison simply as the University of Wisconsin, whereas newer documents tend to add Madison in the name.</p>
<p>my guess is that it was the original university of wisconsin, so there was no need to add the town name in for specification. kind of how UC-Berkeley is still only known as ‘Cal’. just my assumption, though.</p>
<p>Wikipedia explains it pretty well:</p>
<p>[University</a> of Wisconsin System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin_System]University”>University of Wisconsin System - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Almost 40 years ago they made all state U’s in Wisconsin part of the UW System. Madison is the original U of W as stated but now they have each campus noted by location such as UW Madison, UW Milwaukee, etc. Madison is still the main campus with all the history. When people say they went to Wisconsin it means UW Madison.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies, makes sense and coincides with what I already knew. What I really was wondering is if there was some kind of act or decision to officially change the name. I guess there was in a sense, that being was the creation of the UW system.</p>
<p>As barrons stated. In the early 1970’s they combined the WSU system (Wisconsin State University- 9+ schools) with the University of Wisconsin system (Madison plus 3 campuses and the 2 year center system campuses) into one governing body, including them all in the University of Wisconsin. Hence the city/college name qualifier (one school is not its city name- Stout). UW and Wisconsin refer to the flagship school. UWM refers to UW-Milwaukee. The change meant one board of regents instead of two, an administrative cost savings. I remember as students at UW at the time we were upset that the other schools would acquire a UW diploma, at least the campus is specified on the diploma.</p>
<p>Addenda- looked up the Wikipedia reference- I had it right.</p>