<p>There was an article about this in the Daily Pennsylvanian. I personally love the “Penn” branding initiative, but I can see how some would like more differentiation. </p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Questions raised about Penn’s name](<a href=“http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2011/12/questions_raised_on_penns_name]The”>Questions raised about Penn's name | The Daily Pennsylvanian)</p>
<p>^ lol, how do you think the Penn branding initiative is good? Branding is a technique to differentiate yourself. and the admin at the time chose a name that another university already had (penn state). can you think of a bigger fail? honestly everyone’s always known penn as upenn (like uc in university of california). if they had just gone with that, it would’ve still been magnitudes better than this “penn” vs “penn state” nonsense. even the nytimes didn’t know the difference between the two!</p>
<p>an article from 1981, where “upenn” is used: <a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1981/4/18/upenn-employees-charge-racism-pphiladelphia-pa-one/[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1981/4/18/upenn-employees-charge-racism-pphiladelphia-pa-one/</a></p>
<p>^ Actually, “UPenn” is a relatively recent phenomenon (that isolated Crimson headline notwithstanding), and is probably related to the web site URL more than anything else. In fact, as a review of older university publications and media coverage reveals, the unversity has been known predominantly as “Penn” (which is what most of us called it when I attended in the 1970s), “U of P” (a family friend who attended Columbia in the 1950s told me that at games against Penn they used to shout, "U of P? [P.U.!](<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.U.][i]P.U.![/i][/url]“”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.U.)"</a>), and “Pennsylvania,” which the university called itself on team uniforms and school apparel, in the 100-plus-year-old school song (“Hurrah, hurrah Pennsylvania!”), and in publications and other places:</p>
<p>[This</a> is Pennsylvania (1957) - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpo1GtbWPys&list=UUoAoM5UWcFff6XbUf7UJinA&index=6&feature=plcp]This”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpo1GtbWPys&list=UUoAoM5UWcFff6XbUf7UJinA&index=6&feature=plcp)</p>
<p>[The</a> First Century <a href=“1965”>Penn Athletics</a> - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLLdjgMygM&feature=relmfu]The”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLLdjgMygM&feature=relmfu)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/uplan/paoneuniv1972.pdf[/url]”>http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/uplan/paoneuniv1972.pdf</a></p>
<p>Since I attended Penn in the 1970s, I don’t recall it regularly–or even occasionally–being called UPenn unti the growth of the internet and the use of the upenn URL in the past 15 or so years.</p>
<p>Other than “University of Pennsylvania,” the most common ways to refer to the university for more than a century–and perhaps more than 2 centuries–have been “Pennsylvania” and “Penn,” as reflected in, e.g., the name of the 117-year-old Penn Relays, and more than a century’s worth of school songs (“Fight on for Penn!”–1923; “Here’s a toast to dear old Penn!”–1901):</p>
<p>[The</a> Songs Of The University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/pennband/lyrics.html]The”>http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/pennband/lyrics.html)</p>
<p>and as exemplified in this quotation from an 1887 (that’s eighteen eighty-seven) yearbook:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Penn</a> Gazette | Penn Connected](<a href=“Penn: Page not found”>Penn: Page not found)</p>
<p>So from the perspective of tradition and history, “Penn” is the best nickname. And, it’s what the overwhelming majority of living alumni call it, and have called it since long before the logo rebranding campaign of the early 2000s (which essentially was intended to make graphical representation of the Penn logo more uniform throughout the university and its schools).</p>
<p>The use of “Penn” is to strengthen the brand name. Other universities named after locations struggle similarly with branding, with some exceptions, e.g. UCLA, MIT. Those with distinct names tend not have that problem, e.g. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Others extend the name to give it more identity, e.g. Columbia University “in the City of New York.” Others are able to have a general location-based name and a more specific one, both of which are associated with prestige, e.g. Berkeley or UC Berkeley. By adopting “Penn,” the university is trying to find its own niche. I think it would have been better off with “UPenn.”</p>
<p>
Once again, the university did not adopt “Penn,” which implies that the name had no currency before the logo rebranding–and again, it primarily was about the logo–of the early 2000s. “Penn” was THE most common nickname in use for the university–other than just simply “Pennsylvania”–for literally centuries. And as someone who’s been an alum since the 1970s, I can tell you from personal experience that the overwhelming majority of students and alumni have called the university “Penn,” and not “UPenn” or any other name, for at least the past several decades and–as evidenced in old school songs and publications–for more than a century. The “Penn” nickname is not just something that the university cooked up recently as a marketing gimmick; it’s based in centuries-old tradition.</p>
<p>“UPenn,” on the other hand, did appear in regular usage only recently, in the wake of the adoption of the “upenn” URL for the university’s web site less than 20 years ago. And that was based on a convention already established by other schools that had been participants in early versions of email and the internet (e.g., UDel, UMich, UChicago, etc.). To my knowledge, that is the ONLY time that the university has ever referred to itself as “UPenn,” and that was obviously for a very specialized purpose.</p>
<p>To adopt “UPenn” as the university’s official brand would, quite frankly, run counter to centuries of tradition, and to the current practices and “instincts” of hundreds of thousands of living Penn alumni and students. :)</p>
<p>^As a fellow 70’s alum, I agree - it would certainly be awkward to “drink a highball…and give a toast to dear old UPENN!” Does not trip lightly off the tongue…</p>
<p>I have heard that the administration does not like the school being referred to as “UPenn” at all. So much so, that one should be wary when referring to Penn as “UPenn” in essays.</p>
<p>^ I think it’s more a matter of what it indicates about one’s familiarity with the school. Those who refer to it as “UPenn” tend to be people who are not that familiar with, or haven’t had a relationship with, the school.</p>
<p>It’s kind of like referring to someone named William as “Willie,” when those who know him well actually call him “Bill.” :)</p>
<p>This is a stupid question.</p>