Someone is policing the internet for “misspellings” of Stony Brook
This is going to sound a bit hypocritical, but hear me out.
For a long time, I’ve called out certain accounts on Twitter that misspell “Stony Brook” or, less often, “Seawolves.”
The “Stony Brook” mistake happens with regularity, and in many variations. Stoney Brook. Stonybrook. I saw a Stoney Brooke the other day.
“Seawolves” is less frequent, and really only takes the form of “Sea Wolves.”
It’s mildly irritating to see, but only really worthy of mentioning when the perpetrator is an account that should know better. The Associated Press’s official Top 25 Poll account, for instance.
Or the University of Colorado Buffaloes.
A first cousin to the misspelling issue is the question about the true name of Stony Brook University itself. To anyone who works in the administration, they will tell you, vigorously, that it is in fact “Stony Brook University.” This was a battle raged many eons ago (like, early 2000’s), when the university was trying to build its stature and decided that Stony Brook University leant the school more prestige than, say, SUNY-Stony Brook. It’s a nomenclature that all of the four university centers in the system have adopted — University at Buffalo, Binghamton University, University at Albany.
I used to be on Team No SUNY. It’s clunky, it looks dumb written down, and SUNY is today more commonly associated with the smaller regional colleges around the state (your New Paltzs, Oswegos, Potsdams, what have you).
And while I’m not here suggesting we return to SUNY Stony Brook per se, I am now of the belief that it is not a name we should necessarily reject out of hand, and for one major reason.
New York’s state university system is unique among public universities in the way it’s structured. For one, it’s huge, the largest in the country by enrollment. But for another, unlike virtually every other state, there is no flagship campus. We have the four university centers, sure, but California, with UCLA and UC-Berkeley mostly, is the only comparable system with multiple centers of gravity. Ann Arbor, Michigan; Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; State College, Pennsylvania; Norman, Oklahoma — all are synonymous with their state’s flagship university campuses, even though there are multiple campuses sporting the University of Michigan or University of Texas or University of Oklahoma name.
That is to say: imagine a world where “the State University of New York” means Stony Brook in the same way “Penn State University” means State College. Farfetched in 2019? Yes. But I’m not so sure we should be discouraging people from using SUNY organically in reference to Stony Brook.
At a minimum, I’m not going to get bent out of shape about policing it online, nor will anyone else. Nobody, that is, except this guy:
Dude, chill! Some of these replies are to brand accounts like Forbes, which sure, I can forgive. But the overwhelming majority of responses are just…to people! Regular, inoffensive humans talking about Stony Brook University (SUNY-Stony Brook?) on Twitter! They mean nothing by it, and don’t deserve to be called out! Who does this kind of policing serve, exactly? The account’s bio reads “Making sure that people refer to Stony Brook University by its real name,” but if it’s a question of optics and reputation, I’m not sure getting all PettyWap online does us any favors in that department.
More worrying, I’m concerned the wrong people are going to get caught up in this kind of blanket policing effort. I cannot tell you how many potential recruits for the various Stony Brook Athletics programs incorrectly spell the name of the school when they tweet the news of getting a scholarship offer, or making an official visit, or attending a prospect camp. Imagine you’re a 16 year old kid and getting a terse reply about using “SUNY Stony Brook” incorrectly. Who would choose to go to that school?
So please: stop it, you’re embarrassing us.
