There are many reasons why our name, “Washington University in St. Louis,” is a good one.

The refreshing opportunity for unashamedness is one. My friends who go to big-name schools like Harvard and Yale are generally embarrassed to say the short, pointed, epic names of their universally-recognized universities. You sound like a jerk if you say, “I go to Yale” with any kind of conviction. You also sound like a jerk if you say, “I go to Yale…?” as if no one has ever heard of it.

But you can say “I go to Washington University in St. Louis” with any inflection you want and you will get one of two responses, depending on with whom you are conversing. The person in the know will say, “Wow, that’s a great school. How do you like it?” And then you can say, “Oh, a lot of people haven’t heard of it. It’s great,” with total honesty. Or there is the “Oh” response, plus head nod. You either look like a smart kid to those in the know or like a weirdo to those not—but you don’t ever look like a jerk.

Our terrible name also promotes modesty. When 80 percent of the people in the world have no idea what your school is, you can’t even begin to think that you are better than anyone. It is too easy, when your school name is synonymous with “everything that is good in the world,” to get a big head. “Washington University in St. Louis” keeps us grounded. You’re getting a great education, but nobody knows who you are. We can’t rest on our laurels, because nobody knows they even exist.

These are great personal advantages. I’m sure we’ll all emerge from college better human beings because we’ve had to deal with this obscure name for four years. But there are reasons to change it. Big reasons. And these reasons ought to appeal most to the University and especially to our leader, Chancellor Wrighton.

Eliot University rings. It does the same thing Harvard, Yale, Duke and Cornell do. It sticks. It fits on a sweatshirt. It beats you over the head with its prestige. Our “Strategic Plan for Undergraduate Success” covers a lot of bases—new academic buildings, new student center, a soon-to-be revamped residential living area, the hardcore pursuit of academic excellence over the last decade or so.

But if the name doesn’t stick, the impact of all these good qualities will not either. We will forever play second fiddle to the Ivy League with our current moniker. We will forever be an obscure Midwestern school, lucky to be recognized by the average Joe. We will forever languish in mediocre excellence.

And the transition? The transition would start our real rise. We hand the name of the University over to a former chancellor of the University too modest to originally accept its dedication in his name. We idolize him. He becomes the face of our university, and suddenly our university has a face. Change is glorious. Eliot University is suddenly on the map.

The appeal of the greats is that even those who do not understand, know. We’ve got the intelligentsia. Any good “strategic plan” would now call for the winning over of the plebes.