UMR, which becomes Missouri University of Science and Technology on Jan. 1, 2008, has picked a new logo to go with the new name.

Black-and-white rendition of the official word mark for Missouri University of Science and Technology

The university unveiled its“Missouri S&T” logo today on a weblog created to share information about the name change with students, alumni, faculty, staff and the public. The graphic, in a serif font known as Berkeley, features a unique pickaxe symbol in the ampersand – a nod to the university’s founding as the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy – and a bold, dominant “S&T’ to emphasize the campus’ mission as a technological research university.

“Since our founding in 1870 as the first technological school west of the Mississippi River, our university has been a leader in technological innovation,” says UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III. “The new logo symbolizes our heritage as one of the nation’s leading technological research institutions – a heritage and a distinction we will carry forth into the future as Missouri S&T.”

Last fall, Carney suggested the university community explore the idea of a name change to better define its standing as a technological research university. “The University of Missouri-Rolla is unique among the four University of Missouri campuses because of our focus as a technological research university,” Carney said at the time. “We believe a more distinctive name would afford UMR several advantages in recruiting students on a national level.”

The nine-member UM Board of Curators unanimously approved the name change to Missouri S&T last April.

The selection of the Missouri S&T word mark is the result of a process that began soon after the curators’ decision. Early prototypes of a logo were unveiled in July and shared with students, faculty, staff and alumni in open forums on campus, in St. Louis and on the university’s “Name Change Conversations” weblog (namechange.mst.edu).

As part of the process, the university solicited feedback on those preliminary versions through surveys and received 772 responses – 438 from the online survey and 334 from the forums on campus and in St. Louis, which is home to about 36 percent of UMR’s 49,000 alumni. The university also received feedback via email and weblog comments, and worked with SimpsonScarborough, a higher education marketing firm based in Washington, D.C., to conduct follow-up focus group research with alumni and prospective students.

The word mark was developed by Creative Communication Associates (CCA) of Albany, N.Y. CCA and SimpsonScarborough are working with UMR to coordinate the name change.

UMR’s brand identity team – a committee of students, alumni, faculty and staff – is responsible for developing branding and marketing strategies for the campus as it adopts its new name.

The team is working with SimpsonScarborough and CCA to develop guidelines for the logo’s usage, including the application of the school colors (silver and gold) and a third color (green), which is associated with the school due to its annual celebration of St. Patrick, which the university has dubbed as the “patron saint of engineers.”