The University has announced an opportunity to allow students to suggest names for the newly remodeled dining hall between East and West Laville Halls. The program allows students to text message their choice to name the building. This technological event gives students a chance to voice their opinion in naming a building that will outlast their stay on campus. Programs such as this one mark positive steps toward involving students in important campus decisions. Other University entities should consider programs like this for future projects. Students have not only begun participating in the naming process by sending about 200 text messages thus far, but they have also started groups and events on Facebook.com to encourage others to vote for their choice of names. In the spirit of naming the new dining hall, this board has some suggestions of its own. The dining hall could be left with the name it has now, the Laville Dining Hall. This would be the stock name and not particularly interesting. Another option could end the ongoing debate about naming a building after the first University president. William Tecumseh Sherman Dining Hall would not only silence a long-term dispute but would be able to offer unique Georgian dining specialties such as blackened catfish. It also gives new meaning to bananas foster. Or because the campus is running out of space for new buildings, it could be named the Sean O’Keefe Dining Hall to honor the current chancellor. Then students could call it hokie, far-out names like the “launchpad” or “rocket hall.” The University could take a different route and name the building after a sports figure. They could name the dining hall after former Tiger basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. He was one of the most successful players to leave the University and has consistently given back to the school. And who doesn’t want to eat at a place called “the Shaq”? A Facebook group is campaigning to name the building the Stephen Colbert University Dining Hall. With about 300 members, the group wants to name the building after the popular Comedy Central talk show host. This would bring the campus national recognition and potentially improve rankings in U.S. News and World Report Rankings. And as the group suggests, the dining hall would have the abbreviation of SCUD Hall, like the Soviet Union missiles – an appropriate name for a dining hall.
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