FC: Beaver College is blocked by filters, considers name change

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/2000/Mar/01/front_page/BEAV01.htm

What's in a name? Beaver College considers a
change Crude jokes - and the fear of losing
students - have school officials worried.

By James M. O'Neill
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Vulgar humor could cost Beaver College its name.

Irked at hearing the school's name used in ribald jokes by David
Letterman, Howard Stern, and plenty of college-aged students, Beaver
officials are polling alumni, staff, and the college's 2,800 students
on whether the school should adopt a new moniker.

And now that high school students routinely conduct college research on
the Internet, Beaver officials are upset because some computer filters
that parents and libraries install to block access to pornographic
Internet sites are also preventing students from accessing Beaver College
information online. ...

According to Landman, the sensitivity filters have even blocked delivery
of e-mail messages originating from Beaver.

...

When it comes to names with prurient double entendres, Beaver is not
alone. At Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., officials have not yet
seen the Internet problems that Beaver faces. But Tim Underhill, Ball
State's spokesman, said that after students took to printing T-shirts
with the technically inaccurate phrase "Ball U" on them in the 1960s,
the university trademarked that name - to keep it from being used -
as well as the more accurate "BSU." The school gets its name from the
family that founded the manufacturer of glass canning jars.

At Morehead University in Kentucky, spokeswoman Pauline Young said that
"every once in a while we hear a joke, or someone says the name of the
school a little weird."

...

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