Tuesday, July 25, 2006 | 7:44 a.m.
Forget the U. Forget the R. It's just N.
In an attempt to push the university's brand, UNR officials are pushing a new version of the athletic department's "N" logo as the main graphic identity for the entire university. Along with the new logo comes a new tagline "Statewide-Worldwide."
The university is scrapping its previous logo, a drawing of the state with a dot marking its main campus in Reno. The "N" logo with a wolf and the "Nevada" nickname have been used by athletes for the last century, and harkens back to the days when UNR was the only university in Nevada.
UNR officials say the new logo and tagline better fit the land grant university's statewide mission - it has campuses in Las Vegas, Elko and Carlin as well as 65 other offices throughout Nevada - and its increasingly global focus.
But UNR's tendency to drop the Reno in official stationery and marketing materials has gotten the campus in trouble in recent years, earning a missive from Chancellor Jim Rogers in August 2004 to remember that the school's official name is the University of Nevada, Reno. A handful of regents, most vocally Steve Sisolak, believed UNR was trying to assert itself as somehow better or more important than UNLV.
The Nevada System of Higher Education regents added Reno to the name when it named UNR's southern counterpart the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 1969.
Officials complied with the demand, which they said was standard policy anyway, but the uproar only solidified the preference for Nevada and the "N" logo in the Reno community and among alumni.
Other universities have reduced their logos to iconic letters as well. The University of Oregon simply uses an "O," Illinois has just an "I" and Nebraska has its own version of "N."
Help a student, get your name dragged in the mud.
That's the lesson Regent Jack Lund Schofield recently got when he was targeted by San Francisco Chronicle columnist David Lazarus.
Lazarus went after Schofield in a July 7 column because of his ties to an allegedly shady credit card company operated by one of Schofield's former Vo-Tech High School students, W. Shane Kelly.
Schofield served as president for Kelly's company, now known as Credit Card Alliance Co., after Kelly got in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission. Schofield told Lazarus that he helped Kelly straighten the company out to make sure customers were getting what they were promised.
The Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada has received 725 complaints about the Las Vegas-based company in the last three years. The chief complaints are that the company takes money out of customers' bank accounts without authorization (for special credit services listed in the fine print of the contract) and that customers believe they are accepting a credit card when in reality the card is usable only to shop in the company's catalog.
The Better Business Bureau has responded to the complaints, said Michele Shakir, one of its managers. But the bureau still classifies the company as unsatisfactory because it has not addressed the "underlying cause of customer complaints."
In a phone conversation with the Sun, Schofield confirmed his involvement with Kelly's company and that he was still on the company's board. The former state senator referred further inquiries to the company's spokesman, Lanny Davis, former White House special counsel to President Bill Clinton.
Davis said complaints about the company are exaggerated and that all complaints have been resolved.
UNLV President David Ashley is a big fan of college athletics because he used to be a college athlete.
Ashley was on the gymnastics team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, competing in rings and floor exercises.
"Before you get excited, I should say I wasn't very good," Ashley told a Sun editorial board last week.
Ashley's experience jumping through hoops should help him during his first meeting with university regents on Aug. 4 to explain problems that occurred before he arrived in July.
"I hope they will hold me responsible for taking action and not for the problems," Ashley said.
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