Sunday, December 18, 2005

.: University's Name :.

Read this yahoo news about NTU and I couldnt help laughing about SM Goh's speech about the name of university...


Sunday December 18, 2:17 AM

NTU honours outstanding alumni with inaugural Nanyang Alumni Awards

SINGAPORE : Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has called on the alumni of the Nanyang Technological University to give back to the university.

He said the alumni carried the name of the university, and they had a vested interest in ensuring that the reputation of NTU continued to go up, not down.

Mr Goh was speaking at a presentation of the inaugural Nanyang Alumni Awards to 20 outstanding people.

They recipients hail from diverse areas ranging from business, science and technology, the arts and media, as well as sports.

But these scientists, venture capitalists, sportsmen, internationally-acclaimed artist Tan Swie Hian, and singer Stephanie Sun have one thing in common - they were from the Nanyang Technological University, and have made a name for themselves and their alma mater.

Mr Goh urged all alumni to help build up NTU as the future reputation of the university will also burnish the shine of their degrees.

The name is just as important - he related how he was involved in naming the school when it was first started as a technological institute.

Mr Goh said: "We wanted to retain the name 'Nanyang' as the institute would rise from the campus of the old Nanyang University. We also wanted the word 'Technology' to reflect the mission of the institute. An obvious name was 'Nanyang Institute of Technology'. It had resonance like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But unlike MIT, a NIT graduate would be regarded as a fool. And when NIT became the 'Nanyang University of Technology', its graduates would be NUTs.

"Then someone suggested 'Technological Institute of Nanyang'. 'TIN' did not sound too bad but 'TUN' for 'Technological University of Nanyang' did not seem right. We did not establish the university to produce 'TUNs'. Besides, in Hokkien, 'TUN' meant dense which brought us back to square one - NIT. After playing with other permutations, we eventually settled for the name 'Nanyang Technological Institute'. It was rather a mouthful but at least nobody could make fun of the acronym 'NTI'." .......


Thanks SM Goh for giving us a decent name. =) and I hope the name will stay the same...

by ^momo^ at 2:38 AM |