New to CO, can someone please explain - CU

Sart45 · May 25, 2010

I've always wondered about this too. The University of Denver is called DU (no, it is not Denver University)...the same with CU (University of Colorado...various locations: Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder).

UNC is the University of Northern Colorado; CSU is Colorado State University--these make sense. All are different schools.

SC_RNDude · May 25, 2010

I had heard this pretty recently, and found this on the CU athletics website in the FAQ's:

"Why is the University of Colorado know as CU and not UC or U of C?

The same applies at Kansas-KU, Missouri-MU, Nebraska-NU, Oklahoma-OU and Denver-DU. "Midwestern casualness," says former CU historian Fred Casotti. It has always been this way at Colorado, for whatever reason, and at the other five listed above-but seemingly nowhere else in the USA. In the 1950s, there was a concerted effort to eliminate the use of "CU" on the Boulder campus, both as a symbol and in speech, but Casotti said that no one would buy into it. "Nobody would change," he said. "It's easier to say than U of C, UC sounds like slang or something (as in 'you see'), and it was traditional. By trying to eliminate it, they reinforced it."

IrishMama · May 25, 2010

And CU-Denver is part of the same system, even though that might be changing since it's actually in Aurora. It's also referred to as University of COlorado Health Science Center (hence the uchsc.edu). That's the way CU rolls...

klone, MSN, RN · May 25, 2010

Thanks for the explanation.

So if a local asks where I work, do I say CU Hospital, or UCH? I've found saying "University of Colorado Hospital" tends to be a bit cumbersome, but not being from around here, I wasn't sure if people would understand the abbreviations.

DenRN71 · May 25, 2010

I often hear doctors refer to it simply as "University" as it is the only university affiliated hospital in the Denver area. HTH!