MOVING ON UP. The objective conditions, nationwide, might favor some trimming of higher education. But there are alliances between faculty and urban boosters that favor teachers' colleges morphing into comprehensives morphing into research universities. Something like that appears to be afoot in Milwaukee, where the basketball success at Wisconsin-Milwaukee has gone to some people's heads. (There are a number of quite strong departments at Milwaukee, and that was the case long before anybody had heard of Bo Ryan or Bruce Pearl.) The boosters would like to change the name.

The suggested names that strike our fancy the most so far are University of Milwaukee or, perhaps, Milwaukee University. Both are almost elegant in their simplicity. Yes, they omit "Wisconsin," but this might be a reasonable sacrifice. All but East and West Coast rubes, who think Milwaukee is in Minnesota, know that the city lies in Wisconsin.

Or UWM could simply stay the course, retaining the valuable University of Wisconsin brand name, respected worldwide for quality. The University of California campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley are cases in point, known for the systems they belong to but with the city names included.

The important thing to remember, however, is that big names are built on big achievements, not name changes.

The truth is, the Madison campus has, since the 1973 merger, officially been the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Milwaukee campus, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. But, as in California, where there is Cal (at Berkeley) and UCLA (motto: On! Wisconsin!) the popular parlance will be Wisconsin (rules the ice) and UWM (as garlic is to vampires, a panther is to a golden chicken).

Current Milwaukee chancellor Carlos Santiago got his academic start at Wayne State, named for the county which is named after a mad general in the War of Independence. Now there's an idea ... Milwaukee is home to two renegade generals, Billy Mitchell and Doug MacArthur. Discuss.