Follow these guidelines when applying a name to a building, room, space, scholarship, faculty position endowment, department, school, lecture series, conference or other named program.
Length
Use the shortest name possible. Longer names may not work well in social media or other electronic forms.
Titles
Titles should be avoided whenever possible. This includes professional titles such as president, professor or director, as well as courtesy titles such as Dr., Mr., Mrs. and Ms. Suffixes such as Ph.D. or M.D. may be included upon donor’s request.
- Judson H. Taylor Leadership House
- John M. Fantauzzi ’58, M ’60 Scholarship
- Michael J. Bond '75, M.D. Alumni/Undergraduate Research Science Symposium
Class years
SUNY Cortland class years should be included for alumni. The apostrophe should be curved and slant away from the numbers.
- Individual: Lynne Parks ’68 SUNY Cortland Alumni House
- Joint (both alumni): James ’81 and Nancy Niskin Sorbella ’82 Room; Grace ’57 and Richard Ball ’56 Scholarship
- Joint (one alum): Arnold ’47 and Roberta Rist Suite Sitting Room
- Joint (with middle initials): John S. ’72 and Anita M. Roberts ’73 Scholarship
Couples
Clarity and the donors' wishes are key. If a maiden name is included, it may be necessary to repeat the last name to avoid confusion:
- Ellen Kahn Masters ’67 and Stuart Masters Scholarship
If the donors are flexible on the order of the names, the following arrangement may save space:
- Stuart and Ellen Kahn Masters ’67 Scholarship
Parents
Namings in honor of the parent of an alum may include the graduate's class year, if desired. The letter "P," to indicate "parent," should appear before the class year:
- Shanelle Wilson P ’01 Scholarship
In the above example, the honoree is the parent of a Class of 2001 graduate.
If both the parent and the child are alumni, the parent's class year should be listed first:
- Gabriel Johnson ’81, P ’03 Scholarship
In the above example, the honoree is a 1981 graduate and the parent of a member of the Class of 2003.
Group namings
Class
Spaces or programs named by a class can use the abbreviated version of the year for both short and long names.
- Class of ’57 Baseball Program and Alumni Patio
Fraternity or sorority
Note that Kappa and Beta namings must include their active years.
- Gordon W. Brown ’62 Delta Kappa Beta (1925-1991) Alumni Engagement Internship Award
- Beta Phi Epsilon (1927-1995) Alumni Association Casino Fireplace
Other namings by fraternities or sororities should be the name of the organization followed by the program or space.
- Lambda Phi Delta Service Scholarship
Team
A naming by an athletic group may wish to honor a certain year’s team.
- 1980 Women’s National Championship Team Scoreboard
Other groups
For scholarships, other groups may wish to use a creative name.
- 40 Years of Friendship Scholarship
Nicknames
Some nicknames may be included in long names. Place them in curved quotation marks following the person’s legal first name and middle name or initial, if applicable.
- Carl A. “Chugger” Davis Building
- Margaret A. “Peggy” Curry ’52 Main Lobby
- Harlan “Gold” Metcalf Hall
- Fred “Prof” Holloway Field
Short names
In general, the official short version of a named entity should be the last name followed by the building, space or program. Class years should be omitted included in short names.
- Long name: Victor M. Rumore ’84 Economics Department Computer Lab
- Short name: Rumore Computer Lab
The first name can be included in short names to distinguish different people with the same last name.