LU students may protest, but lawyers explain why Lipscomb is no longer allowed to use its own initials

Lipscomb has been buzzing with chatter after news broke Friday night that the university officially would begin removing all use of the acronym “LU” from campus. The university had been contacted by Virginia-based Liberty University, which claimed ownership of the abbreviation. Assistant Vice President of Communication and Marketing Kim Chaudoin said the university will return to “Lipscomb” being the primary logo for the school. “In the whole scheme of the 122 years that the university’s been around, this is just a very small blip on the screen,” Chaudoin said. “Yes, it seems like kind of a big deal now, but Lipscomb has always been the Lipscomb brand.” Chaudoin said that although Lipscomb would still love to keep “LU” as a part of the school, the campus will not allow a logo controversy to throw a wrench in the gears. “We would prefer to be able to use this mark,” she said. “[But] Lipscomb is still Lipscomb, and we’re bigger than two letters. We’re bigger than a logo.” Many Lipscomb students have expressed their shock at the move. “I honestly think it’s kind of dumb,” says Emily Dunn, a senior family relations major. “Aren’t there other universities that use the same abbreviations? I think we should be able to use it because we are Lipscomb University…LU. “But I don’t necessarily think we should go to court over it, either.” Junior English major Melissa Pinhal suggested Liberty take a look at other schools that could potentially use the “LU” acronym, including Lund University, Lincoln University, Lancaster University, Lamar University, Lawrence University, Lehigh University, Loughborough University, Laurentian University, Lindenwood University, Lakehead University, Lingnan...

Lipscomb opts not to purchase .xxx domain name

The Internet is changing…sort of.  Earlier this year one of the biggest blogging sites, Tumblr, starting adding the infinite sign to the beginning of its URLs because it had ran out of numbers. Now, the Internet is adding domains with the suffix “.xxx” specifically for pornographic sites. The change has sparked universities across the nation to buy up their respective domains, protecting their names from being tarnished. The URLs are coming cheap now, too. Both Vanderbilt and the University of Tennessee and Knoxville bought their addresses for less than $200 each. Vanderbilt registered “vanderbilt.xxx” and four other domain names: “commodores.xxx,” “vandy.xxx,” “vanderbiltuniversity.xxx” and “vanderbiltcommodores.xxx.” Not Lipscomb, though. Other schools and big businesses are buying up the domains quickly, sparking the launch of the .xxx top-level domain. The domains will become available to public within the next month. Per usual, though, those with trademarks got the first chance to purchase the URLs and safeguard them. Lipscomb has decided not to purchase the domains, no matter the price, because the “.xxx domain is intended for material that is counter to any university’s mission,” said Kim Chaudoin, director of university communication and marketing at LU. Chaudoin said there are two schools of thought among institutions of higher education. “One is that an institution would reserve the domain to protect its trademark and brand identity,” she said. The other is that the domain is not intended for the university and does not represent what the university was founded upon. Vanderbilt would be in the first school of thought. Maggie Huckaba, the university’s diretor of trademark licensing, told The Tennessean Vanderbilt wanted to trademark...