Ozarks Technical Community College never sought to be known as OTC, even in shortened form, and now – more than three decades after it opened – is working to shed the acronym.
The college wants to be known as Ozarks Tech.
The preferred nickname will increasingly appear on signs, clothing and other messages as part of a coordinated “refresh.”
“We’re just starting to use it in correspondence and email. We’re doing a poster that I saw this morning called ‘Welcome back to Ozarks Tech,'” said Hal Higdon, chancellor of Ozarks Tech and president of the main campus in Springfield.
Higdon said the renaming was welcomed by the Ozarks Tech Board of Trustees and the board of the OTC Foundation, as the foundation is still called that raises funds to support the college.
He said Ozarks Tech is the largest technical college in Missouri. More than half of its majors are in engineering or health sciences, and it was the first community college in the state authorized to award a bachelor’s degree in respiratory therapy.
“When I hear Ozarks Tech, I think of the big giants like Georgia Tech, MIT, Caltech and that tells you it’s a dynamic institution that embraces technology and change, offers high technology and high academic standards and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Higdon said. “We’re the largest technical college in the state of Missouri … so I think that describes us well.”
When asked about the development, Higdon said the change was due to student preferences.
“When we acquired the bookstore from a third party, Rob Rector really gave the bookstore staff the power to respond to the needs of the customers,” Higdon said of Rector, vice chancellor for administrative services.
“They started putting Ozarks Tech on hats and shirts, and they sold out immediately. If you put Ozarks Technical Community College on it, it won’t sell. If you put OTC on it, it won’t sell. Anything we put Ozarks Tech on will sell.”
Paul Sundy, co-founder of Big Whiskey’s American Restaurant and Bar, is a member of the college’s Board of Trustees and most recently served as its chair for two years. He is a graduate of Ozarks Tech.
“Everyone who went there just called it Ozarks Tech,” Sundy recalled.
Sundy said that using the term “Ozarks” denotes a specific place and that using it in reference to the college highlights it. He supported the push to refresh the name,
“Ozarks Tech is a great example of what OTC has become in light of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and all of those things,” he said. “Texas Tech, Virginia Tech — that’s what I envision for OTC. I want OTC to be those places, and the first step is to make the name cool.”
Sundy said he wants Ozarks Tech to become synonymous with Ozarks Technical Community College.
“It will probably coexist with Ozarks Technical Community College,” he said. “In my opinion, Ozarks Tech speaks to the students of tomorrow and speaks to a wider region, people who are aspiring to those coveted big tech jobs that are needed now more than ever.”
How did Ozarks Tech become known as OTC—an acronym commonly used to describe medications available without a prescription—after its founding in April 1990?
To find out the answer, Higdon, who was hired by the Ozarks Tech Board of Trustees in 2006, asked college President Emeritus Norman K. Meyers.
“Frankly, it’s the News-Leader’s fault that we’re called OTC. That’s what Dr. Meyers told me,” Higdon recalled Monday. “First (the newspaper) called it OTC College and then they just made it OTC.”
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The college’s actual acronym, OTCC, was rarely if ever used and never caught on. Higdon said he brought Meyers a hat last year with the name Ozarks Tech on it.
“He said, ‘I tried so hard to get everyone to call it that. They just insisted on OTC,'” Higdon said. “The students just told us what they liked, and it turned out we all liked it better.”
