Missouri State University Misspells Own Name on Bags Given to Students
Mistakes. We all make them, it's understandable, forgivable, a part of human nature even. But when there's a particular irony to said mistake, it makes it nearly impossible not to mock that mistake, and there's nothing more ironic than an institution of higher learning misspelling its own damn name.
Missouri State University (er, Univeristy) in Springfield, Mo. handed out thousands of canvas bags to students last month, proudly bearing a typo that switched the "s" and second "i" in "university." According to the Springfield News-Leader, a total of 17,800 bags were ordered; the typo appears on nearly half (about 8,500) of the bags. MSU spent $70,844 on the bags and since the error was the school's fault, none of the cost can be recouped.
Furthering the beautiful irony, the bags were given to students free of charge when they picked up their books for the new semester. The error went unnoticed until a student (who deserves all A's this semester for outsmarting the school) brought it to the attention of bookstore employees. Rather than limit the chances of a potentially embarrassing story getting out, bookstore employees decided to keep handing out the bags because, why not?
Bookstore staff then made the decision to continue to hand out the bags, already filled with orders, without consulting interim bookstore management or any MSU administrator, [MSU vice president of student affairs Earle] Doman said.
The university would have preferred they had consulted someone. Doman said the university would have immediately decided to stop handing out the "univeristy" bags.
"We would have come up with an alternative," Doman said. "We would have come up with plastic bags had we learned of it. We have talked about those things in the past. It is just not worth it."
As it turns out, the bookstore at MSU was already in a bit of hot water before its latest fuck up. It's already facing a university audit, after $500,000 went missing from the bookstore's accounts and $81,000 cash was found in now former MSU bookstore director Mark Brixey's desk. The misspelled logo design that was sent to the vendor who made the bags was approved last August, before Brixley's resignation.
