hyphen

Last week Todd and I took a walk around the University of Dayton campus. We strolled past campus buildings, dormitories, athletic fields, and gardens, taking a couple of shortcuts through parking lots as we made our way back to the car.

As we passed through a small parking area behind a row of student housing, a license plate caught my eye and I just had to take a picture. What could be the story behind it? 

A little research shows that Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology was founded in 1874 by railroad builder Chauncey Rose as the Terre Haute School of Industrial Science. It later became Rose Polytechnic Institute before receiving its current name in 1971, following a major gift from the Hulman family.

The hyphen in Rose-Hulman connects the legacies of two benefactors and forms an essential part of the institution’s identity. Leaving out the hyphen is a pet peeve among members of the Rose-Hulman community. The institute takes its punctuation seriously, preserving the hyphen in its official name and branding. The emphasis even carries over into campus traditions, where students spell it out in chants: “Rose-HYPHEN-Hulman!”

It would be fun to know the story behind this Ohio license plate sitting in the parking lot on the UD campus. Maybe the owner's sibling is a proud Rose-Hulman alumnus and the car has been passed down. The lesson here is that at Rose-Hulman, that little hyphen carries some serious weight.