A Mighty Harvest of Acronyms

I’ve mentioned it before, but I have the best readers ever.

Yesterday’s post was a call for the most entertaining acronyms folks have come across. I mentioned some of my own, such as a proposed office for Academic Support Services. I should have mentioned the Academic Management Operations Committee, or AMOC (pronounced “amuck”). I liked to say that once a month I run AMOC.

Suffice it to say, folks answered the call. Some highlights:

• Institute for Curatorial Practice and Performance (at Wesleyan)—“ICPP” sounds silly when you spell it out loud.
• Budget Allocation Resource Forms—BARFs. This may be my favorite. It’s almost Freudian.
• Audiology and Speech Sciences—I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader.
• Highest Paid Person’s Opinion—HIPPO. We’ve all been there.
• Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Program—You’d think someone would have noticed …
• College-Wide Assessment Committee—CWAC (“quack”). I tried appropriating this one, but this duck didn’t fly. A missed opportunity, if you ask me.
• Outreach, Business and Community Development—OBCD (“obesity”). It looks okay until you say it …
• Special Committee on the Undergraduate Revision of General Education—SCOURGE. This one works hard, but the payoff is there.
• Standing Committee on Relevant Extracurricular Workshops—SCREW. Apparently, this one had a short shelf life. Longer than CWAC, though.
• Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science—SECS. Freudian slip or savvy marketing? You make the call.
• Every Good Acronym Deserves to Shine—EGADS.
• Committee on Research and Priorities—self-explanatory …
• Florida Institute of Materials Science and Engineering—FLIMSE. This one reminds me of the Fluke Moving Company—“If it gets there on time, it’s a Fluke!”
• Data Analysis and Social Inquiry Lab—DASIL (“dazzle”). It lends itself to T-shirts.
• Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion —JEDI. I like this one a lot. It connotes fighting the good fight.
• Student Advocacy and Student Services Center—SASSC (“sassy”). It had a certain panache.
• Washington State Community and Technical Colleges—WACTC (“whacked”)
• State College and University Managers—This one has to be apocryphal. It just has to.

And the poli sci nerd classic …

• Committee to Re-Elect the President—CREEP. A bit on-the-nose, but there it is.

If you read this far, I hope you didn’t consider this post a WOMBAT (“waste of money, brains and time.”)

Thanks again to all the good sports and careful readers out there!