Its USCA not UofSC Aiken

Even though we are all at the University of South Carolina in Aiken, you might’ve noticed that almost everyone has a different abbreviation for it.

With choices like “USCA”, which is personally what I use, to “UofSC Aiken” and even USC-Aiken it was natural to search for the correct answer.

I reached out to James Raby, the Director of Marketing and Communication. And that answer is that the official abbreviation is USC Aiken with USCA being a further abbreviation. 

“A new abbreviation was prompted after USC Columbia worked with an agency to launch a branding campaign and “one recommendation that they adopted was to use “UofSC” as a differentiator from the University of Southern California” 

This wasn’t a decision that everyone was expected to follow suit with, but since it made sense, everyone did. 

Along with this, prior to the “USC Aiken” finalization, we were UofSC in Aiken. After Dr. Heimmermann became chancellor, he advised that the word “of” be removed from the abbreviation to help with campus marketing. And I think this was a great decision. 

A common misconception is that USC Aiken is branched with USC Columbia and that is not at all the case. Since there is no funding received, we are in our own separate section, along with every other USC campus. For some time, there was pressure from the three comprehensives (USC Aiken, Beaufort and Upstate) to allow us to develop independent visual identities, as each of these is a degree-granting, comprehensive university

It’s important for the Aiken campus and the others, to be seen as separate establishments because, well, they are. Work is done differently and branching all under the Columbia campus gives more power than needed and being separate would give some a sense of pride.