University of Maryland, College Park was known as the University of Maryland at College Park until July 1, 1997. The reason for the name change was, of course, political -- the entire state university system was changing its name from the University of Maryland System, to the University System of Maryland. Given such an opportunity, UMCP paid one million dollars to assorted people in the state legislature to remove the 'at' and replace it with a ', '. At the same time, the school also bought the right to use the generic 'University of Maryland' name when promoting itself during athletic events and the like.
Ninety percent of organizational memorabilia on the UMCP campus still refer to the school as '... at ... ' as of mid-2001, including most department stationary and web pages. | 
