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March 28, 2012 10:00 AM
Glittering Generalities: Today in Name Changes
Two education technology companies, Datatel and SunGard Higher Education, recently merged. The mega-company, which provides software and processing for higher education and other institutions, has been called Datatel + SGHE since last year but they definitely needed a new name. Now they’ve got one.
According a recent press release:
The recent combination of two education technology leaders, Datatel and SunGard Higher Education, has a new name: Ellucian.
“Ellucian evokes the clarity and light that learning brings to life, aspects that we aspire to share in our relationships with institutions of higher, further and vocational education around the world,” said Michelle Reed, Chief Marketing Officer.
Well, it might invoke light, because the word sort of sounds like “light,” but it does not invoke “clarity”; the word has no meaning.
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Tramey on March 29, 2012 4:07 PM:
I agree with your conclusion... the word has no meaning. This is particularly hard to understand since they could have gone with something like Elucidata, still not a real word but taking something from the companies' previous name plus the connotation of clarity.
John Barber on April 24, 2012 8:25 AM:
My guess would be Ellucian is meant to connote "elucidate", which means to make lucid or clear.
So I would disagree with the conclusion of this post.
As a blogger, I find it useful to look things up and think about them before writing.
It's ironic that Washington Monthly didn't bother to do either in this case since the both the company Ellucian and this post are about learning.