Pronunciation blues in school names

Let me just share what I know since I was there during the transition. My two cents: The pronunciation of Naval as /NAY.val/ in Naval State University was a result of political pressures and the needs of time. Not everyone knows the politics that goes when you convert a state college into a state university. Converting a state college into a state university is more of a political and legislative process than academic. In fact there’s nothing academic about it except that the school has to prove to the lawmakers that the school is worthy to be called a university. The school has to submit bulky documents to prove that it deserves such appellation. Before a schools gets converted into a state university, that school has to show the august body the area or discipline that it specializes. The rule was no two universities in one region should specialize on the same area. NIT then could not choose engineering or education since the former belongs to EVSU while the latter belongs to LNU. It also could not use Agriculture even if it had BNAC as its external campus because Agriculture is synonymous to VSU still known even today as VISCA. PIT then was not a university and not showing enough aggressiveness for conversion in fact it is the last among the state colleges in the region to get converted into a university. NIT somehow took advantage of that. NIT created a hype of its Maritime program. After all it is the program that draws enrollees from various parts of the country. Apart from this strong force and pressure, there was a growing dissent on the side from people who wanted NIT to be Biliran State University once converted into a state university. If I am not mistaken this issue was considered serious it even reached the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for deliberation. The argument was valid because normally and customarily state colleges and universities are named after their provinces and regions, seldom after a town this practice was maybe even unheard of during those times. To obliterate this issue, the NSU administration tried to play around the pronunciation of the word Naval. Naval, when pronounced as /NAY.val/, resonates lexically associated words such as ‘maritime’ and ‘marine’. This change in pronunciation from /na.VAL/ to /NAY.val/ was the strategic move during those times for it did not only somehow divorce the school from its close association to the town of Naval if only to silence the uproar against it; it also resonated the university’s flagship program Maritime Education. To those outside the region, Naval State University is known as a maritime school. When teachers and students of NSU go out of the region to attend seminars and competitions, we are always called by the emcees as delegates from Naval /NAY.val/ State University.

#GrammarPolice
Before a schools gets converted into a state university, that school has to show the august body the area or discipline that it specializes. <—-A SCHOOLS

The question is, does NAY-val sounds appropriate for a maritime school? I doubt it.. NAY-val pertains to the navy which focus on sea warfare and defense.. A Naval (NAY.val) should should produce navies.. ask the marines