There is more than one building on the Iowa State campus that’s name stirs up controversy.

The debate with Lagomarcino Hall isn’t about whom it’s named after, though. But rather, how to say it.

“It probably gives students a hard time,” Virgil Lagomarcino, the building’s namesake said of the pronunciation.

Lagomarcino, a professor emeritus and dean emeritus at Iowa State and former teacher and school administrator, will sign copies of his new book “The Owl, the Elephant, and the Other Side of the Mountain” today at the University Book Store.

The book is a recollection of the life and experiences of Lagomarcino.

The center piece of the novel is the four decades he lived and served in what he calls in the book his “Axis Munde,” the core of his professional life, Iowa State University.

“I really started out to write a book about higher education in America,” he explained. “But, I got carried away. I started writing about Iowa State, because that’s what I know best, and the book really wrote itself.”

Beginning what would become a 50-year career in academic life, Lagomarcino answered an ad in the classifides to teach American history and government in Vinton. The year was 1944. He wasn’t even a certified teacher.

The “academic odyssey” follows Lagomarcino from his travels abroad, to what his vision of a university should be.

Though his list is intended as ideal, he said Iowa State has many of the qualities he points out.

“The thing that impresses me most about Iowa State is I always feel at home here,” he said. “It was and is a place that cares about students.”

He said students are the “epicenter of a university,” and the the “caliber of students at Iowa State is first class.”

As a professor, Lagomarcino said students made it clear to him when his lectures were “dull.”

“When they stared at me with their eyes glazed over, I knew it was time to try again,” he joked. “When my stories were humorless, they groaned. So, I got better material. I’m rejuvenated to this day when I’m around them.”

But Lagomarcino could not pass up the opportunity to leave the classroom and become an administrator. He said being dean of the College of Education allowed him to “work with students, faculty and staff in a different way.”

He added that higher education is the “corner stone of society.”

“Higher education is the future of our society,” he said. “And, at the core of the university is the students. They are our reason for being.”

Lagomarcino will be signing copies of “The Owl, the Elephant, and the Other Side of the Mountain” today at the University Book Store from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The book is available from Iowa State University Press for $14.95.