All this talk about notifications had me poking around and I learned about using ${URI_REF} instead of ${URI}. It's magical.

• ${URI_REF} creates a link to the current record using the records display value. It's essentially... the same as;
  javascript var link = 'https://'; link += gs.getProperty('instance_name'); link += '.service-now.com/'; link += current.getLink(); var display = current.getDisplayValue() template.print('<a href="' + url + '">' + display + '</a>');
• ${URI} creates a link to the current record using the text "Link".