Evidently the problem is no one outside of the south east (or maybe just north Alabama) knows what the heck UAH is. Fair enough. The solution is to change UAH to UAHuntsville or UA Huntsville or UA-Huntsville depending on which source you read. This is supposed to make the university more identifiable.
I don’t understand why they don’t just spell the whole thing out if they want people to know who they are and use the acronym in contexts where people should know who they are. Isn't that the point of acronyms? In addition to that UAHuntsville seems like a cumbersome acronym. Aren't ancronyms supposed to be something that’s quick and easy? I guess technically it’s really a more of a pseudo-acronym then an honest to god acronym.
I don’t have a lot of sentimental attachment to “UAH,” but I’m having trouble understanding how the purposed name accomplishes the stated goals. The stated goals are to make it easier to recruit out of state students and raise name recognition. Fine, those sound like good goals. Does the new name do that? Maybe. There’s no doubt that UA is more nationally known….for its football team and partying. To me it seems like UAH is trying to ride on Tuscaloosa’s coattails, which seems a bit disingenuous.
On top of that it seems to me that it actually diminishes UAH’s standing. In most states a city name is tacked onto a university name when it’s a satellite campus. UA-Huntsville makes it seem like UAH is UA’s satellite campus. You know if you’re not good enough to get into UA you might get stuck at UA-Huntsviile.
Even if the above points don’t hold water here is the just plain bizarre thing. They are only planning to change the logo for some things. The new logo will be used for recruitment and maybe a “signature element” or two while the old logo will stick around for other things. How does having two logos, a split brand, help with recognition and confusion? It seems like that would actually be counterproductive to the stated goals. Unless that’s not the real plan. Maybe they’re just spoon-feeding the new logo to quell the sentimentalist.
Oh well. As a Friday bonus here’s a picture of Riblet tending to her coffee plantation. She spends a bit of time every day making sure her coffee plants are doing well.
2 comments:
Right before I got to Missouri, there was a huge dust-up over what to call the University. Technically, it's the University of Missouri-Columbia. But it's the flagship campus, so it's also just the University of Missouri.
They wanted to do away with the abbreviation UMC so it sounded more important than the others (UMSL, UMKC, etc). So they decided to call it MU. But it's not called Missouri University, so the acronym is kind of a lie.
Moral: Universities are crazy.
Oh, and UAB went through this recently, although it was much more stupid than what you're talking about. I think it was some kind of protest against the UA system, so they wanted to call it Birmingham University or something. Sorry I can't find a link...it was a pretty fringe movement.
And thanks for the Riblet photo! Now you need another cat to work the Coffee Roaster....maybe an indigo field.
Ringling School of Art and Design also changed their name to Ringling College of Art and Design sometime this year. The reasoning was that "college" sounds more professional than "school".
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