Brand new brilliant idea. Not.
Goodness, here we go again. A few months ago my former university, known throughout the world by everyone as Trinity College Dublin, thought it needed a new name, for reasons that baffled everyone except the consultants who had invoiced the college for coming up with the new brand. It was henceforth to be known as ‘Trinity College the University of Dublin’. Except that nobody thought this was a great idea, and so the college cut its losses (€100,000, reportedly) and kept the old identity.
Bad ideas are never killed off quite as easily as that, however. So now, another institution with a globally recognised brand and a huge reputation has decided that it, too, must pay someone (£300,000 this time, it is claimed) to come up with a daft new name. King’s College London, a genuinely renowned university, is to be called just ‘King’s London’. At least Dublin’s proposed TCTOUD would still have told you what kind of place it was. King’s London could be anything. And don’t even get me started on the grammatical implications.
The proposal sparked a rather amusing sequence of suggestions on Twitter for other name changes based on this model. But more seriously, nobody anywhere in the world needs to have it explained to them by way of a name change that King’s College or Trinity College are not some obscure secondary schools. Trust me on this. And that advice comes for free.
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University Blog 
December 17, 2014 at 1:13 am
At £12,000 a letter I’m sure I could have done far better. Whence this sudden adoption by Universities of every bad business practice going?
December 17, 2014 at 10:52 am
hahaha.hohoho.heeheehee. You’ve made my day, Ferdinand. except when i think how that money could have been spent on student facilities…
December 17, 2014 at 11:21 am
I would not think lightlyof the VC of King’s, who is a renowned physician, not a talkative person, not a person interested in twitters and blogs but a serious person and has experience in managing Monash university.
There were reasons why Imperial College, University College and King’s College were named that way-they were constituent colleges of the University of London. Now these institutions have become autonomous and award their own degrees. Imperial College , when it was the first institution to severe its tight links with the University of London was thinking about the name “college” appearing too.
As for students and staff there, it is not surprising that they do not want to move with times. Let us not be flippant as know alls. What a pity jumping in and writing in this rarely read blog. Who wants this free advice! I do not waste time reading twitters if I was serious person.
I would not think lightly of King’s or King’s College-this institution stepped forward to employ James Clark Maxwell, when he was shunned by the Aberdeen University, and indeed the Scottish academia then. Its reputyation will not cahnge by changing the name of the university.
December 17, 2014 at 11:32 am
Should be: “reputation” and “change”
December 21, 2014 at 9:30 am
[…] Prondzynski, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Robert Gordon University, has made some interesting remarks on the decision. Not a long time ago, Trinity College Dublin also decided that the word […]