Names have gained increasing importance in the competitive world of higher education. As colleges strive for market share, they are looking for names that project the image they want or reflect the changes they hope to make. Trenton State College, for example, became the College of New Jersey 9 years ago when it began raising admissions standards and appealing to students from throughout the state.
"All I hear in higher education is, brand, brand, brand," said Tim Westerbeck, who specializes in branding and is managing director of Lipman Hearne, a marketing firm based in Chicago that works with universities and other nonprofit organizations. "There has been a sea change over the last 10 years. Marketing used to be almost a dirty word in higher education."
Not all efforts at name changes are successful, of course. In 1997, the New School for Social Research became New School University to reflect its growth into a collection of eight colleges, offering a list of majors that includes psychology, music, urban studies and management. But New Yorkers continued to call it the New School.
Now, after spending an undisclosed sum on an online survey and a marketing consultant’s creation of "naming structures," "brand architecture" and "identity systems," the university has come up with a new name: the New School. Beginning Monday, it will adopt new logos (标志), banners, business cards and even new names for the individual colleges, all to include the words "the New School".
Changes in names generally reveal significant shifts in how a college wants to be perceived. In altering its name from Cal State, Hayward, to Cal State, East Bay, the university hoped to project its expanding role in two mostly suburban counties east of San Francisco.
The University of Southern Colorado, a state institution, became Colorado State University at Pueblo two years ago, hoping to highlight many internal changes, including offering more graduate programs and setting higher admissions standards.
Beaver College turned itself into Arcadia University in 2001 for several reasons: to break the connection with its past as a women’s college, to promote its growth into a full-fledged (完全成熟) university and, officials acknowledged, to eliminate some jokes about the college’s old name on late-night television and "morning zoo" radio shows.
Many college officials said changing a name and image could produce substantial results. At Arcadia, in addition to the rise in applications, the average student’s test score has increased by 60 points, Juli Roebeck, an Arcadia spokeswoman, said. It is implied that one of the most significant changes in higher education in the past decade is ______.