Red-faced Ed goes head to head with furious students at rebrand meeting
Felt a bit sorry for him really
Ed Byrne today defended the unpopular “King’s London” rebranding proposals in front of angry students and staff at a highly anticipated open meeting.
The stubborn panel, which saw Ian Creagh (Head of University Administration), Maxine Taylor (Director of External Relations) and Karen O’Brien (Vice Principal for Education) join the principle, stood their ground, explaining the controversial rebranding plans step by step.
They even denied claims that they had done enough to consult students about the name change, with Maxine Taylor insisting: “It was online for a while and we advertised it. We tried.”
Speaking at the Strand Campus’ Great Hall, Ed told disgruntled students: “There is a lot of confusion about what King’s is due to changes over the last 20-30 years, due to growth from a relatively small university to one of the top 5 largest in the country with over 25,000 students,”
“We have consolidated our position in the ‘premier league’ of universities, mostly due to changes in the last 20 years, so if you’re not paying close attention to London, you may not have noticed.”
He also asserted that he wanted to “make it clear that we are totally open about this, and that it is important that we go through the rationale behind the rebranding”.
Visibly flustered by the end of the meeting, he asked for those who support the King’s London brand to raise their hands, over shouts of frustration from the audience.
The deafening silence when only two raised their hands was unsurprising. But interestingly, some students raised their hands at the thought of a rebrand in general.
Audience member Maria Fox said: “I like the tradition of the old name but I’m not against rebranding in itself. However ‘King’s London’ doesn’t achieve anything, it could be a pub or a shop, and I think we already have a good rep.”
In a less than controversial move, Ian Creagh added, “It is clear from the petition that its been felt there hasn’t been enough consultation. Maybe that’s right, maybe that’s wrong… I have no position.”
Zack, a fourth year English and German Law student pointed out: “When the King’s College School of Law was given a name change (Dickson Poon School of Law) it was initially met with criticism, but now we’re used to it. However, if there had been extensive consultation, it just wouldn’t have resulted in such huge numbers coming out against it.”
But Ian Creagh went on to claim that King’s students were consulted via ‘focus groups to go through the issues’, a ‘naming consultation work shop’ and an ‘online survey’.
Maxine Taylor explained that during the mysterious consultation process, “A lot of the things we heard were not things we wanted to hear.”
She said: “One alumni compared King’s public image to ‘hiding our light under a bushel’, whilst a large shareholder claimed that ‘UCL has a brand which makes it seem better than it is. KCL has a brand which makes it seem worse than it is’.”
However, she added: “If the community is not with this, we won’t do it, and we want to make that clear from the outset, but there are things we need to do for the University to make it stand out more.”