Vic now telling staff what names to use

Stuff reports:

Victoria University of Wellington is blatantly ignoring everyone when it comes to its name, a Wellington City Councillor says. 

The university’s rebrand kicked in recently with a new logo, shield and crest. The university’s website URL had also changed from “victoria” to “wgtn”. 

Guidelines on what to call the university have also started, with staff in the first instance being told the school would be referred to as Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington or its legal name Victoria University of Wellington.

But “subsequently and depending upon the context, we can use suitable abbreviations such as Wellington University, Wellington’s University or Wellington”.

Te Herenga Waka – University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka – Wellington or just Te Herenga Waka were also appropriate names. 

Wellington City Councillor Nicola Young said the university was not making a “name change by stealth” – instead, it was blatantly ignoring everybody.

“It’s a disgrace. Why is it continuing to waste money? It’s a real distraction from what the university should be doing which is educating our brightest. 

“Instead they’re mucking around with this PR exercise which is irritating everybody.” 

Fellow Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons said “the university seems arrogantly obsessed with changing the name and it is inappropriate to ask staff to call the university something other than its legal name.

“If they keep attempting to impose a name, I think it actually runs the risk of the university’s international reputation being eroded.” 

The university council and senior management seem obsessed. I’ve never known the leadership of an institution to spend so much time and money to try and undermine their own name and brand. It’s almost suicidal in nature.

I suspect the majority of the staff will ignore the stupid guidelines and refer to the University as Vic or VUW.