King’s College London drops rebrand plan

Source: Reuters

In an interview with King’s student newspaper Roar, Ed Byrne said there are no plans to continue with the proposed rebrand, which was due to be phased in from next month.

It follows a fierce backlash against the plans by students, staff and alumni after they were publicised in November.

More than 12,000 people have signed a petition against the move, which led the university to reopen a consultation on the issue.

Speaking to Roar, Professor Byrne said the decision had been made to “keep that name [King’s College London] in every way, both as our official name and how we talk about ourselves”.

“So no more King’s London,” he added.

Professor Byrne, who took over King’s in August last year, also said he would not seek to change the university’s 22-year-old logo “for quite some time”.

“I just want things to settle down and get on with the more important things,” he said.

He said there had been “unanimous support” from the King’s college council to scrap the rebrand when he phoned them all individually.

Roar reports that Professor Byrne announced the U-turn in an email to students this week, saying King’s had “decided that plans to use the promotional name of ‘King’s London’ will not go ahead”.

The change was proposed because King’s claimed the word “college” had caused “considerable confusion” among parents and potential applicants, particularly from overseas, as they thought it may be a further education college.

“Internationally, there was further misunderstanding because ‘college’ is not a widely understood term in many countries,” said Professor Byrne in November.

Although the plans proposed changing the brand name to King’s London, the legal name of the university would always have remained King’s College London.

In his email to students this week, Professor Byrne said the college’s “number one” priority was now improving student satisfaction – for which King’s came 111th out of 123 in last year’s National Student Survey.

jack.grove@tesglobal.com