‘Tilburg University is sacrificing its image’

Why does Tilburg University keep changing its name and image? According to Oscar Smeets, the University is sacrificing its identity by doing so.

Oscar Smeets

After being called ‘UvT’ for seven years, Dutch employees and students aren’t allowed to say ‘UvT’ anymore. Why does the Tilburg University have the tendency to change its name as soon as everybody has gotten used to the old name? Does every University do this? A quick search on Google tells me they don’t. The University of Maastricht, according to QS World University Ranking, one of the ten most international Universities in the world, calls itself both ‘University of Maastricht’ and ‘Maastricht University’ and the abbreviation is always UM. ‘University of Amsterdam’ stays UvA and the ‘University of Copenhagen’ remains KU.

Along with the name change, come a new website and a new logo. The ‘old’ logo was in a stylish serif FF Scala, blue and gold. A unique logo type, if you ask me. The ‘new’ logo is in the omnipresent sans serif. A two a penny font, which doesn’t set Tilburg University apart from the rest. The old logo, with its matching house style and printed matter, bulged with distinction and class. The new design bulges with nothing. The short website uvt.nl has been abandoned for the more than a mouthful tilburguniversity.edu. The pages of the website have been traded in for digital pages in trendy, young, spring-like colours.

Stop this absurdity

The point is that your brand establishes a name, not what the name itself is. Establishing a brand isn’t made any easier by changing the name every couple of years. This is no more than fiddling about. Policymakers, please stop this absurdity. Let’s concentrate on what really matters, all this megalomania is getting us nowhere. Let’s just be the University of Tilburg, which is good at understanding society.

It’s impossible to keep adapting to the idealized picture of the day. By tomorrow, this will have changed again. He who sacrifices his identity on the altar of internationalization, is bereft of any kind of self-respect. But self-respect and self-confidence are exactly the things that attract new students. My Tilburg University is one that knows what she’s worth. My Tilburg University is proud of what she has achieved in her short life. My Tilburg University is the University of Tilburg. Will that University please stand? [Translation: Charles Peter]

Oscar Smeets is a fifth-year student of law and economics.