UAH or UAHuntsville?

[jmanhsv]

This has been a topic in the news lately. Just wanted to see what you guys thought about it. This is the "old" logo...

Soon after Dr. David Williams became president of UAH in July, the official logo of UAH was changed to this because the administration thought no one outside of the region knew where UAH was.

Personally, I don't like the new logo. Why?

1) The university has been called UAH since the beginning.

2) If people outside the region don't know where UAH is, how are they going to know where Huntsville is? We get confused enough already with the infamous Texas town.

3) The new logo makes the university look nothing more than a satellite campus of the University of Alabama. The university should be trying to become more autonomous. They should be trying to call themselves the University of Huntsville. I'd support that.

Over 700 students (10% of the undergrad population) have signed a petition against the change circulated by the SGA, which unanimously opposed the logo change. I was one of them. But what do you think?

[kayman]

I must agree the new logo does look like a downgrade, and it does recks of "we're just a satellite campus of UA".

[HSVTiger]

a better more aggresive campaign to promote UAH would go a long way toward solving the problem.

Having an image of a satellite campus of uat is a definite negative.

The new Prez must be trying to impress the trustees.

[mdamon5210]

I am a UAH grad and appreciate the quality of the university, BUT outside of a 50 mile radius it has no name recognition. For a school to be able to market itself by an abbreviated form of its name, it has to have some kind of existing "brand recognition". Why would anyone outside of N. Alabama know what UAH stands for? Until they make a name for themselves, they need to find a new way to market themselves. Personally, I think the only way to avoid the misconception that we are a satellite campus is to drop the "of Alabama" all together. Believe me, as a yankee..........that doesn't carry any weight!!!!

[Alabadrock]

I am a UAH grad and appreciate the quality of the university, BUT outside of a 50 mile radius it has no name recognition. For a school to be able to market itself by an abbreviated form of its name, it has to have some kind of existing "brand recognition". Why would anyone outside of N. Alabama know what UAH stands for? Until they make a name for themselves, they need to find a new way to market themselves. Personally, I think the only way to avoid the misconception that we are a satellite campus is to drop the "of Alabama" all together. Believe me, as a yankee..........that doesn't carry any weight!!!!

[rnc]

I actually know quite a few people that attend UAH that are from states like Texas, Florida, and Virginia. I think that if you live in the South, you know what UAH is. Anywhere else, no one is going to pay attention.

[jmanhsv]

As a current UAH student, I show my school spirit everywhere I go by wearing my official UAH jacket. Random strangers come up to me in places like Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville and tell me what a great school UAH is and how (insert family member here) really liked the place and how challenging it was. So plenty of people, at least in a 200 mile radius, know about UAH (I have yet to go outside of the South wearing the jacket). And Alabadrock was right- there are people from everywhere here. I have met people here from Wisconsin, New York, Virginia, Washington state, etc. - so more people know about UAH than you think.

[Huntsville_secede]

No they don't. VERY few people outside of the Huntsville metro and perhaps Alabama know what UAH stands for. Heck, I'm an engineer from elsewhere in the south and I didn't know UAH existed until I started considering moving to Huntsville. I bet you could give most people three guesses and they still wouldn't get it. I've been surprised how few people know anything about Huntsville at all actually. In my experience, if a person isn't an engineer, they really don't know anything about Huntsville. Particularly if they live more than a few hours away.

[Alabadrock]

I think people can surprise you. rnc, I'm sorry, but, just because you had that experience with finding out about UAH, doesn't mean everyone does. One of my friends at the University of Alabama is from Texas, and she had no clue that UA even existed until the university extended an engineering scholarship to her. Would it surprise you to know that I didn't know about the Ohio State University until 2 years ago?

As I said, people can surprise you.

Also, one reason why the elderly might think Huntsville is a small town is because when they were about our age, Decatur was a larger city. As you get older time seems to fly by, or so I've been told, and it doesn't seem like a city that used the be the size Huntsville was could grow soooo fast to such a large city.

[codyg1985]

I am a undergrad at UAH (or UAHuntsville), and I think that UAH is known pretty well in the areas of expertise (engineering and physics). However, I know I did not know about it until I attended a college fair at a community college in another part of the state. I think that UAH could use better recognition to attract more students. I don't think the changing the name is going to do any good unless some sort of PR or advertising campaign follows.