Rethinking branding in higher education : updating institutional logos in response to anti-racist activism
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Educational Studies (EDST), Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Xu, Zhenyang
issued: 2021-06-23T21:18:28Z
issued: 2021
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Although re/branding work has been understood by many higher education institutions as a measure to respond to challenges of reductions of public funding and increased national and global competition among universities, some Western universities also employed branding work as a public relations strategy. In this study, I specifically look at how two prestigious higher education institutions, Harvard Law School and Imperial College London, updated their institutional logos to respond to internal and/or external pressure to address racism. Changing institutional logos is just one case in the larger contexts of branding as symbolic politics; other examples include renaming a faculty, removing a statue on campus, and so forth. By arguing that updating institutional logos is a non-performative technique to address racism but a performative action for branding, this study asks: how did Harvard Law School and Imperial College explain the reasons for updating their institutional logos; how was the language of anti-racism, diversity and inclusion used in the rebranding process; to what extent do they acknowledge their colonial and racist past and present; and what were the debates and tensions around the decision of updating the institutional logos? Methodologically, this research is a qualitative study and I draw on Critical Discourse Analysis to interpret unequal power relations embedded in discourse from university leaders and students. I primarily collected data including statements and announcements made by university leaders and faculty, committee reports, relevant quotes reported in news articles, social media pages launched by student activists, and petitions written by students. My findings suggest that updating institutional logos can be a non-performative action that fails to lead to substantive institutional changes to address racism and become more inclusive. I also noted that as removing controversial logos might serve the need of improving institutional brands…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/78765
note: RETHINKING BRANDING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: UPDATING INSTITUIONAL LOGOS IN RESPONSE TO ANTI-RACIST ACTIVISM by Zhenyang Xu B.A., Wenzhou-Kean University, 2019 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2021 © Zhenyang Xu, 2021 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Rethinking Branding in Higher Education: Updating Institutional Logos in Response to Anti-racist Activism submitted by Zhenyang Xu in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Educational Studies Examining Committee: Dr. Michelle Stack, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Supervisor Dr. Sharon Stein, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Dr. André Elias Mazawi; Professor, Department of Educational Studies, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract Although re/branding work has been understood by many higher education institutions as a measure to respond to challenges of reductions of public funding and increased national and global competition among universities, some Western universities also employed branding work as a public relations strategy. In this study, I specifically look at how two prestigious higher education institutions, Harvard Law School and Imperial College London, updated their institutional logos to respond to internal and/or external pressure to address racism. Changing institutional logos is just one case in the larger contexts of branding as symbolic politics; other examples include renaming a faculty, removing a statue on campus, and so forth. By arguing that updating institutional logos is a non-performative technique to address racism but a performative action for branding, this study as…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0398507
language: eng
degree discipline: Educational Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Stack, Michelle, 1967-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/78765