International Law

The Higher Education Supplement in The Australian this morning has a good article by Robert Goldney, Head of Psychiatry in Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide, on the branding of Australian universities. 

Are tag lines or position statements effective? Certainly universities appear to have embraced them with enthusiasm, even though there is a limited range of words, and indeed sentiment, used in such advertising, so the question can reasonably be posed as to whether or not the goal of product differentiation is achieved.

The following tag lines are from universities in Australia:

* Discover
* 40 years young
* A new school of thought
* A new way to think
* A university for the real world
* Achieving international excellence
* Australia's innovative university
* Be inspired
* Change your world
* Discoverers welcome
* Dream large
* Experience. The difference
* Innovation, diversity and excellence
* Inspiring achievement
* Internationally renowned
* Leadership, innovation, transformation
* Let's get on with it
* Life impact
* Out to achieve
* Rewarding excellence
* Think. Change. Do.

Could these words become, if it has not already occurred, weasel words, meaning they have essentially lost any true meaning because of their frequent and at times rather indiscriminate use?

...

Is there any university in the world that would not consider that these were attributes written directly for them? Granted, the single word "Discover" is a clever word play on everyone's perception of Captain Cook for James Cook University. But, among other offerings from our universities, could "Dream large" be promoting Maggie T boutiques or "Life impact" be anticipation of an accident? It is also doubtful that any university would fail to endorse being "Internationally renowned", "Achieving international excellence" or being "A university for the real world".

Universities are meant to be bastions of critical thinking. But maybe the words critical thinking have become as meaningless as innovative, international, achieving, inspiring and so on.

Read more here.