Guest Columnist: Noam Harel | Penn needs a new name to get away from state-school image

University could try 'Ben Franklin U' or simply sell the rights

by NOAM HAREL and NOAM HAREL | Friday, September 22, 2006 at 1:00 am

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There has never been a better time for current or past Penn students to puff our chests out when we say, "I go to Penn" or "I went to Penn." In only a dozen years, Penn has transformed itself from an Ivy doormat that admitted more than half of its applicants into a powerhouse that has reached as high as No. 4 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. To the nation's best-qualified high schoolers, we are a safety school no more.

But despite this incredible makeover, two huge, lingering flaws will prevent Penn from ever breaking into the Top Three: Money and name recognition. Penn has only the 71st-largest endowment per student in the nation, putting us way behind the Top Three in the race to convert all undergraduate financial aid into grants. A new capital campaign is gearing up to address this issue. But unless we address Penn's name-recognition problem first, we will never be able to catch up to our sister Ivies in the money race.

Sure, it probably happens less frequently than it used to, but each of us has had to explain countless times that we're not Penn State. And trust me, this mistaken identity continues to occur at fellow Ivy and other top-tier institutions as well. Obviously, name recognition isn't a new problem at the University of Pennsylvania, nor is it one that the administration doesn't recognize. Penn's marketing machine has been trying to optimize our school's "brand" for decades. Past failed attempts included "UPenn," "Pennsylvania," "U of P," and the current favorite, "Penn." But we're kidding ourselves - no variation of the name "University of Pennsylvania" can prevent the natural inclination to assume "State School." No state school, not Berkeley, not Michigan, has the reputation of a Harvard, Yale or Princeton. And who can deny that "Rutgers" has a better ring to it than "University of New Jersey?" Even Princeton got its act straight when it changed its name from "the College of New Jersey" in the 1890s. If we want to permanently crash the Top Three's party, Penn must rid itself of a state school name.

Would changing our name be disruptive? Would it confuse high-school applicants, professional and graduate-school admissions committees and prospective employers? Would we be ridiculed by the press and our Ivy peers? Yes, of course we would - but not forever. In fact, not even for 10 years, which would represent less than 0.4 percent of our school's history.

And what would we gain? In both the short and long run, better name recognition. As alums from the early 1990s can attest, any attention, positive or negative, is good attention. The infamous Water Buffalo incident earned Penn national scorn, but at the same time was one of many factors that helped propel us from the Ivy outhouse to the brink of pushing Yale out of the Top Three. It's time to stir up the pot again.

Now that I have surely created unanimous consent to making our Penn sweatshirts passe, the next question is, what name should Penn take? The most obvious choice would be Benjamin Franklin University. This name was co-opted in 1925 by a school in Washington, D.C., that has since gone defunct, making the name available again. More intriguingly, I offer a solution that would probably offend every other great Quaker, but would likely please Ben himself by killing two birds with one stone:

The University of Pennsylvania should auction off its naming rights to the highest acceptable bidder.

Sunoco School? Turner Braincast System? Google U? So be it. Would we be selling out? Yes, to a degree. But along with the ridicule would come at least $1 billion, up front. And behind the scenes, our great institution could set appropriate conditions for the privilege of naming rights: A 100-plus year commitment from the bidder; total independence from the naming entity - all that's for sale is the name, not the curriculum, not the five-year plans, not the purchasing or vending contracts. Bidders with unsavory practices such as substandard overseas working conditions, illegal environmental pollution or the like would be rejected by a University-wide committee.

Now, some of you may disagree with renaming our school, especially selling it off to the highest acceptable bidder. You may even have very good counter-arguments. But please, rather than just turning or crumpling this page, give the issue some thought and respond with your own ideas. Just don't try to convince me that No. 4 is good enough.

By changing its name, Penn would have to pay the price of a few years of negative publicity and the scorn of many of its alumni. In return, we'd fill our two biggest needs to break into our rightful place among the Top Three: money and name recognition.

We'd have lots of both.

Noam Harel is a 1992 College and 2000 Medicine alumnus. He served as a Daily Pennsylvanian sports editor in 1991.

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