Professor Vann convened an open consultation session at the Thurgoona campus on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the rebrand, which is part of a $104 million strategy being undertaken across the entire university.

Should the proposed rebrand go ahead, it is likely the name would be shortened to ‘Sturt University’ as well as featuring an updated logo.

“We’re considering the brand change because we need to make sure we can get our message out,” he said.

“It is a crowded higher education market now, there is a lot of competition for students, for attention, for research dollars, and we’re just trying to make sure we’ve got the clearest presentation possible so we can get people’s attention.” 

A figure of $7.5 million was presented to the consultation session as the total cost of the rebrand, which lies outside the university’s current marketing budget.

Many at the Albury session expressed concerns about the effectiveness of changing the name, while others supported the idea.

“The feedback has been interesting – one thing that is clear is that there is a lot of passion for the university and the existing name of the university,” Professor Vann said.

“We’re trying to capture the attention of people who don’t know us, on the other hand we have to balance that against our existing stakeholders.

“If they’re going to be really angry about it and never get over it, the it’s probably not a good thing to do – that’s what we need to find out.”