This was a little inscrutable to me at first, but — per the WashU Instagram account — they are officially rebranding their unofficial brand from WUSTL to WashU. Or, for those who already called it WashU, they’re saying you were right all along. The official name is still Washington University in St. Louis, but wustl.edu now redirects to a newly-designed washu.edu, and comms from them will reflect the new WashU branding.
always knew the initials were WUSTL, but never knew folks called it that. How is it pronounced? (My roomie in DC decades ago was a ‘WashU’ grad. Not sure he ever used the initials.)
A million years ago, they were one of the few non-Eastern colleges that sent teams to my college debate circuit. Their teams would be called WUSTL A, WUSTL B, and so on, and I always loved saying it.
If that’s true, they did a pretty incompetent job with the rebrand. Those should all be redirects so that it’s seamless!
I had never heard WUSTL until this site. It was always WashU when I was growing up. I think the biggest branding challenge they’ve always had is geography-related; “Washington University” creates some initial confusion (is it in Washington state? Washington DC?), so the “STL” helped with that a little. But I’m guessing they determined that the St. Louis location wasn’t distinctive/important/positive enough to make it worth the unpronounceable acronym. So they decided to stop rowing against the tide and go with the simpler and more common WashU.
I had to check the date on the announcement. It does seem to be a recent announcement, perhaps like Christmas in July, but instead this is April fools in August?
I like their video, but it doesn’t quite seem to capture the gravity of a rebranding like UVA’s recent go at a rebrand:
And maybe I’m too close to the topic (I’m in higher ed comms), but I think what WashU did with their video was fine. Part of the UVA video joke (to me at least—and, again, I think way too much about this stuff), was that universities take themselves and their brands too seriously. I like the lightness of WashU’s approach.
