Andrew Dubber     

I have a lot of public profiles on the internet, and for obvious reasons, many of them mention that I work at UCE Birmingham. Unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore.

I haven’t been fired or found a new job — the university has simply changed its name. From tomorrow, UCE Birmingham will be Birmingham City University. Apart from the fact that it now sounds like a football club (and looks like one: wait till you see the new logo), it’s okay as University names go.

It got me thinking about what it would be like if AUT (my former employers in New Zealand) made the same sorts of choices. In a town where there is already a University of Auckland, it would become Auckland City University. I can’t imagine that being allowed to happen there — and I don’t know how this has managed to happen here.

The argument is that Birmingham City University is snappier than The University of Central England in Birmingham, which, I suppose, it is. But it’s not snappier than UCE, which is what everyone calls it. When you abbreviate Birmingham City University, you tend to end up with simply ‘Birmingham City’, which always makes it sound like the next word you’re going to say is either going to be ‘Council’ — or ‘Nil’.

But that’s not my problem. My problem is that now I have to go around the internet sweeping up all the anachronisms about where I work. This will affect all of my online profiles, many of which I can’t even recall where they might be.

So… if you find an instance of me claiming to work at an organisation that doesn’t exist, could you please bring it to my attention so that I can correct the internet?

Thanks very much.

Tagged: Internet, University