A quote from an FIU alumni at the FIUGoldenPanthers.com forum regarding a name change of Florida International University to “Miami State University” or similar, to increase the university’s national brand recognition. Read the conversation here.
We [FIU] have little brand recognition. Outside of Miami-Dade County, it’s always a blank face when you mention FIU. Go to Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Boca and you’re already getting blank faces from people when you tell them FIU. And that’s less than an hour away!
Unlike the other major public universities in the state (UF, UCF, USF, FAU and Florida State), FIU only recruits inside of the county lines of Miami-Dade for students. We attract very few students from outside the Miami metro area, and therein lies the problem. Our brand will never expand outside of Miami if we aren’t attracting students from beyond our own city.
There are a million and one benefits to recruiting students from outside Miami.
1. Our university’s name expands beyond Miami quickly
2. We can help foster a more traditional university environment by attracting more out-of-the-county students who will live on campus and breathe and die FIU all day on campus.
3. We can attract higher caliber students and compete nationally for top students by attracting other Floridian high school graduates.
We are in Miami. Miami is not some small, podunk town. The entire world knows Miami. We are a global, cosmopolitan city that no other place in the South can compare to. Why are we not selling ourselves better to attract high school graduates from across Florida to come live in the big city?
At FIU we always say we’re so great, and I believe it, I know it, but the rest of the country doesn’t and we need to teach them how great FIU is. We need to start by looking beyond just the graduates of Miami Coral Park, Coral Reef, Palmetto, Gables, Belen, Lourdes, etc. We can’t just be Florida’s “Cuban-American University” in Westchester. We can be that and more. We’re a top research university, we need to mature and grow up. FIU can do it.
Metro Atlantic 
Reblogged this on boom Media Group.
Cuban American University uh? Yeah keep playing around with that little moniker even in jest and it will continue to get you nada beyond Miami proper. I mean you put Cuban in front of anything and it gets zero brand equity beyond Dade County…period. That is just fact. I mean Cubans don’t even venture beyond Dade do they? Not sure what about growing up that they are scared of.
This is just about the silliest argument I’ve heard. Instead on concentrating on changing the university’s name, renaming campus, and adding administrative staff we should be putting our efforts into increasing academic staff, providing more funds for research, and improving class schedules and availability.
Florida International University is so busy trying to brand itself that it is forgetting about the actual point of universities.
This is just about the silliest argument I’ve heard. Instead on concentrating on changing the university’s name, renaming campus, and adding administrative staff we should be putting our efforts into increasing academic staff, providing more funds for research, and improving class schedules and availability.
Florida International University is so busy trying to brand itself that it is forgetting about the actual point of universities.
name change: my suggestion would be to add the name Miami to the front. MFIU