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[palmatenewt]

What's in a name?

I don't think it makes the slightest difference what the place is called, and I doubt anyone at the college would be inclined to value the name over the donation. It's hardly a first anyway; Harris Manchester in Oxford was originally "Manchester" until Lord Harris gave it lots of money. Templeton College in Oxford was the Oxford Centre for Management Studies until John Templeton stumped up some cash. This sort of thing is quite normal, and no-one thinks of those colleges as somehow selling out or betraying their souls. It happened in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance too - Clare College in Cambridge was originally University Hall until Elizabeth de Clare bailed it out in the fourteenth century. Gonville and Caius was originally Gonville Hall. And so on. And of course, colleges are quite capable of using nicknames for so long that the "official" names fall out of use (Oriel in Oxford is an example), which shows that names have never been regarded as particularly sacrosanct.

Also, where's this "Oxbridge"? New Hall is in Cambridge!

All of the college you mention were "new" when they changed their names.  Who cares what the "Oxford Centre for Management Studies" is called?  It has minimal or no historical assocations with its name.

This is not true of New College.

Apples and oranges, or at least apples and pears.

Gonville was over two hundred years old when Caius came along. New Hall is only fifty years old. (You might be mixing it up with New College, Oxford?) But even if it weren't, I'm not convinced that even a terribly old name has much value. The colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have always had a very pragmatic attitude to most things, and have generally preferred survivability to tradition. That's how they've survived for so long.

[aandsdean]

What's in a name?

I don't think it makes the slightest difference what the place is called, and I doubt anyone at the college would be inclined to value the name over the donation. It's hardly a first anyway; Harris Manchester in Oxford was originally "Manchester" until Lord Harris gave it lots of money. Templeton College in Oxford was the Oxford Centre for Management Studies until John Templeton stumped up some cash. This sort of thing is quite normal, and no-one thinks of those colleges as somehow selling out or betraying their souls. It happened in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance too - Clare College in Cambridge was originally University Hall until Elizabeth de Clare bailed it out in the fourteenth century. Gonville and Caius was originally Gonville Hall. And so on. And of course, colleges are quite capable of using nicknames for so long that the "official" names fall out of use (Oriel in Oxford is an example), which shows that names have never been regarded as particularly sacrosanct.

Also, where's this "Oxbridge"? New Hall is in Cambridge!

All of the college you mention were "new" when they changed their names.  Who cares what the "Oxford Centre for Management Studies" is called?  It has minimal or no historical assocations with its name.

This is not true of New College.

Apples and oranges, or at least apples and pears.

Gonville was over two hundred years old when Caius came along. New Hall is only fifty years old. (You might be mixing it up with New College, Oxford?) But even if it weren't, I'm not convinced that even a terribly old name has much value. The colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have always had a very pragmatic attitude to most things, and have generally preferred survivability to tradition. That's how they've survived for so long.

You're right, I was thinking of New College, Oxford.  My mistake.  I do think that duration of a name and its historic associations (why, for example, Oriel or Clare or Peterhouse really shouldn't change their names now...) make a difference in this matter.  I suspect that pragmatism would end up taking that view--in business terms, it's the accumulation of goodwill that makes the difference.

But since I was talking about the wrong college, well:  duh.

[babbinacara]

What's in a name? everything.
New Hall is fifty years old....imagine changing your own name at the age of fifty (I confess I just can't understand the change of name at marriage thing, so just roll with me on this for a minute). My analogy: say the name on my PhD certificate is Dr. Cara. Suppose I change my last name to Mala...can I call myself Dr. Mala? That individual does not exist, and I technically don't have the power to create her...Miss or Ms. Mala is as far as I could go. So not only would my name be different, but a major part of my identity would be adrift. Then there's the name on my other degrees, articles and books I have written as Dr. Cara, and my connection to family and ancestors. You may argue that these links still exist, but they would no longer be visible and obvious.

Institutions have longer time scales than individuals, of course, but I am aghast at this name change in part because of the casting-adrift of prior students who matriculated at and graduated from New Hall. Someone else said it up-thread--if the donor thought the college was so great, why did she not also value its name?
Surely there is a reason that a common rallying cry of protest is "Not in my name!" And surely also it is significant that one of the first things we learn to say in a foreign language is "My name is xxx. What is your name?"

The new name also just lacks poetry. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

[litcrittr82]

My typical American response: you can name my college after one of the Spice Girls--the ugliest one, in fact--so long as I get some of that money.  The exchange rate is killing me already.