Dive Brief:
- A $100 million donation from Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon will change the name from NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering to the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
- Inside Higher Ed reports many students, faculty, and alumni are upset about the loss of "polytechnic" from the school's name, shaming the institution for giving up "161 years of heritage and educational excellence," as a Change.org petition reads.
- NYU expects the opposition to fade and the new name, along with its major donation, to create a distinctive brand for the elite engineering school.
Dive Insight:
NYU's $100 million donation coming with naming rights for the school of engineering is not out of sync with standard procedure across the industry.
Inside Higher Ed recalls instances in which other student and alumni groups have fought back. Paul Smith College recently jettisoned a plan to change its name for a $20 million donation and a fundraising drive that brought $95 million helped preserve the original name of the University of Wisconsin School of Business. Harvard, though, just changed the name of its engineering school after a $400 million donation from John Paulson.