What’s in a name? BL Identity Crisis
What should it matter what a medical school is called? This is a question I’ve been forced to ask myself recently - in the face of the forced rebrand of our medical school - and I’ve had to conclude that ideally, it seems as if it shouldn’t matter. A name shouldn’t change the quality of the teaching, or the standard of the facilities, or the enthusiasm of the student body. And yet, we all know names do matter; billions are spent on marketing, branding and advertising every year - all in the pursuit of attaching some meaning to a name. Closer to home, thinking about the name of an old school friend or family member can bring back a flood of memories and emotions. All, apparently from a name.
As a student, I’ve grown rather fond of the name of my medical school: Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. I must admit when I first started I thought very little about it, but within weeks, if not days, it became clear that that name was rather special. It connected me, as an 18 year-old fresh out of sixth form, to some of the titans of medicine in whose footsteps I was now walking. Names like Percivall Pott, Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson, Joseph Rothblat and William Harvey, people who had shaped modern medicine (and indeed society), were somehow no longer these unattainable figures, but people who had started their journey at the beginning as I was now. It may sound trivial, but to me as a first-year student, it felt as if I could really do anything in medicine - all from that name.
As you probably know, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry was formed by the merger of the Medical College of St Bartholomew’s Hospital (the oldest hospital on the same site in the country) and The London Hospital Medical College (the oldest medical college in the country) in 1995 following the recommendations of the Tomlinson Report in 1992. At the same time, this new combined entity merged with Queen Mary and Westfield College to create the larger, more diversified university it is today. As a student, I found myself having not just one identity to be proud of, but two; Barts and The London as my medical school, and Queen Mary as my university.
Despite what the University would have you believe, it is possible to have two identities, and over the years these names have come to mean different things to me; Barts and The London reminds me of the student community - connecting me to my fellow students who I spend most of my time around. From those I bump into in The Griff Inn, to those I rehearsed with into the late hours of the night in Laird Hall trying to put on a half-presentable panto; it’s an identity that is owned by no-one, shaped as much by students raising money for charities through bake sales, or representing BL in competitive fixtures, as it is by anyone involved in BLSA Board trying to improve student experience. That is perhaps what makes it such a powerful idea; it remains incorruptible by any one person and their actions; taking in only that which makes it stronger.
Queen Mary on the other hand, came to represent the institution I studied at; the physical facilities, the area, the resources, and unfortunately, the University leadership. My relationship with this identity has gone up and down as the University changes around me; up when we were able to persuade the University to improve lighting outside the Garrod Building, and then down again as they failed to invest in more student space as student numbers continued to climb up. More recently, it has been impossible to ignore the relationship QMUL leadership has with its students; from the lack of response to the #SaveOurBL campaign 3 years ago, to their insistence on not furloughing student-staff during the pandemic – there could not be a clearer pattern of disregard for student voice as has been shown by QMUL leadership these last few years. Despite this - and I truly mean despite this - overall I enjoy studying where I study and Queen Mary became an identity I was proud to have to my name.
In the last few years however, we’ve found ourselves in a position where the University is insistent on pitting one identity against the other; attempting to make students believe that one cannot live while the other survives. Nothing could be further from the truth, and ironically this ill-advised strategy has only done more damage to the Queen Mary identity for students; tarring it as a brand of bulldozing, incompetence and simply not listening.
There is simply nothing to be gained by the University by attacking an identity students have taken to be their own and co-created into something they can be proud of; only considerable loss. This seems to be a lesson that QMUL has struggled to learn; it’s said that every time Queen Mary leadership attempts an (inevitably poorly executed) plan to erase the identity of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, they put their own cause back by 3 years. By my own count, in the last few years alone, they’ve put themselves back by at least 9 years - maybe 12.
I truly believe there is a place for both a Barts and The London identity, and Queen Mary identity for students studying here; indeed it’s something that most students would embrace readily. No one comes to a university not ready to be proud of where they study, that comes only after considerable and repeated bad experiences. QMUL can spend millions on student experience and branding exercises and yet would inevitably fail to recreate what makes Barts and The London special. After all, facilities and resources can be paid for and built anywhere, but a name? That’s something harder to make up.
A short history of QMUL attacking Barts and The London
I’m no stranger to rebranding, after all if you study long enough here you’ll probably experience 2 or 3 during your time here with no problem. The first big change that I recall was the insistence of the University that all materials must have both the QMUL logo and the BLSMD logo; prior to this, the BLSMD logo (already with it’s Queen Mary ‘Q’) was deemed sufficient. Then, what seemed just a few months later, the University proudly showed off their new logo for BLSMD which looked like a tackier version of the QM logo with some space underneath and the words Barts and The London typed up.
The #SaveOurBL campaign was shortly launched, aimed at pushing back at this low-effort, aesthetically unpleasing branding that QMUL had designed. It very quickly reached thousands of signatures, but - perhaps no shock - was ignored by senior leadership. At the same time (and arguably because of our campaign), QMUL inserted a new clause into the block grant funding for student groups, targeting BL groups. As a result we were forced to change some bye-laws, opening BL student groups to all students at QMUL for the first time.
More recently, the logo that QM had fought so hard for was dropped, with signage changing across Whitechapel, West Smithfield, Charterhouse Square and Malta to remove traces of Barts and The London, and only say QMUL. Similarly changes to the website removed any mention of the words ‘Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry’. This brings us to where we are now, with the latest and largest campaign ‘We Are BL’. As of print, the campaign’s petition has received over 15,000 signatures, and has been reported nationally by multiple media outlets.
A Queen Mary University of London spokesperson said:
“Queen Mary University continually promotes its proud history and heritage, at the heart of which are our four founding institutions (St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, London Hospital Medical College, Westfield College and Queen Mary College) who all shared the same vision of improving the health and opportunities of the less privileged members of society. As a multi-faculty University, with over 32,000 students, we continue to hold true to that vision today, opening the doors of opportunity through our world-leading research and education. A strong coherent identity is vital to enable us to operate seamlessly as one organisation, breakdown current silos to ensure all education and research remains world-leading, and to underpin strong collaborative working with others to achieve shared goals. Across our University community, we have made considerable progress in consolidating and strengthening our clear identity as a leading Russell Group University over the last few years. We are now exploring avenues in order to complete this work to ensure no possible confusion for students, partners and the public.”
