In addition to signing, also send an email with your opinion to those in Fordham’s administration. I made a list with email addresses and a template: http://bit.ly/4mlF6Jb

*Note: I ask for petitioners to please sign with their name, in order to further legitimize this petition; thank you again.

*Additional note: If it suggests that you donate to promote this petition, I actually ask that you please don’t, since the petition is then only promoted to people on this website (who aren’t connected to Fordham).
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To all in the Fordham community,

As Fordham students, faculty, and alumni, we have agreed to join the community of our university— to sit in its classrooms, to live in its halls, and to be associated with and represented by its public image.

Recently, Fordham has announced a new “brand identity”. Through this, it seems that Fordham is reflecting the commercial-focused approach that many colleges and universities in the US have taken in the past decade. There are two issues with this “evolved brand identity”, as Fordham has declared it. 

The first issue: why should our university’s logo look like one from a brand? All that Fordham is should not be reduced to a simple “brand”. It’s not merely a brand, and should not prioritize brand development over its history and institutional identity.

A commercially influenced approach to the university is removed from the goals of education, and from the school community. The identity of the school community— as well as its students and our education— should come before marketing goals.

With that being said, there is the second issue: in the actual visual changes that have been made, Fordham’s time-honored, ornately unique emblem is reduced to an oversimplified, corporate-minimalist letter “F”. Contrary to the wisdom of corporate imagery being adopted by so many American universities (with Fordham now being one of them), we don’t need picture-book simplicity in Fordham’s logo. The Fordham community can handle, and is voicing how it actively prefers, an emblem with complexity. Further, an emblem that has beauty— really, why can’t we have something beautiful? 

As for a solution, there are several demands from those against the new branding that I think should be made to those in charge of this decision:

1. The flags, banners, and other on-campus signs and decoration with Fordham’s original emblem should be restored.
2. Merchandise featuring Fordham’s original emblem should remain available.
3. Fordham’s previous emblem should remain a part of Fordham’s digital communications and media. 

(Please comment on this petition or contact me for suggestions or modifications to these terms.)

Fordham is not just a brand. It’s our university, and we have the power to share our opinion about how it’s represented.

Sign this petition to change back Fordham’s corporatized logo to its true emblem.

Sincerely,
Georgia Bernhard, FCLC ‘28

(gbernhard34@gmail.com)