Rebranding A National University

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Why not change the world?™

As Vice President of the Rensselaer Alumni Association (RAA) board and chairman of its national Alumni Admissions Committee I was a key participant in the endeavor to rebrand Rensselaer. Today I want to share the case study of that effort.

Great Accomplishments, “No Man’s Land” Marketing Position
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, was the first degree-granting technological university in the English-speaking world. Rensselaer was established "for the purpose of instructing persons, who may choose to apply themselves, in the application of science to the common purposes of life." Since Rensselaer’s founding, its alumni have impacted the world in many significant ways:

•    Inventing television
•    Creating the microprocessor
•    Managing the Apollo project that put the first man on the moon
•    Founding Texas Instruments and creating the first pocket calculator
•    Creating e-mail (including using the @ symbol)
•    Inventing baking powder
•    Inventing the Reach toothbrush
•    Building the Brooklyn Bridge
•    Building the Panama Canal
•    Inventing the Ferris Wheel

Yet, for all its accomplishments, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rensselaer was not well positioned (to prospective students) compared to its world-renowned rival, MIT, or even to schools such as Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon. Many state schools (Purdue, University of Illinois at Urbana, etc.) offered exceptionally strong technical programs at significantly lower costs than private universities such as Rensselaer.