FEDERATION University Australia will be launched in Melbourne today.
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The launch marks the rebranding and amalgamation of the University of Ballarat and Monash University’s Gippsland campus, but will continue to operate as the University of Ballarat until January 1, 2014.
UB vice chancellor David Battersby said there would be many smiling faces around Melbourne and Parliament today as Victorian Minister for Higher Education and Skills Peter Hall launches FedUni.
“We’re rolling out our marketing and branding for Federation University of Australia, which will continue in the coming months and into next year,” he said.
“It will be held at the Parliament of Victoria – honouring the role they played and passing the bill.
“It’s not often that you get to launch a new uni.”
UB is Australia’s third-oldest university, dating back to the 1870s with tertiary education in Ballarat starting in 1859.
Originally named the School of Mines and Industries, it split into two organisations in the 1960s keeping the School of Mines and the Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education, which changed to Ballarat College of Advanced Education in the 1970s.
In the 1980s mergers with Deakin University were proposed but did not eventuate.
Then in 1989 Ballarat CAE become affiliated with Melbourne Uni, changing its name to Ballarat University College, an affiliated College of the University of Melbourne.
It wasn’t until 1994 that it became a university, and changed its name to the University of Ballarat. Professor Battersby said over the next few days a print and television campaign would be rolled out.
“The ads are quite evocative,” he said. “It’s built around growth and adversity, as well as reflecting on our history and looking to the future.”
Professor Battersby said the university already had the approval from the federal government and Victorian government as well as from the Tertiary Educaction Quality Standards Agency.
Professor Battersby said there had been no backlash from the new name, with the acronym FUA.
“We went through a detailed consultation process and I think everyone is very excited,” he said. “I’m not concerned (about the acronym FUA) . . . it will be branded FedUni and people will come to know it as FedUni.”
Professor Battersby said the rebranding was not costing the university much more than its annual marketing and advertising.
“We have marketing and advertising in our budget every year, and the rebranding is budgeted into that and a little of embellishment,” he said.
“It is costing the uni about $2 million over the next two-and-a-half to three years.”
Professor Battersby said there were no current plans to expand further and take on other campuses.
UB currently operates with nine entities: Mt Helen, SMB, Camp Street, Gillies Street, the Technology Park and Mount Rowan, as well as Horsham, Stawell and Ararat.
