Magazine Monday: Rebranding With Purpose

When Christine Feenstra set out to rebrand Computer Using Educators—a name with more than four decades of history—she knew the stakes were personal for many members. As Executive Director of the newly named CALIE, she shares how a neuroscience-backed framework helped her lead the change with empathy and purpose.

Computer Using Educators (CUE) had real history and recognition behind it. What made you confident that rebranding to CALIE was the right call, and what were the biggest risks you were weighing?

That was exactly what made the decision so difficult. Since 1978—or 1982 if you’re counting from incorporation—CUE has been one of the most recognizable organizations in educational technology. However, we kept running into the same challenge. Technology in education had evolved, but our name hadn’t. The brand was built around computers, but our members saw themselves as leaders in educational innovation, as the scope of innovation tools widened, especially around the Y2K and dot-com boom, and now again with AI.

The former name required constant explanation and implied that a potential member had to see themselves as a “tech person” before they considered engaging with us. The very people we were uniquely positioned to support (nontechnical educators) did not see themselves as part of our target audience. I’d walk into a room with a teacher and spend the first several minutes explaining who we were rather than discussing how our community would benefit them.

The consistency of what we were hearing gave me the confidence to make the changes. We knew very early on that the name had to change, and all of our research, including interviews, focus groups, and surveys, validated that. The risk was that for many members, CUE was essential to their professional identity, and I knew changing it would feel very personal to some people.

You used the SCARF model to guide the rebrand. For readers who aren’t familiar with it, how does it work, and why did it feel like the right framework for this kind of change?

The SCARF model is a framework developed by David Rock and the NeuroLeadership Institute that examines five domains that our brains scan for when we encounter significant change: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

One of our volunteer leaders introduced me to SCARF. She had watched some members struggle with changes I was leading, and honestly, she had watched me struggle with responding to some of that resistance. What drew me to SCARF is that it supports something every association leader eventually learns: people rarely respond to change based on the actual facts. They react based on what they believe they may gain or lose and how that might impact their own individual experiences.

Read the full article in the 2026 edition of Association Adviser magazine!