UMCP has a building named
The Francis Scott Key Building
STUDENT: How much money did Francis Scott Key give to have a building named after him?
BILL: He didn't give money. He wrote The Star Spangled Banner.
STUDENT: I get it! He left the royalties! That would be a lot since Major League Baseball plays that song before every game!
BILL: The song is in the public domain.
STUDENT: That's too bad. Well, at least UMCP got some money out of it before it was in the public domain.
BILL: Francis Scott Key did not give UMCP the royalties from his song.
STUDENT: Well then what did he give UMCP?
BILL: He didn't give UMCP anything. He died in 1843 and UMCP was founded in 1856.
STUDENT: Oh. So his descendants gave money to have a building named after him.
BILL: No, that didn't happen either.
STUDENT: Then why is there a building named after him?
BILL: To honor him.
STUDENT: What does that mean? The only reason to name a building after someone is if they give money to the school. The notion of "honoring someone" sounds so odd--in fact I honestly don't know what it means. OH, I get it, they are just using that name as a placeholder until they find someone who gives the school money for a building.
BILL: I doubt that. Once a building is named to honor someone, it won't change the name for money. That's just too crass.
LANCE: Don't be so sure. When I started undergrad at Cornell in 1981, Benjamin Franklin hall, the site of the country's first Electrical Engineering Department, was just renamed to Olive Tjaden hall. One of my professors made fun of the change, "Why should we name it after Ben Franklin—he never donated to Cornell".
During an alumni weekend, we had a visit from a former alum and his wife, Olive Tjaden, to my fraternity, Kappa Delta Rho (Yes, I was a frat boy in college). She was not shy about bragging that the building was named after her. For some reason Mr. Franklin never showed up to defend the old name.
Cornell still has a Lincoln Hall named after the former president.
BILL: Does any campus name buildings to honor people anymore?
LANCE: At this point I wouldn't be surprised if some university names a building "Donald J Trump Hall" as part of a settlement.
But really, these days, you need money to build buildings, so they get named after donors—or after someone the donor wants to honor. Even if a building is built on state funds, it's usually given a generic name to leave open a naming opportunity later.
BILL: What happens if you name a building after someone because they gave money but later if they found out that they are an X (you can fill it in with some type of person you would not want to honor)? If you had named the building to honor them, you can change the name. If you named it because they gave money you may have a contractual obligation to keep the name. (This was almost a problem with Enron Field, see here).
LANCE: In 2017, Yale renamed Calhoun College, named for a white supremacist, to honor Grace Murray Hopper.
BILL: I hope they got all the bugs out first.
I conjecture very few (any?) colleges name buildings anymore to honor people. It is purely transactional.
1) Am I right? ADDED LATER: Some comment pointed out that I a wrong. See the comment and also these pointer:
Univ of MD at College Park: Pyon-Chen Hall here,
Univ of MD at College Park: Johnson-Whittle Hall (same pointer as Pyon-Chen) here,
Univ of MD at College Park: Thurgood Mashall Hall here.
Princeton: (Toni) Morrison Hall: here
Readers- if you have other examples of BUILDINGS named after people do honor thos people, please leave a comment about it that provides enough information so I can get a pointer.
2) If so, is this a bad thing?
3) And when will Grace Murray Hopper College be renamed again after a donor?
BILL: Does any campus name buildings to honor people anymore?
ReplyDeleteUMD: We named our newest dorms Pyon-Chen Hall and Johnson-Whittle Hall to honor individuals who broke racial barriers at the university, and the Parren Mitchell Building after the late Congressman and civil rights leader who was the first African American to obtain a graduate degree from the University of Maryland. We also named the new School of Public Policy building Thurgood Marshall Hall.
1) I am delighted and surprised to find that my cynicism on this issue is incorrect.
ReplyDelete2) I have added this information to the post.
In 2017, Princeton named a building after Toni Morrison (and an auditorium after another Nobel Prize winning faculty member).
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have included the Morrison Building in the post. I need to draw the line somewhere, so I won't be including the auditorium, but I will give the name here: Arthur Lewis, Nobel prize winner in Economics in 1979).
DeleteRowland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Sherwood_Rowland), Reines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Reines) Halls at UCI. All three Nobels there have last name starting R.
ReplyDelete