The University of Pennsylvania recently came under fire for allowing a billionaire businessman to rename a campus building for his deceased ex-wife, after making a donation of $20 million. The building, formerly known as Logan Hall, was renamed Claudia Cohen Hall during summer break with no official notice from the university about the revision. Certain members of the community have voiced their opinions against renaming the building after Cohen, a former editor of the New York Post Page Six gossip column who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2007.
While the donor, Penn alumnus and trustee Ronald O. Perelman, did donate $20 million to the school, many are particularly upset that a prominent building on campus is now named after someone unrelated to the academic community and who kept no close links with her alma mater after graduating in 1972.
This brings up the issue of what bank-breaking donations, such as Perelman’s, should be worth at universities such as the University of Pennsylvania that are known for their famous scholars and alumni, but also for their groundbreaking research and technologically advanced equipment, both of which come at a high price.
In the current economic state of the entire country, the question of whether practicality or integrity reigns supreme is an important one. However, even more so at a public university such as UCLA than at a private institution, money needs to come first.
Every year, fees are increased and classes are dropped because of budget cuts. Yet no matter what requests these large donors may hold in return for their check, at the end of the day these individuals still care enough about higher education to donate large sums of their personal wealth for the greater good.
It is sad that universities big and small, private and public, are now forced to choose between holding onto a school’s past of important traditions and reaching out to brighten the school’s future, through accepting donations to go toward updated equipment, building renovations and new facilities altogether.
At UCLA, an important but also difficult example to make would be the renaming of some of our campus’ most famous landmarks, such as Royce Hall or Wooden Court, in favor of receiving large donations.
However, something else to keep in mind are the buildings on campus, and subsequently the programs, that have benefitted from name changes.
One great example is the David Geffen School of Medicine. Geffen was never actually a Bruin, but his $200 million donation to UCLA’s medical school cannot, and should not, be underestimated.
The least we can ask, and should expect of schools such as University of Pennsylvania and UCLA that make their decisions in favor of monetary support rather than prestige, is that the universities uphold historically important names nonetheless.
Just because universities are short on money, doesn’t mean they have to skimp on tradition.