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INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

NUMBER 40, SUMMER 2005

The Tyranny of Names: How Universities Sow Confusion and Cheapen Academe

Philip G. Altbach
Philip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

For the past several decades, "naming rights" have proliferated in American higher education. While by no means a new phenomenon, the tyranny of names is going to extraordinary lengths. In this, academe is accompanying trends in society in the era of the Fleet Center and Gillette Stadium. Anything to eke an extra dollar out of donors is fair game. Far be it from me to criticize needed efforts to raise funds at a time of fiscal constraints, but things have gotten a bit out of hand.

Universities and colleges have long been named after donors-think of Harvard, Yale, Brown, and many others. By today's standards, John Harvard would hardly get a bench named after him given the modesty of his gift of books for the library back in the 17th century. At least one institution, Rowan University of New Jersey, changed its name when someone made a large donation-the old title was Glassboro State College. Buildings have traditionally been named after people-distinguished scholars, visionary academic leaders, and recently, big donors.

"Old Main" and Bascom Hall are indicative of a bygone age when place and merit were recognized. Now we have the Gloria and Jake Smith Adminisration Pavilion and the McGinty Family Chemistry Center. Many schools give donor names to class and seminar rooms. More than one institution of higher education puts names on its chairs-the kind that one sits in rather than endowed professorships. Professorships have long been named for donors of endowments-but some of the donors who have put their names on chairs raise eyebrows-the FedEx chair and many others. No doubt there is an Enron chair still out there somewhere.

A major trend is naming colleges and schools within universities. We have long had the Wharton School, the nationally known business school of the University of Pennsylvania; Boalt Hall, the law school of the University of California at Berkeley; and the JFK School of Government at Harvard. These schools have, over time, achieved an image of their own, separate from the universities at which they are located. They are "name brands." Now we have the Rossier, Steinhart, and Warner schools and hundreds of others—these happen to be the education faculties at the University of Southern California, New York University, and the University of Rochester, respectively. These schools are not recognized on their own, and they are unlikely to be in the future. Yet, many at these institutions refer to them as the "Rossier School"—without referring to the function or the home institution. Beyond a block from the campus, few would know anything about it.

Branding and Confusing
Why is all of this happening now? The main motivation for the naming frenzy is, of course, to raise money. Donors love to have their names, or the names of parents or other relatives, on buildings, schools, institutions, professorships, and the like. Increasingly, corporations and other businesses also like to benefit from having their names on educational facilities. At one time, there were limits on what could be named. Today, there seem to be none at all. It something does not have a name, it is up for grabs—a staircase, a pond, or a parking garage. Once all of the major facilities have titles, lesser things go the naming auction block. Development offices no doubt have long lists of campus assets that can be named for various sums. Colleges and universities, public and private, are all under increased pressure to raise money, and naming brings in cash.

Naming is also about branding—and in the case of corporate naming, it is also about product placement. Corporations feel that they will benefit by having their names on an academic building or attached to a prestigious professorship. On campus, many feel that giving the business school or the college of agriculture a name will enhance its prestige and its visibility. It is believed by academic decision makers that if people see that a donor has given enough to get such a school named, it must be very good. Top students will be attracted and other generous patrons will be lured.

In the era of "each tub on its own bottom," where increasingly faculties and schools within universities are responsible for their own budgets, there is a tendency for the school to operate independently—and to seek to create its own identity separate from the university. A well-known case is the Darden School (of business at the University of Virginia), which asked for, and received, considerable autonomy from the university in return for being responsible for its own budget. It even found donations to construct a new building—nicer than the usual state funded facilities. In a few cases, where professional schools have established reputations, wealthy alumni, and entrepreneurial leadership, it is possible to build an identity and reputation separate from the university. But for most, even at excellent universities, such recognition is difficult or impossible to achieve.

Separate branding weakens the focus, mission, and perhaps even the broader reputation of the institution as a whole. It confuses the public, and perhaps potential students. The tactic feeds the idea that the 21st century university is simply a confederation of independent entrepreneurial fiefdoms. Branding also strengthens the professional schools and ignores the core arts and sciences disciplines, where separate identities do not work. And except for a few schools at the very top of the hierarchy, the naming frenzy will not produce schools with separate reputations and drawing power in any case.

The Future
The trends we see now in the United States, and perhaps tomorrow in other countries, will inevitably weaken the concept of the university as an institution that is devoted to the search for truth and the transmission of knowledge, of an institution with almost a millennium of history. The naming frenzy is symbolic of the commercialization, bifurcation, and entrepreneurialism of the contemporary university.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number40/p17_Altbach.htm