Since students and professors come and go, but buildings stay forever, particularly at Princeton, the administration must care a lot about the building and naming of landmarks. It can be seen as a process of self-definition. If there's any message that Princeton's physical landscape is conveying loud and clear, it's this: Make a lot of money.
To be sure, there are a few big buildings - the Wilson School and Wilson College - and some smaller, less prominent structures that are named after alumni who have succeeded in the less-lucrative areas of life. Yet these buildings are far outnumbered by the multitude of buildings and arches named after their donors. For example, five of our six residential colleges are named after major donors.
The message is getting through. If past trends continue, roughly a third of all seniors who graduate in May with a job will be employed at one of the top 16 consulting and investment-banking firms in America. To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong with this situation. As the American writer Gertrude Stein once said, "I have been rich, and I have been poor. Rich is better." If I am fortunate enough to be able to say such a thing before I die, I am sure I would agree. After all, a career on Wall Street is an honorable one and does not preclude a life of charity.
Money, however, is not the only way we as a community measure success. We also value many other types of achievement. In its January edition, Princeton Alumni Weekly published a list of the 50 most influential alumni along with a more extensive list of 250 on its website. Though long, this list is by no means exhaustive. Seeing that a distinguished panel of alumni and faculty determined it, however, it is a good indication of the type of alumni we think are deserving of praise. While some fabulously wealthy alumni were mentioned, there were many more great public servants, entertainers, athletes, scientists and Nobel Laureates included on the list. Nevertheless, few of these great alumni have a prominent building named in their honor.
Certainly, I am extraordinarily grateful to those alumni who came before me and, through their generosity, have allowed me to receive a Princeton education. Moreover, to be able to afford to educate future Tigers, we have no choice but to reward continued giving by awarding the naming rights of a building to major donors. I mean, we gotta do what we gotta do. Right?
Well, actually, it's not so clear. A few weeks ago, Yale announced that it was launching a fundraising effort to help build the equivalent of two new residential colleges and, gasp, neither of them would be named after major donors. Perhaps with more than just a bit of self-righteousness, Vice President for Development at Yale Ingle Reichenbach suggested that naming the buildings after alumni who have succeed outside of the financial world would not hinder the capital campaign. "Our donors, being most likely Yale College graduates, are themselves steeped in this tradition and probably wouldn't have expected anything else," she told The Daily Princetonian in an interview last month.
Princetonians are also steeped in the tradition of valuing each successful alumni. As the community embarks on another phase in the construction and expansion of campus, it is time for our buildings to catch up with the feelings of its current and former residents. It may be hard to sell major donors on the idea that they won't be able to name their own building. But, with an endowment already many billions of dollars, the administration can afford to be a little courageous.
Adam Bradlow is a freshman in Wilson College from Potomac, Md. He can be reached at abradlow@princeton.edu.
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