dc_georgetown01A new semester begins at Georgetown and around the country, a delicious time of early Fall anticipation of possibility and the unexpected – at least until the second week of classes.

I return to the classroom after a year’s sabbatical, and to a dramatically changed Georgetown campus.  As of mid-summer, a new business school now dominates  the new center of campus, and reflects not only a physical change of the gravity, but may well proceed a shift in the intellectual center of gravity as well.

But what strikes me as most telling not only about this building, but the nature of the modern university, is its name – the Rafik B. Hariri Building.  A gift made by Mr. Hariri’s son – in the amount of $20 Million – resulted in the bestowing of his father’s name upon the building.

The naming of this sort of structure reflects what a society honors, what we regard as deserving our esteem and admiration.  In naming the building for a person whose family made a significant financial contribution, we demonstrate the things we hold in esteem (I do not mean to minimize the good deeds that Mr. Hariri achieved; however, I think it’s clear that the building would not have been named for him without the gift).  In principle, this is really little different than what now takes place with the naming of stadiums and the like – from the new “Citi Field” where the Mets play to “A.T.&T. Park” of the San Francisco Giants.  Then, of course, there is “Minute Maid Park,” formerly “Enron Field,” in Houston.

However, while memory has to serve to recall the older names of some of these stadiums – such as Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia (an otherwise execrable stadium with a noble name), now replaced respectively by “Lincoln Financial Field” (Eagles) and “Citizen Bank Park” (Phillies), at Georgetown there is a set of older buildings whose names reflect a different expression of honor.  The older buildings on campus – Healy Hall (which houses beautiful Gaston Hall, a magnificent auditorium), White-Gravenor Hall, Copley Hall, Gervase Hall – were largely named for Jesuit men who served their alma mater as founders and sustainers.   In these instances they gave not a dime to the institution, but instead gave years of their lives in the service of its students and its mission.  Similarly, at Princeton, there are buildings named for such campus mainstays as Edward Corwin and James McCosh and Aaron Burr (Sr.) – professors and Presidents, all of whom spent most of their professional lives at that institution (to be contrased with newer buildings such as Lewis Library and Whitman College – named respectively for Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance and Meg Whitman, CEO of EBay).  In naming buildings such as Healy Hall or Corwin Hall for the servants of such insitutions, the honor was accorded to profound life-long service and sacrifice.    Unsurprisingly, while today very few if any buildings are named for such servants of the institution, the corresponding ethic of the professoriate is a rootless striving to attain greater reputation and position through frequent changes of institutional affiliation.  That which is no longer honored becomes attenuated and is ultimately discarded.

The great buildings of universities and cities alike are sermons in stone.  They aim to teach us something about the the fundamental commitments of an institution or a city or polity as much as what might take place inside those buildings.  And in the honor we bestow through the names we associate with such monuments, a society teaches something of significance to successive generations.   I would be the first to praise the generosity to a benefactor, and to encourage people of means to support a worthy cause – and it is meet to show gratitude in a fitting form.  Today, however, an older ethic of according honor  for lifetime service and sacrifice – or, more homely still, testimony to the geography of local places (e.g., Three River Stadium, now PNC Park) –  is increasingly crowded out in a race to leverage naming rights to the highest bidder.  What lesson are we teaching to our young through such sermons in stone?

Local Culture
Local Culture
Local Culture
Local Culture

20 COMMENTS

  1. A worthy meditation for the new year, PD.

    The Detroit Tigers (1st place in the AL Central) got their last bit of ticket revenue from me when they abandoned Tiger Stadium–a noble pile formerly called Briggs Stadium–for that whoring edifice known as Comerica Park.

    There’s reason for me to be a bit conflicted about having had an office at Michigan State in one of the twelve or so Morrill Halls across the country. The Morrill Act of 1859 was vetoed in 1861 by James Buchanen but later signed into law by Honest Abe: Senator Justin Smith Morrill had added to his once-noble bill stipulations for military training. Seems that, whatever the good intentions of the land-grant act (and they were good), war-faring tactics were fated from the start to dictate agricultural practices.

    I foresee at Georgetown a Deneen Center for Sisyphian Pedagogy, marginalized, of course, on the edge of campus.

  2. Nitpick time. Three Rivers Stadium (itself an ugly structure) was replaced by two stadiums: the aforementioned PNC Park for the woeful Pirates, and Heinz Field for the Steelers. Heinz field sits close to where Three Rivers Stadium stood, while PNC Park is a short distance up the Allegheny River.

  3. Again, Dr. Deneen rings the bell!

    In my hometown, East Liverpool, Ohio, situated in the west end of that fading old town, adjacent the Ohio River, lies beautiful Patterson Field, home of the fightin’ Potters (we used to make pottery, in fact we used to be the pottery capital of the world).

    Mr. Patterson made his fortune in the foundry and machine shop business (remember them?) and he and his lovely wife resided in a beautiful Victorian mansion on 6th Street, just east of St. Aloysius Catholic Church where yours truly recited the alterboy’s Latin responses in the appropriate voca dramaticus, ever endearing myself to the formidable and black-clad Sisters of Notre Dame who congregated for 5 am Mass (those ladies did some real serious prayin’!).

    Mr. Patterson, a kind gentleman and a father figure if East Liverpool ever had one, contributed the land upon which his storied football field was constructed while a few years later Roosevelt and his socialist epigones built the concrete stadium that would, over the years, seat the thousands of frenetic Potter fans who would come and cheer on the old Blue and White.

    On Friday nights in the early 50’s Smitty-the-cop would lift the chain link fence by the grand and picturesque Patterson Field Memorial and allow a phalanx of street urchins, which included yours truly, into the game for ‘free.’As an aside, years later, a week before he died, Smitty called my wife who in her duties as a banker had helped him, to say ‘goodbye.’ The 50’s also gave us some of the best players and teams of the Potter’s storied history. Players like Ernie Bell, arguably the most gifted Potter player of all time. Ernie and his brothers Charlie and Gene were my coaches with the St. Al’s ‘figtin’ Irish’ and suffered with us through a 1-6, 1958 season. But Ernie was a great coach and he never gave up on us and he taught us, among other things, that the race of a man never determined his character, his heart, his manhood. Sadly, I attended Ernie’s wake at Frankie Dawson’s funeral home Tuesday night, may he rest-in-peace.

    Sadly, the gods of football determined that I would ner wear the Blue and White. Toward the end of August, 1961, while participating in two-a-days with the heat in 90’s, I collapsed in the tunnel of the stadium. And, while I have an imperfect recollection of the events that followed my pals told me later that I was flopping around like a fish out of water and projectile vomiting. I do remember shaking with the ‘cold’ and being told that I was ‘hot.’ Eventually, an ambulance was summoned and I was hauled up to the hospital and I do remember the ice bath and the IV’s. There was a ‘sponge’ bath involved as well but for me to call up that memory is a ‘near occasion of sin.’

    Even in these uncertain times the townspeople of East Liverpool keep Patterson Field in good shape: the stadium is kept in good repair, new lights and loudspeakers purchased, the field reseeded and properly cut. Patterson Field will always be Patterson Field the repository of storied traditions, of victories and defeats, the place, where young men come to challenge themselves, to represent their school and their community and to do so honorably and in the spirit of sportsmanship.

  4. […] Read it. The great buildings of universities and cities alike are sermons in stone.  They aim to teach us something about the the fundamental commitments of an institution or a city or polity as much as what might take place inside those buildings.  And in the honor we bestow through the names we associate with such monuments, a society teaches something of significance to successive generations.   I would be the first to praise the generosity to a benefactor, and to encourage people of means to support a worthy cause – and it is meet to show gratitude in a fitting form.  Today, however, an older ethic of according honor  for lifetime service and sacrifice – or, more homely still, testimony to the geography of local places (e.g., Three River Stadium, now PNC Park) –  is increasingly crowded out in a race to leverage naming rights to the highest bidder.  What lesson are we teaching to our young through such sermons in stone? […]

  5. Well said (meaning the article itself).

    Professor Deneen wrote: “Unsurprisingly, while today very few if any buildings are named for such servants of the institution, the corresponding ethic of the professoriate is a rootless striving to attain greater reputation and position through frequent changes of institutional affiliation.”

    My question is this: Which is the chicken and which is the egg in that narrative? The answer could go some way toward reform. While institutions give service pins (10 years, 25 years, etc.), they certainly don’t attach themselves to personnel unless it’s a matter of convenience. And that convenience has everything to do with money and little with character, or even intellect. I know a man, and elderly theology professor, who has changed institutions about 10 times in the past 15 years—each time earning more and more money than before. But for my part, I want to retire at UIC (my home institution). I consider myself a Chicagoan—urban place means everything to me (in contrast to the agrarian/suburban placers who seem most attracted to FPR posts). Will I be able to? Who knows?

    You wrote: “The great buildings of universities and cities alike are sermons in stone. They aim to teach us something about the the fundamental commitments of an institution or a city or polity as much as what might take place inside those buildings. And in the honor we bestow through the names we associate with such monuments, a society teaches something of significance to successive generations.”

    I agree insofar as you’re aiming this at universities. But with regard to cities? I don’t see it. Chicago’s “sermons in stone” teach us nothing more than the gospel of wealth, for the most part. Look at the names: Hancock Building, Sears (now Willis) Tower, Aon Center, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Field (now The Cell), etc. Indeed, the way the Mayor R.M.D. sells off city assets, I’m wondering how long it’ll be until Daley Plaza itself becomes Orbit Gum Plaza. All of Chicago’s sermons in stone and steel teach us nothing but the profit motive. It’s a sad development. The only exception I see in the Chicago area is the peculiar naming of highways after civic leades (e.g. the Jane Addams Expressway). – TL

  6. Actually, about a month after the big new sign for CITI FIELD was put up along the Grand Central Parkway
    (Likely Trump Parkway in the fullness of time), the sheist hit der fansky at the Bank, thus creating a minor movement to rename it TARP Field after the trickle down bail out “Troubled Asset Recovery Program” that propped up Citi. “Troubled Asset” indeed.

    It is a fine place to watch a ball game, with its courtyard in honor of the long lost Ebbetts Field and Jackie Robinson and a real spaciousness to it. Unfortunately, the team is jinxed beyond belief while the stallions up in the Bronx with their far less interesting park continue to act superhuman. Filling the seats in these glory-holes aint been easy for them.

    Best place to watch a game though…aside from Yale’s old time park is San Francisco’s amazing park overlooking the bay.

    As to the new Hariri bldg…at least it aint one of those blobitecture essays in how to use aeronautic computer aided design and 15 gazillion billable hours as well as a breathless essay in Vanity Fair to create something that looked like it was dropped out the bombay doors of a B Horror Flick to obliterate all evidence of human scale and , not to mention, reconfirm the Right Building Orders. As usual though, the streetscape adjacent looks like another homage to some strip shopping center in Orange County, California. Campus architecture in this country used to have a musical quality to it, a composition of parts within an overall theme…..now it is one Big Event after another. At least we survived the dreadful 30 years of the 60’s-90’s when parking lots made campus design into a farce.

    I’d say something about returning coeds in sun dresses but then my daughters would have to remind me how sick I am.

  7. I make it a practice to call buildings by either their traditional, pre-corporate/donor name (if one exists) or as something simply descriptive. Thus, with the proper finger raised to the huge sign recently branded on the building, my language asserts that the Anaheim Ducks play not at The Honda Center, but at The Pond. And I do not walk across campus to our sparkling new Rich Guy Hall, but to the science building. And most close to my heart, the word “Qualcom” will never pass my lips in reference to my beloved Jack Murphy Stadium.

  8. By the way Peters you scalawag, I am glad the “Deneen Center for Sisyphian Pedagogy” has the proper ADA Handicap Ramp. It is, after all, a Public Edifice. Such an attention to detail. Perhaps we can refer to the swell porch as Camus Kourt.

  9. Patrick: Your one exception proves the rule—sadly. If you had lived here during the remodeling from classical to martian, you would’ve witnessed one of the largest debates about local attachment and the meaning of place in recent Chicago history. Despite its corporate veneer, Chicago is a federation of a 100 or so neighborhoods at heart. – TL

  10. Sabin, you leerer at sundresses and the girls in them, you, I’m nothing if not sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Plus I hear tell you can get dates in a trailer park who are cheap and easy.

    TL: “classical to martian” is spot-on. Even now, upwind and 180 miles west, we sometimes get a whiff of that architectural bronx cheer that Chicago, raising itself up on one haunch, let fly. The Windy City can break wind when it wants to, all right.

  11. I don’t know what the fuss is all about; it seems to me that putting corporate logos on the stadiums is merely about truth in labeling. We no longer give a damn about the veteran’s at Veteran’s memorial or the soldiers at Soldiers Field. The corporate world is putting us on notice that not only are our jobs in their gift, but our entertainments as well. What’s wrong with telling it like it is?

    Actually, the practice should be extended, and naming rights to the Congress, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court, and all the Federal office buildings should be up for grabs. And to really fulfill the spirit of the Truth in Advertising laws, Congressmen should be required to wear NASCAR suits, with the names of their corporate sponsors plastered all over.

  12. In my first year at Princeton, I was told the story, which I now believe to be apocryphal, of how Washington Duke offered Princeton a gargantuan sum of money in the late 19th or early 20th century if Princeton changed its name to Duke. When Princeton refused, he took his money south and gave it to Trinity College, renamed it Duke, and rebuilt the campus to look like Princeton. The irony of the telling was that, just before my first year at Princeton, the Forbes family gave a very large sum of money to the university so that it could renovate Princeton Inn College, and also, of course, so that the University would rename it Forbes College. So, the legend of Princeton’s purity continued after it started selling its birthright for a mess of pottage.

  13. I don’t know if I would put buildings named after people, even wealthy donors, in the same class as buildings named after non-human (and usually uglily named) corporations.

    It isn’t really a new tradition, after all – long before Rafik B. Hariri, non-academic donors provided the names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Stanford, Creighton, and (despite the greater purity of Princeton) Duke – and long before that, if these examples are too modern, many of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges. There is also a long tradition of colleges, beginning with William and Mary in this country (but also with Oxbridge precedents), of colleges named after political figures, which is arguably just as objectionable, however admirable such common namesakes as Washington and Jefferson may have been.

  14. Patrick,

    I wonder what you make of places like Miller Park in Milwaukee. Sure, it’s a corporate name, but at least it is a corporation with a long local connection. In my home state of Minnesota they are opening Target Field next year. That’s not exactly the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, but at least, again, it is a locally based company.

  15. Ditto to “Axe Head”…a moniker so fine I almost wish I had one but…to the point, Medaille, you are forthwith awarded the Sabin Memorial Best Thing Ever Said on the Porch Award, a sprung screen door hinge duct-taped to a glass milk bottle…… for your VERY FINE suggestion that the members of Congress wear jump suits with the logos of their various sponsors sprightly arrayed. This is the best thing suggested in a long time and if elected Dicktator, I will promptly require it.

    The Congressional 500, we love the pile-ups the best. Socialists are not supposed to have a good sense of humor and irony you know. Marx woulda flopped at Dangerfields.

  16. Actually, I am deadly serious about this suggestion. Okay, maybe not about the NASCAR jackets, but about the next best thing, immediate posting of any donations on a publicly accessible website. Further, any organization that donates to a politician should be required to do the same. No more donations from the “Clean Government Association” which turns out to be a few mafia dons.

    I don’t really mind that legislatures are wholly owned and operated subsidiaries of corporate America; I just want to know what corporations own them. It lets me no where I stand; or rather, lets me know about my lack of standing.

  17. Intended as a joke or no, Mr. Medaille’s suggestion is wonderful. Imagine Tom Vilsack sporting the logos of McDonald’s & Pepsi, or SecDef Gates sporting those of Lockheed-Martin…

    An excellent article. One wonders why exactly such institutions are in need of so much money anyway. I’d suspect that the cancerous obsession with “expanding” may be the culprit. And also the conviction that kids cannot possibly learn without the latest & greatest in whizbang gadgets.

    Allen Tate on Vanderbilt: “It is an institution which combines the qualities of a whorehouse and a graveyard.”

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