Some donor gifts given to colleges turn out to be just plain strange

WASHINGTON POST

Sometimes, it’s the donor who lets the school down rather than the other way around. Schools have chipped donors’ names off buildings after a conviction or a scandal. This summer, Roger Williams University in Rhode Island renamed its law school, dropping a donor’s name after he made a racist comment at a board meeting.

At the University of Missouri at Columbia, the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics, named after the Enron executive, is still open.

Some schools are wary of gifts such as antiques and collections that could become a burden to maintain, especially years down the road. Tulane University in New Orleans is facing a lawsuit over a wooden sailboat, donated along with cash in 1956 by Albert Baldwin Wood, an alumnus who invented the pump system that drains New Orleans; he died on board. The money was unrestricted, but the gift stipulated that the boat be maintained and displayed on campus. His heirs claim that it was neglected — which the school denies — and they are asking Tulane to return both the boat and the cash.

Then there are gifts that are just a little weird. Land that needs environmental cleanup, decaying buildings in rundown neighborhoods, art that isn’t quite what the donor said it was. At George Washington University, former President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said, administrators have at times asked, “Oh boy, do we want to be associated with that?”

Pet cemetery

Such as the offer of a pet cemetery. His initial reaction was no. “Then a year or two goes by, and I read of other universities which have built cemeteries adjacent to campus for benefactors and alumni who want to spend their eternity back on campus.”

He visited the site. “It’s a very interesting pet cemetery. It’s got J. Edgar Hoover’s dog and ... ” He sounds wistful. “You can imagine a lot of people in Washington, alumni, who have pets they’re fond of, would want to inter their pet. If the university provided that service, they would feel better about the university. It had some charm.”

Ultimately, Trachtenberg turned it down. “All my closest advisers laughed at me,” he said, “including my wife and children.”