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July 7, 2008, 01:13 PM ET
Donor's Decision to Name a Campus Building After a Gossip Columnist Draws Critics
The quiet renaming of a prominent academic building at the University of Pennsylvania for a gossip columnist has sparked some annoyance among students and others on the campus, reports The New York Times.
In recent weeks, signs reading Claudia Cohen Hall started appearing on the building that had been known as Logan Hall, named over a century ago for James Logan, a secretary to William Penn and one of the first trustees of the university.
The new name was chosen by Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of Revlon, to memorialize Ms. Cohen, a gossip columnist for The New York Post who died last year. Mr. Perelman donated $20-million to Penn in 1995 and exercised his naming rights recently.
Ms. Cohen and Mr. Perelman, who both graduated from the university, were married for nine years. Despite their divorce in 1994, the two remained close friends.
Some faculty members and students say they were unhappy to see the building get a new name.
“I, as an academic, am accustomed to seeing buildings with names like Newton, Copernicus, Darwin,” said Ponzy Lu, a chemistry professor at the university. “Then to see the name of this person, who is very fresh in our memory, who is not associated with a pursuit of knowledge — a gossip columnist: It strikes me as being totally idiotic.”
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