Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly
Monday, April 11, 2005
The Perils of Philanthropy
So I get this e-mail from the CEO today, which reads in part:
Dear Colleagues:
I am delighted to report that Terrence P. O'Brien, M.D, has been named the inaugural Tom Clancy Professor of Ophthalmology. The professorship was made possible by a $2 million endowment by one of the world's best-selling authors, Tom Clancy.
Mr. Clancy, Dr. O'Brien's patient, is the literary master of best-selling thrillers such as "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games," and a long-time supporter of the Wilmer Eye Institute. The author has included the institute in his books: Cathy Ryan, wife of Clancy's fictional hero Jack Ryan, is a surgeon at Wilmer.
You see - the problem with philanthropic donations around here is that people insist that their name be associated with it - no matter how unfortunate that may be. This is why I have the The Dana & Albert "Cubby" Broccoli Center for Aortic Diseases to contend with, named for the creator of the James Bond movies and his wife.
Philanthropic naming can also cause directional malfunction. When I first got here, my assistant would hand me a schedule with my meetings for the day on it, and it would read something like: 10:00 AM - Meeting X /Smith Room, 1:00 PM - Meeting Y/ Harriet Lane Room, and so on. This is all well and good, but it doesn't tell me jack about the rooms actual location! Even more confusing, is that all the building on campus are named after someone. So, in order to determine an exact location, the "address" could be: Eudowood Room, Weinberg Center, of the Sydney Kimmel Cancer Building. Good luck finding it.
Console yourself poppet with the reflection that it is a habit as old as the hills; I mean how do you think a lot of Oxbridge colleges got their names? There are even immensely venerable and ancient professorships that have the donor's name attached - the Savilean and the Chichele professorships come to mind.
Console yourself poppet with the reflection that it is a habit as old as the hills; I mean how do you think a lot of Oxbridge colleges got their names? There are even immensely venerable and ancient professorships that have the donor's name attached - the Savilean and the Chichele professorships come to mind.