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Colleges sell naming rights to bathrooms

The “naming rights” fever has transcended theaters, stadiums, bridges, highways and school cafeterias. In an unusual effort to raise funds, Dixie State College of Utah offered naming rights to individual bathroom stalls in a musical theater company’s planned building. The college wanted to help the troupe, which had moved on campus after being evicted from its previous stage, raise money for a new home somewhere else. The St. George Musical Theater is now out of business, apparently having come up a few urinals short of its fund-raising goal. Harvard Law School recently opened the Falik Men’s Room (yes, it is pronounced phallic). William Falik received the “honor” after donating $100,000 to his alma mater to create a public interest fellowship in his father’s honor. A University of Pennsylvania donor funded a bathroom renovation in the campus library. His philanthropy had one catch — that the walls be lined with plaques reading: “The relief you are now experiencing is made possible by a gift from Michael Zinman.” No, I didn’t make that up. I’m not that clever.