By Bob Bonett
One of the newest additions to the University’s south side of campus, the New Academics Building, is still unnamed, which begs the question, why, after a year of operation, the building that houses subjects ranging from history to speech communication to the dramatic arts, still lacks any sort of relevant title?
A sophomore theater major who wished to remain anonymous guessed that the University is waiting not necessarily for the right person, but the right amount of money to name the building. “Its not going to be named until someone donates a bunch of money to Hofstra, because that seems to be the only thing they name buildings after,” the student said, adding that the building’s current name “just sounds dumb.”
Freshman music education major Katy Metz echoed the sophomore’s sentiments regarding the name. “They probably could have named it the ‘Arts Building,’ or something that related more to the building,” Metz said.
The University is not necessarily worried about the nonspecific title, nor does it feel pressured to go about looking for a donor by sending out applications or recruiting possible benefactors, said Alan Kelly, vice president of Development and Alumni Relations. Moreover, the University is in no rush to try to find a namesake for the building, preferring to wait for the appropriate individual in the appropriate situation to make a move.
“It depends on the nature of the building and it depends on the interest of the donor-a lot of ‘depends,'” Kelly said. “It depends on what all the buildings have been named for, so there’s a lot of things that go into decide what you want to receive from a donor to name a building.”
The University does not plan to seek out a donor, but rather negotiate with someone who expresses interest. “It’s all really a matter of interest, what the donor is interested in, because you want the donor to have a good feeling about what they are giving their money for because they are giving an investment to the future of the University,” Kelly said.
The building’s ribbon cutting occurred on Oct. 18, 2006. According to a University press release, the “86,000-square-feet, $16-million structure” has no classrooms, but does hold office rooms for “music, speech, journalism, history and other faculty,” as well as a “230-seat black box theater designed for dramatic productions that has a technical balcony, stage, and dressing rooms.”
As to the generic title, Melissa Connolly, the vice president of University Relations, said that to name a building with such a plethora of departments is impossible.
“It’s got the moniker New Academics Building simply because it was being used for so many different things, and choosing one of them didn’t seem to encompass all of the purposes of the building,” Connolly said.
Many question what amount of money could spark the University to christen the building with a name. Some students such as Metz wonder whether it is possible that the University has “set benefactors that donate certain amounts every year,” and whether that will be sufficient for “NAB” to no longer be the butt of certain students’ jokes.
The amount of money that other benefactors have donated to have a building named after them differs on a case-by-base basis. For example, the Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies, the latest building to adopt the name of a donor, was named after Wilbur Breslin, who contributed $2.25 million toward the launch of the building, according to the Long Island Business News.
For larger ventures such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Koch donated $100 million, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Speculation is all prognosticators have to run with. Both University Relations and the department of Development and Alumni Affairs did not acknowledge any specific person as the frontrunner of any sort of benefactor race, leaving the timetable for the naming of the building indefinite.