The Fundermentalist salutes The Incredible Intern, Naomi Tarlow, for finding this one: The University of Pennsylvania is taking heat for renaming one of its buildings after the former editor of the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column, Claudia Cohen, according to the New York Times.
The ex-wife of billionaire Ronald Perelman, Cohen was an alum of Penn, where T2I (The Incredible Intern’s abbreviated nickname going forward) is a rising sophomore.
Cohen died last year of ovarian cancer. Even though she and Perelman, who acquired the naming rights of a building in 1995 for a $20 million, divorced in 1994, he requested naming a building in her honor. This has caused some debate among campus observers because such honors have historically gone to presidents, Supreme Court Justices and the like, not gossip columnists.
Some of T2I’s colleagues are irked, as Logan Hall – named for a secretary to university trustee William Penn, James Logan – has been renamed Claudia Cohen Hall.
This is thinking wayyyy down the line, but the “Fundermentalist Cubicle at the University of Phoenix” has a great ring to it if anyone wants to pony up $50 for a plaque in my honor.
