Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

(Your Name Here) If the Price Is Right

For the record, this is no longer the James Di Liberto viewpoint: it’s the Tostitos James Di Liberto viewpoint. Sure, Tostitos normally only sponsors large events, like the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (which sounds like a huge receptacle for salsa), but it also aims for a smaller targets. With tuition going up, the endowment stagnant and corporate America on one huge Domino’s sugar high, I decided to go along with the people from Frito-Lay and sell the name of my piece.

Hey, is this so hard to believe? Up until last fall, we had a Georgetown School of Business. A few million dollars changed hands, and now we have the McDonough School of Business. It’s not as if anyone noticed.

So, I say let’s start selling the campus brick by brick. Trash the one-card plan and make it a Pepsi One card (or, as they call it in Europe, a Pepsi Max card). Sony already endows a slew of science courses, so how about selling a whole damn building – the Playstation Reiss Science Center. You know, right next to the Burger King Leavey Center.

Major League Baseball had its Ballantine Blasts. Georgetown basketball can have its JVC Jams.

Of course, we have to be careful in selecting our corporate sponsors. They must mesh well with the character of the university. We wouldn’t want the Budweiser Intercultural Center or the Sheik Theology department.

How would we deal with an offer from Ted Turner to buy the Walsh School of Foreign Service? He has lots of cash and likes to spend it on international organizations like the United Nations. But he has more than a few questionable political leanings. And he’d probably convert the Walsh building to Technicolor.

We don’t need to auction off just the big buildings and schools. There are tons of smaller things around campus that are just itching for a corporate moniker.

Like the Drudgereport.com edition of The Hoya.

Or the B’nai B’rith statue of the Madonna on the DuPont Copley Lawn.

But then, signing such deals with corporate America would help shore-up the Viagra Medical Center’s fiscal problems, help the Citibank Endowment stay afloat and free the Staples Georgetown University President Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., from much of his fundraising duties. Still, it could cause problems.

The Microsoft Georgetown College may try to impose its standards on the other schools on the Hilltop.

The AOL 4-HOYA line may be busy.

The Abercrombie & Fitch Library would be fully stocked with clothing catalogues featuring topless men.

And the Nike School of Nursing would make its students work long hours without adequate wages or grades.

And these, mind you, are companies that would make their payments. Georgetown is still suffering from the bounced checks of the Pan Am GUTS service.

Georgetown held out until now to sell off the name of the big enchilada – the name of the whole Hilltop. The university wanted to wait for something special, and I think they should go for it.

But don’t think that because Disney and Georgetown have a few close ties that we’ll become Disney Georgetown University. Harvard is at Disney’s Level. Yale is at Disney’s level. We’re just a hair below that.

So welcome to the UPN Georgetown University.

James Di Liberto, Jr. is a contributing editor for The Hoya and a senior in the College.

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