Los Angeles Times, CA
05-14-07
Staying way after school
Some colleges, including Chapman, cater to alums who want a final resting place on campus. The practice isn't new, but it can prove profitable.
By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
THE rooms in this college dorm have no electricity, no running water and ceilings that are just 11 inches high. But the residents don't mind. They're dead.
Draped in sky-blue marble, the honeycombed structure
— which is tucked behind a set of spooky glowing stones at Chapman University in Orange
— is designed to house the cremated ashes of alumni, faculty and pets.
The mini-cemetery is part of a small but growing trend on college campuses.
This summer, Notre Dame will unveil a pair of limestone and brick mausoleums laced with full-body crypts selling for as much as $11,000.
And the Citadel military college in South Carolina is adding 400 urn niches to a carillon tower that holds one of the Western Hemisphere's biggest collections of
Dutch bells.
USC is also studying the idea of campus tombs for a proposed multi-faith chapel.
Think of it as continuing ed for the dead — or the ultimate college reunion.
In today's mobile society, some people feel more connected to their alma mater than to their hometown, said cemetery consultant Mel Malkoff, who oversees
Chapman's columbarium and is working on similar projects with other schools.
"People look back on their college years and say, 'Those were the best days of my life,' " Malkoff said. "Why not spend eternity there?"
Hoping to cash in on such sentiments, some universities don't stop with afterlife enrollment space. They also offer custom urns — or coffins blessed by monks.
As odd as such practices might sound, they're rooted in the past. College graveyards were once fairly common, said historian David Sloane of USC, author of "The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History."
In the early 1800s, before embalming became widespread, it was often impractical to ship home the body of a deceased student or professor.

IOWA State University's 131-year-old dead zone holds about 800 corpses, mostly faculty but also two students, a night watchman and his dog.
Notre Dame's sprawling burial ground debuted in 1843, one year after the school was founded, along with a mortuary that helped subsidize tuition costs.
By the late 20th century, many longtime college cemeteries were languishing.
The University of Virginia's 1828 graveyard ran out of room in the early 1960s, said Dr. Dearing Johns, a cardiology professor who heads the school's cemetery committee.
School officials decided against expanding it — until an alum who wanted to be buried on campus suggested a columbarium wall and paid for the construction with three friends.
The first phase, with 180 urn vaults, went up in 1991 along the edge of Virginia's old cemetery. When sales took off, spaces were added. Today, 200 more vaults, each big enough to hold four urns, are on the drawing board.
Alumni demand also spurred Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland
— home to an 1808 graveyard full of priests, professors, students and slaves — to add 750 burial plots since 1994.
"Where else would you want to be?" said Frank Merolla, a 1963 graduate who abandoned a family plot in New York to spend eternity near a replica of the
Lourdes grotto and the former home of Elizabeth Ann Seton, America's first saint.
"It's a very peaceful, prayerful place. And it has a good view."
About two thirds of Mount St. Mary's new cemetery spaces are already sold.