Dear Furman community and administrators,
I recently learned that the cafe inside James B. Duke Library has been named The Library Café.
I recognize the banality of this observation. That is my concern.
Students of my era—Class of 2015 and some years that followed—will recall that the university organized a vote to name the new cafe. All students and faculty were invited to participate. The winning submission, rumored to have been suggested by a professor, was Summa Cum Latte.
It is understandable that the university retracted this name as soon as the administration became aware of the double entendre. Of course, students of antiquity might recall that “cum” rhymes with the English “room,” “broom,” and “loom,” words that are equal to our problematic Latin preposition in their utter harmlessness.
But why reject an admittedly hilarious name only to settle on something so incredibly unimaginative as The Library Café? Was there no other option? Was “cum” such a stain on this project that no other name could suitably whitewash it?
I am reminded of my childhood friend, Pearson Fowler ‘15. Pearson’s family named their cat “Cat,” paralyzed in choosing a proper name. (An apology is owed to Pearson’s wife, Cat, who is not feline and whose name I do not object to.)
Perhaps a better analogy would be if Furman were to rebrand itself over some mistaken impression of excessively masculine nomenclature; rather than rebranding as Elizabeth Davis University, the university simply renamed itself “The School on Poinsett Highway for Adults Ages 18 to 22.”
In my time, we perceived a critical lack of creativity on campus. My broader social group made an earnest commitment to change this through Cultural Life Programs and other, unaccredited events organized through the Furman Creative Collaborative (FCC), TEDxFurmanU, Found Space Theater Project, and WPLS Radio.
In those days, WPLS Radio was still supposedly broadcasted on FM frequencies, therefore regulated by the Federal Communications Commission—the other FCC. The Howard Sterns of our age and day, we kept a running tally confessing our known on-air violations, which were almost entirely utterances of specific cuss words. “Cum” was not on that list.
Thus, I patiently await a more creative name for the cafe to be announced.
Samuel Klein ‘15