College moneymaker: dorms for the dead

The rooms in this college dorm have no electricity, no running water and ceilings that are 11 inches high. But the residents don't mind. They're dead.

Draped in sky-blue marble, the honeycomb structure — tucked behind a set of spooky glowing stones at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. — is designed to house the cremated remains of alumni, faculty and pets.

The minicemetery is part of a small but growing trend on college campuses.

This summer, Notre Dame will unveil two limestone-and-brick mausoleums laced with full-body crypts selling for up to $11,000.

The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, is adding 400 urn niches to a carillon tower.

The University of Southern California also is studying campus tombs for a proposed multifaith 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, in which urns containing cremains are stored, 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.

Trend has a history

College graveyards were once common, said historian David Charles 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 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. 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."

Other colleges took notice of such success. "It's a great way to generate money," said columbarium chief Andrea Patenaude, of the University of Richmond, which recently transformed a sliver of campus into a million-dollar serpentine wall carved with 2,900 niches priced at $3,000 each.

Duke University is charging $25,000 a pop to bury ashes in its new 2-acre memorial garden. Part of the motivation for Duke's program was that people had begun scattering ashes there on the sly. The profits will help finance the school's vast public gardens.

Rover is welcome here

Chapman's final resting place, with prices ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 per two-urn chamber, was built to help pay for the school's new chapel. A meditative garden leads to the memorial, which sits behind a wall of white onyx that is illuminated from within to symbolize "the elusive separation between the living and the dead, a separation of a single breath," according to designer Susan Narduli.

Unlike most campus cemeteries, Chapman's isn't limited to alumni or school employees. Anybody without a pulse can enroll; even pets are welcome.

"If Muffy or Rover has been your lifelong companion, we will allow their ashes in your niche," Malkoff said. Cemetery records are kept in a bombproof, fireproof storage center in upstate New York, he said.

Longtime Chapman board member Harmon Wilkinson, who died last year, was one of the first columbarium occupants. Just up the freeway, USC is contemplating a columbarium as part of a planned $20 million chapel on campus.

"It could happen," said Rabbi Susan Laemmle, USC's dean of religious life. "Chapman University is our model."