Many institutions of higher education, including UVA, offer alumni and faculty a unique final resting place near the hustle and bustle of academic life: With burial space on campuses dwindling, colleges and universities are now building columbaria—memorials used for the internment of funeral urns after cremation—to meet a growing demand among aging alumni and faculty.
 Cremated faculty and alumni can live forever on Grounds by paying to place their remains in the columbarium. |
The University built one of the first on-campus columbaria in 1991 at the petition of an alumnus, Leigh B. Middleditch, Jr., who wished to be buried on the grounds of the University Cemetery, which had since reached capacity. When the idea was first proposed in 1987, however, there was some resistance among members of the UVA community.
“There was sort of two minds,” says Dearing W. Johns, an associate professor of medicine who serves as the chair of the cemetery committee. “Marketed to faculty and senior administration, it was either warmly received or, more usual, it was hard to think of your mortality.”
According to Middleditch, he initially thought of the project as a logical fundraising opportunity for the University. Though vault prices range from $1,800 to $2,500, depending on location, the columbarium hasn’t become a gold mine. Instead, this money largely funds upkeep and management of the University Cemetery.
Initially offered only to full-time or retired faculty of the University and active and former members of the Board of Visitors, the columbarium is now available to interested alumni. All but one of the 180 vaults available in the first phase of the columbarium have been sold. These niches, coupled with vaults in a second phase, have resulted in 200 sold over the past 16 years.
“There is a growing sense across the country that universities that meant a lot to you are wonderful places for eternal rest,” Johns says, adding that more and more alumni have expressed interest in purchasing vaults in the columbarium.
The University appears to be at the head of a growing trend in higher ed. Since the completion of the columbarium in 1991, dozens have appeared on campuses across the country, including the University of Richmond, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Southern California, among others. Duke University now offers plots for the burial of ashes in its Sarah P. Duke Gardens for a $25,000 “donation” to the Garden’s endowment fund.
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