Coming soon, from the people who brought you Science I, II, III and IV — Binghamton University presents, Science V! Look for it on a campus near you in the near to distant future!

We just wanted to let you all know how excited we are at the prospect of another BU building whose name shows a complete lack of creativity, campus history or even recognition of financial support.

We mean, come on BU — Science I? The Engineering Building? Academic Buildings A and B? These building names sound more appropriate for a manufacturing compound in Soviet Russia than a University that’s been around for half a century. We agree there’s some value to the utilitarian principle of naming things based upon their use, but can’t we come up with something better than numerically ascending science buildings?

Giving the buildings on a college campus real names, as opposed to just stating their use, is what builds culture and tradition — two things that seem to be lacking around here lately.

Think about it — doesn’t it have a nicer ring to it when you say you’re going to “Bartle” or “Glenn G.,” rather than just “the library?” (Well, we do, anyway.)

When you read the away messages of your friends who attend more prestigious (or at least they claim more prestigious) universities, don’t they usually contain some reference to the name of a building or area of their campus that you don’t get because you don’t go there? Yeah, that’s the point: the fact that only the people who go to that school understand the reference is what makes it a part of that school’s culture.

Still … we hear that at one point BU used to have some semblance of tradition. Have you ever heard that Academic A is shaped like the ill-fated cruise ship Titanic, and Academic B the killer iceberg? Or how about the old adage that the centaur statue attached to the Fine Arts Building will fly off the day a virgin graduates from BU? And who could forget the stamping of the coat — the tradition that used to occur on the first warm weather day of the spring semester, when students would take a winter jacket to the Peace Quad and beat the living Lois out of it?

We’re sure that if we thought long and hard, we could come up with at least a few great figures (or at least a few great non-corporate donors) in BU’s illustrious history who would be worthy of a building named after them. After all, it’s only a matter of time before the Events Center becomes the DeFleurum, so why not start the process of reinjecting this campus with a bit of culture now, with the proposed fifth Science building?