Graduates are offered grave plots

Call it school spirit.

Universities around the country are offering alumni with a strong connection to their schools an eternal connection, providing plots of land for an eventual grave.

The University of Notre Dame in Indiana and Norwich University in Vermont think they have the answer. Both schools are betting that alumni will be eager to reserve their own piece of hallowed ground in their alma mater's cemeteries.

Although Notre Dame's Cedar Grove Cemetery has been reserved for faculty and staff since the university was founded in 1843, the "Coming Home Project," initiated this past spring in response to alumni requests, will expand the cemetery to allow for alumni burials and funeral services.

"So many [alumni] said to me, 'Notre Dame is home for us now, Notre Dame is where we gather, so this would be like coming home, if we could be buried there,'" said Rev. William Seetch, the university's alumni chaplain. The name of the project represents the sentiment behind it, he said.

Seetch emphasized the university's role in creating solidarity among family members who are geographically dispersed.

"Our society is so mobile," he said. "People no longer have the family center back where they and their grandparents and parents may have lived. As careers and jobs move away, those centers break up, and what many families have in common is the place where they were educated."

Although he did not give exact figures, Seetch estimated that he receives three or four calls a week from alumni interested in purchasing plots at Notre Dame's cemetery.

Construction on the project is expected to begin next summer, he added.

Norwich University's cemetery has existed for only 17 years, and it has been available to alumni since it opened, according to Priscilla Gilbert, the university's planned giving officer.

"It really made sense to have a cemetery, because people travel and live in all sorts of different places," she said. "Although many people only spent four years at Norwich, they were four very formative years. So being able to come back to Norwich is sort of like coming home."

Gilbert estimated that of 1,075 spaces in its cemetery, Norwich has already sold about 300 plots, lots and tombs to alumni. She attributed the cemetery's popularity to the character of the school's alumni.

"Norwich alumni are very dedicated to the university in a different way than in other schools," she said. "Some schools have very dedicated alumni, and others not so much. Because [Norwich] is so unique in its character and its traditions, we have very dedicated alums."

Boston University spokesman Colin Riley said BU does not currently own a cemetery and does not plan to in the near future.

"It's not on our radar screen," he said.