With universities desperately seeking new ways to raise money, how long might it be before we see the emergence of a Jayhawk Aerie or a Wildcat Lair that would represent the ultimate college reunion?

Other schools already have embarked on programs to set up mini-cemeteries on their campuses to house cremated ashes of alumni, faculty and even pets. Tacky? Gross? Tasteless? Not to schools such as Notre Dame, Duke, the Citadel, the University of Southern California and a number of others.

Notre Dame plans this summer to unveil a pair of limestone and brick mausoleums with full-body crypts selling for as much as $11,000. The Citadel military college in South Carolina is adding 400 urn niches to a carillon tower. Southern Cal is studying the idea of campus tombs for a proposed multifaith chapel.

Roy Rivenburg of the Los Angeles Times acidly refers to such ventures as “continuing ed for the dead – or the ultimate college reunion.”

Kansas University doubtless has hundreds of devoted alumni, friends and former faculty members who would choose some appropriate part of the local campus for their final resting places. Many of the best days they knew occurred here.

Historian David Sloane of USC notes that college graveyards once were fairly common. In the early 1800s before embalming became widespread, it often was impractical to ship home the body of a deceased student or professor. Iowa State University’s 131-year-old “dead zone” holds about 800 corpses, mostly of faculty but also two students, a night watchman and even a dog that was a campus pet. Notre Dame’s burial acreage debuted in 1843, a year before the school even was founded, along with a mortuary that helped subsidize tuition costs.

In Lawrence, a number of people who had ties to KU are buried in Pioneer Cemetery, a focal point of West Campus. Could that be the site for a new memorial facility such as the one Southern California is contemplating?

Unfortunately, original guidelines for those who could be buried in Pioneer Cemetery were relaxed and many with lesser KU ties looked upon this scenic location as an inexpensive and pretty place to be buried. There has been some tightening of the rules, but it would be a mistake for KU to get in the commercial graveyard business just to raise a buck.