Everyone knows about the Vagelos Program, one of the hardest undergraduate tracks at Penn. With an emphasis on biological science and research, Vag has an extremely tight admissions process — only a select few have ever come inside the Vagelos Building. And given its demanding workload, students drop out of Vag all the time. Those who stick with the program spend most of their time in the dank Vag lab working with yeast.
But there’s something else about Vagelos (yes, that’s a soft “g”). Apparently, its name evokes images of the female anatomy, images one perhaps wouldn’t want to associate with a building or a prestigious program.
But don’t tell that to Roy and Diana Vagelos, who, as Bwog reports, have really outdone themselves. The new name of the Barnard student center will be:
The Vagelos Center.
That’s right, the social hub of the all-girls school will be called the Vag.
And to make sure everyone knows it, Barnard put on a fireworks display that actually spelled out the word “Vagelos” against the night sky.
It’s pretty clear what’s going on here, isn’t it? When a little boy, Roy Vagelos was mercilessly made fun of by his classmates for his name. After one particularly brutal beating, a sniffling, resentful Roy Vag said:
“Mark my words! One day I’ll be CEO of a big pharmaceutical company, and institutions will beg for their buildings to be smeared with “Vagelos!” I swear — one day I’ll have a fireworks display spelling out my name, and you’ll all be in prison! “Vagelos” will be on the tips of tongues everywhere! You’ll see!”
And then he proceeded to achieve his dreams.
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