You know the pattern on campus these days, everything is for sale it seems.
So there I was, just scanning my bookshelf when it hit me! All these years we've been overlooking yet another place to put a plaque from donors and the Big-Science operatives.
The front of every bound thesis or dissertation is ... BLANK!
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Why can't we put a special imprint there, identifying some BigScience or BigBusiness donor? So a medical thesis on impotence could have an imprint from the makers of viagara. A dissertation on lung cancer could have Joe Camel on the front. A thesis on reading could have an ad for Dick-and-Jane or Robert Munsch books. And so forth.
We could even put the space up for the highest bid.
The options are hard to take in all at once! For example, the back cover is also blank, as are the front and back inside covers. Presumably those would be somewhat cheaper, as in newspaper advertising rates. Then there would be the possibility of inserts in the middle. And rates could vary for colour or black-white. Perhaps a donor who wants to fund a student for their whole graduate career could get a special rate for all?