DeKALB – Although comedian Bill Cosby opened Northern Illinois University's Convocation Center 13 years ago this month, his photographs are no longer welcome to hang on the building's walls.

Amid controversial allegations accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting numerous women throughout his career, employees at Northern Illinois University’s Convocation Center plan to eliminate the celebrity from the venue’s future marketing materials. Autographed photos of past entertainers will continue to be showcased in the “suite section” of the center, but the poster from Bill Cosby’s inaugural performance has been removed, said John Cheney, head of the university’s facilities and event operations.

“Based on his recent history and the current allegations against him, I would guess we would not put it up until that problem is resolved,” Cheney said. “Currently, there are no plans to return it.”

Cosby was the first major act to perform at the university’s Convocation Center during it’s opening weekend in August 2002. Manuel Sanchez, who was then the president of NIU’s Board of Trustees, lauded Cosby for “not using any of the horrible words that it seems so many ‘artists’ feel compelled to use to entertain our children and adults these days,” minutes from a September 2002 NIU Board of Trustees meeting show.

The show attracted an audience of about 7,000, the minutes show, and has been a celebrated part of the Convocation Center’s history ever since.

Cosby, 78, best known for his stand-up comedy act and as Heathcliff Huxtable on TV’s “The Cosby Show,” has been dogged by accusations of sexual assault for several years. Although a lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand, a woman who claimed Cosby drugged her and sexually abused her was settled out of court, Cosby has never been charged with a crime.

Recently, 35 women came forward and spoke with New York Magazine about their alleged experiences with Cosby, where they divulged details of their relationships to Cosby and accused him of drugging and raping them.

Based on the severity of the accusations, Cosby, whose face used to hang in the company of Bob Dylan and Dave Chappelle at the NIU Convocation Center, is not a brand the building’s management wishes to identify with for the time being, Cheney said.

“He’s part of the history of the center and he’s been used and used, and he’s well-known within the entertainment industry,” Cheney said. “We can’t change history that he has been here.”

Among those cutting ties with Cosby is Spelman College, to which Cosby and his wife, Camille, donated $20 million in 1988, and discontinued its endowed professorship with the comedian last year.

The program was established in the name of Cosby and his wife to bring positive attention and scholars to the campus. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston’s Berklee College of Music, High Point University in North Carolina and Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee have all discontinued affiliation with Cosby.

NIU does not want to remove all record of Cosby’s performance, rather take the spotlight off such a controversial celebrity, Cheney said.

“We can’t strike that – that he has been here,” Cheney said. “There are other acts that we’ve had in the last 14 years that are just as capable of showing the type of talent that we have here, and that are capable of using the facility.”

• The Associated Press contributed to this story.