Yale University
Yale University is a private university in
New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the
Collegiate School, Yale is the
third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and a member of the
Ivy League.
The university's assets include a $15.2 billion
endowment (the
second-largest of any academic institution in the world) and more than a dozen libraries that hold a total of 11 million volumes. Yale has 3,200 faculty members, who teach 5,200 undergraduate students and 6,000 graduate students.
Yale's 70 undergraduate majors are primarily focused on a liberal curriculum, and few of the undergraduate departments are pre-professional in nature (even the engineering departments encourage and require students to explore academic disciplines outside of engineering). Some 20% of Yale undergraduates major in the sciences, 35% in the social sciences, and 45% in the arts and humanities. All tenured professors teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.
Yale uses a residential college housing system modeled after those at
Oxford and
Cambridge. Each of 12 residential colleges houses a representative cross-section of the undergraduate student body, and features numerous facilities, seminars, resident faculty, and support personnel.
Yale's graduate programs include those in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences[
1]and those in the Professional Schools of Architecture, Art, Divinity, Drama, Foresty & Environmental Sciences, Law, Management, Medicine, Music, Nursing, and Public Health.
Yale and
Harvard have for most of their history been rivals in almost everything, notably academics,
rowing and
football.
Yale president
Richard C. Levin summarized the university's institutional priorities for its fourth century: "First, among the nation's finest research universities, Yale is distinctively committed to excellence in undergraduate education. Second, in our graduate and professional schools, as well as in Yale College, we are committed to the education of leaders." [
2]
|
Original building, 1718-1782 |
Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" passed by the General Court of the
Colony of Connecticut and dated
October 9,
1701. Soon thereafter, a group of ten
Congregationalist ministers led by
James Pierpont, all of whom were Harvard alumni, met in
Branford, Connecticut, to pool their books to form the school's first library. [
3]. The group is now known as "The Founders."
Originally called the
Collegiate School, the institution opened in the home of its first rector,
Abraham Pierson, in Killingworth (now
Clinton). In
1716, the college moved to
New Haven, Connecticut, where it remains to this day.
In the meanwhile, a rift was forming at Harvard between its sixth president
Increase Mather (Harvard
A.B.,
1656) and the rest of the Harvard clergy, which Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad in Church polity. The relationship worsened after Mather resigned, and the administration repeatedly rejected his son and ideological colleague,
Cotton Mather (Harvard A.B.,
1678), for the position of the Harvard presidency. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hopes that it would maintain the
Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not [
4].
In 1718, at the behest of either Rector
Andrew or Governor
Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted a successful businessman in
Wales named
Elihu Yale to ask him for financial help in constructing a new building for the college. Yale, who had made a fortune through trade while living in India as a representative of the
East India Company, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum at the time. Yale also donated 417 books and a portrait of
King George I. Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to
Yale College in gratitude to its benefactor, and to increase the chances that he would give the college another large donation or bequest. Elihu Yale was away in India when the news of the school's name change reached his home in
Wrexham, North
Wales, a trip from which he never returned. And while he did ultimately leave his fortunes to the
"Collegiate School within His Majesties Colony of Connecticot," the institution was never able to successfully lay claim to it.
Serious American students of
theology and
divinity, particularly in
New England, regarded
Hebrew as a classical language, along with
Greek and
Latin, and essential for study of the
Old Testament in the original words. The Reverend
Ezra Stiles, president of the College from 1778 to 1795, brought with him his interest in the Hebrew language as a vehicle for studying ancient
Biblical texts in their original language (as was common in other prestigious schools, for instance
Harvard), requiring all freshmen to study Hebrew (in contrast to Harvard, where all upperclassmen were required to study the language) and is responsible for the Hebrew words
"Urim" and "Thummim" on the Yale seal. Stiles' greatest challenge occurred in July, 1779 when hostile British forces occupied New Haven and threatened to raze the College. Fortunately, Yale graduate
Edmund Fanning, Secretary to the British General in command of the occupation, interceded and the College was saved. Fanning later was granted an honorary degree for his efforts.
Yale College expanded gradually, establishing the
Yale Medical School (1810),
Yale Divinity School (1822),
Yale Law School (1843),
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1847), the
Sheffield Scientific School (1861), and the
Yale School of Fine Arts (1869). (The divinity school was founded by
Congregationalists who felt that the
Harvard Divinity School had become too liberal.) In 1887, as the college continued to grow under the presidency of
Timothy Dwight V,
Yale College was renamed to
Yale University. The university would later add the
Yale School of Music (1894), the
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (1901),
Yale School of Public Health (1915), and the
Yale School of Nursing (1923),
Yale School of Management (1976), and reorganize its relationship with the Sheffield Scientific School.
Yale College became coeducational in
1969.
Yale, like other Ivy League schools, instituted policies in the early twentieth century designed artificially to increase the proportion of upper-class white Christians of notable families in the student body (see
Numerus clausus), and was one of the last of the Ivies to eliminate such preferences, beginning with the class of
1970.[
5]
The
President and Fellows of Yale College, also known as the
Yale Corporation, is the governing board of the University.
See also:
Oxbridge rivalry, which documents a similar history in which
University of Cambridge was founded by dissident scholars from its "rival"
University of OxfordYale and politics in the modern era
The
Boston Globe wrote that "if there's one school that can lay claim to educating the nation's top national leaders over the past three decades, it's Yale."
1 Yale alumni have been represented on the
Democratic or
Republican ticket in every U.S. Presidential election since
1972. Yale-educated Presidents since the end of the
Vietnam War include
Gerald Ford,
George H.W. Bush,
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush, and major-party nominees during this period include
John Kerry (
2004),
Dick Cheney (VP,
2000,
2004),
Joseph Lieberman (VP,
2000), and
Sargent Shriver (VP,
1972). Other Yale alumni who made serious bids for the Presidency during this period include
Howard Dean (
2004) and
Gary Hart (
1988), both of whom were considered front-runners for the Democratic nomination for a significant portion of the primary season.
Several potential explanations have been offered for Yale's representation in national elections since the end of the Vietnam War. Various sources note the spirit of campus activism that has existed at Yale since the
1960s, and the intellectual influence of Reverend
William Sloane Coffin on many of the future candidates.
2 Yale President
Richard Levin attributes the run to Yale's focus on creating "a laboratory for future leaders," an institutional priority that began during the tenure of Yale Presidents
Alfred Whitney Griswold and
Kingman Brewster.
2 Richard H. Brodhead , former dean of Yale College, stated: "We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions, and there is a very strong tradition of volunteerism at Yale."
1 Yale historian
Gaddis Smith notes "an ethos of organized activity" at Yale during the
20th century that led
John Kerry to lead the
Yale Political Union's Liberal Party,
George Pataki the Conservative Party, and
Joseph Lieberman to manage the
Yale Daily News.
3 Camille Paglia points to a history of networking and elitism: "It has to do with a web of friendships and affiliations built up in school."
4 New York Times correspondent
Elisabeth Bumiller and
the Atlantic Monthly correspondent
James Fallows credit the culture of community and cooperation that exists between students, faculty and administration, which downplays self-interest and reinforces commitment to others.
5Sources:
1Boston Globe 11/17/2002, Magazine, p. 6;
2Los Angeles Times 10/4/2000, p. E1;
3New York Times 8/13/2000, p. 14;
4Boston Globe 8/13/2000, p. F1
5Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2004, p. 45,
Heads of Collegiate School, Yale College, and Yale University
Yale's drama, arts, law, and certain academic programsare ranked top in the nation in U. S. News' most current rankings.
Yale College offered admission to 8.6% of the more than 21,000 applicants to the Class of 2010, which represents the lowest admissions rate in the history of the Ivy League.[
6] [
7]
Yale's English and literature departments were the birthplace of
New Criticism. Of the New Critics,
Robert Penn Warren,
W.K. Wimsatt, and
Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, after the passing of the New Critical fad, the Yale literature department became a center of American
deconstruction, with French and Comparative Literature departments centered around
Paul de Man and supported by the English department. This has become known as the "
Yale School." Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historian
C. Vann Woodward is credited for beginning in the 1960s an important stream of
southern historians; likewise,
David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Most noticeably, a tremendous number of currently active Latin American historians were trained at Yale in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s by
Emìlia Viotta da Costa; younger Latin Americanists tend to be "intellectual cousins" in that their advisors were advised by the same people at Yale.
Yale has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts, which is housed in the
Beinecke Rare Book Library. Yale's library system is the second-largest university collection in the world with a total of almost 11 million volumes. The main library,
Sterling Memorial Library, contains about 4 million volumes. The
Yale Center for British Art is the largest collection of British art outside of the UK. Other collections reside at the
Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven's most popular museum;
Yale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum; and the
Yale Collection of Musical Instruments.
Yale is noted for its strikingly beautiful campus[
8] as well as for several iconic modern buildings commonly taught in architectural history survey courses: the Yale Art Gallery[
9] and Center for British Art[
10] by
Louis Kahn, Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges by
Eero Saarinen, and the Art & Architecture Building by
Paul Rudolph.
Most of Yale's older buildings, constructed in the Gothic architecture style, were built during the period 1917-1931. Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings make this apparent; they portray contemporary college personalities such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorative
friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes such as policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect,
James Gamble Rogers, added to the appearance of great age of these buildings by splashing the walls with acid[
11], deliberately breaking their
leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the
Middle Ages, and creating niches for decorative statuary but leaving them empty to simulate loss or theft over the ages. In fact, the buildings merely simulate Middle Ages architecture, for though they appear to be constructed of solid stone blocks in the authentic manner, most actually have steel framing as was commonly used in 1930. One exception is
Harkness Tower, 216 feet tall, which was, when built, the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world. It was reinforced in 1964, however, in order to allow for the installation of the
Yale Memorial Carillon.
The truly old buildings on campus, ironically, are built in the
Georgian style and appear much more modern. This includes the oldest building on campus,
Connecticut Hall (built in
1750). Of the buildings constructed in the 1929-1933 period, the ones in the Georgian style include
Timothy Dwight College,
Pierson College, and the whole of
Davenport College excluding the east, York Street façade (constructed in the gothic style).
The
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, designed by
Gordon Bunshaft of
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, is one of the largest buildings in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts.[
12] It is located near the center of the University in
Hewitt Quadrangle, which is now more commonly referred to as "
Beinecke Plaza." The library's six-story above-ground tower of book stacks is surrounded by a windowless rectangular building with walls made of translucent Vermont marble, which transmit subdued lighting to the interior and provide protection from direct light, while glowing from within after dark. The sculptures in the sunken courtyard by
Isamu Noguchi are said to represent time (the pyramid), the sun (the circle), and chance (the cube).
Alumnus
Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the
Gateway Arch in St. Louis,
Washington Dulles International Airport main terminal, and the
CBS Building in Manhattan, designed
Ingalls Rink at Yale and the newest residential colleges of Ezra Stiles and Morse. These latter were modelled after the medieval Italian hilltown of
San Gimignano--a prototype chosen for the town's pedestrial-friendly milieu and fortress-like stone towers. These tower forms at Yale act in counterpoint to the college's many gothic spires and Georgian cupolas.[
13]
Notable nonresidential campus buildings
*
Sterling Memorial Library*
Harkness Tower*
Woolsey Hall*
Beinecke Rare Book Library*
Yale University Art Gallery*
Yale Center for British Art*
Payne Whitney Gymnasium*
Ingalls Rink*
Battell Chapel*
Yale School of Architecture*
Osborne Memorial Laboratories*
Sterling Hall of Medicine*
Sterling Law Buildings*
Kline Biology Tower*
Peabody MuseumResidential colleges
Yale has a system of 12
residential colleges, instituted in
1933 through a grant by Yale graduate
Edward S. Harkness, who admired the college systems at
Oxford and
Cambridge. Each college has a carefully constructed support structure for students, including a Dean, Master, affiliated faculty, and resident Fellows. Each college also features distinctive architecture, secluded courtyards, and facilities ranging from libraries to squash courts to darkrooms. While each college at Yale offers its own seminars, social events, and Master's Teas with guests from the world, Yale students also take part in academic and social programs across the university, and all of Yale's 2,000 courses are open to undergraduates from any college.
Residential colleges are named for important figures or places in university history or notable alumni; they are deliberately not named for benefactors.
Residential Colleges of Yale University (
official list):
#
Berkeley College [
14] - named for the Rt. Rev.
George Berkeley (1685-1753), early benefactor of Yale.#
Branford College [
15] - named for
Branford, Connecticut, where Yale was briefly located.#
Calhoun College [
16] - named for
John C. Calhoun, vice-president of the United States.#
Davenport College [
17] - named for Rev.
John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port".#
Ezra Stiles College [
18] - named for the Rev.
Ezra Stiles, a president of Yale. Generally called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master
Traugott Lawler to preserve the use of the full name in everyday speech. Its buildings were designed by
Eero Saarinen.#
Jonathan Edwards College [
19] - named for theologian, Yale alumnus, and Princeton co-founder
Jonathan Edwards. Generally called "J.E." The oldest of the residential colleges, J.E. is the only college with an independent endowment, the Jonathan Edwards Trust. #
Morse College [
20] - named for
Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code. Also designed by
Eero Saarinen.#
Pierson College [
21] - named for Yale's first rector,
Abraham Pierson.#
Saybrook College [
22] - named for
Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the town in which Yale was founded.#
Silliman College [
23] - named for noted scientist and Yale professor
Benjamin Silliman. About half of its structures were originally part of the
Sheffield Scientific School,#
Timothy Dwight College [
24] - named for the two Yale presidents of that name,
Timothy Dwight IV and
Timothy Dwight V. Usually called "T.D."#
Trumbull College [
25] - named for
Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut. The smallest college.
In 1990, Yale launched a series of massive overhauls to the older residential buildings, whose decades of existence had seen only routine maintenance and incremental improvements to plumbing, heating, and electrical and network wiring. Berkeley College was the first to undergo complete renovation. Various unwieldy schemes were used to house displaced students during the yearlong projects, but complaints finally moved Yale to build a
new residence hall between the gym and the power plant. It is commonly called "Swing Space" by the students; its official name, "Boyd Hall" (a name allegedly created by Berkeley students as a contraction of "Boy, did we get f---d"), is unused.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Yale created plans to create a thirteenth college, whose concrete facade would have broken with the campus' more prevalent Gothic and Georgian architecture. The plans were scrapped, after the city of New Haven put up substantial financial barriers, and the proposed site was eventually filled with condominiums and shops (Whitney Grove Square, among others).
Sports
Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the
Ivy League Conference and the
Eastern College Athletic Conference, and Yale is an
NCAA Division I member. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships and is no longer competitive with the top echelon of American college teams in the big-money sports of basketball and football. Nevertheless, American football was largely created at Yale by player and coach
Walter Camp, who evolved the rules of the game away from rugby and soccer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the
Yale Bowl (the nation's first natural "bowl" stadium, and prototype for such stadiums as the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the
Rose Bowl), located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the
Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world.[
26]
The school mascot is "
Handsome Dan", the famous Yale
bulldog, and the Yale
fight song (written by alumnus
Cole Porter) contains the
refrain, "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow."
Yale athletics are supported by the
Yale Precision Marching Band. The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter.
Yale intramural sports are a vibrant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, which fosters a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons, each of which includes about ten different sports. About half the sports are coed. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup.
Life in New Haven
New Haven has experienced major economic growth in the past couple of decades, turning it into a major cultural center and hub for travel. In the past decade, technology and biotech firms and investment by Yale have put a new face on this colonial city. In 2003, New Haven was selected as an
All-America City, in recognition of its immigrant neighborhoods, city parks, and blocks of old mansions, quaint stores and big chains, and one of the world's pre-eminent universities.
Yale's urban surroundings add to its students' education and entertainment: Yale students run for alderman, work in City Hall, and launch non-profit organizations; the downtown features an array of clubs, theaters, and restaurants; Yalies go to
Toad's Place to hear bands like
Built to Spill and
Rufus Wainwright, enjoy cheap martinis at Hot Tomatoes, or buy home-brewed beer and brick-oven pizza at BAR; and, visitors check out exhibits at the
Peabody Museum before taking in a show at the
Shubert Theater.
The Yale Political Union, the oldest student political organization in the United States, is often the largest organization on campus, and is advised by alumni political leaders such as
John Kerry,
Gerald Ford, and
George Pataki. The
Yale Daily News, the oldest daily college newspaper in the United States, has been a forum for opinion since 1878, and counts among its former chairmen
Sargent Shriver,
Joseph Lieberman,
William F. Buckley, Jr., and
Strobe Talbott.
Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 60 community service initiatives in New Haven. And also worth of mention is the
Yale College Council, a relatively recent creation compared to many of Yale's instituations. Founded in the 1971-72 school year by leaders of verious residential colleges that saw the need for campus-wide activism for student concerns, it currently runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services.
Greek organizations
The fraternity system in America, which began at William and Mary with the creation of Phi Beta Kappa, grew up at Yale. The early fraternities were junior, sophomore, and even freshman societies that controlled campus politics, including entry into the senior societies that Yale's early Phi Beta Kappa spawned. Those fraternities, however, bear little resemble to the Yale frats of today.
Several fraternities and sororities have chapters at Yale, including:
*
Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity*
Alpha Rho Lambda Sorority Inc./Alianza de Raices Latinas*
Sigma Chi Fraternity* Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
* Sigma Nu Fraternity
* Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
* Beta Theta Pi Fraternity
*
Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority
* Pi Beta Phi Sorority
* Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority
* Alpha Phi Alpha
*
Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity* Zeta Psi Fraternity
* Psi Upsilon Fraternity
Community service organizations
*
Dwight Hall, an umbrella community service organization overseeing more than 300 community service and social justice initiatives
Political organizations
* The
Yale Political Union* The Yale College Republicans
* The
Yale College Democrats* The
Yale Chapter of the
Roosevelt Institution, a student
think tankMusical groups
Student musical groups include four university-sponsored organizations composed primarily of undergraduates:
* The
Yale Concert Band [
27].
* The
Yale Precision Marching Band [
28], a
scatter band that performs at home football games and many hockey and basketball games. They are known for their comedic halftime shows and arrangements of popular music.
* The
Yale Jazz Ensemble [
29], an 18-piece
big band/swing band
* The
Yale Glee Club [
30]. Founded in 1863, the Glee Club today includes about 80 men and women who sing baroque, classical, modern, and folk tunes.
* The
Yale Symphony Orchestra [
31], a full orchestra that performs classical and modern pieces.In addition, the student-run
Davenport Pops Orchestra [
32],
Saybrook College Orchestra [
33], Berkeley College Orchestra [
34], Jonathan Edwards Chamber Players, and Bach Society [
35] all provide free concerts of symphonic masterworks.
A cappella singing groups
Undergraduates also sing in more than a dozen
a cappella groups. See
vocal music at Yale.
All men*
The Whiffenpoofs[
36] began the tradition of college a cappella singing groups in
1909. The group is limited to male seniors; each spring 14 juniors are selected ("tapped") for membership. Admission to the group is highly competitive. Alumni include
Cole Porter and
Fenno Heath.
*
The Spizzwinks(?)[
37], founded in
1913, is Yale's oldest underclassman a cappella group.
*
The Yale Society of Orpheus and Bacchus[
38], founded in
1938, is Yale's oldest continually active underclassman a cappella group.
*The
Yale Alley Cats[
39], founded in 1943, has become one of the most internationally renowned of the American collegiate vocal ensembles.
*
The Baker's Dozen[
40], founded in
1947, go on tour across the country twice every year.
*
The Duke's Men of Yale[
41], founded in
1952, sing all-male a cappella. "Da Doox" tour internationally, compete nationally in a cappella competitions, and sing for famous people, most recently
Bill Clinton,
Hillary Clinton,
Dan Brown, and
Vanna White.
*The
Yale Russian Chorus[
42], founded in
1953, is a predominantly male group of students and community members who sing liturgical and folk music of
Russia and other
Eastern European lands.
All women*
The New Blue[
43] was established in
1969, when Yale College first admitted women undergraduates. It is Yale's first all-female a cappella group and the college's first women's organization.
*The
Yale Women's Slavic Chorus[
44], founded in
1969, sings
Eastern European folk songs.
*Proof of the Pudding was founded in 1975.
*
Something Extra[
45] was founded in 1977.
*
Whim 'n' Rhythm[
46] is a seniors-only group, founded in 1981 to launch a tradition similar to the Whiffenpoofs'.
Coeducational*
Redhot & Blue[
47], founded in
1977 as Yale's first co-educational a cappella group, is known for the intricate and challenging arrangements of its jazz-based repertoire.
*Living Water[
48], founded in 1979, calls itself "Yale's Christian a cappella group."
*
Mixed Company (Yale University)[
49], is one of the oldest mixed a cappella groups at Yale.
*
Out of the Blue[
50], founded in
1987, calls itself "Yale's only co-ed, pop-rock a cappella group."
*
Shades[
51], founded in 1988 to sing the music of the African diaspora (including R&B and gospel).
*
Magevet[
52], founded in 1993, is Yale's "first, best, and only Jewish a cappella singing group."
Theatrical organizations
*The
Yale Dramatic Association,[
53] founded in 1900, is the second-oldest college
theater company in the country; "The Dramat" has featured the work of such noted artists as
Cole Porter,
Thornton Wilder, and
Sam Waterston. It typically puts on one large-scale play each fall and one full-scale musical each spring in the University Theater. Smaller-scale productions are mounted on the stage of the
Yale Repertory Theatre.
*The Yale Drama Coalition is an umbrella organization overseeing some 20+ student-directed, student-produced plays each semester. These are generally funded by the Sudler Funds of each residential college, which award up to $1000 to mount art shows and theatrical productions created by members of that college.
*Yale's
Improvisational comedy organizations include
The Viola Question [
54],
Just Add Water , the Purple Crayon, and the Exit Players.
*Sketch Comedy groups include
The Fifth Humour, Suite 13, the Sphincter Troupe, and Red Hot Poker.
*The Control Group, Yale's experimental theatre troupe and only theatrical ensemble, puts on 2-4 productions a year.
*The
Yale Gilbert and Sullivan Society [
55] produces one operetta per year.
*The Yale Undergraduate Musical Theater Company, or
YUMTC [
56] produces musical theater. It was conceived by
Greg Edwards, a member of the class of 2005.
Secret societies
Yale is also known as the home of many senior societies and
secret societies [
57]. Some of these groups are "landed" while others are "underground." Landed groups are considered among the most prestigious, because they have tomb-like structures to conceal their private meetings. Among these groups are: the oldest and famous
Skull and Bones [
58], the youngest tombed and artistic group
Manuscript Society, the elite
Wolf's Head [
59], the science-based
Berzelius, the progressive
Book and Snake [
60], the second oldest and wealthiest
Scroll and Key [
61] and Truth and courage [
62]. These societies select members of the student body for lifetime membership.
Student publications
*The
Yale Daily News, or "YDN," is a daily newspaper that was founded in 1878. It claims to be the oldest college daily newspaper.
*The
Yale Economic Review is a quarterly journal of popular economics.
The Yale Literary Magazine, founded in 1836, is the oldest literary review in the nation, and publishes poetry and fiction by Yale undergraduates twice per academic year.
*The
Yale Herald is a weekly newspaper that began in 1986.
The New Journal is Yale's oldest and largest-circulating undergraduate magazine. Founded by
Daniel Yergin and Harold Newman in 1968, the publication focuses on strong writing while covering issues that affect both Yale and New Haven.
Rumpus Magazine is an irreverent monthly tabloid that mostly covers campus gossip and prints an annual "Yale's 50 Most Beautiful" list.
Five Magazine is a progressive call-to-action magazine that tries to make campus activism more efficient and effective.
Yale Law Journal is an academic review published at
Yale Law School.
*The
Yale Scientific Magazine, founded in 1894, is a quarterly science magazine.
*The
Yale Globalist is a quarterly international affairs magazine.
Globalist Foundation website*The
Yale Entrepreneur focuses on entrepreneurship around Yale and New Haven and is sponsored by the
Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES).
*The "
Yale Anglers' Journal", founded in 1996, is published bi-annually by undergraduats, and accepts contributions from outside the school.
Other organizations
The
Yale Entrepreneurial Society is a student-run nonprofit dedicated to encouraging entrepreneurship and business development in the New Haven area.
Bulldog Productions is the only undergraduate film production company at Yale University, one of the few companies of its kind in top-tier American liberal arts universities.
The
Yale Engineering Design Team, founded in 2003, is a student-run organization that helps students work on engineering projects and competitions. They are noted for running the annual
Junk Yale Wars where students take a day to build something out of junk that fits some set of design specifications.
Nineteen
Nobel laureates are
affiliated with the university.
Benefactors
Yale has had many financial supporters, but some stand out by the magnitude of their contributions. Among those who have made large donations commemorated at the university are:
*
Elihu Yale*
Edward S. Harkness*
William Harkness*
Paul Mellon*
John William Sterling*
Payne Whitney*Edwin, Frederick, and Walter Beinecke
*
William K. Lanman, who was also the main sponsor of the Tercentennial celebrations in 2001
Famous alumni
All U.S. presidents since 1989 have been Yale graduates, namely
George H. W. Bush,
Bill Clinton (who attended the University's
Law School along with his wife,
New York Senator Hillary Clinton), and
George W. Bush. Many of the
2004 presidential candidates attended Yale: Bush, VP candidate
Dick Cheney,
John Kerry,
Howard Dean, and
Joe Lieberman.
Other Yale-educated presidents were
William Howard Taft (B.A.) and
Gerald Ford (LL.B). Alumni also include several
Supreme Court justices, such as current Justices
Clarence Thomas and
Samuel Alito.
More famous alumni are noted in the
List of Yale University people, including
Nobel Laureates, politicians, artists, athletes, activists, and numerous others who have led notable lives.
Famous professors
Yale has employed many famous professors in its history. A sampling of those professors can be found in the
List of Yale University people.
Yale students claim to have invented
Frisbee, by tossing around empty pie tins from the
Frisbie Pie Company. Another traditional Yale game was
bladderball, played between 1954 and 1982.
Yale's Central Campus in downtown
New Haven is 260 acres. An additional 500 acres (2 km²) comprises the
Yale golf course and nature preserves in rural Connecticut and
Horse Island.[
63]
Yale's
Handsome Dan is believed to be the first live college
mascot in America.
According to tour guides, it is considered good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus. In reality, the only reason the toe is untarnished is the waves of potential students who rub it while on tours.
William F. Buckley's 1951 book,
God and Man at Yale, criticized Yale for indoctrinating liberalism, undermining Christianity, and failing to dismiss radical professors.
Yale and many of Yale's peer universities have been criticized for
grade inflation. The
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and
The New York Times have criticized Yale for using teaching assistants to lead discussion sections and to teach some introductory science and language classes. [
64][
65][
66]
In 2001, three Yale graduate students published a report [
67] detailing Yale's historical connections with slavery. The report noted that nine of Yale's residential colleges are named for slave owners or proponents of slavery such as
John C. Calhoun; it also noted prominent abolitionists such as
James Hillhouse associated with the university.
Admissions policies
Yale, like nearly all of its peer institutions, has been criticized for its preferential admissions policies toward certain groups. These groups include underrepresented minorities (
affirmative action), children of alumni (
legacy preferences), and athletes (
athletic recruitment).
In the 2005 book
The Chosen, Jerome Karabel unfavorably chronicles the use of non-academic criteria at Yale and its peer institutions throughout their histories. According to one passage, "So preoccupied was Yale with the appearance of its students that the form used by alumni interviewers actually had a physical characteristics checklist through 1965. Each year, Yale carefully measured the height of entering freshmen, noting with pride the proportion of the class at six feet or more." [
68]
Recently, Yale has come under public pressure for its admission of
Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the
Taliban, as a non-degree student. Critics on both the right and left have questioned the University's decision, both in light of Yale's refusal to allow ROTC on campus and the University's lack of support for programs offering educational opportunities for the victims of the Taliban regime.
The 1970s and 1980s saw
poverty and
violent crime rise in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts. Since that time, Yale has emerged as one of the safest campuses among the Ivy League and other peer schools according to U.S. Department of Education statistics [
69]. During the most recent three years of data available (2002-2004), Yale reported 14 incidents of violent crime (defined as homicide, aggravated assault, or sex offenses). By comparison, during the same period of time, Harvard reported 83 incidents of violent crime, Princeton reported 24 incidents, and Stanford reported 54 incidents. Yale's incidence of nonviolent crime (defined as burglary, robbery, arson, and motor vehicle theft) was also lower than most of its peer schools.
The University's record of safety is partly the result of security initiatives instituted following the murder of student Christian Prince in 1991. On the campus level, Yale made a major investment in increasing the size of the Yale Police Department, transferred secondary police responsibilities to an expanded security force, and installed emergency blue phones around campus. At the city level, Yale encouraged student volunteerism and, in 1991, began to make payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to the city ($2.3 million in 2005; to be boosted in 2006 to $4.18 million). In addition, the New Haven Police Department instituted a community policing strategy that helped contribute to a 50% decline in New Haven's overall crime rate since 1990.
As at many of Yale's peer schools, some high-profile tragedies have involved Yale students over the past four decades, and these incidents have come to be viewed as significant events in Yale's history:
*In
1974, Yale junior
Gary Stein was killed in a robbery.
Melvin Jones was convicted in the case and spent fifteen years in prison.
*In
1977, Yale student
Bonnie Garland was killed by a former boyfriend, Yale graduate
Richard Herrin, while she was sleeping in her parents' house in Scarsdale, NY. The support of the Yale Catholic community for the perpetrator resulted in his conviction for manslaughter rather than murder.
*In
1991, the killing of
Christian Prince on
Hillhouse Avenue in the Yale campus resulted in a brief decline in applications and resulted in major new investments in campus security. [
70]
*In
1998, student
Suzanne Jovin was stabbed to death. Leaked allegations that her thesis advisor was a suspect led to the end of his career at Yale, but the crime remains unsolved.
Bombings* On
May 1,
1970, an explosive device was detonated in the
Ingalls Rink during events related to the trial of Black Panther
Bobby Seale.
* On
June 24,
1993, computer science professor
David Gelernter was seriously injured in his office in Arthur K. Watson Hall by a bomb sent by
serial killer Ted Kaczynski (Harvard class of 1962), a.k.a the
Unabomber.
* On
May 21,
2003, an explosive device went off at the
Yale Law School, damaging two classrooms.
See also: List of Yale University people: FictionalOwen Johnson's novel,
Stover at Yale, follows the college career of Dink Stover (whose prep-school life at
The Lawrenceville School had been chronicled in earlier novels). A sort of counterpart to
Tom Brown at Oxford, it was once a byword.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's fictional Amory accepted the novel as a "kind of textbook" for collegiate life.
Yale also turns up in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, The Great Gatsby.
Frank Merriwell, the model for all later juvenile sports fiction, plays football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs[
71].
In
Frank Merriwell at Yale [
72] Merriwell finds although "the blue-blooded aristocrat had appeared at Yale,"
In the course of time Frank came to believe that the old spirit was still powerful at Yale. There were a limited number of young gentlemen who plainly considered themselves superior beings, and who positively refused to make acquaintances outside a certain limit; but those men held no positions in athletics, were seldom of prominence in the societies, and were regarded as cads by the men most worth knowing. They were to be pitied, not envied. At Yale the old democratic spirit still prevailed... this extended even to their social life, their dances, their secret societies, where all who showed themselves to have the proper dispositions and qualifications were admitted without distinction of previous condition or rank in their own homes.
On the
WB show
Gilmore Girls,
Rory Gilmore (played by
Alexis Bledel), attends Yale.
Brad O'Keef from abc family's "Grounded For Life" fictionally gets an interview with Yale, and is later granted admission.
Lily Finnerty also from "Grounded For Life" gets an interview (by lying). The
2000 film
The Skulls concerns a secret society with resemblances to
Skull and Bones. In episode
4F16 of
The Simpsons,
Montgomery Burns is revealed to have been a member.[
73]In another episode it is revealed that
Sideshow Bob attended Yale and appears to have been a member of the rowing team.
John O'Hara, according to Brendan Gill, wanted desperately to have gone to Yale. "People used to make fun of [it], but it was never a joke to O'Hara. It seemed... that there wasn't anything he didn't know about in regard to college and prep-school matters."
Hemingway once said, cruelly, "Someone should take up a collection to send John O'Hara to Yale."
George V. Higgins opined that the reason Yale library has the manuscript of
BUtterfield 8 and the galley proofs of
Appointment in Samarra is that O'Hara was "foraging for honors:":Former Yale president
Kingman Brewster was forthright—and supercilious—in his explanation of O'Hara's disappointments in New Haven: he said Yale didn't give him an LL. D. degree "because he asked for it."
In a newspaper column, O'Hara attempted to make light of the matter, writing::If Yale had given me a degree, I could have joined the Yale Club, where the food is pretty good, the library is ample and restful, the location convenient, and I could go there when I felt like it without sponging off friends. They also have a nice-looking necktie.
*
Marsh Botanical Garden*
Elihu Yale*
List of Yale University people (
Yalies)
*
Yale Memorial Carillon*
The Game (college football)*
Handsome Dan*
Yale Bowl*
Town and gown*
Yale Political Union*
List of colleges and universities*
Directed Studies*
Ivy League*
List of US colleges and universities by endowment including the more pertinent measure of "Endowment per Student".
*
Yale-Harvard Game Prank of 2004{| valign="top" |
Official university sites*
Yale University*
Yale College, Undergraduate Admissions*
Yale Law School*
Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences*
Yale School of Medicine*
Yale School of Art*
Yale School of Music*
Yale School of Public Health*
Yale School of Drama*
Yale Divinity School*
Yale School of Architecture*
Yale School of Management*
Yale National Initiative*
Official Yale athletics site*
Yale Art Gallery*
Yale Center for British Art*
Yale University Tercentennial 2001Publications*
Yale Alumni Magazine*
Yale Daily News*
Yale Economic Review*
Yale Globalist*
Online Magazine*
Yale Herald*
Yale Law Journal*
Yale Literary Magazine*
Yale Record*
Yale Rumpus*
Sphere Magazine*
The New Journal''Musical Groups
* Shades
* Yale Alley Cats
* Yale Whiffenpoofs
* Yale Symphony Orchestra
* Davenport Pops Orchestra
* Saybrook Orchestra
* Yale Glee Club
* Yale Dramatic Association
* Yale Bands, including the Yale Precision Marching Band
* The Baker's Dozen at Yale
* Yale Guild of Carillonneurs
* Yale Redhot & Blue
* Mixed Company of Yale University
* Yale's Society of Orpheus & Bacchus
* Yale Spizzwinks
* The New Blue of Yale University
* Yale's Magevet
* Yale Alley Cats
* Yale's Living Water
Organizations
* Asian American Students Alliance (AASA)
* Chinese American Students' Association (CASA)
* Yale Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS)
* Yale International Security Studies (ISS)
* Yale Entrepreneurial Society
* Students for a Yale Cancer Center
* Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
* Federation of Hospital and University Employees, the unions at Yale
* Yale Alumni for Social Justice
* Bridge Club for Yale College Students | 
