Yale University

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Yale University

Motto	אורים ותמים (Hebrew) Lux et veritas (Latin) (Light and truth)
Established	1701
Type	Private
Endowment	$18 billion[1]
President	Richard C. Levin
Faculty	2,300
Students	11,390
Location	New Haven, Connecticut,  United States
Campus	Urban, 260 acres (1.1 km²)
Nickname	Bulldogs
Mascot	Handsome Dan
Website	www.yale.edu

"Yale" redirects here. For other uses, see Yale (disambiguation).

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. Particularly well known are its undergraduate school, Yale College, and the Yale Law School, each of which has produced a number of U.S. Presidents and foreign heads of state. Also notable is the Yale School of Drama which has produced many prominent Hollywood and Broadway actors.

The university's assets include an $18 billion^[2] endowment (the second-largest of any academic institution in the world) and more than a dozen libraries that hold a total of 12.1 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). About 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[3] - Biology, Classics, English, Pure, Applied and Engineering Sciences, History, Math, Sociology, Political Science and Economics - and those in the Professional Schools of Architecture, Art, Divinity, Drama, Forestry & 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.^[3]

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." [4]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Yale and politics in the modern era 1.2 Heads of Collegiate School, Yale College, and Yale University 2 Admissions 3 Intellectual "schools" 4 Collections 5 Yale architecture 5.1 Notable nonresidential campus buildings 6 Campus life 6.1 Residential colleges 6.2 Sports 6.3 Life in New Haven 7 Student organizations 8 Yale people of note 8.1 Benefactors 8.2 Famous alumni 8.3 Famous professors 9 Miscellany and traditions 10 Criticisms of Yale 10.1 Admissions policies 11 Safety at Yale 12 Yale in fiction and popular culture 13 Points of interest 14 See also 15 External links and references 16 Books on Yale 16.1 Secret societies 17 Other notes and references

[edit] History

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. [5]. 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). It later moved to Saybrook, and then Wethersfield. In 1716, the college moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where it remains to this day.^{[citations needed]}

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 [6].

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), Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (1901), Yale School of Public Health (1915), Yale School of Nursing (1923), Yale Physician Associate Program (1973), and Yale School of Management (1976). It would also 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. [7]

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 Oxford.

[edit] Yale 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), Gary Hart (1988), Paul Tsongas (1992) and Jerry Brown (1976, 1980, 1992).

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.⁵

Sources: 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

[edit] Heads of Collegiate School, Yale College, and Yale University

	Rectors of Yale College	birth–death	years as rector
1	The Rev. Abraham Pierson	(1641–1707)	(1701–1707) Collegiate School
2	The Rev. Samuel Andrew	(1656–1738)	(1707–1719) (pro tempore)
3	The Rev. Timothy Cutler	(1684–1765)	(1719–1726) 1718/9: renamed Yale College
4	The Rev. Elisha William(s)	(1694–1755)	(1726–1739)
5	The Rev. Thomas Clap	(1703–1767)	(1740–1745)

	Presidents of Yale College	birth–death	years as president
1	The Rev. Thomas Clap	(1703–1767)	(1745–1766)
2	The Rev. Naphtali Daggett	(1727–1780)	(1766–1777) (pro tempore)
3	The Rev. Ezra Stiles	(1727–1795)	(1778–1795)
4	Timothy Dwight IV	(1752–1817)	(1795–1817)
5	Jeremiah Day	(1773–1867)	(1817–1846)
6	Theodore Dwight Woolsey	(1801–1899)	(1846–1871)
7	Noah Porter III	(1811–1892)	(1871–1886)
8	Timothy Dwight V	(1828–1916)	(1886–1899) 1887: renamed Yale University
9	Arthur Twining Hadley	(1856–1930)	(1899–1921)
10	James Rowland Angell	(1869–1949)	(1921–1937)
11	Charles Seymour	(1885–1963)	(1937–1951)
12	Alfred Whitney Griswold	(1906–1963)	(1951–1963)
13	Kingman Brewster, Jr.	(1919–1988)	(1963–1977)
14	Hanna Holborn Gray	(1930– )	(1977–1977) (acting)
15	A. Bartlett Giamatti	(1938–1989)	(1977–1986)
16	Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.	(1942– )	(1986–1992)
17	Howard R. Lamar	(1923– )	(1992–1993) (acting)
18	Richard C. Levin	(1947– )	(1993– )

[edit] Admissions

In 2006, Yale College offered admission to 8.6% of the 21,000+ applicants to the Class of 2010, which represents the lowest admissions rate in the history of the Ivy League.[8] [9] In recent years, more than 71% of those granted admission to Yale have chosen to attend.[10]

Yale College offers need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid to all applicants, including international applicants. Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants, and more than 40% of Yale students receive financial assistance. Most financial aid is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be paid back to the University, and the average scholarship for the 2006-2007 school year will be $26,900.

Half of all Yale students are women, more than 30% are minorities, and 10% are international students. Furthermore, 55% attended public schools and 45% attended independent, religious, or international schools.[11].

[edit] Intellectual "schools"

Yale's English and Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. 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.

[edit] Collections

Yale University Library 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 four million volumes, and other holdings are dispersed at a variety of subject libraries.

Rare books are found in a number of Yale collections. The Beinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library includes important historical medical texts, including an impressive collection of rare books, as well as historical medical instruments. The Lewis Walpole Library contains the largest collection of 18th Century British literary works. And the Elizabethan Club, while technically a private organization, makes its Elizabethan folios and first editions available to qualified researchers through Yale.

Yale's museums are also of world importance. The Yale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum, contains important collections of modern art as well as old masters and one of its newer wings was designed by Louis Kahn. The Yale Center for British Art is the largest collection of British art outside of the UK, originally the gift of Paul Mellon and also housed in a building designed by Louis Kahn. The Peabody Museum of Natural History is New Haven's most popular museum, well-used by school children as well as containing research collections in anthropology, archaeology, and the natural environment. The Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, affiliated with the Yale School of Music, is perhaps the least well-known of Yale's collections, because its hours of opening are restricted.

[edit] Yale architecture

Yale is noted for its harmonious yet fanciful largely gothic campus[12] as well as for several iconic modern buildings commonly taught in architectural history survey courses: the Yale Art Gallery[13] and Center for British Art[14] 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[15], 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.[16] 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.[17]

[edit] 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 Museum

[edit] Campus life

[edit] Residential colleges

Main article: Yale College

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):

1. Berkeley College [18] - named for the Rt. Rev. George Berkeley (1685-1753), early benefactor of Yale.
2. Branford College [19] - named for Branford, Connecticut, where Yale was briefly located.
3. Calhoun College [20] - named for John C. Calhoun, vice-president of the United States.
4. Davenport College [21] - named for Rev. John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port".
5. Ezra Stiles College [22] - 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.
6. Jonathan Edwards College [23] - 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.
7. Morse College [24] - named for Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code. Also designed by Eero Saarinen.
8. Pierson College [25] - named for Yale's first rector, Abraham Pierson.
9. Saybrook College [26] - named for Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the town in which Yale was founded.
10. Silliman College [27] - named for noted scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. About half of its structures were originally part of the Sheffield Scientific School,
11. Timothy Dwight College [28] - named for the two Yale presidents of that name, Timothy Dwight IV and Timothy Dwight V. Usually called "T.D."
12. Trumbull College [29] - named for Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut. The smallest college.

In 1990, Yale launched a series of massive renovations 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. Renovations to many of the colleges are now complete, and among other improvements, renovated colleges feature newly built basement facilities including restaurants, game rooms, theaters, athletic facilities and music practice rooms.

The Yale administration is currently evaluating the feasibility of building two new residential colleges. [30]

[edit] Sports

Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the Ivy League Conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Associaton, 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. [31] The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world. The yacht club, located in nearby Branford, Connecticut, is the home of the Yale Sailing Team, which has produced several Olympic sailors.

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." The school color is Yale Blue.

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Student organizations

Main article: List of Yale University student organizations

A large number of student organizations are associated with the university.

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 university features a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. The latter category includes the Yale Daily News, which was first published in 1878 and is the oldest daily college newspaper in the United States. 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. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services.

The campus also includes several fraternities and sororities. The campus features at least eighteen a capella groups, the most famous of which is The Whiffenpoofs. A number of prominent secret societies, including Skull and Bones, are composed of Yale College students.

[edit] Yale people of note

Nineteen Nobel laureates are affiliated with the university.

[edit] 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
• Paul Mellon
• Joseph E. Sheffield
• 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

[edit] Famous alumni

Main article: List of Yale University people

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 (although he did not graduate), 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, including 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Miscellany and traditions

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.[32]

Yale's Handsome Dan is believed to be the first live college mascot in America, having been established in 1889.

A campus myth perpetuated by tour guides has emerged that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus. Tour guides encourage prospective students to rub the toe, although actual students rarely do so.^[4]

[edit] Criticisms of Yale

Yale alumnus William F. Buckley's 1951 book, God and Man at Yale, criticized Yale for indoctrinating liberalism, undermining Christianity, and failing to dismiss radical professors.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has criticized many of Yale's peer institutions for grade inflation, notably failing to mention Yale, thereby supporting the generally understood notion that this affliction has not been as pronounced at Yale. [33]

Yale claims to be less reliant on teaching assistants in undergraduate education than many of its peer institutions. Teaching assistants generally lead discussion sections and some introductory language classes; they also sometimes teach undergraduate seminars in which they have unique expertise. Unionizing graduate students have criticized Yale for an over-reliance on teaching assistants, claiming that when measured on a time per student basis, graduate employees do a majority of teaching at Yale. [34] In comparison with its peer institutions, Yale senior faculty perform an unusually high amount of undergraduate teaching and are generally praised for being extremely accessible and interested in undergraduates.^{[citations needed]} All tenured professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences teach undergraduate courses [35], and courses taught primarily by graduate students account for only 7% of total enrollments [36].

In 2001, three Yale graduate students published a report [37] 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.

[edit] Admissions policies

Yale, like nearly all of its peer institutions, has been criticized for its supposed preferential admissions policies toward certain groups. These groups include underrepresented minorities (affirmative action), children of alumni (legacy preferences), and athletes (athletic recruitment). However, Yale offers need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid to all applicants, including applicants from lower income groups and international applicants.

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. In the 2006 book The Price of Admission, Daniel Golden makes similar points regarding preferences given to wealthy and famous applicants [38]

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.

[edit] Safety at Yale

In the 1970s and 1980s, poverty and violent crime rose in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts. In 1991, junior Christian Prince was slain on Hillhouse Avenue, resulted in a brief decline in applications and leading Yale to boost the size of its police force, transfer secondary police responsibilities to an expanded security force, and install emergency blue phones around campus[39]. Yale began to make payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to the city ($2.3 million in 2005; $4.18 million in 2006).

Between 1990 and 2006, New Haven's crime rate fell by half, helped by a community policing strategy by the New Haven police. Yale's campus became one of the safest among the Ivy League and other peer schools [40]. In 2002-04, Yale reported 14 violent crimes (homicide, aggravated assault, or sex offenses), when Harvard reported 83 such incidents, Princeton 24, and Stanford 54. The incidence of nonviolent crime (burglary, robbery, arson, and motor vehicle theft) was also lower than most of its peer schools.

In 2004, a national non-profit watchdog group called Security on Campus filed a complaint with the Department of Education, accusing Yale of under-reporting rape and sexual assaults. [41] [42].

Murders or attempted murders involving Yale students or faculty include:

• 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.
• 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.
• In 1998, student Suzanne Jovin was stabbed to death in a wealthy neighborhood two miles from the central campus. Allegations that her thesis advisor was a suspect led to the end of his career at Yale, but the crime remains unsolved.

The Yale Campus has been the site of three bombing incidents. In addition to that carried out by the Unabomber, mentioned above, on May Day in 1969, during the New Haven Black Panther trials, two bombs were set off in the basement of Ingalls Rink. No injuries resulted, and the perpetrators were never identified. On May 21, 2003, an explosive device went off at the Yale Law School, damaging two classrooms. The latter crime has not been solved, and no motive has been discerned; the bombing occurred while the nation was under an elevated terror alert, and while the university was involved in difficult labor negotiations. The homes of at least two former employees were searched, but no arrests have been made in the case.

[edit] Yale in fiction and popular culture

See also: List of Yale University people: Fictional

Owen 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 appears 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[43].

In Frank Merriwell at Yale [44] 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 CW show Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore (played by Alexis Bledel), attends Yale (after considering attending Harvard).

Brad O'Keefe, from 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 of Skull and Bones.[45] In several episodes Burns is seen wearing a white sweater with a the Yale "Y" or waving a Yale pennant. 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 University 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.

In the popular Gossip Girl series for teenagers, one of the lead characters, Blair Waldorf, idolizes Yale and later attends with her best friend, Serena Van Der Woodsen and her boyfriend Nate Archibald.

In the show "The L Word", the character Bette Porter (played by Jennifer Beals) is a Yale Graduate. Jennifer Beals is a Yale graduate in real life as well.

[edit] Points of interest

• Marsh Botanical Garden

[edit] See also

• The Game (college football)
• Town and gown
• List of colleges and universities
• Directed Studies
• Ivy League
• List of US colleges and universities by endowment including "endowment per student".
• Yale-Harvard Game Prank of 2004
• Yale College Wrexham
• Yale Club of New York City

[edit] External links and references

Official university sites Yale University Yale College, Undergraduate Admissions Yale Law School Yale School of Art Yale School of Music Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Yale School of Medicine Yale School of Public Health Yale School of Drama Yale Divinity School Yale School of Architecture Yale National Initiative Official Yale athletics site Yale Art Gallery Yale School of Management Yale Center for British Art Yale University Tercentennial 2001 Publications Yale Alumni Magazine Yale Daily News YaleGlobal Online Magazine Yale Herald Yale Law Journal Yale Literary Magazine Yale Politic Yale Record Yale Economic Review Yale Globalist 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 Yale Entrepreneurial Society Students for a Yale Cancer Center Asian American Students Alliance (AASA) Chinese American Students' Association (CASA) Yale Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) Federation of Hospital and University Employees, the unions at Yale Yale Alumni for Social Justice Yale Black Alumni Network

Yale in fiction and popular culture:

• Stover at Yale Online text
• Gill, Brendan (1975) Here at the New Yorker. Random House. 1997 reprint: Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80810-2. O'Hara desperately wanting to attend Yale, p. 117. Failure to get honorary Yale degree, p. 268.
• O'Hara, John (1966) "My Turn: Fifty-three Pieces by John O'Hara, Random House. (Newspaper columns; Yale "having a nice necktie").
• O'Hara, John: Gibbsville, Pa: the Classic Stories Carroll and Graf (2004), reprint collection. Introduction by George V. Higgins mentions O'Hara depositing MS at Yale, "foraging for honors," Kingman Brewster saying he didn't get them "because he asked."
• Yale Insider Blog
• Yale-Harvard Game Prank of 2004
• Bladderball: 30 years of zany antics, dangerous fun

[edit] Books on Yale

• Lyman H. Bagg, Four Years at Yale, New Haven, 1891.
• Walter Camp and L. S. Welch, Yale: Her Campus, Classrooms and Athletics, Boston, 1899.
• Arnold G. Dana, Yale Old and New, 78 vols. personal scrapbook, 1942.
• Clarence Deming, Yale Yesterdays, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1915.
• Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Yale: Yale College with Annals of the College History, 6 vols. New York, 1885-1912.
• Robert Dudley French, The Memorial Quadrangle, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
• Edgar S. Furniss, The Graduate School of Yale, New Haven, 1965.
• Toni Gilpin, Gary Isaac, Dan Letwin, and Jack McKivigan, On Strike For Respect, (updated edition: University of Illinois Press, 1995,)
• Reuben A. Holden, Yale: A Pictorial History, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967.
• William L. Kingsley, Yale College. A Sketch of its History, 2 vols. New York, 1879.
• Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985.
• Cary Nelson, ed. Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
• Edwin Oviatt, The Beginnings of Yale (1701-1726), New Haven, Yale University Press, 1916.
• George Wilson Pierson, Yale College, An Educational History (1871-1921), New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952.
• George Wilson Pierson, The Founding of Yale: The Legend of the Forty Folios, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988.
• Patrick L. Pinnell, The Campus Guide: Yale University, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999.
• Yale, The University College (1921-1937), New Haven, Yale University Press, 1955.
• Anson Phelps Stokes, Memorials of Eminent Yale Men, 2 vols. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1914.

[edit] Secret societies

• Robbins, Alexandra, Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power, Little Brown & Co., 2002; ISBN 0-316-73561-2 (paper edition).
• Millegan, Kris (ed.), Fleshing Out Skull & Bones, TrineDay, 2003. ISBN 0-9752906-0-6 (paper edition).

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 41.310611° -72.96054°
  • Satellite image from WikiMapia, Google Maps or Windows Live Local
  • Street map from MapQuest or Google Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image from TerraServer-USA

Central Campus (Winter) Aerial Photo from Google Maps

[edit] Other notes and references

1. ^ The Yale Endowment: Endowment Update 2006
2. ^ Yale Endowment Earns 22.9% In The Past Year. Yale University (2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-26.
3. ^ op. cit.
4. ^ "Yale's Tallest Tales" by Mark Alden Branch, Yale Alumni Magazine, March 1998.

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