Yale University is a
private research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...
in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the
third-oldest institution of
higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. It is a member of the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
.
Chartered by the
Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate
Congregational
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and
sacred language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacr ...
s, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first
PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research.
Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original
undergraduate college, the
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools. While the university is governed by the
Yale Corporation
The Yale Corporation, officially The President and Fellows of Yale College, is the governing body of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Assembly of corporation
The Corporation comprises 19 members:
* Three ex officio
An ''ex officio'' m ...
, each school's
faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in
downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in
West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
, and forests and nature preserves throughout
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
. ,
the university's endowment was valued at $42.3 billion, the
second largest of any educational institution.
The
Yale University Library
The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 mill ...
, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States.
Students compete in intercollegiate sports as the
Yale Bulldogs
The Yale Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in ...
in the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Division I –
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
.
, 65
Nobel laureates, five
Fields Medalists, four
Abel Prize laureates, and three
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in comput ...
winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many
notable alumni
Notability is the property
of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction. It also refers to the capacity to be such. Persons who are notable due to public responsibi ...
, including five
U.S. presidents, 10
Founding Fathers, 19
U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 31
living billionaires,
54
College founders and presidents, many
heads of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
,
cabinet members and
governors. Hundreds of
members of Congress
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
and many
U.S. diplomats,
78 MacArthur Fellows, 252
Rhodes Scholars, 123
Marshall Scholars
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
, 102
Guggenheim Fellows and nine
Mitchell Scholars have been affiliated with the university. Yale is a member of the
Big Three, along with
Harvard and
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
. Yale's current faculty include 67 members of the
National Academy of Sciences,
55 members of the
National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...
,
8 members of the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
,
and 187 members of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
.
The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of
doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League.
It also is a top 10 (ranked seventh), after normalization for the number of graduates, baccalaureate source of some of the most notable scientists (Nobel, Fields, Turing prizes, or membership in National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, or National Academy of Engineering).
History
Early history of Yale College
Origins
![Charter for Collegiate School later Yale College 1701](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Charter_for_Collegiate_School_later_Yale_College_1701.jpg)
Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School", a would-be charter passed during a meeting in New Haven by the General Court of the
Colony of Connecticut
The ''Connecticut Colony'' or ''Colony of Connecticut'', originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settl ...
on October 9, 1701. The Act was an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership for Connecticut. Soon after, a group of ten
Congregational
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
ministers,
Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather (nephew of
Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
), Rev. James Noyes II (son of
James Noyes
Rev. James Noyes (born 1608, Wiltshire, England – died 22 October 1656, Newbury, Massachusetts, Newbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony) was an English clergyman who emigrated to Massachusetts. He was a founder of Newbury, Massachusetts.
Biography
Ja ...
),
James Pierpont,
Abraham Pierson
Abraham Pierson (1646 – March 5, 1707) was an American Congregational minister who served as the first rector, from 1701 to 1707, and one of the founders of the Collegiate School — which later became Yale University.
Biography
He wa ...
,
Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, and
Timothy Woodbridge
Timothy Woodbridge (February 27, 1709 – May 10, 1774)Mitchell, p. 32. was an American missionary, deacon and schoolteacher, later a judge, representative, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, from Springfield, Massachusetts, who spent most ...
, all
alumni
Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for grou ...
of
Harvard, met in the study of Reverend
Samuel Russell, located in
Branford, Connecticut, to donate their books to form the school's library. The group, led by
James Pierpont, is now known as "The Founders".
![A Front View of Yale College and the College Chapel New Haven printed by Daniel Bowen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/A_Front_View_of_Yale_College_and_the_College_Chapel_New_Haven_printed_by_Daniel_Bowen.jpg)
Known from its origin as the "Collegiate School", the institution opened in the home of its first
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
,
Abraham Pierson
Abraham Pierson (1646 – March 5, 1707) was an American Congregational minister who served as the first rector, from 1701 to 1707, and one of the founders of the Collegiate School — which later became Yale University.
Biography
He wa ...
, who is today considered the first president of Yale. Pierson lived in
Killingworth
Killingworth, formerly Killingworth Township, is a town in North Tyneside, England.
Killingworth was built as a planned town in the 1960s, next to Killingworth Village, which existed for centuries before the Township. Other nearby towns an ...
(now
Clinton). The school moved to
Saybrook in 1703 when the first treasurer of Yale, Nathaniel Lynde, donated land and a building. In 1716, it moved to New Haven, Connecticut.
Meanwhile, there was a rift forming at Harvard between its sixth president,
Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
, and the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad in
Church polity
Ecclesiastical polity is the operational and governance structure of a church or of a Christian denomination. It also denotes the ministerial structure of a church and the authority relationships between churches. Polity relates closely to e ...
. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hope that it would maintain the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not. Rev.
Jason Haven Jason Haven (March 2, 1733 – May 17, 1803) was the longest serving minister of the First Church and Parish in Dedham.
Personal life
Haven was born on March 2, 1733, in Framingham, Massachusetts. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1754. Whil ...
, the minister at the
First Church and Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts had been considered for the presidency on account of his orthodox theology and for "Neatness dignity and purity of Style
hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
surpass those of all that have been mentioned," but was passed over due to his "very Valetudinary and infirm State of Health."
Naming and development
![Yale family chrest](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Yale_family_chrest.jpg)
In 1718, at the behest of either Rector
Samuel Andrew or the colony's Governor
Gurdon Saltonstall
Gurdon Saltonstall (27 March 1666 – 20 September 1724) was governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1708 to 1724. Born into a distinguished family, Saltonstall became an accomplished and eminent Connecticut pastor. A close associate of Gove ...
,
Cotton Mather contacted the successful Boston-born businessman
Elihu Yale
Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Although born in Boston, Massachusetts, he only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales and India ...
to ask him for financial help in constructing a new building for the college. Through the persuasion of
Jeremiah Dummer
Jeremiah Dummer (1681 – May 19, 1739) was an important colonial figure for New England in the early 18th century. His most significant contributions to American history were his ''A Defense of the New England Charters'' and his role in the for ...
, Yale, who had made a fortune in
Madras while working for the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
as the first president of
Fort St. George (largely through secret contracts with Madras merchants that were illegal under Company policy
), donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum of money at the time. Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to "Yale College." The
Welsh name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of the
Iâl
Ial or Yale ( cy, Iâl) was a commote of medieval Wales within the cantref of Maelor in the Kingdom of Powys. When the Kingdom was divided in 1160, Maelor became part of the Princely realm of Powys Fadog (Lower Powys or Madog's Powys), and belon ...
, which the family estate at Plas yn Iâl, near the village of
Llandegla
Llandegla or Llandegla-yn-Iâl is a village and community in the county of Denbighshire in Wales. In the 2011 census, the community had a population of 567.
Name
The village's name is Welsh for the "Parish of Saint Tecla", which honours th ...
, was called.
Meanwhile, a
Harvard graduate working in England convinced some 180 prominent intellectuals to donate books to Yale. The 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science, philosophy and theology at the time. It had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. Undergraduate
Jonathan Edwards discovered John Locke's works and developed his original theology known as the "new divinity." In 1722 the rector and six of his friends, who had a study group to discuss the new ideas, announced that they had given up Calvinism, become
Arminians
Arminianism is a branch of Protestantism based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the ''Rem ...
, and joined the Church of England. They were ordained in England and returned to the colonies as missionaries for the Anglican faith.
Thomas Clapp became president in 1745 and while he attempted to return the college to Calvinist orthodoxy, he did not close the library. Other students found Deist books in the library.
Curriculum
![Yale College diploma Nathaniel Chauncey 1702](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Yale_College_diploma_Nathaniel_Chauncey_1702.jpg)
Yale College undergraduates follow a
liberal arts
Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...
curriculum with departmental
majors and is organized into a social system of
residential colleges
A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship w ...
.
Yale was swept up by the great intellectual movements of the period—the
Great Awakening and the
Enlightenment—due to the religious and scientific interests of presidents
Thomas Clap
Thomas Clap or Thomas Clapp (June 26, 1703 – January 7, 1767) was an American academic and educator, a Congregational minister, and college administrator. He was both the fifth rector and the earliest official to be called "president" of Yale Co ...
and
Ezra Stiles. They were both instrumental in developing the scientific curriculum at Yale while dealing with wars, student tumults, graffiti, "irrelevance" of curricula, desperate need for endowment and disagreements with the
Connecticut legislature
The Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is a bicameral body composed of the 151-member House of Representatives and the 36-member Senate. It meets in the state capital, Hartford. Ther ...
.
Serious American students of theology and divinity, particularly in New England, regarded
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
as a
classical language
A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...
, along with Greek and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, and essential for the 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 schools), requiring all freshmen to study Hebrew (in contrast to Harvard, where only upperclassmen were required to study the language) and is responsible for the Hebrew phrase אורים ותמים (
Urim and Thummim
In the Hebrew Bible, the Urim ( he, ''ʾŪrīm'', "lights") and the Thummim ( he, ''Tummīm'', meaning uncertain, possibly "perfections") are elements of the ''hoshen'', the breastplate worn by the High Priest attached to the ephod. They are ...
) on the Yale seal. A 1746 graduate of Yale, Stiles came to the college with experience in education, having played an integral role in the founding of
Brown University, in addition to having been a minister. Stiles' greatest challenge occurred in July 1779 when British forces occupied New Haven and threatened to raze the college. However, Yale graduate
Edmund Fanning
Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific."
Life
Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning, from ne ...
, secretary to the British general in command of the occupation, intervened and the college was saved. In 1803, Fanning was granted an honorary degree
LL.D.
Legum Doctor (Latin: “teacher of the laws”) (LL.D.) or, in English, Doctor of Laws, is a doctorate-level academic degree in law or an honorary degree, depending on the jurisdiction. The double “L” in the abbreviation refers to the early ...
for his efforts.
Students
As the only college in Connecticut from 1701 to 1823, Yale educated the sons of the elite. Punishable offenses for students included
cardplaying, tavern-going, destruction of college property, and acts of disobedience to college authorities. During this period, Harvard was distinctive for the stability and maturity of its tutor corps, while Yale had youth and zeal on its side.
The emphasis on classics gave rise to a number of private student societies, open only by invitation, which arose primarily as forums for discussions of modern scholarship, literature and politics. The first such organizations were debating societies:
Crotonia in 1738,
Linonia
Linonia is a literary and debating society founded in 1753 at Yale University. It is the university's second-oldest secret society.
History
Linonia was founded on September 12, 1753, as Yale College's second literary and debating society, af ...
in 1753 and
Brothers in Unity
Brothers in Unity (formally, the Society of Brothers in Unity) is an undergraduate society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-century peak, the group di ...
in 1768. Linonia and Brothers in Unity continue to exist today with commemorations to them can be found with names given to campus structures, like Brothers in Unity Courtyard in Branford College.
19th century
![A View of the Buildings of Yale College at New Haven 1807](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/A_View_of_the_Buildings_of_Yale_College_at_New_Haven_1807.jpg)
The
Yale Report of 1828 {{citations, date=February 2014
The Yale Report of 1828 is a document written by the faculty of Yale College in staunch defense of the classical curriculum. The report maintained that because of Yale's primary object of graduating well-educated and ...
was a dogmatic defense of the Latin and Greek curriculum against critics who wanted more courses in modern languages, mathematics, and science. Unlike
higher education in Europe, there was no
national curriculum A national curriculum is a common programme of study in schools that is designed to ensure nationwide uniformity of content and standards in education. It is usually legislated by the national government, possibly in consultation with state or other ...
for colleges and universities in the United States. In the competition for students and financial support, college leaders strove to keep current with demands for innovation. At the same time, they realized that a significant portion of their students and prospective students demanded a classical background. The Yale report meant the classics would not be abandoned. During this period, all institutions experimented with changes in the curriculum, often resulting in a dual-track curriculum. In the decentralized environment of higher education in the United States, balancing change with tradition was a common challenge because it was difficult for an institution to be completely modern or completely classical. A group of professors at Yale and New Haven Congregationalist ministers articulated a conservative response to the changes brought about by the
Victorian culture
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardi ...
. They concentrated on developing a person possessed of religious values strong enough to sufficiently resist temptations from within, yet flexible enough to adjust to the '
isms' (
professionalism,
materialism,
individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
, and
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
) tempting him from without.
William Graham Sumner, professor from 1872 to 1909, taught in the emerging disciplines of economics and sociology to overflowing classrooms of students. Sumner bested President
Noah Porter, who disliked the social sciences and wanted Yale to lock into its traditions of classical education. Porter objected to Sumner's use of a textbook by
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...
that espoused agnostic materialism because it might harm students.
Until 1887, the legal name of the university was "The President and Fellows of Yale College, in New Haven." In 1887, under an act passed by the
Connecticut General Assembly, Yale was renamed to the present "Yale University."
Sports and debate
The Revolutionary War soldier
Nathan Hale (Yale 1773) was the archetype of the Yale ideal in the early 19th century: a manly yet aristocratic scholar, equally well-versed in knowledge and sports, and a patriot who "regretted" that he "had but one life to lose" for his country. Western painter
Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Stat ...
(Yale 1900) was an artist whose heroes gloried in the combat and tests of strength in the Wild West. The fictional, turn-of-the-20th-century Yale man
Frank Merriwell
Frank Merriwell is a fictional character appearing in a series of novels and short stories by Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The character appeared in over 300 dime novels between 1896 and 1930 (some between 1927 a ...
embodied this same heroic ideal without racial prejudice, and his fictional successor Frank Stover in the novel ''Stover at Yale'' (1911) questioned the business mentality that had become prevalent at the school. Increasingly the students turned to athletic stars as their heroes, especially since winning the big game became the goal of the student body, the alumni, and the team itself.
![Yale's four-oared crew team with 1876 Centennial Regatta trophy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Yale%27s_four-oared_crew_team_with_1876_Centennial_Regatta_trophy.jpg)
Along with
Harvard and
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
, Yale students rejected British concepts about '
amateurism' in sports and constructed athletic programs that were uniquely American, such as football. The
Harvard–Yale football rivalry
The Harvard–Yale football rivalry is renewed annually with The Game, an American college football match between the Harvard Crimson football team of Harvard University and the Yale Bulldogs football team of Yale University.
Though the winner d ...
began in 1875. Between 1892, when Harvard and Yale met in one of the first
intercollegiate debates, and in 1909 (the year of the first Triangular Debate of Harvard, Yale and Princeton) the rhetoric, symbolism, and metaphors used in athletics were used to frame these early debates. Debates were covered on front pages of
college newspaper
A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also repor ...
s and emphasized in
yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a type of a book published annually. One use is to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school. The term also refers to a book of statistics or facts published annually. A yearbook often ...
s, and team members even received the equivalent of
athletic letters for their jackets. There were also rallies to send off the debating teams to matches, but the debates never attained the broad appeal that athletics enjoyed. One reason may be that debates do not have a clear winner, as is the case in sports, and that scoring is subjective. In addition, with late 19th-century concerns about the impact of modern life on the human body, athletics offered hope that neither the individual nor the society was coming apart.
In 1909–10, football faced a crisis resulting from the failure of the previous reforms of 1905–06, which sought to solve the problem of serious injuries. There was a mood of alarm and mistrust, and, while the crisis was developing, the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton developed a project to reform the sport and forestall possible radical changes forced by government upon the sport. Presidents
Arthur Hadley of Yale,
A. Lawrence Lowell
Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933.
With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...
of Harvard, and
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
of Princeton worked to develop moderate reforms to reduce injuries. Their attempts, however, were reduced by rebellion against the rules committee and the formation of the
Intercollegiate Athletic Association. While the big three had attempted to operate independently of the majority, the changes pushed did reduce injuries.
Expansion
Starting with the addition of the
Yale School of Medicine in 1810, the college expanded gradually from then on, establishing the
Yale Divinity School
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...
in 1822,
Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...
in 1822, the
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1847, the now-defunct
Sheffield Scientific School
Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffiel ...
in 1847,
[Sheffield was originally named Yale Scientific School; it was renamed in 1861 after a major donation from Joseph E. Sheffield.] and the
Yale School of Fine Arts
The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...
in 1869. In 1887, under the presidency of
Timothy Dwight V
Timothy Dwight V (November 16, 1828 – May 26, 1916) was an American academic, educator, Congregational minister, and President of Yale University (1886–1898). During his years as the school's president, Yale's schools first organized as a uni ...
, Yale College was renamed to Yale University, and the former name was subsequently applied only to the
undergraduate college. The university would continue to expand greatly into the 20th and 21st century, adding the
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music (often abbreviated to YSM) is one of the 12 professional schools at Yale University. It offers three graduate degrees: Master of Music (MM), Master of Musical Arts (MMA), and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), as well as a join ...
in 1894, the
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Yale School of the Environment (YSE) is a professional school of Yale University. It was founded to train foresters, and now trains environmental leaders through four 2-year degree programs ( Master of Environmental Management, Master of Environm ...
in 1900, the
Yale School of Public Health in 1915, the
Yale School of Architecture in 1916, the
Yale School of Nursing
Yale School of Nursing (YSN) is the nursing school of Yale University, located in West Haven, Connecticut. It is among the top 20 graduate schools in the country, according to the latest rankings by U.S. News & World Report (2017). In addition to ...
1923, the
Yale School of Drama
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...
in 1955, the
Yale School of Management in 1976, and the Jackson School of Global Affairs which is planned to open in 2022.
The Sheffield Scientific School would also reorganize its relationship with the university to teach only undergraduate courses.
Expansion caused controversy about Yale's new roles.
Noah Porter, a moral philosopher, was president from 1871 to 1886. During an age of tremendous expansion in higher education, Porter resisted the rise of the new research university, claiming that an eager embrace of its ideals would corrupt undergraduate education. Many of Porter's contemporaries criticized his administration, and historians since have disparaged his leadership. Historian George Levesque argues Porter was not a simple-minded reactionary, uncritically committed to tradition, but a principled and selective conservative. Levesque continues, saying he did not endorse everything old or reject everything new; rather, he sought to apply long-established ethical and pedagogical principles to a rapidly changing culture. Levesque concludes, noting he may have misunderstood some of the challenges of his time, but he correctly anticipated the enduring tensions that have accompanied the emergence and growth of the modern university.
20th century
Medicine
![Woolsey Hall Memorial Hall University Dining Hall Yale University](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Woolsey_Hall_Memorial_Hall_University_Dining_Hall_Yale_University.jpg)
Milton Winternitz led the
Yale School of Medicine as its dean from 1920 to 1935. Dedicated to the new scientific medicine established in Germany, he was equally fervent about "social medicine" and the study of humans in their culture and environment. He established the "Yale System" of teaching, with few lectures and fewer exams, and strengthened the full-time faculty system; he also created the graduate-level Yale School of Nursing and the psychiatry department and built numerous new buildings. Progress toward his plans for an Institute of Human Relations, envisioned as a refuge where social scientists would collaborate with biological scientists in a holistic study of humankind, unfortunately, lasted for only a few years before the opposition of resentful anti-Semitic colleagues drove him to resign.
Faculty
![Rummell, Richard Yale University cropped](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Rummell%2C_Richard_Yale_University_cropped.jpg)
Before
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, most elite university faculties counted among their numbers few, if any, Jews, blacks, women, or other minorities; Yale was no exception. By 1980, this condition had been altered dramatically, as numerous members of those groups held faculty positions. Almost all members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—and some members of other faculties—teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.
Women
In 1793,
Lucinda Foote
Lucinda Foote is best known for attempting to study at Yale University, Yale College (now University) in 1783, some 186 years prior to women being admitted. Her name was later used by protesters supporting the admission of women to the University i ...
passed the entrance exams for Yale College, but was rejected by the president on the basis of her gender.
Women studied at Yale University as early as 1892, in graduate-level programs at the
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The first seven women to earn PhDs at Yale received their degrees in 1894:
Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Cornelia H. B. Rogers, Sara Bulkley Rogers,
Margaretta Palmer
Margaretta Palmer (1862–1924) was an American astronomer, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in astronomy.
She worked at the Yale University Observatory at a time when woman were frequently hired as assistant astronomers, but when most of ...
,
Mary Augusta Scott
Mary Augusta Scott (1851–1918) was a scholar and professor of English at Smith College. She was one of the first women to receive a PhD from Yale University, in 1894.
Biography
Scott was born in Dayton, Ohio, and received her master's degree at ...
, Laura Johnson Wylie, and
Charlotte Fitch Roberts
Charlotte Fitch Roberts (February 13, 1859 – December 5, 1917) was an American chemist best known for her work on stereochemistry.
Life
Roberts was born on February 13, 1859, in New York City to Horace Roberts and Mary Roberts (''née'' Hart).
...
. There is a portrait of these seven women in
Sterling Memorial Library
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revi ...
, painted by
Brenda Zlamany
Brenda Zlamany is an American artist best known for portraiture that combines Old Master technique with a postmodern conceptual approach.Schwabsky, Barry"Brenda Zlamany / E. M. Donahue Gallery,"''Artforum'', February 1993, p. 99–100. Retrie ...
.
In 1966, Yale began discussions with its
sister school Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
about merging to foster coeducation at the undergraduate level. Vassar, then all-female and part of the
Seven Sisters—elite higher education schools that historically served as sister institutions to the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
when most Ivy League institutions still only admitted men—tentatively accepted, but then declined the invitation. Both schools introduced coeducation independently in 1969. Amy Solomon was the first woman to register as a Yale undergraduate; she was also the first woman at Yale to join an undergraduate society,
St. Anthony Hall. The undergraduate class of 1973 was the first class to have women starting from freshman year; at the time, all undergraduate women were housed in Vanderbilt Hall at the south end of
Old Campus
The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Li ...
.
A decade into co-education, student assault and harassment by faculty became the impetus for the trailblazing lawsuit
Alexander v. Yale. In the late 1970s, a group of students and one faculty member sued Yale for its failure to curtail campus sexual harassment by especially male faculty. The case was partly built from a 1977 report authored by plaintiff
Ann Olivarius, now a feminist attorney known for fighting sexual harassment, "A report to the Yale Corporation from the Yale Undergraduate Women's Caucus." This case was the first to use
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
to argue and establish that the sexual harassment of female students can be considered illegal sex discrimination. The plaintiffs in the case were Olivarius, Ronni Alexander (now a professor at
Kobe University
, also known in the Kansai region as , is a leading Japanese national university located in the city of Kobe, in Hyōgo. It was established in 1949, but the academic origins of Kobe University trace back to the establishment of Kobe Higher Comme ...
, Japan), Margery Reifler (works in the Los Angeles film industry)
Pamela Price(civil rights attorney in California), and Lisa E. Stone (works at
Anti-Defamation League). They were joined by Yale classics professor John “Jack” J. Winkler, who died in 1990. The lawsuit, brought partly by
Catharine MacKinnon
Catharine Alice MacKinnon (born October 7, 1946) is an American radical feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she has been tenured since 1990, ...
, alleged rape, fondling, and offers of higher grades for sex by several Yale faculty, including
Keith Brion
Keith Brion is an American classical conductor and band leader.
Biography and career
Keith Brion studied music education at West Chester State University and piccolo with John C. Krell, then taught in New Jersey schools while studying for a ...
, professor of flute and director of bands, political Science professo
Raymond Duvall(now at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
), English professor
Michael Cooke, and coach of the field hockey team, Richard Kentwell. While unsuccessful in the courts, the legal reasoning behind the case changed the landscape of sex discrimination law and resulted in the establishment of Yale's Grievance Board and the Yale Women's Center. In March 2011 a
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
complaint was filed against Yale by students and recent graduates, including editors of Yale's feminist magazine
Broad Recognition, alleging that the university had a hostile sexual climate. In response, the university formed a Title IX steering committee to address complaints of sexual misconduct. Afterwards, universities and colleges throughout the US also established sexual harassment grievance procedures.
Class
Yale, like other Ivy League schools, instituted policies in the early 20th century designed to maintain the proportion of white Protestants from notable families in the student body (see ''
numerus clausus
''Numerus clausus'' ("closed number" in Latin) is one of many methods used to limit the number of students who may study at a university. In many cases, the goal of the ''numerus clausus'' is simply to limit the number of students to the maximum ...
''), and was one of the last of the Ivies to eliminate such preferences, beginning with the class of 1970.
21st century
In 2006, Yale and
Peking University (PKU) established a Joint Undergraduate Program in Beijing, an exchange program allowing Yale students to spend a semester living and studying with PKU honor students.
In July 2012, the Yale University-PKU Program ended due to weak participation.
In 2007 outgoing Yale President
Rick Levin characterized Yale's institutional priorities: "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."
In 2009, former
British Prime Minister
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
picked Yale as one location – the others being Britain's
Durham University and
Universiti Teknologi Mara
The MARA Technological University ( Malay: ''Universiti Teknologi MARA''; Jawi: اونيۏرسيتي تيكنولوڬي مارا; abbr. UiTM) is a public university based primarily in Shah Alam, Selangor. It was established to help rural Mala ...
– for the
Tony Blair Faith Foundation's United States Faith and Globalization Initiative. As of 2009, former Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was 61st president of Mexico from 1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from t ...
is the director of the
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, or YCSG, is a research center at Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 2001 in order to "enrich the debate about globalization on campus and to promote the flow of ideas be ...
and teaches an undergraduate seminar, "Debating Globalization". As of 2009, former presidential candidate and DNC chair
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 ...
teaches a residential college seminar, "Understanding Politics and Politicians". Also in 2009, an alliance was formed among Yale,
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
, and both schools' affiliated hospital complexes to conduct research focused on the direct improvement of patient care—a growing field known as translational medicine. President Richard Levin noted that Yale has hundreds of other partnerships across the world, but "no existing collaboration matches the scale of the new partnership with UCL".
In August 2013, a new partnership with the
National University of Singapore led to the opening of
Yale-NUS College
Yale-NUS College is a liberal arts college in Singapore. Established in 2011 as a collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore, it was the first liberal arts college in Singapore and one of the first few in Asia. ...
in Singapore, a joint effort to create a new liberal arts college in Asia featuring a curriculum including both Western and Asian traditions.
In 2017, having been suggested for decades, Yale University renamed Calhoun College, named for
slave owner
The following is a list of slave owners, for which there is a consensus of historical evidence of slave ownership, in alphabetical order by last name.
A
* Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inh ...
,
anti-abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
, and
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
Vice President
John C. Calhoun (it is now Hopper College, after
Grace Hopper
Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of compu ...
).
In 2020, in the wake of
protests around the world focused on racial relations and criminal justice reform, the #CancelYale tag was used on social media to demand that Elihu Yale's name be removed from Yale University. Most support for the change stemmed from politically conservative pundits, such as
Mike Cernovich
Michael Cernovich (born November 17, 1977) is an American right-wing social media personality, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. Though he initially called himself alt-right, he dissociated from the movement after Richard Spence ...
and
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
, satirizing perceived excesses of online
cancel culture. Yale was
president of Fort. St George in Madras, a fort of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
in India, which was one of the biggest corporation in the world at the time. The company traded textiles, goods, diamonds, cotton, spices, among others, and was involved in the slave trade in India, with a private army of 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of Britain.
His singularly large donation of paintings and books to the college led some critics to argue that Yale relied on money related to the slave-trade for its first scholarships and endowments.
In August 2020, the US
Justice Department sued Yale for alleged discrimination against Asian and white candidates on the basis of their race through affirmative action admission policies. In early February 2021, under the new Biden administration, the Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit. The group,
Students for Fair Admissions, known for a similar
lawsuit against Harvard alleging the same issue, plans to refile the lawsuit.
Yale alumni in politics
The ''
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' 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".
['']Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' November 17, 2002, Magazine, p. 6 Yale alumni were represented on the
Democratic or
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
ticket in every U.S. presidential election between 1972 and 2004. Yale-educated presidents since the end of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
include
Gerald Ford,
George H. W. Bush,
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
, and
George W. Bush, and major-party nominees during this period include
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
(2016),
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
(2004),
Joseph Lieberman (vice president, 2000), and
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family. Shriver was the driving force behind the creatio ...
(vice president, 1972). Other Yale alumni who have made serious bids for the presidency during this period include
Amy Klobuchar (2020),
Tom Steyer
Thomas Fahr Steyer (born June 27, 1957) is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, and liberal activist. Steyer is the co-founder and co-chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, founder and ...
(2020),
Ben Carson
Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon and politician who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. A pioneer in the field of neurosurgery, he ...
(2016),
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 ...
(2004),
Gary Hart (1984 and 1988),
Paul Tsongas (1992),
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, former presidential candidate, and former Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocates a conservative Christian ...
(1988) and
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...
(1976, 1980, 1992).
Several 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
William Sloane Coffin Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) was an American Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. In h ...
on many of the future candidates.
['']Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' October 4, 2000, p. E1 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
Alfred Whitney Griswold (October 27, 1906 – April 19, 1963) was an American historian and educator. He served as List of presidents of Yale University, 16th president of Yale University from 1951 to 1963, during which he built much of Yale's mo ...
and
Kingman Brewster
Kingman Brewster Jr. (June 17, 1919 – November 8, 1988) was an American educator, academic and diplomat. He served as the 17th President of Yale University and as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Early life
Brewster was born in ...
.
Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College and now president of
Duke University, stated: "We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions, and there is a very strong tradition of
volunteerism
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
at Yale."
Yale historian
Gaddis Smith
George Gaddis Smith (December 9, 1932 – December 2, 2022) was an American historian who was the Larned Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University and an expert on U.S. foreign relations and maritime history.
Biography
Born in Newark, New J ...
notes "an ethos of organized activity" at Yale during the 20th century that led John Kerry to lead the
Yale Political Union
The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and ...
's Liberal Party,
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki (; born June 24, 1945) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 53rd governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. An attorney by profession, Pataki was elected mayor of his hometown of Peekskill, New York, and went on ...
the Conservative Party, and Joseph Lieberman to manage the ''
Yale Daily News''.
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." CNN suggests that George W. Bush benefited from preferential admissions policies for the "son and grandson of alumni", and for a "member of a politically influential family". ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' correspondent
Elisabeth Bumiller
Elisabeth Bumiller (born May 15, 1956) is an American author and journalist who is the Washington bureau chief for ''The New York Times''.
Early life and education
Bumiller was born in Aalborg, Denmark, to a Danish mother, Gunhild Bumiller Rose ...
and ''
The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' 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.
During the 1988 presidential election,
George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) derided
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...
for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique". When challenged on the distinction between Dukakis' Harvard connection and his own Yale background, he said that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it" and said Yale did not share Harvard's reputation for "liberalism and elitism". In 2004
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 ...
stated, "In some ways, I consider myself separate from the other three (Yale) candidates of 2004. Yale changed so much between the class of '68 and the class of '71. My class was the first class to have women in it; it was the first class to have a significant effort to recruit African Americans. It was an extraordinary time, and in that span of time is the change of an entire generation".
Administration and organization
Leadership
The
President and Fellows of Yale College
The Yale Corporation, officially The President and Fellows of Yale College, is the governing body of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Assembly of corporation
The Corporation comprises 19 members:
* Three ex officio
An ''ex officio'' m ...
, also known as the Yale Corporation, or board of trustees, is the governing body of the university and consists of thirteen standing committees with separate responsibilities outlined in the by-laws. The corporation has 19 members: three
ex officio members, ten successor trustees, and six elected alumni fellows. The university has three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the twelve professional schools.
Yale's former president
Richard C. Levin was, at the time, one of the highest paid university presidents in the United States with a 2008 salary of $1.5 million. Yale's succeeding president Peter Salovey ranks 40th with a 2020 salary of $1.16 million.
The Yale Provost's Office and similar executive positions have launched several women into prominent university executive positions. In 1977, Provost
Hanna Holborn Gray
Hanna Holborn Gray (born October 25, 1930) is an American historian of Renaissance and Reformation political thought and Professor of History ''Emerita'' at the University of Chicago. She served as president of the University of Chicago, from 197 ...
was appointed interim president of Yale and later went on to become president of the University of Chicago, being the first woman to hold either position at each respective school. In 1994, Provost
Judith Rodin became the first permanent female president of an Ivy League institution at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
. In 2002, Provost
Alison Richard became the vice-chancellor of the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
. In 2003, the dean of the Divinity School,
Rebecca Chopp, was appointed president of
Colgate University and later went on to serve as the president of the
Swarthmore College in 2009, and then the first female chancellor of the
University of Denver
The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...
in 2014. In 2004, Provost
Dr. Susan Hockfield became the president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
. In 2004, Dean of the Nursing school, Catherine Gilliss, was appointed the dean of Duke University's School of Nursing and vice chancellor for nursing affairs. In 2007, Deputy Provost
H. Kim Bottomly
Helen Kim Bottomly is an immunologist and the former president of Wellesley College, serving from August 2007 to July 2016. Bottomly was the first scientist to become a president at Wellesley College. She has been a member of the American Academy ...
was named president of
Wellesley College.
Similar examples for men who have served in Yale leadership positions can also be found. In 2004, Dean of Yale College
Richard H. Brodhead was appointed as the president of
Duke University. In 2008, Provost
Andrew Hamilton was confirmed to be the vice chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Staff and labor unions
Yale University staff are represented by several different unions. Clerical and technical workers are represented by Local 34, and service and maintenance workers are represented by Local 35, both of the same union affiliate
UNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with roughly 300,000 active members. The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 by ...
.
Unlike similar institutions, Yale has consistently refused to recognize its graduate student union, Local 33 (another affiliate of UNITE HERE), citing claims that the union's elections were undemocratic and how graduate students are not employees; the move to not recognize the union has been criticized by the
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teacher's labor union in America (the largest being the National Education Association). The union was founded in Chicago. John Dewey and Margaret Haley were founders.
About 60 per ...
. In addition, officers of the Yale University Police Department are represented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association, which affiliated in 2005 with the Connecticut Organization for Public Safety Employees.
Yale security officers joined the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America in late 2010, even though the Yale administration contested the election. In October 2014, after deliberation, Yale security decided to form a new union, the Yale University Security Officers Association, which has since represented the campus security officers.
Yale has a history of difficult and prolonged labor negotiations, often culminating in strikes. There have been at least eight strikes since 1968, and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' wrote that Yale has a reputation as having the worst record of labor tension of any university in the U.S. Moreover, Yale has been accused by the
AFL–CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
of failing to treat workers with respect, as well as not renewing contracts with professors over involvement in campus labor issues. Yale has responded to strikes with claims over mediocre union participation and the benefits of their contracts.
Campus
![Yale Law School in the Sterling Law Building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Yale_Law_School_in_the_Sterling_Law_Building.jpg)
![BeineckeInterior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/BeineckeInterior.jpg)
Yale's central campus in
downtown New Haven covers and comprises its main, historic campus and a medical campus adjacent to the
Yale–New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Haven ...
. In western New Haven, the university holds of athletic facilities, including the
Yale Golf Course. In 2008, Yale purchased the 17-building, former
Bayer HealthCare complex in
West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
, Connecticut, the buildings of which are now used as laboratory and research space. Yale also owns seven forests in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire—the largest of which is the
Yale-Myers Forest
The Yale-Myers Forest is a 7,800-acre (32 km2) forest in Northeastern Connecticut owned by Yale University and administered by the Yale School of the Environment. Located in the towns of Union, Ashford, Eastford, and Woodstock, the forest ...
in Connecticut's
Quiet Corner
Northeastern Connecticut, better known as the Quiet Corner, is a historic region of the state of Connecticut, located in the northeastern corner of the state. It is generally associated with Windham County, but also sometimes incorporates east ...
—and nature preserves including
Horse Island.
Yale is noted for its largely
Collegiate Gothic campus as well as several iconic modern buildings commonly discussed in architectural history survey courses:
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whi ...
's Yale Art Gallery and Center for British Art,
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
's Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, and
Paul Rudolph's Art & Architecture Building. Yale also owns and has restored many noteworthy 19th-century mansions along
Hillhouse Avenue
Hillhouse Avenue is a street in New Haven, Connecticut, famous for its many nineteenth century mansions, including the president's house at Yale University. Both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain have described it as "the most beautiful street in Amer ...
, which was considered the most beautiful street in America by
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
when he visited the United States in the 1840s. In 2011,
Travel+Leisure listed the Yale campus as one of the most beautiful in the United States.
Many of Yale's buildings were constructed in the
Collegiate Gothic architecture style from 1917 to 1931, financed largely by
Edward S. Harkness, including the
Yale Drama School
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...
. Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings 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
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
s on the buildings depict contemporary scenes, like a 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, faux-aged these buildings by splashing the walls with acid, deliberately breaking their
leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, 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
Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edward ...
, tall, which was originally a free-standing stone structure. It was reinforced in 1964 to allow the installation of the
Yale Memorial Carillon.
![Vanderbilt Hall at Yale university](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Vanderbilt_Hall_at_Yale_university.jpg)
Other examples of the Gothic style are on the
Old Campus
The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Li ...
by architects like
Henry Austin,
Charles C. Haight
Charles Coolidge Haight (March 17, 1841 – February 9, 1917) was an American architect who practiced in New York City. He designed most of the buildings at Columbia College's now-demolished old campus on Madison Avenue, and designed numerou ...
and
Russell Sturgis
Russell Sturgis (; October 16, 1836 – February 11, 1909) was an American architect and art critic
of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870.
Sturgis was born in Baltimore Count ...
. Several are associated with members of the
Vanderbilt family, including Vanderbilt Hall, Phelps Hall,
St. Anthony Hall (a commission for member
Frederick William Vanderbilt
Frederick William Vanderbilt (February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938) was a member of the American Vanderbilt family. He was a director of the New York Central Railroad for 61 years, and also a director of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and o ...
), the Mason, Sloane and Osborn laboratories, dormitories for the
Sheffield Scientific School
Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffiel ...
(the engineering and sciences school at Yale until 1956) and elements of
Silliman College
Silliman College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, named for scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. It opened in September 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges, and contains bu ...
, the largest residential college.
The oldest building on campus,
Connecticut Hall
Connecticut Hall (formerly South Middle College) is a Georgian building on the Old Campus of Yale University. Completed in 1752, it was originally a student dormitory, a function it retained for 200 years. Part of the first floor became home to t ...
(built in 1750), is in the
Georgian style
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Geor ...
. Georgian-style buildings erected from 1929 to 1933 include
Timothy Dwight College
Timothy Dwight College, commonly abbreviated and referred to as "TD", is a residential college at Yale University named after two presidents of Yale, Timothy Dwight IV and his grandson, Timothy Dwight V. The college was designed in 1935 by James ...
,
Pierson College
Pierson College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1933, it is named for Abraham Pierson, a founder and the first rector of the Collegiate School, the college later known as Yale. With just under 50 ...
, and
Davenport College
Davenport College (colloquially referred to as D'port) is one of the fourteen residential colleges of Yale University. Its buildings were completed in 1933 mainly in the Georgian style but with a gothic façade along York Street. The college wa ...
, except the latter's east, York Street façade, which was constructed in the
Gothic style
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
** Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken ...
to coordinate with adjacent structures.
The
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...
, designed by
Gordon Bunshaft
Gordon Bunshaft, (May 9, 1909 – August 6, 1990), was an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century. A partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Bunshaft joined the firm in 1937 and remained with ...
of
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is one of the largest buildings in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. The library includes a six-story above-ground tower of book stacks, filled with 180,000 volumes, that is surrounded by large translucent Vermont marble panels and a steel and granite truss. The panels act as windows and subdue direct sunlight while also diffusing the light in warm hues throughout the interior. Near the library is a sunken courtyard, with sculptures by Isamu Noguchi that are said to represent time (the pyramid), the sun (the circle), and chance (the cube). The library is located near the center of the university in
Hewitt Quadrangle
Hewitt University Quadrangle, commonly known as Beinecke Plaza, is a plaza at the center of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the home of the university's administration, main auditorium, and dining facilities. The quadr ...
, which is now more commonly referred to as "
Beinecke Plaza
Hewitt University Quadrangle, commonly known as Beinecke Plaza, is a plaza at the center of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the home of the university's administration, main auditorium, and dining facilities. The qu ...
."
Alumnus
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the
Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources consider ...
in St. Louis,
Washington Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fa ...
main terminal,
Bell Labs Holmdel Complex
The Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, in Holmdel Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, functioned for 44 years as a research and development facility, initially for the Bell System and later Bell Labs. The centerpiece of the campus i ...
and the
CBS Building in Manhattan, designed
Ingalls Rink
David S. Ingalls Rink is a hockey rink in New Haven, Connecticut, designed by architect Eero Saarinen and built between 1953 and 1958 for Yale University. It is commonly referred to as The Whale, due to its shape. The building was constructed fo ...
, dedicated in 1959, as well as the residential colleges Ezra Stiles and Morse. These latter were modeled after the medieval Italian hill town of
San Gimignano – a prototype chosen for the town's pedestrian-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.
Notable nonresidential campus buildings
![Harkness Tower in autumn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Harkness_Tower_in_autumn.jpg)
Notable nonresidential campus buildings and landmarks include
Battell Chapel,
Beinecke Rare Book Library,
Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edward ...
,
Ingalls Rink
David S. Ingalls Rink is a hockey rink in New Haven, Connecticut, designed by architect Eero Saarinen and built between 1953 and 1958 for Yale University. It is commonly referred to as The Whale, due to its shape. The building was constructed fo ...
, Kline Biology Tower,
Osborne Memorial Laboratories {{Coord, 41.3162, -72.9235, display=title
The Osborn Memorial Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut were built in 1913 as the home for biology at Yale University. In the past, they contained both zoology and botany, in the two wings on Sachem S ...
,
Payne Whitney Gymnasium
The Payne Whitney Gymnasium is the gymnasium of Yale University. One of the largest athletic facilities ever built, its twelve acres of interior space include a nine-story tower containing a third-floor swimming pool, fencing facilities, and a pol ...
,
Peabody Museum of Natural History
The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Oth ...
, Sterling Hall of Medicine,
Sterling Law Buildings,
Sterling Memorial Library
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revi ...
,
Woolsey Hall,
Yale Center for British Art
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
,
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
,
Yale Art & Architecture Building, and the
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art is a scholarly centre in London devoted to supporting original research into the history of British Art. It was founded in 1970 and endowed by a gift from Paul Mellon. Since 1996, it has been s ...
in London.
Yale's secret society buildings (some of which are called "tombs") were built both to be private yet unmistakable. A diversity of architectural styles is represented:
Berzelius,
Donn Barber in an austere cube with classical detailing (erected in 1908 or 1910);
Book and Snake
The Society of Book and Snake (incorporated as the Stone Trust Corporation) is the fourth oldest secret society at Yale University and was the first society to induct women into its delegation. Book and Snake was founded at the Sheffield Scientif ...
, Louis R. Metcalfe in a
Greek Ionic
The Ionic order is one of the three canonic classical order, orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric order, Doric and the Corinthian order, Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan order, Tuscan (a plainer Doric ...
style (erected in 1901);
Elihu, architect unknown but built in a
Colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
style (constructed on an early 17th-century foundation although the building is from the 18th century);
Mace and Chain
Mace and Chain is an "Ancient Eight" society, or one of the eight landed secret societies, at Yale University. It was founded in 1956 with the mission of providing fifteen rising seniors with the traditional senior society experience in a freer, m ...
, in a late colonial, early
Victorian style (built in 1823). (Interior moulding is said to have belonged to
Benedict Arnold);
Manuscript Society
Manuscript Society is a senior society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Toward the end of each academic year 16 rising seniors are inducted into the society, which meets twice weekly for dinner and discussion. Manuscript is reputedly ...
,
King-lui Wu
King-lui Wu (1918 – August 15, 2002) was a Chinese-American architect and professor at Yale University from 1945 to 1988.
Life and work
King-lui Wu was born in Guangzhou (Canton), China in 1918. Wu's father was a businessman, but despising ...
with
Dan Kiley
Daniel Urban Kiley (2 September 1912 – 21 February 2004) was an American landscape architect, who worked in the style of modern architecture. Kiley designed over one-thousand landscape projects including Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis ...
responsible for landscaping and
Josef Albers
Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...
for the brickwork intaglio mural. Building constructed in a
mid-century modern style;
Scroll and Key,
Richard Morris Hunt in a Moorish- or Islamic-inspired
Beaux-Arts style (erected 1869–70);
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...
, possibly
Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892), was an American architect, known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style.
Education
Davis was born in New York City and studied at ...
or
Henry Austin in an
Egypto-Doric style utilizing
Brownstone (in 1856 the first wing was completed, in 1903 the second wing, 1911 the
Neo-Gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
towers in rear garden were completed);
St. Elmo, (former tomb)
Kenneth M. Murchison, 1912, designs inspired by Elizabethan manor. Current location, brick colonial; and
Wolf's Head,
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (April 28, 1869 – April 23, 1924) was an American architect celebrated for his work in Gothic Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival design. He also designed notable typefaces, including Cheltenham and Merrymount for ...
, erected 1923–1924, Collegiate Gothic.
Sustainability
Yale's Office of Sustainability develops and implements sustainability practices at Yale.
Yale is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. As part of this commitment, the university allocates renewable energy credits to offset some of the energy used by residential colleges.
Eleven campus buildings are candidates for LEED design and certification.
Yale Sustainable Food Project initiated the introduction of local, organic vegetables, fruits, and beef to all residential college dining halls.
Yale was listed as a Campus Sustainability Leader on the Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card 2008, and received a "B+" grade overall.
*
Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven
Grove Street Cemetery or Grove Street Burial Ground is a cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, that is surrounded by the Yale University campus. It was organized in 1796 as the New Haven Burying Ground and incorporated in October 1797 to replace the ...
*
Marsh Botanical Garden
*
Yale Sustainable Food Program Farm
Relationship with New Haven
Yale is the largest taxpayer and employer in the City of
New Haven
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
, and has often buoyed the city's economy and communities. Yale, however, has consistently opposed paying a tax on its academic property. Yale's
Art Galleries
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...
, along with many other university resources, are free and openly accessible. Yale also funds the
New Haven Promise program, paying full tuition for eligible students from New Haven public schools.
Town–gown relations
Yale has a complicated relationship with its home city; for example, thousands of students volunteer every year in myriad community organizations, but city officials, who decry Yale's exemption from local property taxes, have long pressed the university to do more to help. Under President Levin, Yale has financially supported many of New Haven's efforts to reinvigorate the city. Evidence suggests that the
town and gown
Town and gown are two distinct communities of a university town; 'town' being the non-academic population and 'gown' metonymically being the university community, especially in ancient seats of learning such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, and St ...
relationships are mutually beneficial. Still, the economic power of the university increased dramatically with its financial success amid a decline in the local economy.
Campus safety
Several campus safety strategies have been pioneered at Yale. The first campus police force was founded at Yale in 1894, when the university contracted city police officers to exclusively cover the campus. Later hired by the university, the officers were originally brought in to quell unrest between students and city residents and curb destructive student behavior. In addition to the Yale Police Department, a variety of safety services are available including blue phones, a
safety escort
A safety escort service, security escort service, or simply escort service is a service provided on and around many college and university campuses to help ensure the safety of students and staff. The escort may be provided by campus police staff o ...
, and 24-hour shuttle service.
In the 1970s and 1980s,
poverty and
violent crime
A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objecti ...
rose in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts. Between 1990 and 2006, New Haven's crime rate fell by half, helped by a
community policing strategy by the
New Haven Police and Yale's campus became the safest among the Ivy League and other peer schools.
In 2004, the national non-profit watchdog group Security on Campus filed a complaint with the
U.S. Department of Education, accusing Yale of under-reporting rape and sexual assaults.
In April 2021, Yale announced that it will require students to receive a
COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of being on campus during the fall 2021 term.
Academics
Admissions
Undergraduate admission to Yale College is considered "most selective" by ''
U.S. News
''U.S. News & World Report'' (USNWR) is an American media company that publishes news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. It was launched in 1948 as the merger of domestic-focused weekly newspaper ''U.S. News'' and international-focused ...
''.
In 2022, Yale accepted 2,234 students to the Class of 2026 out of 50,015 applicants, for an acceptance rate of 4.46%. 98% of students graduate within six years.
Through its program of need-based financial aid, Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants. 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 need-based aid grant for the Class of 2017 was $46,395.
15% of Yale College students are expected to have no parental contribution, and about 50% receive some form of financial aid.
About 16% of the Class of 2013 had some form of student loan debt at graduation, with an average debt of $13,000 among borrowers.
For 2019, Yale ranked second in enrollment of recipients of the
National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (140 scholars).
Half of all Yale undergraduates are women, more than 39% are
ethnic minority U.S. citizens (19% are underrepresented minorities), and 10.5% are
international student
International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying.
In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...
s.
55% attended public schools and 45% attended private, religious, or international schools, and 97% of students were in the top 10% of their high school class.
Every year, Yale College also admits a small group of
non-traditional student
A nontraditional student is a term originating in North America, that refers to a category of students at colleges and universities.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) notes that there are varying definitions of nontraditional s ...
s through the Eli Whitney Students Program.
Collections
Yale University Library
The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 mill ...
, which holds over 15 million volumes, is the third-largest university collection in the United States.
The main library,
Sterling Memorial Library
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revi ...
, contains about 4 million volumes, and other holdings are dispersed at subject and location libraries.
Rare books are found in several Yale collections. The
Beinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. The
Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
The Harvey Cushing and John Hay Whitney Medical Library is the central library of the Yale School of Medicine, Yale School of Nursing, and Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.
History
The Library was built in 1941 as a Y-shape ...
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. The
Elizabethan Club
The Elizabethan Club is a social club at Yale University named for Queen Elizabeth I and her era. Its profile and members tend toward a literary disposition, and conversation is one of the Club's chief purposes.
The Elizabethan Club's collectio ...
, technically a private organization, makes its Elizabethan folios and first editions available to qualified researchers through Yale.
Yale's museum collections are also of international stature. The
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
, the country's first university-affiliated art museum, contains more than 200,000 works, including Old Masters and important collections of modern art, in the Swartwout and Kahn buildings. The latter,
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whi ...
's first large-scale American work (1953), was renovated and reopened in December 2006. The
Yale Center for British Art
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
, the largest collection of British art outside of the UK, grew from a gift of
Paul Mellon and is housed in another Kahn-designed building.
The
Peabody Museum of Natural History
The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Oth ...
in New Haven is used by school children and contains research collections in anthropology, archaeology, and the natural environment. The
Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments
The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, a division of the Yale School of Music, is a museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1900 by a gift of historic keyboard instruments from Morris Steinert, and later enriched in 1960 and 1 ...
, affiliated with the Yale School of Music, is perhaps the least-known of Yale's collections because its hours of opening are restricted.
The museums once housed the artifacts brought to the United States from
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = National seal
, national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
by Yale history professor
Hiram Bingham in his Yale-financed expedition to
Machu Picchu in 1912 – when the removal of such artifacts was legal. The artifacts were restored to Peru in 2012.
Rankings
The ''
U.S. News & World Report'' ranked Yale third among U.S. national universities for 2016,
as it had for each of the previous sixteen years. Yale University is
accredited
Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...
by the
New England Commission of Higher Education
The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evaluation and accreditation of public and private universities and colleges in the United States and other ...
.
Internationally, Yale was ranked 11th in the 2016
Academic Ranking of World Universities, tenth in the 2016–17 Nature Index for quality of scientific research output, and tenth in the 2016 CWUR World University Rankings. The university was also ranked sixth in the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Rankings and eighth in the Academic World Reputation Rankings. In 2019, it ranked 27th among the universities around the world by ''
SCImago Institutions Rankings
The SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) since 2009 has published its international ranking of worldwide research institutions, the SIR World Report. The SIR World Report is the work of the SCImago Research Group,[Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States ( ...]
(AAU) and is
classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, Yale spent $990 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 15th in the nation.
Yale's current faculty include 67 members of the
National Academy of Sciences,
55 members of the
National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...
,
8 members of the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
,
and 187 members of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
.
The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of
doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League.
It also is a top 10 (ranked seventh) baccalaureate source (after normalization for the number of graduates) of some of the most notable scientists (
Nobel,
Fields
Fields may refer to:
Music
* Fields (band), an indie rock band formed in 2006
* Fields (progressive rock band), a progressive rock band formed in 1971
* ''Fields'' (album), an LP by Swedish-based indie rock band Junip (2010)
* "Fields", a song b ...
,
Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical co ...
prizes, or membership in
National Academy of Sciences,
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
, or
National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...
).
Yale's English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the
New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics,
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...
,
W.K. Wimsatt, and
Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks ( ; October 16, 1906 – May 10, 1994) was an American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-20th century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher ...
were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American
deconstruction.
Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the department of comparative literature from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called "
Yale School". These included
Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French,
J. Hillis Miller,
Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...
(English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians
C. Vann Woodward and
David Brion Davis
David Brion Davis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019) was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, ...
are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of
southern historians; likewise,
David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale's Music School and department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The ''Journal of Music Theory'' was founded there in 1957;
Allen Forte Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to:
Buildings
* Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee
* Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas
* Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Univ ...
and
David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.
Since the late 1960s, Yale produces social sciences and policy research through its
Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS).
In addition to eminent faculty members, Yale research relies heavily on the presence of roughly 1200
Postdocs from various national and international origin working in the multiple laboratories in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professional schools of the university. The university progressively recognized this working force with the recent creation of the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs and the
Yale Postdoctoral Association
The Yale Postdoctoral Association (YPA) is an association composed of postdocs from all disciplines working at the Yale University. The goal of this association is to create a sense of community among postdocs, as well as to improve their experien ...
.
Campus life
Yale is a research university, with the majority of its students in the
graduate and
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...
schools.
Undergraduates, or
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
students, come from a variety of ethnic, national, socioeconomic, and personal backgrounds. Of the 2010–2011 freshman class, 10% are non‑U.S. citizens, while 54% went to public high schools. The median family income of Yale students is $192,600, with 57% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 16% from the bottom 60%.
Residential colleges
Yale's
residential college
A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship wi ...
system was established in 1933 by
Edward S. Harkness, who admired the social intimacy of Oxford and Cambridge and donated significant funds to found similar
colleges at Yale and Harvard. Though Yale's colleges resemble their English precursors organizationally and architecturally, they are
dependent entities of Yale College and have limited autonomy. The colleges are led by a head and an academic dean, who reside in the college, and university faculty and affiliates constitute each college's fellowship. Colleges offer their own seminars, social events, and speaking engagements known as "Master's Teas," but do not contain programs of study or academic departments. All other undergraduate courses are taught by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are open to members of any college.
All undergraduates are members of a college, to which they are assigned before their freshman year, and 85 percent live in the college quadrangle or a college-affiliated dormitory. While the majority of upperclassman live in the colleges, most on-campus freshmen live on the
Old Campus
The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Li ...
, the university's oldest precinct.
While Harkness' original colleges were
Georgian Revival
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover— George I, George II, Ge ...
or
Collegiate Gothic in style, two colleges constructed in the 1960s,
Morse and
Ezra Stiles Colleges, have modernist designs. All twelve college quadrangles are organized around a courtyard, and each has a dining hall, courtyard, library, common room, and a range of student facilities. The twelve colleges are named for important alumni or significant places in university history. In 2017, the university opened two new colleges near
Science Hill.
File:Jonathan Edwards Courtyard.jpg, Jonathan Edwards College
Jonathan Edwards College (informally JE) is a residential college at Yale University. It is named for theologian and minister Jonathan Edwards, a 1720 graduate of Yale College. JE's residential quadrangle was the first to be completed in Yale's ...
courtyard
File:Branford Court spring 2.JPG, Branford College
Branford College is one of the 14 residential colleges at Yale University.
Founding
Branford College was founded in 1933 by partitioning the Memorial Quadrangle (built in 1917-21) into two parts: Saybrook and Branford. According to Robert Frost ...
courtyard
File:Saybrook College Courtyard.jpg, Saybrook College
Saybrook College is one of the 14 residential colleges at Yale University. It was founded in 1933 by partitioning the Memorial Quadrangle into two parts: Saybrook and Branford.
Unlike many of Yale's residential colleges that are centered on one ...
's Killingworth Courtyard
File:Hopper College Courtyard.jpg, Hopper College courtyard
File:Berkeley College (South) at Yale.jpg, Berkeley College
Berkeley College is a private for-profit college with campuses in New York, New Jersey, and online. It was founded in 1931 and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificate programs. Berkeley College is accredited by the Middle ...
buildings
File:Trumbull College Courtyard.jpg, Trumbull College
Trumbull College is one of fourteen undergraduate residential colleges of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The college is named for Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784 and advisor and friend to General George Wash ...
courtyard
File:Davenport College Courtyard.jpg, Davenport College
Davenport College (colloquially referred to as D'port) is one of the fourteen residential colleges of Yale University. Its buildings were completed in 1933 mainly in the Georgian style but with a gothic façade along York Street. The college wa ...
courtyard
File:Pierson College Courtyard Yale.jpg, Pierson College
Pierson College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1933, it is named for Abraham Pierson, a founder and the first rector of the Collegiate School, the college later known as Yale. With just under 50 ...
courtyard
File:Silliman College Courtyard Yale.jpg, Silliman College
Silliman College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, named for scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. It opened in September 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges, and contains bu ...
courtyard
File:Timothy Dwight College courtyard.jpg, Timothy Dwight College
Timothy Dwight College, commonly abbreviated and referred to as "TD", is a residential college at Yale University named after two presidents of Yale, Timothy Dwight IV and his grandson, Timothy Dwight V. The college was designed in 1935 by James ...
courtyard
File:Morse College Courtyard.jpg, Morse College courtyard
File:Ezra Stiles Courtyard.jpg, Ezra Stiles College
Ezra Stiles College is one of the fourteen residential colleges at Yale University, built in 1961 and designed by Eero Saarinen. It is often simply called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master Traugott Lawler to preserve the us ...
courtyard
File:Benjamin Franklin College Yale.jpg, Benjamin Franklin College courtyard
File:Pauli Murray College Yale.jpg, Pauli Murray College courtyard
Calhoun College
Since the 1960s,
John C. Calhoun's
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
beliefs and pro-slavery leadership
had prompted calls to rename the college or remove its tributes to Calhoun. The racially motivated
church shooting in
Charleston, South Carolina, led to renewed calls in the summer of 2015 for
Calhoun College
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was the 7th vice president of the United States.
Calhoun can also refer to:
Surname
* Calhoun (surname)
Inhabited places in the United States
*Calhoun, Georgia
* Calhoun, Illinois
*Calhoun, Kansas
*Calhoun, Kentucky ...
, one of 12 residential colleges, to be renamed. In July 2015 students signed a petition calling for the name change.
They argued in the petition that—while Calhoun was respected in the 19th century as an "extraordinary American statesman"—he was "one of the most prolific defenders of slavery and white supremacy" in the history of the United States.
In August 2015, Yale President Peter Salovey addressed the Freshman Class of 2019 in which he responded to the racial tensions but explained why the college would not be renamed.
He described Calhoun as "a notable political theorist, a vice president to two different U.S. presidents, a secretary of war and of state, and a congressman and senator representing South Carolina".
He acknowledged that Calhoun also "believed that the highest forms of civilization depend on involuntary servitude. Not only that, but he also believed that the races he thought to be inferior, black people in particular, ought to be subjected to it for the sake of their own best interests."
Student activism about this issue increased in the fall of 2015, and included further protests sparked by controversy surrounding an administrator's comments on the potential positive and negative implications of students who wear
Halloween costumes that are
culturally sensitive
Cultural sensitivity, also referred to as cross-cultural sensitivity or cultural awareness, is the knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of other cultures and others' cultural identities. It is related to cultural competence (the skills needed fo ...
. Campus-wide discussions expanded to include critical discussion of the experiences of women of color on campus, and the realities of racism in undergraduate life. The protests were sensationalized by the media and led to the labelling of some students as being members of
Generation Snowflake.
In April 2016, Salovey announced that "despite decades of vigorous alumni and student protests," Calhoun's name will remain on the Yale residential college
explaining that it is preferable for Yale students to live in Calhoun's "shadow" so they will be "better prepared to rise to the challenges of the present and the future". He claimed that if they removed Calhoun's name, it would "obscure" his "legacy of slavery rather than addressing it".
"Yale is part of that history" and "We cannot erase American history, but we can confront it, teach it and learn from it." One change that will be issued is the title of "master" for faculty members who serve as residential college leaders will be renamed to "head of college" due to its connotation of slavery.
Despite this apparently conclusive reasoning, Salovey announced that Calhoun College would be renamed for groundbreaking computer scientist
Grace Murray Hopper in February 2017. This renaming decision received a range of responses from Yale students and alumni.
Student organizations
In 2014, Yale had 385 registered student organizations, plus an additional one hundred groups in the process of registration.
The university hosts a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. The
Yale Literary Magazine
The ''Yale Literary Magazine'', founded in 1836, is the oldest student literary magazine in the United States and publishes poetry, fiction, and visual art by Yale undergraduates twice per academic year. Notable alumni featured in the magazine whi ...
, founded in February 1836, is the oldest student literary magazine in the United States. Established in 1872, ''
The Yale Record
''The Yale Record'' is the campus humor magazine of Yale University. Founded in 1872, it became the oldest humor magazine in the world when ''Punch'' folded in 2002."History", The Yale Record, March 10, 2010. http://www.yalerecord.com/about/histo ...
'' is the world's oldest
humor magazine. Newspapers include the ''
Yale Daily News'', which was first published in 1878, and the weekly ''
Yale Herald
''The Yale Herald'' is a newspaper run by undergraduate students at Yale University since 1986. A weekly, the paper aims to provide in-depth, investigative reporting, and includes personal essays, interviews, opinion pieces, culture articles, revi ...
'', which was first published in 1986. The ''Yale Journal of Medicine & Law'' is a biannual magazine that explores the intersection of
law and medicine.
Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 70 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services. The
Yale Dramatic Association
The Yale Dramatic Association, also known as the "Yale Dramat," is the third oldest college theater company in the United States. Founded in 1901 by undergraduates at Yale University, the Dramat has been producing student theatre in the United ...
and Bulldog Productions cater to the theater and film communities, respectively. In addition, the Yale Drama Coalition serves to coordinate between and provide resources for the various Sudler Fund sponsored theater productions which run each weekend. WYBC Yale Radio is the campus's radio station, owned and operated by students. While students used to broadcast on AM and FM frequencies, they now have an Internet-only stream.
The
Yale College Council
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
(YCC) serves as the campus's undergraduate student government. All registered student organizations are regulated and funded by a subsidiary organization of the YCC, known as the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee (UOFC).
The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) serves as Yale's graduate and professional student government.
The Yale Political Union
The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and ...
(YPU) is a debate society founded in 1934 to host student discussions on a wide variety of topics. It is advised by alumni political leaders such as
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
and
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki (; born June 24, 1945) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 53rd governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. An attorney by profession, Pataki was elected mayor of his hometown of Peekskill, New York, and went on ...
.
The
Yale International Relations Association
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
(YIRA) functions as the umbrella organization for the university's top-ranked Model UN team. YIRA also has a Europe-based offshoot,
Yale Model Government Europe
Yale Model Government Europe (YMGE) is a constituent program of the Yale International Relations Association (YIRA) at Yale University. Founded in 2010 under the auspices of the Yale University#Student organizations, YIRA Independent Initiatives ...
, other Model UN conferences such as YMUN, YMUN Korea, YMUN Taiwan and Yale Model African Union (YMAU), and educational programs such as the Yale Review of International Studies (YRIS), Yale International Relations Leadership Institute, and Hemispheres.
The campus includes several
fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are social organizations at colleges and universities in North America.
Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student, but continues thereafter for life. Some accept gradu ...
. The campus features at least 18
a cappella groups, the most famous of which is
The Whiffenpoofs
The Yale Whiffenpoofs is a collegiate a cappella singing group. Established at Yale University in 1909, it is the oldest such group in the United States. The line-up is completely replaced each year: the group is always composed of rising senio ...
, which from its founding in 1909 until 2018 was made up solely of senior men.
Yale's
secret societies
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
include Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...
,
Scroll and Key,
Wolf's Head,
Book and Snake
The Society of Book and Snake (incorporated as the Stone Trust Corporation) is the fourth oldest secret society at Yale University and was the first society to induct women into its delegation. Book and Snake was founded at the Sheffield Scientif ...
,
Elihu,
Berzelius,
St. Elmo,
Manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
,
Brothers in Unity
Brothers in Unity (formally, the Society of Brothers in Unity) is an undergraduate society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-century peak, the group di ...
,
Linonia
Linonia is a literary and debating society founded in 1753 at Yale University. It is the university's second-oldest secret society.
History
Linonia was founded on September 12, 1753, as Yale College's second literary and debating society, af ...
,
St. Anthony Hall,
Shabtai,
Myth and Sword
Established in 1908, The Order of Myth and Sword is the last secret society founded in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The organisation was first formed as "Vernon Hall", a three-year society bearing th ...
, Daughters of Sovereign Government (DSG),
Mace and Chain
Mace and Chain is an "Ancient Eight" society, or one of the eight landed secret societies, at Yale University. It was founded in 1956 with the mission of providing fifteen rising seniors with the traditional senior society experience in a freer, m ...
, ISO, and
, among others. The two oldest existing honor societies are the
Aurelian (1910) and the Torch Honor Society (1916).
The
Elizabethan Club
The Elizabethan Club is a social club at Yale University named for Queen Elizabeth I and her era. Its profile and members tend toward a literary disposition, and conversation is one of the Club's chief purposes.
The Elizabethan Club's collectio ...
, a social club, has a membership of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff with literary or artistic interests. Membership is by invitation. Members and their guests may enter the "Lizzie's" premises for conversation and tea. The club owns first editions of a Shakespeare Folio, several Shakespeare Quartos, and a first edition of Milton's ''
Paradise Lost'', among other important literary texts.
Traditions
Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "
bright college years
"Bright College Years" is one of the traditional songs of Yale University, and the university's unofficial but undisputed alma mater. It was written in 1881 by Henry Durand and set to the tune of "Die Wacht am Rhein".
In some old songbooks and ...
," though in recent history the pipes have been replaced with "bubble pipes". ("Bright College Years," the university's alma mater, was penned in 1881 by
Henry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune of ''
Die Wacht am Rhein
"" (, ''The Watch on the Rhine'') is a German patriotic anthem. The song's origins are rooted in the historical French–German enmity, and it was particularly popular in Germany during the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War. The origi ...
''.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of
Theodore Dwight Woolsey
Theodore Dwight Woolsey (31 October 1801 – 1 July 1889) was an American academic, author and President of Yale College from 1846 through 1871.
Biography
Theodore Dwight Woolsey was born 31 October 1801 in New York City. His mother was Elizabe ...
on Old Campus; however, actual students rarely do so. In the second half of the 20th century
Bladderball Bladderball was a game traditionally played by students of Yale University, between 1954 and 1982, until being banned by the administration. The game is a variant of pushball, and has its roots in mob football. It was originally a competition betwe ...
, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009, 2011, and 2014.
Athletic
![Yale-Harvard-Game](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Yale-Harvard-Game.jpg)
Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
Conference, the
Eastern College Athletic Conference
The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 15 sports (13 men's and 13 women's). It has 220 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location fr ...
, the
New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association
The New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association (NEISA) is one of the seven conferences affiliated with the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) that schedule and administer regattas within their established geographic regions.
NEISA ...
. Yale athletic teams compete intercollegiately at the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Division I level. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships.
Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the
Yale Bowl
The Yale Bowl Stadium is a college football stadium in the northeast United States, located in New Haven, Connecticut, on the border of West Haven, about 1½ miles (2½ km) west of the main campus of Yale University. The home of the American foo ...
(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 Payne Whitney Gymnasium is the gymnasium of Yale University. One of the largest athletic facilities ever built, its twelve acres of interior space include a nine-story tower containing a third-floor swimming pool, fencing facilities, and a pol ...
, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world.
In May 2018, the men's lacrosse team defeated the
Duke Blue Devils
The Duke Blue Devils are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Duke's athletics department features 27 varsity teams that all compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association ...
to claim their first ever
NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship
The NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament determines the annual top men's field lacrosse team in the NCAA Division I. This tournament has determined the national champion since the inaugural 1971 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse ...
, and are the first Ivy League school to win the title since the
Princeton Tigers
The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in ...
in 2001.
In 2016, the men's basketball team won the Ivy League Championship title for the first time in 54 years, earning a spot in the
NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. In the first round of the tournament, the Bulldogs beat the Baylor Bears 79–75 in the school's first-ever tournament win.
![Walter Camp Gate 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Walter_Camp_Gate_1.jpg)
October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. The
Gilder Boathouse Gilder Boathouse is the main facility for the sport of rowing at Yale University. It is located on the bank of Lake Housatonic in Derby, Connecticut along Connecticut Route 34. It is a facility. It lies at the finish line of Yale's 2,000-meter ra ...
is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her father Richard Gilder '54, who gave $4 million towards the $7.5 million project. Yale also maintains the
Gales Ferry
Gales Ferry is a village in the town of Ledyard, Connecticut, United States. It is located along the eastern bank of the Thames River. The village developed as a result of having a ferry to Uncasville located at this site, and from which the villa ...
site where the heavyweight men's team trains for the
Yale-Harvard Boat Race.
Yale crew is the oldest collegiate athletic team in America, and won
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
Gold Medal for men's eights in 1924 and 1956. The
Yale Corinthian Yacht Club
Yale Corinthian Yacht Club is a public sailing facility located on Short Beach in Branford, Connecticut (United States), home of the Yale University sailing team. It is generally abbreviated as "YCYC" and is affectionately pronounced "yic-yic." ...
, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate
sailing
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cou ...
club in the world.
In 1896, Yale and
Johns Hopkins played the first known
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
game in the United States. Since 2006, the school's ice hockey clubs have played a commemorative game.
Yale students claim to have invented
Frisbee, by tossing empty
Frisbie Pie Company
The Frisbie Pie Company is an American pie company located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was founded in 1871 by William Russell Frisbie in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when he bought and renamed a branch of the Olds Baking Company. The company wa ...
tins.
Yale athletics are supported by the
Yale Precision Marching Band
The Yale Precision Marching Band (affectionately known as the YPMB, or more simply The Band, for short) is the official marching band of Yale University. It is a scatter band (what some peers might call a "scramble band"), as distinct from univer ...
. "Precision" is used here ironically; the band is a scatter-style band that runs wildly between formations rather than actually marching. 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 also a significant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, fostering 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 coeducational. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup.
Song
Notable among the songs commonly played and sung at events such as
commencement,
convocation, alumni gatherings, and athletic games are the alma mater, "
Bright College Years
"Bright College Years" is one of the traditional songs of Yale University, and the university's unofficial but undisputed alma mater. It was written in 1881 by Henry Durand and set to the tune of "Die Wacht am Rhein".
In some old songbooks and ...
". Despite its popularity, "
Boola Boola
"Boola Boola" is a football song of Yale University. It has enjoyed widespread popularity over the years and has been adapted to many other uses. Despite its popularity, it is not Yale's official fight song, which is "Bull Dog", by Cole Porter.
...
" is not the official fight song, albeit being the origin of the university's unofficial motto. The official Yale
fight song
A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...
, "Bulldog" was written by
Cole Porter during his undergraduate days and is sung after touchdowns during a football game. Additionally, two other songs, "Down the Field" by C.W. O'Conner, and "Bingo Eli Yale", also by Cole Porter, are still sung at football games. According to ''College Fight Songs: An Annotated Anthology'' published in 1998, "Down the Field" ranks as the fourth-greatest fight song of all time.
Mascot
The school
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
is "
Handsome Dan
Handsome Dan is a bulldog who serves as the mascot of Yale University's sports teams. In addition to a person wearing a costume, the position is filled by an actual bulldog, the honor (and the title "Handsome Dan") being transferred to another upo ...
", the Yale
bulldog
The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose.[fight song
A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...]
contains the
refrain, "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow." The school color, since 1894, is
Yale Blue
Yale Blue is the dark azure color used in association with Yale University.
History
Since the 1850s, Yale Crew has rowed in blue uniforms, and in 1894, "dark blue" was officially adopted as Yale's color, after half a century of the univer ...
. Yale's Handsome Dan is believed to be the first college mascot in America, having been established in 1889.
Notable people
Benefactors
Yale has had many financial supporters, but some stand out by the magnitude or timeliness of their contributions. Among those who have made large donations commemorated at the university are:
Elihu Yale
Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Although born in Boston, Massachusetts, he only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales and India ...
;
Jeremiah Dummer
Jeremiah Dummer (1681 – May 19, 1739) was an important colonial figure for New England in the early 18th century. His most significant contributions to American history were his ''A Defense of the New England Charters'' and his role in the for ...
; the
Harkness family (
Edward,
Anna, and
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
); the
Beinecke family (Edwin,
Frederick Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
, and Walter);
John William Sterling;
Payne Whitney;
Joseph Earl Sheffield,
Paul Mellon,
Charles B. G. Murphy,
Joseph Tsai
Joseph Tsai (; born January 1964) is a Hong Kong-Canadian billionaire businessman, lawyer, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder and executive vice chairman of the Chinese multinational technology company Alibaba Group and owns the Brooklyn Net ...
, and
William K. Lanman. The Yale Class of 1954, led by
Richard Gilder, donated $70 million in commemoration of their 50th reunion.
Charles B. Johnson
Charles Bartlett Johnson (born January 6, 1933) is an American billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of around $6.1 billion.
Early life
Charles Bartlett Johnson was born in 1933 in Montclair, New Jersey, to Rupert Harris Johnson ...
, a 1954 graduate of Yale College, pledged a $250 million gift in 2013 to support the construction of two new residential colleges. The colleges have been named respectively in honor of
Pauli Murray
Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American civil rights activist who became a lawyer, gender equality advocate, Episcopal priest, and author. Drawn to the ministry, in 1977 she became one of the first women ...
and
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
. A $100 million contribution by
Stephen Adams enabled the
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music (often abbreviated to YSM) is one of the 12 professional schools at Yale University. It offers three graduate degrees: Master of Music (MM), Master of Musical Arts (MMA), and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), as well as a join ...
to become tuition-free and the Adams Center for Musical Arts to be built.
Notable alumni
![William Howard Taft, Bain bw photo portrait, 1908](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/William_Howard_Taft%2C_Bain_bw_photo_portrait%2C_1908.jpg)
Over its history, Yale has produced many distinguished alumni in a variety of fields, ranging from the public to private sector. According to 2020 data, around 71% of undergraduates join the workforce, while the next largest majority of 16.6% go on to attend graduate or professional schools. Yale graduates have been recipients of 252
Rhodes Scholarships, 123
Marshall Scholarship
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
s, 67
Truman Scholarships
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship is the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for public service leadership. It is a federally funded scholarship granted to U.S. undergraduate students for demonstrated leadership potential, academic ...
, 21
Churchill Scholarships, and 9
Mitchell Scholarship
The George J. Mitchell Scholarship is a fellowship awarded annually by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance funding graduate study in Ireland. The first class of scholars began their studies in 2000. The scholarship is sometimes compared to or grouped with ...
s. The university is also the second largest producer of
Fulbright Scholars
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
, with a total of 1,199 in its history and has produced 89
MacArthur Fellows. The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs ranked Yale fifth among research institutions producing the most 2020–2021 Fulbright Scholars. Additionally, 31
living billionaires are Yale alumni.
At Yale, one of the most popular undergraduate majors among Juniors and Seniors is political science, with many students going on to serve careers in government and politics. Former presidents who attended Yale for undergrad include
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
,
George H. W. Bush, and
George W. Bush while former presidents
Gerald Ford and
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
attended Yale Law School. Former vice-president and influential antebellum era politician
John C. Calhoun also graduated from Yale. Former world leaders include Italian prime minister Mario Monti, Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller, Mexican president
Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was 61st president of Mexico from 1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from t ...
, German president Karl Carstens, Philippine president José Paciano Laurel, Latvian president Valdis Zatlers, Taiwanese premier Jiang Yi-huah, and Malawian president Peter Mutharika, among others. Prominent royals who graduated are Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, and Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg, Olympia Bonaparte, Princess Napoléon.
![Jodie Foster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Jodie_Foster.jpg)
Yale alumni have had considerable presence in U.S. government in all three branches. On the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court, 19 justices have been Yale alumni, including current Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito,
Clarence Thomas,
and Brett Kavanaugh. Numerous Yale alumni have been United States Senate, U.S. Senators, including current senators Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Coons,
Amy Klobuchar, Ben Sasse, and Sheldon Whitehouse. Current and former cabinet members include Secretaries of State
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
,
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, Cyrus Vance, and Dean Acheson; U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Robert Rubin, Nicholas F. Brady, Steven Mnuchin, and Janet Yellen; U.S. Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach, John Ashcroft, and Edward H. Levi; and many others. Peace Corps founder and American diplomat
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family. Shriver was the driving force behind the creatio ...
and public official and urban planner Robert Moses are Yale alumni.
![Paul Krugman 2 BBF 2010 Shankbone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Paul_Krugman_2_BBF_2010_Shankbone.jpg)
Yale has produced numerous award-winning authors and influential writers, like Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Sinclair Lewis and Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Vincent Benét, Thornton Wilder, Doug Wright, and David McCullough. Academy Awards, Academy Award winning actors, actresses, and directors include Jodie Foster, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Lupita Nyong'o, Oliver Stone, and Frances McDormand. Alumni from Yale have also made notable contributions to both music and the arts. Leading American composer from the 20th century Charles Ives, Broadway composer
Cole Porter, Grammy Award, Grammy award winner David Lang (composer), David Lang, multi-Tony Award winner Composer and Musicologist Maury Yeston, and award-winning jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer all hail from Yale. Hugo Boss Prize winner Matthew Barney, famed American sculptor Richard Serra, President Barack Obama presidential portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, MacArthur Fellow and contemporary artist Sarah Sze, Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and National Medal of Arts photorealist painter Chuck Close all graduated from Yale. Additional alumni include architect and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Maya Lin, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, Norman Foster, and
Gateway Arch
The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources consider ...
designer
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
. Journalists and pundits include Dick Cavett, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, William F. Buckley Jr., and Fareed Zakaria.
![Theo Epstein 2010](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Theo_Epstein_2010.jpg)
In business, Yale has had numerous alumni and former students go on to become founders of influential business, like William E. Boeing, William Boeing (Boeing, United Airlines), Briton Hadden and Henry Luce (Time (magazine), Time Magazine), Stephen A. Schwarzman (The Blackstone Group, Blackstone Group), Frederick W. Smith (FedEx), Juan Trippe (Pan Am), Harold Stanley (Morgan Stanley), Bing Gordon (Electronic Arts), and Ben Silbermann (Pinterest). Other business people from Yale include former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings Edward Lampert, former Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes, former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi, sports agent Donald Dell, and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton,
Yale alumni distinguished in academia include literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates, economists Irving Fischer, Mahbub ul Haq, and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Ernest Lawrence and Murray Gell-Mann; Fields Medalist John G. Thompson; Human Genome Project leader and National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins; brain surgery pioneer Harvey Cushing; pioneering computer scientist
Grace Hopper
Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of compu ...
; influential mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs; National Women's Hall of Fame inductee and biochemist Florence B. Seibert;
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in comput ...
recipient Ron Rivest; inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Eli Whitney; Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate John B. Goodenough; lexicographer Noah Webster; and theologians
Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold Niebuhr.
In the sporting arena, Yale alumni include baseball players Ron Darling and Craig Breslow and baseball executives Theo Epstein and George Weiss (baseball), George Weiss; football players Calvin Hill, Gary Fencik, Gary Fenick, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and "the Father of American Football"
Walter Camp; ice hockey players Chris Higgins (ice hockey), Chris Higgins and Olympian Helen Resor (ice hockey), Helen Resor; Olympic figure skaters Sarah Hughes and Nathan Chen; nine-time U.S. Squash men's champion Julian Illingworth; Olympic swimmer Don Schollander; Olympic rowers Josh West and Rusty Wailes; Olympic sailor Stuart McNay; Olympic runner Frank Shorter; and others.
In fiction and popular culture
Yale University is a cultural referent as an institution that produces some of the most elite members of society
and its grounds, alumni, and students have been prominently portrayed in fiction and U.S. popular culture. For example, Owen Johnson (writer), Owen Johnson's novel ''Stover at Yale'' follows the college career of Dink Stover, and
Frank Merriwell
Frank Merriwell is a fictional character appearing in a series of novels and short stories by Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The character appeared in over 300 dime novels between 1896 and 1930 (some between 1927 a ...
, the model for all later juvenile sports fiction, plays football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs.
[The text of ''Frank Merriwell at Yale'' is published online by Project Gutenberg]
Gutenberg.org
Yale University also is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel ''The Great Gatsby''. The narrator, Nick Carraway, wrote a series of editorials for the ''Yale News'', and Tom Buchanan was "one of the most powerful Defensive end, ends that ever played football" for Yale.
Notes
References
Further reading
* William F. Buckley Jr., Buckley, William F. Jr. ''God and Man at Yale'', 1951.
* Dana, Arnold G. ''Yale Old and New'', 78 vols. personal scrapbook, 1942.
* Deming, Clarence. ''Yale Yesterdays'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1915.
* Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. ''Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Yale: Yale College with Annals of the College History, 6 vols. New York, 1885–1912.''
* Dexter, Franklin Bowditch
''Documentary History of Yale University: Under the Original Charter of the Collegiate School of Connecticut, 1701–1745.''New Haven: Yale University Press, 1901.
* French, Robert Dudley. ''The Memorial Quadrangle'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
* Furniss, Edgar S. ''The Graduate School of Yale'', New Haven, 1965.
* Holden, Reuben A. ''Yale: A Pictorial History'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967.
* Kelley, Brooks Mather. ''Yale: A History''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. ;
* Kingsley, William L. ''Yale College. A Sketch of its History'', 2 vols. New York, 1879.
* Mendenhall, Thomas C. ''The Harvard-Yale Boat Race, 1852–1924, and the Coming of Sport to the American College.'' (1993). 371 pp.
* Nissenbaum, Stephen, ed. ''The Great Awakening at Yale College'' (1972). 263 pp.
* Oren, Dan A. ''Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985.* Oviatt, Edwin. ''The Beginnings of Yale (1701–1726)'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1916.
*
* George Wilson Pierson, Pierson, George Wilson. ''Yale College, An Educational History (1871–1921)'', (Yale University Press, 1952); ''Yale, The University College (1921–1937)'', (Yale University Press, 1955)
* Pierson, George Wilson. ''The Founding of Yale: The Legend of the Forty Folios'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988.
* Stevenson, Louise L. ''Scholarly Means to Evangelical Ends: The New Haven Scholars and the Transformation of Higher Learning in America, 1830–1890'' (1986). 221 pp.
* Vincent Scully, Scully, Vincent ''et al.'', eds. ''Yale in New Haven: Architecture and Urbanism''. New Haven: Yale University, 2004.
* Tucker, Louis Leonard. ''Connecticut's Seminary of Sedition: Yale College.'' Chester, Conn.: Pequot, 1973. 78 pp.
* Warch, Richard. ''School of the Prophets: Yale College, 1701–1740.'' (1973). 339 pp.
* Welch, Lewis Sheldon, and
Walter Camp. ''Yale, her campus, class-rooms, and athletics'' (1900)
online*
*
Secret societies
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Yale Athletics website*
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