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Originally established to train [[Congregationalist]] ministers, the college began teaching humanities and natural sciences by the late 18th century. At the same time, students began organizing extracurricular organizations: first [[College literary societies|literary societies]], and later publications, sports teams, and singing groups. By the middle of the 19th century, it was the largest college in the United States. In 1847, it was joined by another undergraduate school at Yale, the [[Sheffield Scientific School]], which was absorbed into the college in 1956. These merged curricula became the basis of the modern-day [[liberal arts]] curriculum, which requires students to take courses in a broad range of subjects, including foreign language, composition, sciences, and quantitative reasoning, in addition to electing a [[major (academic)|departmental major]] in their sophomore year.
The most distinctive feature of undergraduate life is the school's [[residential colleges of Yale University|system of residential colleges]], established in 1932, and modeled after the constituent colleges of [[Oxbridge|English universities]]. Undergraduates live in these colleges after their freshman year, when most live on the school's [[Old Campus (Yale University)|Old Campus]].
==History==
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[[File:Elihu Yale Memorial, St. Mary's Church, Madras.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Elihu Yale Memorial, [[St. Mary's Church, Chennai|St. Mary's Church, Madras]]]]
The Collegiate School was founded in 1701 by a charter drawn by ten [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregationalist]] ministers led by [[James Pierpont (minister)|James Pierpont]] and approved by the General Court of the [[Colony of Connecticut]]. Originally situated in [[Abraham Pierson|Abraham Pierson's]] home in [[Killingworth, Connecticut]], the college moved to [[Old Saybrook, Connecticut]] in 1703, when Nathaniel Lynde, the first treasurer of Yale, donated land and a building. The college moved again to [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]] in 1718, and was renamed for [[Elihu Yale]], an early benefactor, merchant, and philanthropist. Founded as a school to train ministers, original curriculum included only coursework in [[theology]] and [[sacred languages]]. Although early faculty, including [[Jonathan Edwards (theologian)|Jonathan Edwards]] and [[Elisha Williams]], maintained strict Congregational orthodoxy, by the time of the [[American Revolution]] subsequent rectors, especially [[Ezra Stiles]], relaxed the curriculum to include humanities and limited natural science education.<ref name="Short History">{{cite book |last=Pierson |first=George W. |author-link=George Wilson Pierson |title=Yale: A Short History |date=2004 |edition=2nd |publisher=Stinehour Press |url= http://www.library.yale.edu/mssa/YHO/Piersons/A_short_history.html |access-date=June 24, 2014}}</ref>
Scientific courses introduced by chemist [[Benjamin Silliman]] in 1801, made the college an early hub of scientific education, a curriculum which was grafted into Yale's [[Sheffield Scientific School]] in 1847.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Conniff |first=Richard |title=How The Sciences Came to Yale |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=March 2015 |url=https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4066/how-science-came-to-yale |access-date=April 29, 2015}}</ref> As in many of Yale's sister institutions, debates about the expansiveness of the undergraduate curriculum were waged throughout the early 19th century, with statements like the [[Yale Report of 1828]] re-asserting Yale's conservative theological heritage and faculty. Later in the century, [[William Graham Sumner]], the first professor of sociology in the United States, introduced studies in the social sciences. These expanding fields of study were integrated with graduate schools of the university and amalgamated into a course of [[liberal arts education]], which presaged the advent of [[academic major|divisional majors]] in the twentieth century.
The relaxation of curriculum came with expansion of the extracurriculum. Student literary societies emerged as early as 1750, singing groups and student publications in the early 1800s, fraternities and [[secret societies]] in the mid-nineteenth century, and intercollegiate athletics by the century's end.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kelley |first=Brooks Mather |title=Yale: A History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B2aDRhohtx8C |year=1999 |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300078435}}</ref> Participation and leadership in these groups was an important social signifier and a route to induction into prestigious senior societies. Thus extracurricular participation became central to student life and social advancement, an ethos that became a template for collegiate life across the United States.<ref name=Thelin>{{cite book |last=Thelin |first=John R. |title=A History of American Higher Education |edition=2nd |year=2013 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |isbn= 9781421404998}}</ref>
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==Residential colleges==
{{Main|Residential colleges of Yale University}}
The most distinctive feature of Yale College undergraduate life is the residential college system.<ref>{{cite web |title=Residential Colleges |publisher=Yale College |url=http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/residential-colleges |access-date=March 26, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Ryan |first=Mark B. |title=A Collegiate Way of Living: Residential Colleges and a Yale Education |year=2001 |publisher=[[Jonathan Edwards College]] |location=New Haven, CT |url=http://collegiateway.org/pdf/ryan-2001.pdf |access-date=March 26, 2014 |isbn=9781402850615 |page=19}}</ref> The system was established in 1933, through a gift by Yale graduate [[Edward S. Harkness]], who admired the college systems at [[Oxford University]] and [[Cambridge University]]. Each college consists of dormitory buildings surrounding an enclosed courtyard, and features a dining hall, library, and student facilities ranging from [[printing press]]es to darkrooms. Each is led by a Head of College, a faculty member who serves as its chief administrator, and a Dean, who oversees student academic affairs. University faculty and distinguished affiliates are associated with the colleges as fellows. Unlike their English forerunners, the colleges do not administer academic degree programs or courses of study, but they do sponsor academic seminars that fall outside the normal departmental structure of the university, and the Heads of College host lectures and teas for the colleges that attract high-profile visitors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yalecollege.yale.edu/academics/special-academic-programs/residential-college-seminar-program|title=Residential College Seminar Program}}</ref>
Harkness' gift built and endowed eight colleges, completed from 1932 to 1934. Additional colleges were opened in 1935 ([[Timothy Dwight College]]), 1940 ([[Silliman College]]), 1962 ([[Morse College]] and [[Ezra Stiles College]]), and 2017 ([[Pauli Murray College]] and [[Benjamin Franklin College]]), bringing the present-day number to fourteen. The first ten colleges were designed in [[Collegiate Gothic]] and [[Georgian architecture|Georgian Revival]] styles; the two colleges built in the 1960s are [[Modern architecture|Modernist]] reinventions of the college plan. In 2007, Yale announced the construction of two additional Collegiate Gothic residential colleges near [[Science Hill (Yale University)|Science Hill]], which opened in 2017.
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