Yale College: Difference between revisions
Undid revision. Is it not common knowledge that Yale College is one of the most prestigious undergraduate institutions in the United States? I am having trouble understanding why the Harvard College page has the special distinction when Yale, a rather similar institution in terms of instruction and capacity, has not had its fair share. 1194781972 by GuardianH (talk) |
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{{Short description|Undergraduate college of Yale University}} |
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'''Yale College''' was the official name of [[Yale University]] from 1718 to 1887. Now it is the [[undergraduate]] section of Yale and consists of 12 [[residential colleges]]. |
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{{For|the college in Wales|Yale College, Wrexham}} |
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{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2017}} |
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{{Infobox university |
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| name = Yale College |
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| image = Yale College.svg |
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| image_size = 150px |
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| image_alt = |
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| caption = [[Coat of arms]] |
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| former_name = The Collegiate School |
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| motto = {{Script/Hebrew|אורים ותמים}} ([[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]; [[Urim and Thummim#In popular culture|''ʾÛrîm wə-Tummîm'']]) |
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| mottoeng = Light and truth |
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| type = [[Private school|Private]] |
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| established = {{start date and age|1701}} |
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| founder = |
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| parent = [[Yale University]] |
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| affiliation = |
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| city = [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]] |
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| state = [[Connecticut]] |
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| country = United States |
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| coordinates = {{Coord|41|18|42|N|72|55|31|W|region:US_type:edu|display=inline,title}} |
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| dean = [[Pericles Lewis]] |
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| undergrad = 6,092 (2020)<ref name = enrollment>{{cite web |title=Common Data Set 2019–2020 |url=https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/cds_2019-2020_yale_vf_030420.pdf |publisher=Yale University |access-date=5 March 2020}}</ref> |
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| free_label = Alumni |
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| free = 75,021{{ref label|alumni|b|}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Alumni (living) by Yale school|publisher=Yale University Office of Institutional Research|url=http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet|access-date=March 23, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140701134747/http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet|archive-date=July 1, 2014|df= mdy-all}}</ref> |
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| website = {{url|yalecollege.yale.edu}} |
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| logo = |
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| logo_alt = |
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| footnotes = {{ref label|alumni|b|}} The number of living alumni as of the year 2012 |
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}} |
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'''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, when its schools were [[collegiate university|confederated]] and the institution was renamed Yale University. It is ranked as one of the top colleges in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2020|title=Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2020|date=2019-10-29|website=Times Higher Education (THE)|language=en|access-date=2020-04-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges//|title=America’s Top Colleges 2019|website=Forbes|language=en|access-date=2020-04-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-colleges/|title=2020 Best Colleges in America|website=Niche|language=en|access-date=2020-04-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Belkin|first=Melissa Korn and Douglas|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-top-ranked-college-is-11567639507|title=The Top-Ranked College Is…|date=2019-09-05|work=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=2020-04-09|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities|title=2020 Best National University Rankings|website=U.S. News & World Report}}</ref> |
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The current residential college system was instituted in [[1933]] through a grant by Yale graduate [[Edward S. Harkness]], who admired the college systems at [[Oxford]] and [[Cambridge]]. Each college has a carefully constructed support structure for students, including a Dean, Master, affiliated faculty, and resident Fellows. Each college also features distinctive architecture, secluded courtyards, and facilities ranging from libraries to squash courts to darkrooms. While each college at Yale offers its own seminars, social events, and Master's Teas with guests from the world, Yale students also take part in academic and social programs across the university, and all of Yale's 2,000 courses are open to undergraduates from any college. |
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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. |
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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]]. |
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==History== |
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{{See also|Yale University#History|l1=History of Yale University}} |
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[[File:Yale family chrest.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|left|The coat of arms of the College is inspired by the coat of arms of [[Elihu Yale]]]] |
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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]]]] |
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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> |
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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. |
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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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[[File:Harkness Tower.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Harkness Tower]] at Yale]] |
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By 1870, Yale was the largest undergraduate institution in the country.<ref name="Thelin" /> The growth of the student body prompted major growth in the college's physical campus, the greatest expansion of which occurred in 1933, when a gift of [[Edward Harkness|Edward S. Harkness]] created and endowed eight [[residential colleges of Yale University|residential colleges]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Pierson |first=George W. |title=Yale: The University College, 1921–1937 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |date=1955}}</ref> Modeled after the college system of [[Oxford University|Oxford]] and [[Cambridge University|Cambridge Universities]], the colleges were intended to be the social and residential centers of undergraduate life while leaving academic programs under the oversight of university's departments. Two additional colleges were built by 1940, and two more in the 1960s. |
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===Admission and exclusion=== |
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For most of its history, study at Yale was almost exclusively restricted to white [[Protestant]] men, often the children of alumni. Documented exceptions to this paradigm include Hawaiian native [[Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia]], who became a student of Yale President [[Timothy Dwight IV|Timothy Dwight]] in 1809, and black abolitionist [[James W. C. Pennington]], who was allowed to audit theology courses in 1837.<ref name=Schiff200407>{{cite magazine |last=Schiff |first=Judith Ann |title=Aloha Blue |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=July 2004 |url=http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_07/old_yale.html |access-date=April 29, 2015}}</ref><ref name=Schiff200601>{{cite magazine |last=Schiff |first=Judith |title=Pioneers |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=January 2006 |url=https://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_01/old_yale.html |access-date=May 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141228042907/http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_01/old_yale.html# |archive-date=December 28, 2014 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> [[Moses Simons]], a descendant of a slave-holding South Carolinian family, has been suggested to be the first Jew to graduate from Yale.<ref>{{cite book |last=Oren |first=Dan |title=Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale |url=https://archive.org/details/joiningclubhist00oren |url-access=registration |date=1986 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven}}</ref> Though his maternal ancestry is disputed, he may have also been the first person of African-American descent to graduate from any American college.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kaminer |first=Ariel |title=New Contenders Emerge in Quest to Identify Yale's First African-American Graduate |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 16, 2014 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/nyregion/new-contenders-emerge-in-quest-to-identify-yales-first-african-american-graduate.html?_r=0 |access-date=May 28, 2015}}</ref> In 1854, [[Yung Wing]] graduated from the college and became the first student from China to graduate from an American university, and in 1857, [[Richard Henry Green]] became the first African-American man to receive a degree from the college.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Schiff |first=Judith |title=The life of Richard Henry Green |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=May 2014 |url=https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3875/the-life-of-richard-henry-green |access-date=May 28, 2015}}</ref> Until the rediscovery of Green's ethnic descent in 2014, physicist [[Edward Bouchet]], who stayed at Yale to become the first African-American PhD recipient, was believed to also be the first African-American graduate of Yale College. |
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In the early 20th century, the student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians"—a group later called [[WASPs]]. By the 1970s, it was much more diverse.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jerome Karabel|title=The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|url=https://archive.org/details/chosen00jero_0|url-access=registration|year=2006|page=[https://archive.org/details/chosen00jero_0/page/23 23]}}</ref> |
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Enrollment at Yale only became competitive in the early 20th century, requiring the college to set up an admissions process. As late as the 1950s, tests and demographic questionnaires for admission to the college worked to exclude non-Christian men, especially Jews, as well as non-white men.<ref name="Kabaservice1999">{{cite magazine |last=Kabaservice |first=Geoffrey |title=The Birth of a New Institution |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=December 1999 |url=https://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_12/admissions.html |access-date=May 28, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402110732/http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_12/admissions.html# |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> By the mid-1960s, these processes were becoming more meritocratic, allowing for the recruitment of a racially, economically, and geographically diverse student body.<ref>{{cite book |last=Karaben |first=Jerome |title=The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton |year=2005 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=9780618773558 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/chosen00jero_0 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Soares |first=Joseph A. |title=The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges |year=2007 |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, CA |isbn= 9780804756389}}</ref> This meritocratic transition encouraged the university to establish the first [[need-blind admission]]s policy in the United States.<ref name="Kabaservice1999"/> After several decades of debate about [[mixed-sex education|coeducation]], Yale College admitted its first class of women in 1969.<ref>{{cite news |title=Yale Will Admit Women in 1969; May Have Coeducational Housing |newspaper=Harvard Crimson |date=November 15, 1968 |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1968/11/15/yale-will-admit-women-in-1969/ |access-date=April 1, 2015}}</ref> |
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In recent years, the college has focused on international recruitment, quadrupling the fraction of international students admitted between 1993 and 2013.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wildavsky |first=Ben |title=The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World |year=2012 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn= 9780691154558 |page=33}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Christofforsen |first=John |title=Yale President Levin Stepping Down after 20 Years |date=August 30, 2012 |newspaper=Associated Press |url=http://bigstory.ap.org/article/yale-president-stepping-down-after-20-years |access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> |
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==Organization== |
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[[File:Sheffield_Sterling_Strathcona_Hall.jpg|thumb|Sheffield–Sterling–Strathcona Hall, main administrative building of Yale College]] |
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Yale College is a [[collegiate university|constituent school]] of Yale University and contains a [[Collegiate university#dependent college|dependent system]] of [[residential college]]s. Its executive officer is the Dean of Yale College, who is appointed to a five-year term by the [[Yale Corporation]].<ref name="Bylaws">{{cite web |title=The Yale Corporation By-Laws |publisher=Yale University |date=September 28, 2013 |url=http://www.yale.edu/about/bylaws.html |access-date=March 26, 2014}}</ref> The dean oversees undergraduate academic curriculum, extracurricular activities, and student discipline, but does not have direct control over the residential colleges. The position is currently held by [[Pericles Lewis]], professor of [[comparative literature]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Office of the Dean |url=https://yalecollege.yale.edu/get-know-yale-college/office-dean |access-date=2023-02-10 |website=Yale College |language=en}}</ref> |
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All of the college's [[faculty (division)|faculty]] are members of the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are thereby jointly affiliated with the [[Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences|Graduate School of Arts and Sciences]]. [[Tenure (academic)|Tenured]] members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences constitute the Board of Permanent Officers, who govern the school's curriculum and programs.<ref name="Bylaws" /> Most undergraduate courses and [[major (academic)|majors]] are offered under the purview of [[academic departments]], divisions of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences which offer undergraduate and graduate curricula.<ref>Unlike many American universities, Yale does not have a system of divisional [[minor (academic)|minors]].</ref> In addition, the faculties of three Yale [[professional schools]], the [[Yale School of Art|School of Art]], [[Yale School of Architecture|School of Architecture]] and [[Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies|School of Forestry & Environmental Studies]], also offer undergraduate programs.<ref name="Handbook">{{cite web |url=http://provost.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Faculty_Handbook_8_2013.pdf |title=Faculty Handbook |date=August 2013 |publisher=Yale University Office of the Provost |access-date=March 26, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/subjects-of-instruction/forestry-environmental-studies/ |title=Yale College Programs of Study, Forestry & Environmental Studies |publisher=Yale College Dean's Office |access-date=March 26, 2014}}</ref> |
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Residential colleges, which are funded and controlled by the university, have separate administration and limited self-governance. The Heads of College (before 2016 called [[Master (college)|Masters]]), usually tenured faculty members, are appointed to renewable, five-year terms by the Yale Corporation to oversee the affairs of each college. Residential college deans, who are supervised by the Dean of Yale College, are in charge of undergraduate academic oversight. Each residential college is governed by its Head of College, Dean, and Fellows, and has a college council of students with limited jurisdiction over student affairs. Issues affecting multiple colleges are governed by the Council of the Heads of College, composed of the Heads of College of the fourteen colleges. |
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==Residential colleges== |
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{{Main|Residential colleges of Yale University}} |
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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> |
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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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===List of residential colleges=== |
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Residential colleges are named for important figures or places in university history or notable alumni; they are deliberately not named for benefactors. |
Residential colleges are named for important figures or places in university history or notable alumni; they are deliberately not named for benefactors. |
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[[File:Branford Court spring 2.JPG|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Branford College]]]] |
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#[[Benjamin Franklin College (Yale University)|Benjamin Franklin College]] – named for [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Father]] [[Benjamin Franklin]]. |
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#[[Berkeley College (Yale)|Berkeley College]] – named for [[George Berkeley]] (1685–1753), early benefactor of Yale. |
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#[[Branford College]] – named for [[Branford, Connecticut]], the town in which Yale was founded. |
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#[[Davenport College]] – named for [[John Davenport (clergyman)|John Davenport]], the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port." |
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#[[Ezra Stiles College]] – named for [[Ezra Stiles]], a president of Yale. Designed by [[Eero Saarinen]]. |
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#[[Jonathan Edwards College]] – named for theologian and [[Princeton University]] co-founder [[Jonathan Edwards (theology)|Jonathan Edwards]]. Usually called "J.E." |
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#[[Grace Hopper College]] – named for Admiral [[Grace Murray Hopper]], Yale Ph.D. and computer pioneer. Until 2017, this college was named for [[John C. Calhoun]], Vice President of the United States. The smallest college. |
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#[[Morse College]] – named for [[Samuel Morse]], inventor of [[Morse Code]]. Also designed by [[Eero Saarinen]]. |
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#[[Pauli Murray College]] – named for civil rights activist, legal scholar and religious pioneer [[Pauli Murray]]. |
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#[[Pierson College]] – named for Yale's first rector, [[Abraham Pierson]]. |
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#[[Saybrook College]] – named for [[Old Saybrook, Connecticut]], where Yale was briefly located. |
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#[[Silliman College]] – named for noted scientist and Yale professor [[Benjamin Silliman]]. About half of its structures were originally part of the [[Sheffield Scientific School]]. |
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#[[Timothy Dwight College]] – named for the two Yale presidents of that name, [[Timothy Dwight IV]] and [[Timothy Dwight V]]. Usually called "T.D." |
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#[[Trumbull College]] – named for [[Jonathan Trumbull]], 18th-century governor of Connecticut. |
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==Student organizations== |
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{{See also|List of Yale University student organizations}} |
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===Singing groups=== |
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Yale College has been called "the epicenter of college singing," both for its long history of singing groups and its centrality in establishing [[collegiate a cappella]] in the United States. The earliest choral group, the Beethoven Society, dates to 1812 and emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as the [[Yale Glee Club]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Winstead |first=J. Lloyd |title=When Colleges Sang: The Story of Singing in American College Life |year=2013 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=9780817317904 |page=58}}</ref> Although [[glee clubs]] around the country had spawned small collegiate ensembles since that time, the all-senior, all-male [[Whiffenpoofs]], formed in 1909, are often considered to be the oldest collegiate a cappella society in the United States.<ref name=Duchan>{{cite book |last=Duchan |first=Joshua S. |title=Powerful Voices: The Musical and Social World of Collegiate A Cappella |date=2012 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn= 9780472118250}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Howard |first=James M. |title=An Authentic Account of the Founding of the Whiffenpoofs |url=http://www.whiffenpoofs.com/storage/Whiffenpoofs_History.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718040120/http://www.whiffenpoofs.com/storage/Whiffenpoofs_History.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-07-18 |date=1959 |access-date=July 29, 2014 }}</ref> Formalizing a style pioneered by black [[barbershop music|barbershop groups]] in New Haven, their repertoire was amplified by the founding of similar groups across the country.<ref name=Duchan/> Coeducation in 1969 made possible all-women's groups and mixed groups. In all, there are now at least eighteen undergraduate a cappella groups in Yale College, ranging from a Slavic chorus to Christian a cappella.{{sfn|Winstead|2013|page=231}} |
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===Publications=== |
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Student publications at Yale date back as far as 1806, but the earliest still in print, the ''[[Yale Literary Magazine]]'', was founded in 1836 and is believed to be the oldest surviving literary review in the United States.{{sfn|Kelley|1999|pp=226}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Mott |first=Frank L. |title=A History of American Magazines, 1741–1850 |volume=1 |page=488 |date=1930 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn= 9780674395503}}</ref> Undergraduate publications like the ''Yale Banner'', a yearbook, and ''[[The Yale Record]]'', a humor magazine, followed suit, often around the same time similar publications were established at Harvard and Princeton.<ref name="WelchCamp">{{cite book |last1=Welch |first1=Lewis Sheldon |last2=Camp |first2=Walter |author-link2=Walter Camp |title=Yale, her campus, class-rooms, and athletics |year=1899 |publisher=L. C. Page and Company |location=Boston |url=https://archive.org/details/yalehercampuscla01welc |access-date=March 23, 2014}}</ref> The ''[[Yale Daily News]]'', established in 1878, was a relative latecomer but became the flagship campus daily, and continues to publish during every weekday of the undergraduate academic term. These publications have been joined by many 20th-century debuts, including ''[[The Yale Herald]]'' and ''[[The New Journal]]''. |
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===Secret societies=== |
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[[File:Yale-scroll-and-key.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|right|The [[Moorish Revival architecture|Moorish]] "Tomb" of [[Scroll and Key]], one of the college's richest senior societies]] |
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In 1832, a rift over [[Phi Beta Kappa]] inductions between the college's two debating societies, [[Linonia]] and [[Brothers in Unity]], caused seniors to establish the first [[secret society]] at the university, [[Skull and Bones]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schiff |first=Judith |title=How The Secret Societies Got That Way |date=Sep–Oct 2004 |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |url=http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2004_09/old_yale.html |access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> Skull and Bones "tapped" select juniors for membership as seniors, a ritual later adopted by all undergraduate senior societies. Since then, senior societies have proliferated at Yale, with recent estimates of 41 existing societies and senior class membership ranging from ten to fifty percent of each class.<ref name="Alden Branch">{{cite journal |last=Alden Branch |first=Mark |title=Open Secrets |magazine=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=Jul–Aug 2014 |url=http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3909 |access-date=August 5, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Schenkel">{{cite news |last=Schenkel |first=Ben |title=Tapping in |newspaper=Yale Herald |date=March 30, 2012 |url=http://yaleherald.com/homepage-lead-image/cover-stories/tapping-in/ |access-date=July 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140305082015/http://yaleherald.com/homepage-lead-image/cover-stories/tapping-in/ |archive-date=March 5, 2014 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Robbins |first=Alexandra |title=George W., Knight of Eulogia |magazine=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/george-w-knight-of-eulogia/304686/ |access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> Although once carefully guarded, the "secrecy" of these senior societies is dubious; their existence is widely known and membership rolls for most are published yearly. Ten present-day societies—[[Skull and Bones]], [[Scroll and Key]], [[Book and Snake]], [[Wolf's Head (secret society)|Wolf's Head]], [[Elihu (secret society)|Elihu]], [[Berzelius]], [[St. Elmo (secret society)|St. Elmo]], [[Manuscript]], [[Shabtai (society)|Shabtai]], and [[Mace and Chain]]—have private buildings near campus; many other societies have a fixed on-campus meeting space where they meet twice a week.<ref name="Schenkel" /> Some of the oldest society buildings are enclosed and windowless; members refer to them as "tombs." |
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Their activities have varied over time and across societies, but most societies meet for dinners, discussion, drinking, and long-form disclosure of members' life history.<ref name="Alden Branch"/><ref name="RobbinsBook">{{cite book |last=Robbins |first=Alexandra |title=Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power |url=https://archive.org/details/secretsoftombsku00robb |url-access=registration |date=2002 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=9780759527379}}</ref> Despite a long history of social exclusion—of Jews and women in particular—many of these societies have prioritized membership diversity in the last several decades.<ref>{{cite book |last=Oren |first=Dan A. |title=Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale |date=1986 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300033304 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/joiningclubhist00oren }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6DE1738F935A3575AC0A967958260|title=Yale Alumni Block Women in Secret Club|date=September 6, 1991|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=February 28, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Buster |title=Skull & Bones: It's Not Just for White Dudes Anymore |date=February 25, 2013 |magazine=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/skull-and-bones-its-not-just-for-white-dudes-anymore/273463/ |access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> The semi-secrecy and influential membership of Yale's older senior societies has attracted wide interest and scrutiny, particularly when both [[2004 United States presidential election|2004 U.S. presidential candidates]] were members of Skull and Bones.<ref name="Schenkel"/><ref name="RobbinsBook"/><ref>{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=Frances Grandy |title=Yale's Not-so- Secret Societies |date=March 30, 2000 |newspaper=Hartford Courant |url=http://articles.courant.com/2000-03-30/features/0003301513_1_skull-and-bones-scroll-and-key-new-members |access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> |
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Residential Colleges of Yale University ([http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/residential_life/index.html official list]): |
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==In popular culture== |
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#[[Berkeley College (Yale)|Berkeley College]] [http://www.yale.edu/berkeley/] - named for the Rt. Rev. [[George Berkeley]] (1685-1753), early benefactor of Yale. |
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*The [[Anti-Tom literature|anti-Tom]] novel ''[[Aunt Phillis's Cabin]]'' by [[Seth and Mary Eastman|Mary Henderson Eastman]] is partially set in Yale College in the 1850s.<ref>''Aunt Phillis's Cabin: or, Southern Life As It Is'' – M. H. Eastman (1852)</ref> |
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#[[Branford College]] [http://www.yale.edu/branford/] - named for [[Branford, Connecticut]], where Yale was briefly located. |
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*In the American TV series ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', [[Rory Gilmore]] attends Yale College, choosing it over [[Harvard College|Harvard]]. |
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#[[Calhoun College]] [http://www.yale.edu/calhoun/] - named for [[John C. Calhoun]], vice-president of the United States. |
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#[[Davenport College]] [http://www.yale.edu/davenport/] - named for Rev. [[John Davenport (clergyman)|John Davenport]], the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port". |
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#[[Ezra Stiles College]] [http://www.yale.edu/stiles/] - named for the Rev. [[Ezra Stiles]], a president of Yale. Generally called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master [[Traugott Lawler]] to preserve the use of the full name in everyday speech. Its buildings were designed by [[Eero Saarinen]]. |
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#[[Jonathan Edwards College]] [http://www.yale.edu/je/] - named for theologian, Yale alumnus, and Princeton co-founder [[Jonathan Edwards (theology)|Jonathan Edwards]]. Generally called "J.E." The oldest of the residential colleges, J.E. is the only college with an independent endowment, the Jonathan Edwards Trust. |
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#[[Morse College]] [http://www.yale.edu/morse/] - named for [[Samuel Morse]], inventor of Morse Code. Also designed by [[Eero Saarinen]]. |
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#[[Pierson College]] [http://www.yale.edu/pierson/] - named for Yale's first rector, [[Abraham Pierson]]. |
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#[[Saybrook College]] [http://www.yale.edu/saybrook/] - named for [[Old Saybrook, Connecticut]], the town in which Yale was founded. |
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#[[Silliman College]] [http://www.yale.edu/sm/] - named for noted scientist and Yale professor [[Benjamin Silliman]]. About half of its structures were originally part of the [[Sheffield Scientific School]], |
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#[[Timothy Dwight College]] [http://www.yale.edu/td/] - named for the two Yale presidents of that name, [[Timothy Dwight IV]] and [[Timothy Dwight V]]. Usually called "T.D." |
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#[[Trumbull College]] [http://www.yale.edu/trumbull/] - named for [[Jonathan Trumbull]], governor of Connecticut. The smallest college. |
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==References== |
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In 1990, Yale launched a series of massive overhauls to the older residential buildings, whose decades of existence had seen only routine maintenance and incremental improvements to plumbing, heating, and electrical and network wiring. Berkeley College was the first to undergo complete renovation. Various unwieldy schemes were used to house displaced students during the yearlong projects, but complaints finally moved Yale to build a [http://yale.edu/yaleconf/facilities/housing.html?y new residence hall] between the gym and the power plant. It is commonly called "Swing Space" by the students; its official name, "Boyd Hall" (a name allegedly created by Berkeley students as a contraction of "Boy, did we get f---d"), is unused. |
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{{Reflist|30em}} |
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==Further reading== |
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Yale created plans to create a thirteenth college, whose concrete facade would have broken with the campus' more prevalent Gothic and Georgian architecture. The plans were scrapped, after the city of New Haven put up substantial financial barriers, and the proposed site was eventually filled with condominiums and shops (Whitney Grove Square, among others). |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Clap |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Clap |title=The annals or history of Yale-college |year=1766 |publisher=John Hotchkiss and B. Mecom |url=https://archive.org/details/annalsorhistory00clapgoog |access-date=March 23, 2014}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Holden |first=Reuben A. |title=Yale: A Pictorial History |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=1967 |isbn=9780300005653}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Kabaservice |first=Geoffrey |title=The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment |publisher=Henry Holt |location=New York |year=2004 |isbn=9780805067620}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Kelley |first=Brooks Mather |title=Yale: A History |year=1999 |edition=2nd |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300078435 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B2aDRhohtx8C}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Pierson |first=George W. |author-link=George Wilson Pierson |title=Yale College, An Educational History (1871–1921) |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=1952}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Pierson |first=George W. |author-link=George Wilson Pierson |title=Yale: The University College (1921–1937) |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=1955}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Soares |first=Joseph |title=The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2007 |isbn= 9780804756389}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last=Warch |first=Richard |title=School of the Prophets: Yale College, 1701–1740 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |year=1973 |isbn=9780300016055}} |
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* {{cite book|ref=none |last1=Welch |first1=Lewis Sheldon |last2=Camp |first2=Walter |author-link2=Walter Camp |title=Yale, her campus, class-rooms, and athletics |year=1899 |publisher=L. C. Page and Company |location=Boston |url=https://archive.org/details/yalehercampuscla01welc |access-date=March 23, 2014}} |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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* {{Official website|yalecollege.yale.edu}} |
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* [http://www.yale.edu/yalecol/ Official Website of Yale College]] |
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* [http://www.ywproject.com The Yung Wing Project] hosts the memoir of the first Chinese-American graduate of an American university (Yale 1854). |
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{{Yale}} |
{{Yale}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
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{{YaleColleges}} |
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[[Category:Yale College| ]] |
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[[Category:Yale University schools|College]] |
[[Category:Yale University schools|College]] |
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[[Category:Educational institutions established in 1701]] |
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Revision as of 02:46, 8 May 2024
![]() | |
Former name | The Collegiate School |
---|---|
Motto | אורים ותמים (Hebrew; ʾÛrîm wə-Tummîm) |
Motto in English | Light and truth |
Typ | Private |
Established | 1701 |
Parent institution | Yale University |
Dean | Pericles Lewis |
Undergraduates | 6,092 (2020)[1] |
Standort | , , Vereinigte Staaten 41°18′42″N 72°55′31″W / 41.31167°N 72.92528°W |
Alumni | 75,021[b][2] |
Website | yalecollege |
[b] The number of living alumni as of the year 2012 |
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, when its schools were confederated and the institution was renamed Yale University. It is ranked as one of the top colleges in the United States.[3][4][5][6][7]
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 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 departmental major in their sophomore year.
The most distinctive feature of undergraduate life is the school's system of residential colleges, established in 1932, and modeled after the constituent colleges of English universities. Undergraduates live in these colleges after their freshman year, when most live on the school's Old Campus.
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Yale_family_chrest.jpg/200px-Yale_family_chrest.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Elihu_Yale_Memorial%2C_St._Mary%27s_Church%2C_Madras.jpg/250px-Elihu_Yale_Memorial%2C_St._Mary%27s_Church%2C_Madras.jpg)
The Collegiate School was founded in 1701 by a charter drawn by ten Congregationalist ministers led by James Pierpont and approved by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut. Originally situated in 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 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 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.[8]
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.[9] 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 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.[10] 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.[11]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Harkness_Tower.jpg/200px-Harkness_Tower.jpg)
By 1870, Yale was the largest undergraduate institution in the country.[11] The growth of the student body prompted major growth in the college's physical campus, the greatest expansion of which occurred in 1933, when a gift of Edward S. Harkness created and endowed eight residential colleges.[12] Modeled after the college system of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the colleges were intended to be the social and residential centers of undergraduate life while leaving academic programs under the oversight of university's departments. Two additional colleges were built by 1940, and two more in the 1960s.
Admission and exclusion
For most of its history, study at Yale was almost exclusively restricted to white Protestant men, often the children of alumni. Documented exceptions to this paradigm include Hawaiian native Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia, who became a student of Yale President Timothy Dwight in 1809, and black abolitionist James W. C. Pennington, who was allowed to audit theology courses in 1837.[13][14] Moses Simons, a descendant of a slave-holding South Carolinian family, has been suggested to be the first Jew to graduate from Yale.[15] Though his maternal ancestry is disputed, he may have also been the first person of African-American descent to graduate from any American college.[16] In 1854, Yung Wing graduated from the college and became the first student from China to graduate from an American university, and in 1857, Richard Henry Green became the first African-American man to receive a degree from the college.[17] Until the rediscovery of Green's ethnic descent in 2014, physicist Edward Bouchet, who stayed at Yale to become the first African-American PhD recipient, was believed to also be the first African-American graduate of Yale College.
In the early 20th century, the student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians"—a group later called WASPs. By the 1970s, it was much more diverse.[18]
Enrollment at Yale only became competitive in the early 20th century, requiring the college to set up an admissions process. As late as the 1950s, tests and demographic questionnaires for admission to the college worked to exclude non-Christian men, especially Jews, as well as non-white men.[19] By the mid-1960s, these processes were becoming more meritocratic, allowing for the recruitment of a racially, economically, and geographically diverse student body.[20][21] This meritocratic transition encouraged the university to establish the first need-blind admissions policy in the United States.[19] After several decades of debate about coeducation, Yale College admitted its first class of women in 1969.[22]
In recent years, the college has focused on international recruitment, quadrupling the fraction of international students admitted between 1993 and 2013.[23][24]
Organization
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Sheffield_Sterling_Strathcona_Hall.jpg/220px-Sheffield_Sterling_Strathcona_Hall.jpg)
Yale College is a constituent school of Yale University and contains a dependent system of residential colleges. Its executive officer is the Dean of Yale College, who is appointed to a five-year term by the Yale Corporation.[25] The dean oversees undergraduate academic curriculum, extracurricular activities, and student discipline, but does not have direct control over the residential colleges. The position is currently held by Pericles Lewis, professor of comparative literature.[26]
All of the college's faculty are members of the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are thereby jointly affiliated with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Tenured members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences constitute the Board of Permanent Officers, who govern the school's curriculum and programs.[25] Most undergraduate courses and majors are offered under the purview of academic departments, divisions of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences which offer undergraduate and graduate curricula.[27] In addition, the faculties of three Yale professional schools, the School of Art, School of Architecture and School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, also offer undergraduate programs.[28][29]
Residential colleges, which are funded and controlled by the university, have separate administration and limited self-governance. The Heads of College (before 2016 called Masters), usually tenured faculty members, are appointed to renewable, five-year terms by the Yale Corporation to oversee the affairs of each college. Residential college deans, who are supervised by the Dean of Yale College, are in charge of undergraduate academic oversight. Each residential college is governed by its Head of College, Dean, and Fellows, and has a college council of students with limited jurisdiction over student affairs. Issues affecting multiple colleges are governed by the Council of the Heads of College, composed of the Heads of College of the fourteen colleges.
Residential colleges
The most distinctive feature of Yale College undergraduate life is the residential college system.[30][31] 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 presses 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.[32]
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 Revival styles; the two colleges built in the 1960s are Modernist reinventions of the college plan. In 2007, Yale announced the construction of two additional Collegiate Gothic residential colleges near Science Hill, which opened in 2017.
List of residential colleges
Residential colleges are named for important figures or places in university history or notable alumni; they are deliberately not named for benefactors.
- Benjamin Franklin College – named for Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
- Berkeley College – named for George Berkeley (1685–1753), early benefactor of Yale.
- Branford College – named for Branford, Connecticut, the town in which Yale was founded.
- Davenport College – named for John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port."
- Ezra Stiles College – named for Ezra Stiles, a president of Yale. Designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Jonathan Edwards College – named for theologian and Princeton University co-founder Jonathan Edwards. Usually called "J.E."
- Grace Hopper College – named for Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, Yale Ph.D. and computer pioneer. Until 2017, this college was named for John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States. The smallest college.
- Morse College – named for Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code. Also designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Pauli Murray College – named for civil rights activist, legal scholar and religious pioneer Pauli Murray.
- Pierson College – named for Yale's first rector, Abraham Pierson.
- Saybrook College – named for Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where Yale was briefly located.
- Silliman College – named for noted scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. About half of its structures were originally part of the Sheffield Scientific School.
- Timothy Dwight College – named for the two Yale presidents of that name, Timothy Dwight IV and Timothy Dwight V. Usually called "T.D."
- Trumbull College – named for Jonathan Trumbull, 18th-century governor of Connecticut.
Student organizations
Singing groups
Yale College has been called "the epicenter of college singing," both for its long history of singing groups and its centrality in establishing collegiate a cappella in the United States. The earliest choral group, the Beethoven Society, dates to 1812 and emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as the Yale Glee Club.[33] Although glee clubs around the country had spawned small collegiate ensembles since that time, the all-senior, all-male Whiffenpoofs, formed in 1909, are often considered to be the oldest collegiate a cappella society in the United States.[34][35] Formalizing a style pioneered by black barbershop groups in New Haven, their repertoire was amplified by the founding of similar groups across the country.[34] Coeducation in 1969 made possible all-women's groups and mixed groups. In all, there are now at least eighteen undergraduate a cappella groups in Yale College, ranging from a Slavic chorus to Christian a cappella.[36]
Publications
Student publications at Yale date back as far as 1806, but the earliest still in print, the Yale Literary Magazine, was founded in 1836 and is believed to be the oldest surviving literary review in the United States.[37][38] Undergraduate publications like the Yale Banner, a yearbook, and The Yale Record, a humor magazine, followed suit, often around the same time similar publications were established at Harvard and Princeton.[39] The Yale Daily News, established in 1878, was a relative latecomer but became the flagship campus daily, and continues to publish during every weekday of the undergraduate academic term. These publications have been joined by many 20th-century debuts, including The Yale Herald and The New Journal.
Secret societies
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Yale-scroll-and-key.jpg/250px-Yale-scroll-and-key.jpg)
In 1832, a rift over Phi Beta Kappa inductions between the college's two debating societies, Linonia and Brothers in Unity, caused seniors to establish the first secret society at the university, Skull and Bones.[40] Skull and Bones "tapped" select juniors for membership as seniors, a ritual later adopted by all undergraduate senior societies. Since then, senior societies have proliferated at Yale, with recent estimates of 41 existing societies and senior class membership ranging from ten to fifty percent of each class.[41][42][43] Although once carefully guarded, the "secrecy" of these senior societies is dubious; their existence is widely known and membership rolls for most are published yearly. Ten present-day societies—Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Book and Snake, Wolf's Head, Elihu, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Manuscript, Shabtai, and Mace and Chain—have private buildings near campus; many other societies have a fixed on-campus meeting space where they meet twice a week.[42] Some of the oldest society buildings are enclosed and windowless; members refer to them as "tombs."
Their activities have varied over time and across societies, but most societies meet for dinners, discussion, drinking, and long-form disclosure of members' life history.[41][44] Despite a long history of social exclusion—of Jews and women in particular—many of these societies have prioritized membership diversity in the last several decades.[45][46][47] The semi-secrecy and influential membership of Yale's older senior societies has attracted wide interest and scrutiny, particularly when both 2004 U.S. presidential candidates were members of Skull and Bones.[42][44][48]
In popular culture
- The anti-Tom novel Aunt Phillis's Cabin by Mary Henderson Eastman is partially set in Yale College in the 1850s.[49]
- In the American TV series Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore attends Yale College, choosing it over Harvard.
References
- ^ "Common Data Set 2019–2020" (PDF). Yale University. Retrieved March 5, 2020.
- ^ "Alumni (living) by Yale school". Yale University Office of Institutional Research. Archived from the original on July 1, 2014. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
- ^ "Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2020". Times Higher Education (THE). October 29, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ^ "America's Top Colleges 2019". Forbes. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ^ "2020 Best Colleges in America". Niche. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ^ Belkin, Melissa Korn and Douglas (September 5, 2019). "The Top-Ranked College Is…". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ^ "2020 Best National University Rankings". U.S. News & World Report.
- ^ Pierson, George W. (2004). Yale: A Short History (2nd ed.). Stinehour Press. Retrieved June 24, 2014.
- ^ Conniff, Richard (March 2015). "How The Sciences Came to Yale". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
- ^ Kelley, Brooks Mather (1999). Yale: A History (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300078435.
- ^ a b Thelin, John R. (2013). A History of American Higher Education (2nd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9781421404998.
- ^ Pierson, George W. (1955). Yale: The University College, 1921–1937. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ Schiff, Judith Ann (July 2004). "Aloha Blue". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
- ^ Schiff, Judith (January 2006). "Pioneers". Yale Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on December 28, 2014. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
- ^ Oren, Dan (1986). Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ Kaminer, Ariel (March 16, 2014). "New Contenders Emerge in Quest to Identify Yale's First African-American Graduate". The New York Times. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
- ^ Schiff, Judith (May 2014). "The life of Richard Henry Green". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
- ^ Jerome Karabel (2006). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 23.
- ^ a b Kabaservice, Geoffrey (December 1999). "The Birth of a New Institution". Yale Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
- ^ Karaben, Jerome (2005). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618773558.
- ^ Soares, Joseph A. (2007). The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804756389.
- ^ "Yale Will Admit Women in 1969; May Have Coeducational Housing". Harvard Crimson. November 15, 1968. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
- ^ Wildavsky, Ben (2012). The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World. Princeton University Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780691154558.
- ^ Christofforsen, John (August 30, 2012). "Yale President Levin Stepping Down after 20 Years". Associated Press. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
- ^ a b "The Yale Corporation By-Laws". Yale University. September 28, 2013. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- ^ "Office of the Dean". Yale College. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
- ^ Unlike many American universities, Yale does not have a system of divisional minors.
- ^ "Faculty Handbook" (PDF). Yale University Office of the Provost. August 2013. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
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- ^ Ryan, Mark B. (2001). A Collegiate Way of Living: Residential Colleges and a Yale Education (PDF). New Haven, CT: Jonathan Edwards College. p. 19. ISBN 9781402850615. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- ^ "Residential College Seminar Program".
- ^ Winstead, J. Lloyd (2013). When Colleges Sang: The Story of Singing in American College Life. University of Alabama Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780817317904.
- ^ a b Duchan, Joshua S. (2012). Powerful Voices: The Musical and Social World of Collegiate A Cappella. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472118250.
- ^ Howard, James M. (1959). "An Authentic Account of the Founding of the Whiffenpoofs" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 18, 2011. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
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- ^ Mott, Frank L. (1930). A History of American Magazines, 1741–1850. Vol. 1. Harvard University Press. p. 488. ISBN 9780674395503.
- ^ Welch, Lewis Sheldon; Camp, Walter (1899). Yale, her campus, class-rooms, and athletics. Boston: L. C. Page and Company. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
- ^ Schiff, Judith (September–October 2004). "How The Secret Societies Got That Way". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
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- ^ Robbins, Alexandra. "George W., Knight of Eulogia". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
- ^ a b Robbins, Alexandra (2002). Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780759527379.
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Further reading
- Clap, Thomas (1766). The annals or history of Yale-college. John Hotchkiss and B. Mecom. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
- Holden, Reuben A. (1967). Yale: A Pictorial History. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300005653.
- Kabaservice, Geoffrey (2004). The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 9780805067620.
- Kelley, Brooks Mather (1999). Yale: A History (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300078435.
- Pierson, George W. (1952). Yale College, An Educational History (1871–1921). New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Pierson, George W. (1955). Yale: The University College (1921–1937). New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Soares, Joseph (2007). The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804756389.
- Warch, Richard (1973). School of the Prophets: Yale College, 1701–1740. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300016055.
- Welch, Lewis Sheldon; Camp, Walter (1899). Yale, her campus, class-rooms, and athletics. Boston: L. C. Page and Company. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
External links
- Official website
- The Yung Wing Project hosts the memoir of the first Chinese-American graduate of an American university (Yale 1854).