Encyclopedia
Yale University is a private university in
New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the
Collegiate School, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and a member of the
Ivy League.
The university's assets include an $18 billion endowment and more than a dozen libraries that hold a total of 11 million volumes. Yale has 3,200 faculty members, who teach 5,200 undergraduate students and 6,000 graduate students.
Yale's 70 undergraduate majors are primarily focused on a liberal curriculum, and few of the undergraduate departments are pre-professional in nature . About 20% of Yale undergraduates major in the sciences, 35% in the social sciences, and 45% in the arts and humanities. All tenured professors teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.
Yale uses a residential college housing system modeled after those at
Oxford and
Cambridge. Each of 12 residential colleges houses a representative cross-section of the undergraduate student body, and features numerous facilities, seminars, resident faculty, and support personnel.
Yale's graduate programs include those in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences - Biology, Classics, English, Pure, Applied and Engineering Sciences, History, Math, Sociology, Political Science and Economics - and those in the Professional Schools of Architecture, Art, Divinity, Drama, Forestry & Environmental Sciences, Law, Management, Medicine, Music, Nursing, and Public Health.
Yale and
Harvard have for most of their history been rivals in almost everything, notably academics,
rowing and football.
Yale president Richard C. Levin summarized the university's institutional priorities for its fourth century: "First, among the nation's finest research universities, Yale is distinctively committed to excellence in undergraduate education. Second, in our graduate and professional schools, as well as in Yale College, we are committed to the education of leaders."
History
Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" passed by the General Court of the
Colony of Connecticut and dated October 9 1701. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregationalist ministers led by James Pierpont, all of whom were Harvard alumni, met in
Branford, Connecticut, to pool their books to form the school's first library. . The group is now known as "The Founders."
Originally called the
Collegiate School, the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, in Killingworth . In 1716, the college moved to
New Haven, Connecticut, where it remains to this day.
In the meanwhile, a rift was forming at Harvard between its sixth president
Increase Mather and the rest of the Harvard clergy, which Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad in Church polity. The relationship worsened after Mather resigned, and the administration repeatedly rejected his son and ideological colleague,
Cotton Mather , for the position of the Harvard presidency. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hopes that it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not .
In 1718, at the behest of either Rector Andrew or Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted a successful businessman in
Wales named
Elihu Yale to ask him for financial help in constructing a new building for the college. Yale, who had made a fortune through trade while living in India as a representative of the
East India Company, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum at the time. Yale also donated 417 books and a portrait of
King George I. Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to
Yale College in gratitude to its benefactor, and to increase the chances that he would give the college another large donation or bequest. Elihu Yale was away in India when the news of the school's name change reached his home in
Wrexham, North Wales, a trip from which he never returned. And while he did ultimately leave his fortunes to the
"Collegiate School within His Majesties Colony of Connecticot," the institution was never able to successfully lay claim to it.
Serious American students of
theology and divinity, particularly in
New England, regarded
Hebrew as a classical language, along with Greek and
Latin, and essential for study of the Old Testament in the original words. The Reverend
Ezra Stiles, president of the College from 1778 to 1795, brought with him his interest in the Hebrew language as a vehicle for studying ancient
Biblical texts in their original language , requiring all freshmen to study Hebrew and is responsible for the Hebrew words "Urim" and "Thummim" on the Yale seal. Stiles' greatest challenge occurred in July, 1779 when hostile British forces occupied New Haven and threatened to raze the College. Fortunately, Yale graduate Edmund Fanning, Secretary to the British General in command of the occupation, interceded and the College was saved. Fanning later was granted an honorary degree for his efforts.
Yale College expanded gradually, establishing the
Yale Medical School , Yale Divinity School ,
Yale Law School , Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , the Sheffield Scientific School , and the Yale School of Fine Arts . In 1887, as the college continued to grow under the presidency of
Timothy Dwight V,
Yale College was renamed to
Yale University. The university would later add the Yale School of Music , the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies , Yale School of Public Health , and the Yale School of Nursing ,
Yale School of Management , and reorganize its relationship with the Sheffield Scientific School.
Yale College became coeducational in 1969.
Yale, like other Ivy League schools, instituted policies in the early twentieth century designed artificially to increase the proportion of upper-class white Christians of notable families in the student body , and was one of the last of the Ivies to eliminate such preferences, beginning with the class of 1970.
The President and Fellows of Yale College, also known as the Yale Corporation, is the governing board of the University.
See also:
Oxbridge rivalry, which documents a similar history in which
University of Cambridge was founded by dissident scholars from its "rival"
University of OxfordYale and politics in the modern era
The
Boston Globe wrote that "if there's one school that can lay claim to educating the nation's top national leaders over the past three decades, it's Yale."
1 Yale alumni have been represented on the Democratic or Republican ticket in every U.S. Presidential election since 1972. Yale-educated Presidents since the end of the
Vietnam War include
Gerald Ford,
George H.W. Bush,
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush, and major-party nominees during this period include
John Kerry ,
Dick Cheney ,
Joseph Lieberman , and
Sargent Shriver . Other Yale alumni who made serious bids for the Presidency during this period include
Howard Dean and
Gary Hart , both of whom were considered front-runners for the Democratic nomination for a significant portion of the primary season.
Several potential explanations have been offered for Yale’s representation in national elections since the end of the Vietnam War. Various sources note the spirit of campus activism that has existed at Yale since the
1960s, and the intellectual influence of Reverend
William Sloane Coffin on many of the future candidates.
2 Yale President Richard Levin attributes the run to Yale’s focus on creating "a laboratory for future leaders," an institutional priority that began during the tenure of Yale Presidents Alfred Whitney Griswold and Kingman Brewster.
2 Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College, stated: "We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions, and there is a very strong tradition of volunteerism at Yale."
1 Yale historian Gaddis Smith notes "an ethos of organized activity" at Yale during the
20th century that led John Kerry to lead the Yale Political Union's Liberal Party, George Pataki the Conservative Party, and Joseph Lieberman to manage the
Yale Daily News.
3 Camille Paglia points to a history of networking and elitism: "It has to do with a web of friendships and affiliations built up in school."
4 New York Times is a newspaper [i] published in New York City [i] by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. [i] ...
correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller and
the Atlantic Monthly correspondent James Fallows credit the culture of community and cooperation that exists between students, faculty and administration, which downplays self-interest and reinforces commitment to others.
5Sources:
1Boston Globe 11/17/2002, Magazine, p. 6;
2Los Angeles Times 10/4/2000, p. E1;
3New York Times 8/13/2000, p. 14;
4Boston Globe 8/13/2000, p. F1
5Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2004, p. 45
,
Heads of Collegiate School, Yale College, and Yale University
| | Rectors of Yale College | birth–death | years as rector |
|---|
| 1 | The Rev. Abraham Pierson | | Collegiate School |
| 2 | The Rev. Samuel Andrew | | |
| 3 | The Rev. Timothy Cutler | | 1718/9: renamed Yale College |
| 4 | The Rev. Elisha William | | |
| 5 | The Rev. Thomas Clap | | |
Admissions
In 2006, Yale College offered admission to 8.6% of the 21,000+ applicants to the Class of 2010, which represents the lowest admissions rate in the history of the Ivy League. In recent years, more than 71% of those granted admission to Yale have chosen to attend.
Yale College offers need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid to all applicants, including international applicants. Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants, and more than 40% of Yale students receive financial assistance. Most financial aid is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be paid back to the University, and the average scholarship for the 2006-2007 school year will be $26,900.
Yale currently has students from all 50 United States and 73 other countries. Half of all Yale students are women, more than 30% are minorities, 10% are international students. 55% attended public schools and 45% attended independent, religious, or international schools..
Intellectual "schools"
Yale's English and literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics,
Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, after the passing of the New Critical fad, the Yale literature department became a center of American deconstruction, with French and Comparative Literature departments centered around Paul de Man and supported by the English department. This has become known as the "Yale School." Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historian C. Vann Woodward is credited for beginning in the 1960s an important stream of
southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Most noticeably, a tremendous number of currently active Latin American historians were trained at Yale in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s by Emìlia Viotta da Costa; younger Latin Americanists tend to be "intellectual cousins" in that their advisors were advised by the same people at Yale.
Collections
Yale University Library is the second-largest university collection in the world with a total of almost 11 million volumes. The main library,
Sterling Memorial Library, contains about 4 million volumes. The
Beinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. The Yale Center for British Art is the largest collection of British art outside of the UK. Other collections reside at the
Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven's most popular museum; Yale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum; and the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments.
Yale architecture
Yale is noted for its strikingly beautiful campus as well as for several iconic modern buildings commonly taught in architectural history survey courses: the Yale Art Gallery and Center for British Art by
Louis Kahn, Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges by
Eero Saarinen, and the Art & Architecture Building by
Paul Rudolph.
Most of Yale's older buildings, constructed in the Gothic architecture style, were built during the period 1917-1931. Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings make this apparent; they portray contemporary college personalities such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorative
friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes such as policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute , or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect,
James Gamble Rogers, added to the appearance of great age of these buildings by splashing the walls with acid, deliberately breaking their leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the
Middle Ages, and creating niches for decorative statuary but leaving them empty to simulate loss or theft over the ages. In fact, the buildings merely simulate Middle Ages architecture, for though they appear to be constructed of solid stone blocks in the authentic manner, most actually have steel framing as was commonly used in 1930. One exception is
Harkness Tower, 216 feet tall, which was, when built, the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world. It was reinforced in 1964, however, in order to allow for the installation of the
Yale Memorial Carillon.
The truly old buildings on campus, ironically, are built in the
Georgian style and appear much more modern. This includes the oldest building on campus,
Connecticut Hall . Of the buildings constructed in the 1929-1933 period, the ones in the Georgian style include
Timothy Dwight College, Pierson College, and the whole of
Davenport College excluding the east, York Street façade .
The
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, designed by
Gordon Bunshaft of
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, is one of the largest buildings in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. It is located near the center of the University in
Hewitt Quadrangle, which is now more commonly referred to as "
Beinecke Plaza." The library's six-story above-ground tower of book stacks is surrounded by a windowless rectangular building with walls made of translucent Vermont marble, which transmit subdued lighting to the interior and provide protection from direct light, while glowing from within after dark. The sculptures in the sunken courtyard by
Isamu Noguchi are said to represent time , the sun , and chance .
Alumnus
Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the
Gateway Arch in St. Louis,
Washington Dulles International Airport main terminal, and the CBS Building in Manhattan, designed
Ingalls Rink at Yale and the newest residential colleges of Ezra Stiles and Morse. These latter were modelled after the medieval Italian hilltown of
San Gimignano--a prototype chosen for the town's pedestrial-friendly milieu and fortress-like stone towers. These tower forms at Yale act in counterpoint to the college's many gothic spires and Georgian cupolas.
Notable nonresidential campus buildings
Campus life
Residential colleges
Yale has a system of 12 residential colleges, instituted in 1933 through a grant by Yale graduate Edward S. Harkness, who admired the college systems at
Oxford and
Cambridge. Each college has a carefully constructed support structure for students, including a Dean, Master, affiliated faculty, and resident Fellows. Each college also features distinctive architecture, secluded courtyards, and facilities ranging from libraries to squash courts to darkrooms. While each college at Yale offers its own seminars, social events, and Master's Teas with guests from the world, Yale students also take part in academic and social programs across the university, and all of Yale's 2,000 courses are open to undergraduates from any college.
Residential colleges are named for important figures or places in university history or notable alumni; they are deliberately not named for benefactors.
Residential Colleges of Yale University :
- Berkeley College - named for the Rt. Rev. George Berkeley , early benefactor of Yale.
- Branford College - named for Branford, Connecticut, where Yale was briefly located.
- Calhoun College - named for John C. Calhoun, vice-president of the United States.
- Davenport College - named for Rev. John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port".
- Ezra Stiles College - named for the Rev. Ezra Stiles, a president of Yale. Generally called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master Traugott Lawler to preserve the use of the full name in everyday speech. Its buildings were designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Jonathan Edwards College - named for theologian, Yale alumnus, and Princeton co-founder Jonathan Edwards. Generally called "J.E." The oldest of the residential colleges, J.E. is the only college with an independent endowment, the Jonathan Edwards Trust.
- Morse College - named for Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code. Also designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Pierson College - named for Yale's first rector, Abraham Pierson.
- Saybrook College - named for Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the town in which Yale was founded.
- 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, governor of Connecticut. The smallest college.
In 1990, Yale launched a series of massive renovations to the older residential buildings, whose decades of existence had seen only routine maintenance and incremental improvements to plumbing, heating, and electrical and network wiring. Renovations to many of the colleges are now complete, and among other improvements, renovated colleges feature newly built basement facilities including restaurants, game rooms, theaters, athletic facilities and music practice rooms.
The Yale administration is currently evaluating the feasibility of building two new residential colleges.
Sports
Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the
Ivy League Conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Associaton, and Yale is an
NCAA Division I member. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships and is no longer competitive with the top echelon of American college teams in the big-money sports of basketball and football. Nevertheless, American football was largely created at Yale by player and coach
Walter Camp, who evolved the rules of the game away from rugby and soccer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the
Yale Bowl , located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the
Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world. The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world. The yacht club, located in nearby
Branford, Connecticut, is the home of the Yale Sailing Team, which has produced several
Olympic sailors.
The school mascot is "
Handsome Dan", the famous Yale
bulldog, and the Yale fight song contains the refrain, "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow."
Yale athletics are supported by the Yale Precision Marching Band. The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter.
Yale intramural sports are a vibrant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, which fosters a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons, each of which includes about ten different sports. About half the sports are coed. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points wins the Tyng Cup.
Life in New Haven
New Haven has experienced major economic growth in the past couple of decades, turning it into a major cultural center and hub for travel. In the past decade, technology and biotech firms and investment by Yale have put a new face on this colonial city. In 2003, New Haven was selected as an
All-America City, in recognition of its immigrant neighborhoods, city parks, and blocks of old mansions, quaint stores and big chains, and one of the world's pre-eminent universities.
Yale's urban surroundings add to its students' education and entertainment: Yale students run for alderman, work in City Hall, and launch non-profit organizations; the downtown features an array of clubs, theaters, and restaurants; Yalies go to Toad's Place to hear bands like
Built to Spill and
Rufus Wainwright, enjoy cheap martinis at Hot Tomatoes, or buy home-brewed beer and brick-oven pizza at BAR; and, visitors check out exhibits at the
Peabody Museum before taking in a show at the
Shubert Theater.
Student organizations
The Yale Political Union, the oldest student political organization in the United States, is often the largest organization on campus, and is advised by alumni political leaders such as
John Kerry,
Gerald Ford, and George Pataki. The
Yale Daily News has been published by Yale University [i] students in New Haven, Connecticut [i] ...
, the oldest daily college newspaper in the United States, has been a forum for opinion since 1878, and counts among its former chairmen
Sargent Shriver,
Joseph Lieberman, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Strobe Talbott. Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 60 community service initiatives in New Haven. And also worth of mention is the Yale College Council, a relatively recent creation compared to many of Yale's instituations. Founded in the 1971-72 school year by leaders of various residential colleges that saw the need for campus-wide activism for student concerns, it currently runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services.
Greek organizations
The fraternity system in America, which began at William and Mary with the creation of Phi Beta Kappa, grew up at Yale. The early fraternities were junior, sophomore, and even freshman societies that controlled campus politics, including entry into the senior societies that Yale's early Phi Beta Kappa spawned. Those fraternities, however, bear little resemble to the Yale frats of today.
Several fraternities and sororities have chapters at Yale, including:
-
-
-
- Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
- Sigma Nu Fraternity
- Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity
- Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
- Beta Theta Pi Fraternity
- Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority
- Pi Beta Phi Sorority
- Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority
- Alpha Phi Alpha
-
- Zeta Psi Fraternity
- Psi Upsilon Fraternity
Community service organizations
- , an umbrella community service organization overseeing more than 300 community service and social justice initiatives
Political organizations
- The Yale Political Union
- The Yale College Republicans
- The
- The of the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank
Musical groups
Student musical groups include four university-sponsored organizations composed primarily of undergraduates:
- The Yale Concert Band .
- The Yale Precision Marching Band , a scatter band that performs at home football games and many hockey and basketball games. They are known for their comedic halftime shows and arrangements of popular music.
- The Yale Jazz Ensemble , an 18-piece big band/swing band
- The Yale Glee Club . Founded in 1863, the Glee Club today includes about 80 men and women who sing baroque, classical, modern, and folk tunes.
- The Yale Symphony Orchestra , a full orchestra that performs classical and modern pieces.
In addition, the student-run Davenport Pops Orchestra , Saybrook College Orchestra , Berkeley College Orchestra , Jonathan Edwards Chamber Players, and Bach Society all provide free concerts of symphonic masterworks.
A cappella singing groups
Undergraduates also sing in more than a dozen a cappella groups. See vocal music at Yale.
All men- The Whiffenpoofs began the tradition of college a cappella singing groups in 1909. The group is limited to male seniors; each spring 14 juniors are selected for membership. Admission to the group is highly competitive. Alumni include Cole Porter
...
and Fenno Heath.
- The Spizzwinks, founded in 1913, is Yale's oldest underclassman a cappella group.
- The Yale Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, founded in 1938, is Yale's oldest continually active underclassman a cappella group.
- The Yale Alley Cats, founded in 1943, has become one of the most internationally renowned of the American collegiate vocal ensembles.
- The Baker's Dozen, founded in 1947, go on tour across the country twice every year.
- The Duke's Men of Yale
