Yale was established as theCollegiate School in 1701 byCongregationalist clergy of theConnecticut Colony. Originally restricted to instructing ministers in theology andsacred languages, the school's curriculum expanded, incorporating humanities and sciences by the time of theAmerican Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the firstPhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew rapidly after 1890 due to the expansion of the physical campus and its scientific research programs.
Front view of "Yale-College" and the chapel, printed by Daniel Bowen in 1786
Known from its origin as the "Collegiate School", the institution opened in the home of its firstrector, Abraham Pierson, who is considered Yale's first president. Pierson lived inKillingworth. The school moved toSaybrook in 1703, when the first treasurer of Yale, Nathaniel Lynde, donated land and a building. In 1716, it moved to New Haven.
Meanwhile, there was a rift forming at Harvard between its sixth president, Increase Mather, and the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad inChurch polity. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the Collegiate School in the hope it would maintain thePuritan religious orthodoxy in a way Harvard had not.[23] Rev.Jason Haven, minister at theFirst Church and Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, had been considered for the presidency on account of his orthodox theology and "Neatness dignity and purity of Style [which] surpass those of all that have been mentioned", but was passed over due to his "very Valetudinary and infirm State of Health".[24]
Coat of arms of the family ofElihu Yale, after whom the university was named in 1718
In 1718, at the behest of either RectorSamuel Andrew or the colony's GovernorGurdon Saltonstall,Cotton Mather contacted the Boston-born businessmanElihu Yale to ask for money to construct a new building for the college. Through the persuasion ofJeremiah Dummer, Yale, who had made a fortune inMadras while working for theEast India Company as the first president ofFort St. George, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum of money. Cotton Mather suggested the school change its name to "Yale College".[25] The name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of theWelsh nameIâl, which had been used for the family estate at Plas yn Iâl, nearLlandegla, Wales.
Meanwhile, a Harvard graduate working in England convinced 180 prominent intellectuals to donate books to Yale. The 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science, philosophy and theology.[26] It had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. UndergraduateJonathan Edwards discoveredJohn Locke's works and developed his "new divinity". In 1722 the rector and six friends, who had a study group to discuss the new ideas, announced they had given upCalvinism, becomeArminians, and joined theChurch of England. They were ordained in England and returned to the colonies as missionaries for theAnglican faith.Thomas Clapp became president in 1745, and while he attempted to return the college to Calvinist orthodoxy, did not close the library. Other students foundDeist books in the library.[27]
Connecticut Hall, oldest building on the Yale campus, built between 1750 and 1753First diploma awarded byYale College, granted to Nathaniel Chauncey in 1702
Yale was swept up by the great intellectual movements of the period—theGreat Awakening andEnlightenment—due to the religious and scientific interests of presidentsThomas Clap andEzra Stiles. They were instrumental in developing the scientific curriculum while dealing with wars, student tumults, graffiti, "irrelevance" of curricula, desperate need for endowment and disagreements with theConnecticut legislature.[28][29][page needed]
Serious American students of theology and divinity, particularly in New England, regardedHebrew as aclassical language, along with Greek andLatin, and essential for study of theOld Testament in the original. Reverend Stiles, president from 1778 to 1795, brought with him his interest in Hebrew as a vehicle for studying ancientBiblical texts in their original language, requiring all freshmen to study Hebrew (in contrast to Harvard, where only upperclassmen were required to study it) and is responsible for the Hebrew phrase אורים ותמים (Urim and Thummim) on the Yale seal. A 1746 graduate of Yale, Stiles came to the college with experience in education, having played an integral role in foundingBrown University.[30] Stiles' greatest challenge occurred in 1779 when British forces occupied New Haven and threatened to raze the college. However, Yale graduateEdmund Fanning, secretary to the British general in command of the occupation, intervened and the college was saved. In 1803, Fanning was granted an honorary degreeLL.D..[31]
As the only college in Connecticut from 1701 to 1823, Yale educated the sons of the elite.[32] Punishable offenses includedcardplaying, tavern-going, destruction of college property, and acts of disobedience. Harvard was distinctive for the stability and maturity of its tutor corps, while Yale had youth and zeal.[33]
The emphasis on classics gave rise to private student societies, open only by invitation, which arose as forums for discussions of scholarship, literature and politics. The first were debating societies:Crotonia in 1738,Linonia in 1753 andBrothers in Unity in 1768. Linonia and Brothers in Unity continue to exist; commemorations to them can be found with names given to campus structures, like Brothers in Unity Courtyard in Branford College.
TheYale Report of 1828 was a dogmatic defense of the Latin and Greek curriculum against critics who wanted more courses in modern languages, math and science. Unlikehigher education in Europe, there was nonational curriculum for U.S. colleges and universities. In the competition for students and financial support, college leaders strove to keep current with demands for innovation. At the same time, they realized a significant portion of students and prospective students demanded a classical background. The report meant the classics would not be abandoned. During this period, institutions experimented with changes in the curriculum, often resulting in a dual-track curriculum. In the decentralized environment of U.S. higher education, balancing change with tradition was a common challenge.[34][35] A group of professors at Yale and New Haven Congregationalist ministers articulated a conservative response to the changes brought byVictorian culture. They concentrated on developing a person possessed of religious values strong enough to sufficiently resist temptations from within, yet flexible enough to adjust to the 'isms' (professionalism,materialism,individualism, andconsumerism) tempting them from without.[36][page needed]William Graham Sumner, professor from 1872 to 1909, taught in the emerging disciplines of economics and sociology to overflowing classrooms. Sumner bested PresidentNoah Porter, who disliked the social sciences and wanted Yale to lock into its traditions of classical education. Porter objected to Sumner's use of a textbook byHerbert Spencer that espoused agnostic materialism because it might harm students.[37]
Until 1887, the legal name of the university was "The President and Fellows of Yale College, in New Haven". In 1887, under an act passed by theConnecticut General Assembly, Yale was renamed "Yale University".[38]
The Revolutionary War soldierNathan Hale (Yale 1773) was the archetype of the Yale ideal in the early 19th century: a manly yet aristocratic scholar, well-versed in knowledge and sports, and a patriot who "regretted" that he "had but one life to lose" for his country. Western painterFrederic Remington (Yale 1900) was an artist whose heroes gloried in the combat and tests of strength in the Wild West. The fictional, turn-of-the-20th-century Yale manFrank Merriwell embodied this same heroic ideal without racial prejudice, and his fictional successor Dink Stover in the novelStover at Yale (1912) questioned the business mentality that had become prevalent at the school. Increasingly students turned to athletic stars as their heroes, especially since winning the big game became the goal of the student body, the alumni, and the team itself.[39]
Along withHarvard andPrinceton, Yale students rejected British concepts about 'amateurism' and constructed athletic programs that were uniquely American.[40] TheHarvard–Yale football rivalry began in 1875. Between 1892, when Harvard and Yale met in one of the firstintercollegiate debates,[41] and in 1909 (year of the first Triangular Debate of Harvard/Yale/Princeton) the rhetoric, symbolism, and metaphors used in athletics were used to frame these debates. Debates were covered on front pages ofcollege newspapers and emphasized inyearbooks, and team members received the equivalent ofathletic letters for their jackets. There were rallies to send off teams to matches, but they never attained the broad appeal athletics enjoyed. One reason may be that debates do not have a clear winner, because scoring is subjective. With late 19th-century concerns about the impact of modern life on the body, athletics offered hope that neither the individual nor society was coming apart.[42]
In 1909–10, football faced a crisis resulting from the failure of the reforms of 1905–06, which sought to solve the problem of serious injuries. There was a mood of alarm and mistrust, and, while the crisis was developing, the presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton developed a project to reform the sport and forestall possible radical changes forced by government. PresidentsArthur Hadley of Yale,A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, andWoodrow Wilson of Princeton worked to develop moderate reforms to reduce injuries. Their attempts, however, were reduced by rebellion against the rules committee and formation of theIntercollegiate Athletic Association. While the big three had attempted to operate independently of the majority, the changes pushed did reduce injuries.[43]
Expansion caused controversy about Yale's new roles.Noah Porter, a moral philosopher, was president from 1871 to 1886. During an age of expansion in higher education, Porter resisted the rise of the new research university, claiming an eager embrace of its ideals would corrupt undergraduate education. Historian George Levesque argues Porter was not a simple-minded reactionary, uncritically committed to tradition, but a principled and selective conservative.[45][page needed] Levesque says he did not endorse everything old or reject everything new; rather, he sought to apply long-established ethical and pedagogical principles to a changing culture. Levesque concludes, noting he may have misunderstood some of the challenges, but he correctly anticipated the enduring tensions that have accompanied the emergence of the modern university.
Milton Winternitz led theYale School of Medicine as its dean from 1920 to 1935. Dedicated to the new scientific medicine established in Germany, he was equally fervent about "social medicine" and the study of humans in their environment. He established the "Yale System" of teaching, with few lectures and fewer exams, and strengthened the full-time faculty system; he created the graduate-level Yale School of Nursing and the psychiatry department and built new buildings. Progress toward his plans for an Institute of Human Relations, envisioned as a refuge where social scientists would collaborate with biological scientists in a holistic study of humankind, lasted only a few years before resentful antisemitic colleagues drove him to resign.[46]
Richard Rummell's 1906 watercolor of the Yale campus facing north
BeforeWorld War II, most elite university faculties counted among their numbers few, if any, Jews, blacks, women, or other minorities; Yale was no exception. By 1980, this condition had been altered dramatically, as numerous members of those groups held faculty positions.[47] Almost all members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—and some members of other faculties—teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.[48]
In 1966, Yale began discussions with itssister schoolVassar College about merging to foster coeducation at the undergraduate level. Vassar, then all-female and part of theSeven Sisters—elite higher education schools that served as sister institutions to theIvy League when nearly all Ivy League institutions still only admitted men—tentatively accepted, but then declined the invitation. Both schools introduced coeducation independently in 1969.[52] Amy Solomon was the first woman to register as a Yale undergraduate;[53] she was the first woman at Yale to join an undergraduate society,St. Anthony Hall. The undergraduate class of 1973 was the first to have women starting from freshman year;[54] all undergraduate women were housed in Vanderbilt Hall.[55]
A decade into co-education, student assault and harassment by faculty became the impetus for the trailblazing lawsuitAlexander v. Yale. In the 1970s, a group of students and a faculty member sued Yale for its failure to curtail sexual harassment, especially by male faculty. The case was partly built from a 1977 report authored by plaintiffAnn Olivarius, "A report to the Yale Corporation from the Yale Undergraduate Women's Caucus".[56] This case was the first to useTitle IX to argue and establish that sexual harassment of female students can be considered illegal sex discrimination. The plaintiffs were Olivarius, Ronni Alexander, Margery Reifler, Pamela Price,[57] and Lisa E. Stone. They were joined by Yale classics professor John "Jack" J. Winkler. The lawsuit, brought partly byCatharine MacKinnon, alleged rape, fondling, and offers of higher grades for sex by faculty, includingKeith Brion, professor of flute and director of bands, political science professor Raymond Duvall,[58] English professorMichael Cooke, and coach of the field hockey team, Richard Kentwell. While unsuccessful in the courts, the legal reasoning changed the landscape of sex discrimination law and resulted in the establishment of Yale's Grievance Board and Women's Center.[59] In 2011 a Title IX complaint was filed against Yale by students and graduates, including editors of Yale's feminist magazineBroad Recognition, alleging the university had a hostile sexual climate.[60] In response, the university formed a Title IX steering committee to address complaints of sexual misconduct.[61] Afterwards, universities and colleges throughout the U.S. also established sexual harassment grievance procedures.
Yale instituted policies in the early 20th century designed to maintain the proportion of white Protestants from notable families in the student body (seenumerus clausus) and eliminated such preferences, beginning with the class of 1970.[62]
In 2006, Yale andPeking University (PKU) established a Joint Undergraduate Program in Beijing, an exchange program allowing Yale students to spend a semester living and studying with PKU honor students.[63] In July 2012, the Yale University-PKU Program ended due to weak participation.[63]
In 2007 outgoing Yale PresidentRick Levin characterized Yale's institutional priorities: "First, among the nation's finest research universities, Yale is distinctively committed to excellence in undergraduate education. Second, in our graduate and professional schools, as well as in Yale College, we are committed to the education of leaders."[64]
In 2009, formerBritish Prime MinisterTony Blair picked Yale as one location—the others being Britain'sDurham University andUniversiti Teknologi Mara—for theTony Blair Faith Foundation's United States Faith and Globalization Initiative.[65] As of 2009, former Mexican PresidentErnesto Zedillo is the director of theYale Center for the Study of Globalization and teaches an undergraduate seminar, "Debating Globalization".[66] As of 2009, former presidential candidate and DNC chairHoward Dean teaches a residential college seminar, "Understanding Politics and Politicians".[67] Also in 2009, an alliance was formed among Yale,University College London, and both schools' affiliated hospital complexes to conduct research focused on the direct improvement of patient care—a field known astranslational medicine. President Richard Levin noted that Yale has hundreds of other partnerships across the world, but "no existing collaboration matches the scale of the new partnership with UCL".[68] In August 2013, a new partnership with theNational University of Singapore led to the opening ofYale-NUS College in Singapore, a joint effort to create a new liberal arts college in Asia featuring a curriculum including Western and Asian traditions.[69]
In 2020, in the wake of theGeorge Floyd protests, the #CancelYale tag was used on social media to demand that Elihu Yale's name be removed from Yale University. Much of the support originated from right-wing pundits such asMike Cernovich andAnn Coulter, who intended to satirize what they perceived as the excesses ofcancel culture.[73] Yale spent most of his professional career in the employ of theEast India Company (EIC), serving as thegovernor of thePresidency of Fort St. George in modern-dayChennai. The EIC, including Yale himself, was involved in theIndian Ocean slave trade, though the extent of Yale's involvement in slavery remains debated.[74]His singularly large donation led critics to argue Yale University relied on money derived from slavery for its first scholarships and endowments.[75][76][77][78]
In 2020, the U.S.Justice Department sued Yale for alleged discrimination against Asian and white candidates, through affirmative action admission policies.[79] In 2021, under the new Biden administration, the Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit. The group,Students for Fair Admissions, later won a similarlawsuit against Harvard.[80]
Several explanations have been offered for Yale's representation since the end of the Vietnam War. Sources note the spirit of campus activism that has existed at Yale since the 1960s, and the intellectual influence of ReverendWilliam Sloane Coffin on future candidates.[88] Yale President 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 PresidentsAlfred Whitney Griswold andKingman Brewster.[88]Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College and now president ofDuke University, stated: "We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions, and there is a very strong tradition ofvolunteerism at Yale".[86] Yale historianGaddis Smith notes "an ethos of organized activity" at Yale during the 20th century that led Kerry to lead theYale Political Union's Liberal Party,George Pataki the Conservative Party, and Lieberman to manage theYale Daily News.[89]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".[90] CNN suggests that George W. Bush benefited from preferential admissions policies for the "son and grandson of alumni", and for a "member of a politically influential family".[91]Elisabeth Bumiller andJames Fallows credit the culture of community that exists between students, faculty, and administration, which downplays self-interest and reinforces commitment to others.[92]
During the 1988 presidential election,George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) deridedMichael Dukakis for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique". When challenged on the distinction between Dukakis's Harvard connection and his Yale background, he said that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it" and said Yale did not share Harvard's reputation for "liberalism and elitism".[93] In 2004Howard Dean stated, "In some ways, I consider myself separate from the other three (Yale) candidates of 2004. Yale changed so much between the class of '68 and the class of '71. My class was the first class to have women in it; it was the first class to have a significant effort to recruit African Americans. It was an extraordinary time, and in that span of time is the change of an entire generation".[92]
ThePresident and Fellows of Yale College, also known as the Yale Corporation, or board of trustees, is the governing body of the university and consists of thirteen standing committees with separate responsibilities outlined in the by-laws. The corporation has 19 members: threeex officio members, ten successor trustees, and six elected alumni fellows.[94] The university has three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the twelve professional schools.[95]
Yale's former presidentRichard C. Levin was, at the time, one of the highest paid university presidents in the United States with a 2008 salary of$1.5 million.[96] Yale's succeeding president Peter Salovey ranks 40th with a 2020 salary of$1.16 million.[97]
The Yale Provost's Office and similar executive positions have launched several women into prominent university executive positions. In 1977, ProvostHanna Holborn Gray was appointed interim president of Yale and later went on to become president of the University of Chicago, being the first woman to hold either position at each respective school.[98][99] In 1994, ProvostJudith Rodin became the first permanent female president of an Ivy League institution at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.[100] In 2002, ProvostAlison Richard became the vice-chancellor of theUniversity of Cambridge.[101] In 2003, the dean of the Divinity School,Rebecca Chopp, was appointed president ofColgate University and later went on to serve as the president ofSwarthmore College in 2009, and then the first female chancellor of theUniversity of Denver in 2014.[102] In 2004, ProvostDr. Susan Hockfield became the president of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.[103] In 2004, Dean of the Nursing school, Catherine Gilliss, was appointed the dean of Duke University's School of Nursing and vice chancellor for nursing affairs.[104] In 2007, Deputy ProvostH. Kim Bottomly was named president ofWellesley College.[105]
Similar examples for men who have served in Yale leadership positions can also be found. In 2004, Dean of Yale CollegeRichard H. Brodhead was appointed as the president ofDuke University.[106] In 2008, ProvostAndrew Hamilton was confirmed to be the vice chancellor of the University of Oxford.[107]
Yale University staff are represented by several different unions. Clerical and technical workers are represented by Local 34, and service and maintenance workers are represented by Local 35, both of the same union affiliateUNITE HERE.[108] Unlike similar institutions, Yale has consistently refused to recognize its graduate student union, Local 33 (another affiliate of UNITE HERE), citing claims that the union's elections were undemocratic and how graduate students are not employees;[109][110] the move to not recognize the union has been criticized by theAmerican Federation of Teachers.[111] In addition, officers of the Yale University Police Department are represented by the Yale Police Benevolent Association, which affiliated in 2005 with the Connecticut Organization for Public Safety Employees.[108][112] Yale security officers joined the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America in late 2010,[113] even though the Yale administration contested the election.[114] In October 2014, after deliberation,[115] Yale security decided to form a new union, the Yale University Security Officers Association, which has since represented the campus security officers.[108][116]
Yale has a history of difficult and prolonged labor negotiations, often culminating in strikes.[117][page needed] There have been at least eight strikes since 1968, andThe New York Times wrote that Yale has a reputation as having the worst record of labor tension of any university in the U.S.[118] Moreover, Yale has been accused by theAFL–CIO of failing to treat workers with respect,[119] as well as not renewing contracts with professors over involvement in campus labor issues.[120] Yale has responded to strikes with claims over mediocre union participation and the benefits of their contracts.[121]
Yale's central campus indowntown New Haven covers 260 acres (1.1 km2) and comprises its main, historic campus and a medical campus adjacent to theYale–New Haven Hospital. In western New Haven, the university holds 500 acres (2.0 km2) of athletic facilities, including theYale Golf Course.[122] In 2008, Yale purchased the 17-building, 136-acre (0.55 km2) formerBayer HealthCare complex inWest Haven, Connecticut,[123] the buildings of which are now used as laboratory and research space.[124] Yale also owns seven forests in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire—the largest of which is the 7,840-acre (31.7 km2)Yale-Myers Forest in Connecticut'sQuiet Corner—and nature preserves includingHorse Island.[125]
Yale is noted for its largelyCollegiate Gothic campus[126] as well as several iconic modern buildings commonly discussed in architectural history survey courses:Louis Kahn's Yale Art Gallery[127] and Center for British Art,Eero Saarinen's Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, andPaul Rudolph'sArt & Architecture Building. Yale also owns and has restored many noteworthy 19th-century mansions alongHillhouse Avenue, which was considered the most beautiful street in America byCharles Dickens when he visited the United States in the 1840s.[128] In 2011,Travel + Leisure listed the Yale campus as one of the most beautiful in the United States.[129]
Many of Yale's buildings were constructed in theCollegiate Gothic architecture style from 1917 to 1931, financed largely byEdward S. Harkness, including theYale Drama School.[130][131] Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings portray contemporary college personalities, such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorativefriezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes, like a policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect,James Gamble Rogers, faux-aged these buildings by splashing the walls with acid,[132] deliberately breaking theirleaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of theMiddle 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 isHarkness Tower, 216 feet (66 m) tall, which was originally a free-standing stone structure. It was reinforced in 1964 to allow the installation of theYale Memorial Carillon.
TheBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, designed byGordon Bunshaft ofSkidmore, Owings & Merrill, is one of the largest buildings in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. The library includes a six-story above-ground tower of book stacks, filled with 180,000 volumes, that is surrounded by large translucent Vermont marble panels and a steel and granite truss. The panels act as windows and subdue direct sunlight while also diffusing the light in warm hues throughout the interior.[136] Near the library is a sunken courtyard with sculptures by Isamu Noguchi that are said to represent time (the pyramid), the sun (the circle), and chance (the cube).[137] The library is located near the center of the university inHewitt Quadrangle, which is now more commonly referred to as "Beinecke Plaza".
Yale's Office of Sustainability develops and implements sustainability practices at Yale.[143] Yale is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. As part of this commitment, the university allocates renewable energy credits to offset some of the energy used by residential colleges.[144] Eleven campus buildings are candidates for LEED design and certification.[145] Yale Sustainable Food Project initiated the introduction of local, organic vegetables, fruits, and beef to all residential college dining halls.[146] Yale was listed as a Campus Sustainability Leader on the Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card 2008, and received a "B+" grade overall.[147] Yale is a member of the Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium, through which it has committed to best-practice sharing and the ongoing exchange of campus sustainability solutions along with other member institutions.[148]
Yale is the largest taxpayer and employer in the City ofNew Haven,[149] and has often buoyed the city's economy and communities. Yale, however, has consistently opposed paying a tax on its academic property.[150] Yale'sArt Galleries, along with many other university resources, are free and openly accessible. Yale also funds theNew Haven Promise program, paying full tuition for eligible students from New Haven public schools.[151]
Yale has a complicated relationship with its home city; for example, thousands of students volunteer every year in myriad community organizations, but city officials, who decry Yale's exemption from local property taxes, have long pressed the university to do more to help. Under President Levin, Yale has financially supported many of New Haven's efforts to reinvigorate the city. Evidence suggests that thetown and gown relationships are mutually beneficial. Still, the economic power of the university increased dramatically with its financial success amid a decline in the local economy.[152]
Several campus safety strategies have been pioneered at Yale. The first campus police force was founded at Yale in 1894, when the university contracted city police officers to exclusively cover the campus.[153][154] Later hired by the university, the officers were originally brought in to quell unrest between students and city residents and curb destructive student behavior.[155][156] In addition to the Yale Police Department, a variety of safety services are available including blue phones, asafety escort, and 24-hour shuttle service.
In the 1970s and 1980s,poverty andviolent crime rose in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts.[157] Between 1990 and 2006, New Haven's crime rate fell by half, helped by acommunity policing strategy by theNew Haven Police and Yale's campus became the safest among peer schools.[158]
In 2004, the national non-profit watchdog group Security on Campus filed a complaint with theU.S. Department of Education, accusing Yale of under-reporting rape and sexual assaults.[159][160]
In April 2021, Yale announced that it will require students to receive aCOVID-19 vaccine as a condition of being on campus during the fall 2021 term.[161]
Undergraduate admission to Yale College is considered "most selective" byU.S. News.[162][163] In 2022, Yale accepted 2,234 students to the Class of 2026 out of 50,015 applicants, for an acceptance rate of 4.46%.[164] 98% of students graduate within six years.[165]
Through its program of need-based financial aid, Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants, and the university isneed-blind for both domestic and international applicants.[166] Most financial aid is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be paid back to the university, and the average need-based aid grant for the Class of 2017 was$46,395.[167] 15% of Yale College students are expected to have no parental contribution, and about 50% receive some form of financial aid.[165][168][169] About 16% of the Class of 2013 had some form of student loan debt at graduation, with an average debt of$13,000 among borrowers.[165] For 2019, Yale ranked second in enrollment of recipients of theNational Merit $2,500 Scholarship (140 scholars).[170]
Half of all Yale undergraduates are women, more than 39% areethnic minority U.S. citizens (19% are underrepresented minorities), and 10.5% areinternational students.[167] 55% attended public schools and 45% attended private, religious, or international schools, and 97% of students were in the top 10% of their high school class.[165] Every year, Yale College also admits a small group ofnon-traditional students through the Eli Whitney Students Program.
Yale University'sSterling Memorial Library, as seen fromMaya Lin's sculpture,Women's Table. The sculpture records the number of women enrolled at Yale over its history; female undergraduates were not admitted until 1969.
Yale University Library, which holds over 15 million volumes, is the second-largest university collection in the United States.[12][171] The main library,Sterling Memorial Library, contains about 4 million volumes, and other holdings are dispersed at subject and location libraries.
Rare books are found in several Yale collections. TheBeinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. TheHarvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library includes important historical medical texts, including an impressive collection of rare books, as well as historical medical instruments. TheLewis Walpole Library contains the largest collection of 18th‑century British literary works. TheElizabethan Club, technically a private organization, makes its Elizabethan folios and first editions available to qualified researchers through Yale.
Yale's museum collections are also of international stature. TheYale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum, contains more than 200,000 works, including Old Masters and important collections of modern art, in the Swartwout and Kahn buildings. The latter,Louis Kahn's first large-scale American work (1953), was renovated and reopened in December 2006. TheYale Center for British Art, the largest collection of British art outside of the UK, grew from a gift ofPaul Mellon and is housed in another Kahn-designed building.
ThePeabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven is used by school children and contains research collections in anthropology, archaeology, and the natural environment.
The museums once housed the artifacts brought to the United States fromPeru by Yale history professorHiram Bingham in his Yale-financed expedition toMachu Picchu in 1912—when the removal of such artifacts was legal. The artifacts were restored to Peru in 2012.[172]
Internationally, Yale was ranked 11th in the 2016Academic Ranking of World Universities, tenth in the 2016–17 Nature Index[182] for quality of scientific research output, and tenth in the 2016 CWUR World University Rankings.[183] The university was also ranked sixth in the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Rankings[184] and eighth in the Academic World Reputation Rankings.[185] In 2019, it ranked 27th among the universities around the world bySCImago Institutions Rankings.[186]
Yale's English and Comparative Literature departments were part of theNew Criticism movement. Of the New Critics,Robert Penn Warren,W.K. Wimsatt, andCleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of Americandeconstruction.Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the department of comparative literature from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called "Yale School". These includedPaul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French,J. Hillis Miller,Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), andHarold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. HistoriansC. Vann Woodward andDavid Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream ofsouthern historians; likewise,David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale's Music School and department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. TheJournal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957;Allen Forte andDavid Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.
Since the late 1960s, Yale produces social sciences and policy research through its Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS).
In addition to eminent faculty members, Yale research relies heavily on the presence of roughly 1200Postdocs from various national and international origin working in the multiple laboratories in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professional schools of the university. The university progressively recognized this working force with the recent creation of the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs and theYale Postdoctoral Association.
Yale is a research university, with the majority of its students in thegraduate andprofessional schools.Undergraduates, orYale College students, come from a variety of ethnic, national, socioeconomic, and personal backgrounds. Of the 2010–2011 freshman class, 10% are non‑U.S. citizens, while 54% went to public high schools.[193] The median family income of Yale students is$192,600, with 57% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 16% from the bottom 60%.[194]
Yale'sresidential college system was established in 1933 byEdward S. Harkness, who admired the social intimacy of Oxford and Cambridge and donated significant funds to found similarcolleges at Yale and Harvard. Though Yale's colleges resemble their English precursors organizationally and architecturally, they aredependent entities of Yale College and have limited autonomy. The colleges are led by a head and an academic dean, who reside in the college, and university faculty and affiliates constitute each college's fellowship. Colleges offer their own seminars, social events, and speaking engagements known as "Master's Teas", but do not contain programs of study or academic departments. All other undergraduate courses are taught by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are open to members of any college.
All undergraduates are members of a college, to which they are assigned before their freshman year, and 85 percent live in the college quadrangle or a college-affiliated dormitory.[195] While the majority of upperclassman live in the colleges, most on-campus freshmen live on theOld Campus, the university's oldest precinct.
While Harkness' original colleges wereGeorgian Revival orCollegiate Gothic in style, two colleges constructed in the 1960s,Morse andEzra Stiles Colleges, have modernist designs. All twelve college quadrangles are organized around a courtyard, and each has a dining hall, courtyard, library, common room, and a range of student facilities. The twelve colleges are named for important alumni or significant places in university history. In 2017, the university opened two new colleges nearScience Hill.[196]
Since the 1960s,John C. Calhoun'swhite supremacist beliefs and pro-slavery leadership[197][198][199][200] had prompted calls to rename the college or remove its tributes to Calhoun. The racially motivatedchurch shooting inCharleston, South Carolina, led to renewed calls in the summer of 2015 forCalhoun College, one of 12 residential colleges at the time, to be renamed. In July 2015 students signed a petition calling for the name change.[198] They argued in the petition that—while Calhoun was respected in the 19th century as an "extraordinary American statesman"—he was "one of the most prolific defenders of slavery and white supremacy" in the history of the United States.[198][199] In August 2015, Yale President Peter Salovey addressed the Freshman Class of 2019 in which he responded to the racial tensions but explained why the college would not be renamed.[200] He described Calhoun as "a notable political theorist, a vice president to two different U.S. presidents, a secretary of war and of state, and a congressman and senator representing South Carolina".[200] He acknowledged that Calhoun also "believed that the highest forms of civilization depend on involuntary servitude. Not only that, but he also believed that the races he thought to be inferior, black people in particular, ought to be subjected to it for the sake of their own best interests."[197] Student activism about this issue increased in the fall of 2015, and included further protests sparked by controversy surrounding an administrator's comments on the potential positive and negative implications of students who wearHalloween costumes that areculturally sensitive.[201] Campus-wide discussions expanded to include critical discussion of the experiences of women of color on campus, and the realities of racism in undergraduate life.[202] The protests were sensationalized by the media and led to the labelling of some students as being members ofGeneration Snowflake.[203]
In April 2016, Salovey announced that "despite decades of vigorous alumni and student protests", Calhoun's name will remain on the Yale residential college[204] explaining that it is preferable for Yale students to live in Calhoun's "shadow" so they will be "better prepared to rise to the challenges of the present and the future". He claimed that if they removed Calhoun's name, it would "obscure" his "legacy of slavery rather than addressing it".[204] "Yale is part of that history" and "We cannot erase American history, but we can confront it, teach it and learn from it." One change that will be issued is the title of "master" for faculty members who serve as residential college leaders will be renamed to "head of college" due to its connotation of slavery.[205]
Despite this apparently conclusive reasoning, Salovey announced that Calhoun College would be renamed for groundbreaking computer scientistGrace Hopper in February 2017.[206] This renaming decision received a range of responses from Yale students and alumni.[207][208][209] In his 2019 bookAssault on American Excellence, formerDean of Yale Law SchoolAnthony T. Kronman criticized the title and name changes and the lack of support from Salovey forthe Christakises, who were targeted by the student activists. Other members of the university community disagreed with Kronman's positions.[210]
In 2024, Yale had 526 registered undergraduate student organizations, plus hundreds of others for graduate students.[211]
The university hosts a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. TheYale Literary Magazine, founded in February 1836, is the oldest student literary magazine in the United States.[212] Established in 1872,The Yale Record is the world's oldest collegehumor magazine. Newspapers include theYale Daily News, which was first published in 1878, and the weeklyYale Herald, which was first published in 1986. TheYale Journal of Medicine & Law is a biannual magazine that explores the intersection oflaw and medicine.
Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 70 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services. TheYale Dramatic Association and Bulldog Productions cater to the theater and film communities, respectively. In addition, the Yale Drama Coalition[213] serves to coordinate between and provide resources for the various Sudler Fund sponsored theater productions which run each weekend. WYBC Yale Radio[214] is the campus's radio station, owned and operated by students. While students used to broadcast on AM and FM frequencies, they now have an Internet-only stream.
TheYale College Council (YCC) serves as the campus's undergraduate student government. All registered student organizations are regulated and funded by a subsidiary organization of the YCC, known as the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee (UOFC).[215] The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) serves as Yale's graduate and professional student government.
The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society founded in 1934 to host student discussions on a wide variety of topics. It is advised by alumni political leaders such asJohn Kerry andGeorge Pataki.
TheYale International Relations Association (YIRA) functions as the umbrella organization for the university's top-ranked Model UN team. YIRA also has a Europe-based offshoot,Yale Model Government Europe, other Model UN conferences such as YMUN, YMUN Korea, YMUN Taiwan and Yale Model African Union (YMAU), theYale Review of International Studies (YRIS), and educational programs such as the Yale International Relations Leadership Institute and Hemispheres.
The campus includes severalfraternities and sororities. The campus features at least 18a cappella groups, the most famous of which isThe Whiffenpoofs, which from its founding in 1909 until 2018 was made up solely of senior men.
TheElizabethan Club, a social club, has a membership of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff with literary or artistic interests. Membership is by invitation. Members and their guests may enter the "Lizzie's" premises for conversation and tea. The club owns first editions of a Shakespeare Folio, several Shakespeare Quartos, and a first edition of Milton'sParadise Lost, among other important literary texts.
Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "bright college years", though in recent history the pipes have been replaced with "bubble pipes".[217][218] ("Bright College Years", the university's alma mater, was penned in 1881 byHenry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune ofDie Wacht am Rhein.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue ofTheodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus; however, actual students rarely do so.[219] In the second half of the 20th centuryBladderball, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009, 2011, and 2014.[220][221][222]
In 1970, the NCAA banned Yale from participating in all NCAA sports for two years, in reaction to Yale—against the wishes of the NCAA—playing its Jewish centerJack Langer in college games after Langer had played for Team United States at the1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel with the approval of Yale PresidentKingman Brewster.[224][225][226][227] The decision impacted 300 Yale students, every Yale student on its sports teams, over the next two years.[228]
In 2016, the men's basketball team won the Ivy League Championship title for the first time in 54 years, earning a spot in theNCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. In the first round of the tournament, the Bulldogs beat theBaylor Bears 79–75 in the school's first-ever tournament win.[229]
Yale crew is the oldest collegiate athletic team in America, and wonOlympic GamesGold Medal for men's eights in 1924 and 1956. TheYale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiatesailing club in the world. October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. TheGilder Boathouse is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her fatherRichard Gilder '54, who gave$4 million towards the$7.5 million project. Yale also maintains theGales Ferry site where the heavyweight men's team trains for theYale-Harvard Boat Race.
In 1896, Yale andJohns Hopkins played the first knownice hockey game in the United States. Since 2006, the school's ice hockey clubs have played a commemorative game.[232]
Yale athletics are supported by theYale Precision Marching Band. "Precision" is used here ironically; the band is a scatter-style band that runs wildly between formations rather than actually marching.[235] The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter.
Yale intramural sports are also a significant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, fostering a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into fall, winter, and spring seasons, each of which includes about 10 different sports. About half the sports are coeducational. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup.
Notable among the songs commonly played and sung at events such ascommencement,convocation, alumni gatherings, and athletic games is the alma mater, "Bright College Years". Despite its popularity, "Boola Boola" is not the officialfight song, albeit being the origin of the university's unofficial motto. The official Yale fight song, "Bulldog" was written byCole Porter during his undergraduate days and is sung after touchdowns during a football game.[236] Additionally, two other songs, "Down the Field" by C.W. O'Conner, and "Bingo Eli Yale", also by Cole Porter, are still sung at football games. According toCollege Fight Songs: An Annotated Anthology published in 1998, "Down the Field" ranks as the fourth-greatest fight song of all time.[237]
The schoolmascot is "Handsome Dan", the Yalebulldog, and the Yale fight song contains the refrain, "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow". The school color, since 1894, isYale Blue.[238] Yale's Handsome Dan is believed to be the first college mascot in America, having been established in 1889.[239]
Dear Yale, I loved being here. I only wish I could've had some time. I needed time to work things out and to wait for new medication to kick in, but I couldn't do it in school, and I couldn't bear the thought of having to leave for a full year, or of leaving and never being readmitted. Love, Luchang.
Students at Yale say that the university's policies force them to hide their depression and avoid seeking help, for fear of being forced to leave.[240][244][243] One prominent case was the suicide of Luchang Wang in 2015, who died by suicide after making a Facebook post saying that she needed time to deal with her mental health issues, but could not deal with being forced to medically withdraw for an entire year with an uncertain chance of being readmitted.[246][243][248] Wang had previously withdrawn from school due to mental health issues, and was afraid of being forced to withdraw again, as a second readmission attempt would be considerably more difficult for her.[246][243] A friend of Wang said that she routinely lied to her university therapist to avoid being kicked out,[246] and another student said that many at Yale lie to their counselors as "there's no clear standard established that says exactly what students will get involuntarily hospitalized or withdrawn for".[243] In response, the university convened a commission to evaluate their readmission policies after a mental health withdrawal, renaming the process to "reinstatement", eliminating the$50 reapplication fee, and giving students 5-6 more days to make their decision on a mental health withdrawal.[240][249]
For students that do seek help, waitlists for therapy can be months long, with individual counselling sessions only 30 minutes in length.[240] In 2022, after a Washington Post article about their medical withdrawal policies, the school increased the number of mental health clinicians on campus from 51 to 60 as well as promised further changes.[241] In 2023, after a lawsuit was filed against the school for what the plaintiffs described as discrimination, the university changed the name of a "medical withdrawal" to a "medical leave of absence" saying that the "leave of absence" terminology would allow students to remain on Yale's insurance while away from the school.[250][251] The new policy also allowed for students on a leave of absence to participate in extracurricular clubs and visit campus,[250][251] something a student on medical withdrawal was banned from doing.[240] A representative of Yale also said that the criticism of their policies "misrepresents our efforts and unwavering commitment to supporting our students, whose well-being and success are our primary focus" and that "the mental health of our students is a very, very high priority".[241]
After the death of undergraduate student Rachael Shaw Rosenbaum by suicide, an organization called Elis for Rachael was formed, advocating for mental health-related reforms. The group has sued Yale, demanding changes.[252]
Yale University is a cultural referent as an institution that produces some of the most elite members of society[392] and its grounds, alumni, and students have been prominently portrayed in fiction and U.S. popular culture. For example,Owen Johnson's novelStover at Yale follows the college career of Dink Stover,[393] andFrank Merriwell, the model for all later juvenile sports fiction, plays football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs.[394][395] Yale University also is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novelThe Great Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Carraway, wrote a series of editorials for theYale News, and Tom Buchanan was "one of the most powerfulends that ever played football" for Yale.
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^(prior to 1894, Yale's color was green) (see:Thompson, Ellen (October 1, 2002)."True Blue". The New Journal. Archived fromthe original on January 13, 2013. RetrievedJanuary 4, 2012.)
^abMiller, Melissa Joy (June 2016). "Before it's too late: the need for a legally compliant and pragmatic alternative to mandatory withdrawal policies at postsecondary institutions".Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice.25 (3).
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Pierson, George Wilson.Yale College, An Educational History (1871–1921), (Yale University Press, 1952);Yale, The University College (1921–1937), (Yale University Press, 1955); on the undergraduate college.
Pierson, George Wilson.The Founding of Yale: The Legend of the Forty Folios, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988.
Richards, David Alan (2017).Skulls and Keys: The Hidden History of Yale's Secret Societies. Pegasus Books.ISBN978-1-68177-517-3.
Stevenson, Louise L.Scholarly Means to Evangelical Ends: The New Haven Scholars and the Transformation of Higher Learning in America, 1830–1890 (1986). 221 pp.
Scully, Vincentet al., eds.Yale in New Haven: Architecture and Urbanism. New Haven: Yale University, 2004.
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