New Yale Residential Colleges

[svalbardlutefisk]

<p>Earlier today, Yale President Richard Levin sent this e-mail to the Yale community:

To: The Yale College Community</p>

<p>From: Richard C. Levin</p>

<p>I write to announce formally that this year we will assess the desirability of adding two new residential colleges. I have asked Peter Salovey, the Dean of Yale College, to coordinate the work of two committees: one to examine the impact of increasing enrollment on our academic programs and the other to consider the impact on student life. Before we decide to proceed with new colleges, we want to be certain that the quality of the Yale College experience would be maintained or enhanced, and not diminished.</p>

<p>Yale’s residential colleges achieve the nearly impossible: they provide both a sense of community akin to that of a small liberal arts college and access to the abundant resources of a great research university. The combination of a vital, flourishing residential and extracurricular life with an extraordinary academic program sets Yale apart, and no doubt contributes to the College’s exceptional record in educating leaders in all walks of life for this country and the world.</p>

<p>The idea of adding residential colleges dates back more than thirty years. But recent developments now offer compelling reasons for a thorough reconsideration:</p>

<p>Applications to Yale College have nearly doubled in the last decade, requiring us to reject a large number of qualified candidates who would clearly benefit from a Yale education and contribute to the Yale community.
Our mission has expanded to embrace the education of leaders for the world, not simply our nation. Increased enrollment would create more opportunity for Americans as well as international students.
We are making substantial investments in the curriculum of Yale College - enhancing support for writing, languages, science instruction, and quantitative reasoning. These efforts could be appreciated by a larger student population.
A larger student body would require a larger faculty, especially in departments and programs that are under enrollment pressure now. Expanding the faculty in certain areas would have substantial benefit for graduate education and research.
A larger enrollment would have positive and perennial benefits for the economy of New Haven, arising from the expenditures of students themselves, the University’s expenditures on their behalf, and new employment opportunities.</p>

<p>Despite these obvious and substantial benefits of expansion, we need to consider carefully all the associated costs and collateral consequences. We need to identify the costs that are quantifiable, and we need to ponder the important, non-quantifiable impact of additional enrollment on the culture of Yale College. The committees that I am appointing will take up this challenge.</p>

<p>For example, the Committee on Academic Resources, chaired by Dean of Undergraduate Studies Joseph Gordon, will consider where additional faculty positions would be needed to preserve the opportunity Yale students now have to enroll in small classes in the freshman year, and, in most departments, to take seminars as juniors and seniors led by members of the ladder faculty. This committee will also consider such issues as what supplemental library and information technology resources would be needed to support a larger student body, and how much additional classroom space would be needed.</p>

<p>The Committee on Student Life, chaired by the former Master of Calhoun College William Sledge, will investigate the staff resources required to maintain the quality of student support services, from shuttle buses to the Bursar’s Office and Financial Aid to Career Services, International Education and Fellowships, and the University Health Services, for example. This committee will also consider how new colleges located on Prospect Street between Canal and Sachem Streets might be made to feel “closer” to the center of campus, or might even move the perceived center northward, by the possible addition of classrooms, late night dining, and exercise facilities in proximity to the new colleges. Finally, the committee will consider the extent to which the capacity of two new colleges, if built, should exceed the increase in enrollment, in order to relieve overcrowding of our twelve existing colleges.</p>

<p>Penelope Laurans, Associate Dean of Yale College and Special Assistant to the President, will serve as Vice Chair of both committees and assist Dean Salovey in coordinating their work. Both committees will be supported by the Budget Office in forming estimates of the comprehensive cost of expansion, which, as we know from preliminary studies, will substantially exceed the incremental revenue provided by several hundred additional students. I will ask each committee to report on its findings early in the fall semester, so that we will be prepared to make a recommendation, one way or another, on the advisability of expansion to the Corporation by the end of this calendar year. If we decide to proceed, I would then form a planning committee to work with architects on the programming and design of the new facilities.</p>

<p>I have asked the Yale College Council to nominate three student members for each committee. As soon as they are chosen, the names of the remaining faculty and staff members of the committees will be posted on the web, and the work of the committees will get under way.</p>

<p>The prospect of expansion presents an opportunity to augment Yale’s capacity to contribute to the strengthening of our nation and the betterment of the human condition globally. If we are to seize this opportunity, we must be confident that we can preserve the extraordinary quality of academic and extracurricular life in Yale College. This will be a year of exploration - an inquiry undertaken with all the seriousness and rigor of the academic enterprise to which we are all deeply committed.

</p>

[AdmissionsAddict]

<p>If I were a betting person, I’d say the two new colleges are a done deal. I think their proposed location is lousy and will shift the center of campus. The addition of two residential colleges won’t add so many students that it will radically change Yale’s flavor, but I’d be very hesitant to ever add more.</p>

[svalbardlutefisk]

<p>I would have to agree that I don’t see an expansion of the student body as the best thing for Yale. The main advantage that I see of building new colleges is to reduce overcrowding in existing colleges (ending junior year annexing, among other things).
Another major issue is where these additional students would live freshman year. Without some expansion of Old Campus housing, the new colleges would have to house freshmen, as Silliman and TD do. Currently, those freshmen find it hard to be as involved in freshman life as their peers, so I don’t really think that it would be in the best interests of the students in these new colleges to be unable to live on Old Campus.</p>

[mickley0007]

<p>I can see both sides of the issues. I’d hate to be making the decisions because in one respect you want to maintain the integrity of the institution. In order to do this, you have to keep your numbers low because one of the biggest draws of Yale is its exclusivity to most people. The larger you make an institution the less likely you are going to have renowned professors and sought-after graduates. It’s a tough call, but I’d say building at least one new college would be a good idea in order to have more room for everyone. Not necessarily to add more incoming freshman. (Though if I’m waitlisted, I’d say you should definitely allow more incoming freshman even though the expansion would not affect me.)</p>

[AdmissionsAddict]

<p>The financial efficiencies are such that if they build one, they are going to build two.</p>

[UMDAD]

<p>AdmissionsAddict - “I think their proposed location is lousy and will shift the center of campus.”</p>

<p>Where would you suggest they be located? There really isn’t much land available. I don’t think they are that much more off the current center of campus than Morse and Stiles. Also, if you have a lot of classes on Science Hill, the location is fabulous.</p>

[f.scottie]

<p>not AA, but i have previously suggested the block bounded by wall, temple, elm, and college. it consists of smaller, mostly expendable buildings, and surface parking. a college or two, well designed, could extend and better terminate the cross campus vista that has sterling library at its other end.</p>

[haukim]

<p>f.scottie,</p>

<p>By expendable buildings I hope you don’t mean the Yale School of Music haha. It currently occupies the block you are talking about.</p>

[f.scottie]

<p>i do. but i’m not exactly the first to suggest the site - it’s been eyed by campus master planners for decades. see, e.g., pinnell’s “campus guide”:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Yale-University-Campus-Patrick-Pinnell/dp/1568981678/sr=8-1/qid=1171136127/ref=sr_1_1/102-9229327-1212149?ie=UTF8&s=books[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Yale-University-Campus-Patrick-Pinnell/dp/1568981678/sr=8-1/qid=1171136127/ref=sr_1_1/102-9229327-1212149?ie=UTF8&s=books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[AdmissionsAddict]

<p>None of the really good locations for new residential colleges are feasible. Moving the Lizzie and the School of Music is impossible and I don’t think “the dead shall be raised” from Grove Street Cemetery.</p>

<p>UMDAD, I do think the proposed college locations are further than Morse or Stiles or at least would feel that way because Morse and Stile have Broadway and the gym. If they put additional dining and recreational facilities up there–reasons for non-science people go go up the hill–then it could be an exciting new area.</p>

[f.scottie]

<p>yale soph suggests closer alternative college sites in YDN editorial today:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20007[/url]”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The best plan would be to transform the Hall of Graduate Studies into one or two new colleges. The ideal location of HGS does more good as undergraduate housing than as a graduate facility. Undergraduate colleges need to be close to the ones that already exist, but graduate students can feel unified anywhere on campus. </p>

<p>Some HGS facilities could remain for graduate students, just as current colleges house fellows, masters and guest professors. A new graduate-student building would supplement this plan. </p>

<p>Other potential sites might include the space between Au Bon Pain and Stiles, the parking lot between the School of Music and Temple Street, and the area between York and Park streets next to Pierson. Yale would have to ensure that what occupies any of these spaces would be given a new home that would be just as good. Although difficult, this process would be well worth having the new colleges on the main campus.</p>

[MTGoddess]

<p>I just skimmed this thread, does this expansion in any way mean Yale will admitt more freshmen this yr??? <em>crosses fingers</em></p>

[Booklady]

<p>No it doesn’t. They’re only in the talking stages about the new colleges - if they are eventually built, it will be a few years down the road.</p>