<p>Just read a piece in the Yale Daily News claiming that “Yale is an increasingly inhospitable environment for extracurricular organizations requiring space on campus.” There are many commenters agreeing with the author.</p>
<p>Any Yale parents/students/alum here who have experiences related to this topic? Also, what is “Family Night” that some of the commenters are complaining about?</p>
<p>Well, it seems there is a problem with reserving rooms–but I think it’s caused by the presence of a gazillion student groups, and the basic residential college structure. If there is one TV room in a residential college, should a group really be able to reserve it every week?</p>
<p>As for Family Night, this is one night a week when students have to eat dinner in their own residential college. I’m not too impressed by this complaint, since back in the olden days you were much more restricted in terms of eating in other colleges.</p>
<p>So I’d say that while these complaints are probably legit to some extent, they are a byproduct of one of the very best features of the Yale experience, the residential college system.</p>
<p>Yale is in an already densely built location, meaning there is not a lot of slack space or room to expand, and space is at a premium. On the other hand, per capita, Yale probably has more student organizations and EC’s than many other schools, so there is a lot to squeeze in.</p>
<p>Adding the two new residential colleges could help- as I doubt they will add all that many more new organizations…
The RC renovations did increase the usable space quite nicely, mostly underground- I suspect that some if it is still not being used that aggressively, thus efficiently. I wonder about the new stuff under Morse and Stiles, for instance- the theater, the dance studio, the weaving room.</p>
<p>Yale’s students are clearly active and energetic and pro-active and enthusiastic----- a good thing! This is a good kind of problem, IMO!
And the fact that the students have a strong voice and can make complaints is also a good thing, IMO.</p>
<p>There is also an article from earlier this week-- about T. Dwight and the bias in who they allow to use the spaces … conservative groups get pushed out</p>
<p>The event that Dwight Hall (not T. Dwight, which is a Residential College) asked to switch venues was not “conservative.” It was a speaker whose message was homophobic.</p>
<p>^ Some would call that as a view based on faith/religion as conservative…not homophobic…</p>
<p>what happend to Yale being Tolerant of different views…
or is it that Yale is only tolerant of views that certain people like as being polically correct???
Not tolerant of all - now are they?</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s enough in that article to label the speaker as “homophobic” (which is really a PR term that doesn’t mean anything, anyway). I think they should have allowed him to speak–particularly because the Yale Christian Fellowship has been meeting at Dwight Hall for decades, and isn’t really a conservative group, since it is affiliated with Intervarsity. But I will note that this is a dispute among students, not an action by the administration–the Dwight Hall coordinators who wanted the speech moved were students.</p>
<p>I am just curious: Is Yale Christian Fellowship (YCF) generally regarded as a conservative student group? What is the difference between YCF and other Christian student groups at Yale College? (I heard there are more many.)</p>
<p>There appears to be quite a high percentage of YCF members who are from minority groups and, as I heard, many are very much into charity type activities (for many, even pursue this type of charity job after they are graduated., e,g., one of them even established a new church for the poor or homeless in New Haven area after he had completed his study at Yale Divinity School.)</p>
<p>Right Hunt.
Lets face it…the term is meant to be inflammatory, pejorative and judgemental as though one who disagrees isn’t entitled to a different view.</p>
<p>One can disagree and feel that lifestyle flies in the face of one’s faith/beliefs yet it doesn’t mean one has “fear” of those who live that way</p>
YCF is affilitated with Intervarsity which (in my opinion) is not an extremely conservative group–this was the case 30 years ago when I was in it, but it may have changed. Yale Students for Christ is, I believe, affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ which is (again, in my opinion), more conservative. There appear to be a number of other campus Christian groups, and I don’t know much about how large they are or what their character is.</p>
<p>fogfog: You decry what you view as censorship of Mr. Yuan’s message. (And he wasn’t censored; he spoke in a different venue.) Yet recently you posted that you would like Yale’s administration to ban Sex Week entirely. Why is censorship deplorable in one case and desirable in the other?</p>
<p>And from the same article, here are some of the changes in structure that were implemented in response to the Marshall Committee’s recommendations:</p>
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<p>I have no interest in debating the value of Sex Week; much of it grosses me out, but middle aged parents are not the intended audience, and many students simply ignore the particularly salacious elements. What I’m trying to point out to you is the inconsistency of demanding censorship where it fits your world view and decrying it where it does not.</p>
<p>I agree with wjb, and I’m a middle aged parent who is an alum of Yale, a parent of a current student and another who will be going in the fall. In the big picture of Yale, Sex Week is small potatoes.</p>