Talk:Yale University

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[edit] Dummy

Is it true, that the University should have be named after Mr Dummy but because of his name it was named after Mr Yale? Stern 00:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

  • A-lie;who said so? But it doesn't Mather. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
    • It was actually Nehemiah Poopypants. Is Stern thinking perhaps of Harvard not having a Hoar House? - Nunh-huh 05:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
According to our Elihu Yale article
In 1999, American Heritage magazine rated Elihu Yale the "most overrated philanthropist" in American history, arguing that the college that would later bear his name (Yale University) was successful largely because of the generosity of a man named Jeremiah Dummer, but that the trustees of the school did not want it known by the name "Dummer College".
However, the Jeremiah Dummer article says this: "The most significant contribution of Jeremiah Dummer to the school was his work on persuading Elihu Yale to donate a large sum of money." btm talk 07:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
American Heritage was being a little silly, and we're being a little silly quoting it, as "overrated" implies that most people think Elihu Yale was a great philanthropist rather than someone who gave some books and a little money to Yale and got a great bargain when it named after him. I'd submit that most people don't think about it that hard. In any case, the present article enumerates his contributions and doesn't overrate them<g>. Jeremiah Dummer gave £60 and over 600 books he collected from "sundry gentlemen" to Yale in 1714. Yale certainly gave more money than Dummer. - Nunh-huh 17:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Payne Whitney: world's largest gym?

Is Payne Whitney Gymnasium the largest in the world or the second-largest? PRRfan 04:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe that Soviet Russia built a facility that was slightly larger for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, leading to Payne-Whitney's revised status during the 1980s as being "largest in the free world." Not sure whether the Russian facility still exists, and if it still exists whether it is classified as a gymnasium. Status of the Russian facility would help clarify the answer to this question.Mahnmut 03:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Payne Whitney reclaimed its position as world's largest by recently opening an addition. The Yale Daily News ran articles on this matter. CK —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.113.139 (talk) 23:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Consistently ranked"

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, a reference to a single year of U. S. News and World Reports rankings cannot serve to support the statement that certain Yale graduate programs are "consistently" ranked top in the nation. The referenced page is a popup menu, incidentally, and I haven't actually checked to make sure all the programs mentioned really were ranked #1 in 2007. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Safety at Yale

I wanted to drop a note to explain my recent deletion of certain arguments being made in the Safety at Yale section. Some useful articles are being unearthed by some of the recent contributors, but we should be careful about drawing sweeping conclusions without proper support. In the most recent example, contributor 205.234.156.33 found some interesting information that a security watchdog group called Security on Campus was accusing Yale of under-reporting sexual assaults on campus, which could be affecting the DOE statistics under the Clery act. However, the same contributor later jumps to the conclusion that there has been a resurgence of violent crime on campus in the mid-2000s and cites several articles (I have since removed this text, so please refer to earlier saves). The first article only compares three years of data - 2001 to 2003 - and seems to largely be based on data on non-violent crime such as drug and alcohol violations. And I'm not sure what "trend" emerges from the three years of data - 2003 seems similar to 2001. The subsequent four citations deal with individual (and of course unfortunate) incidents, but do not place them in context. I suspect that most campuses, especially urban campuses, experience some muggings and assaults each year. A quick Google search on Yale's peer Harvard shows many newspaper articles about violent crimes on campus, and even murders of Harvard students over the past two decades. Are Yale's specific incidents unusual relative to Yale's peer schools, unusual relative to earlier periods in Yale's history, or even unusual relative to any community of Yale's size? The citations don't answer these questions, and therefore it seems unsupported to conclude that there has been some sudden surge in violent crime. I am not trying to suppress legitimate information, but if this section is going to paint the picture that Yale is unusually unsafe for a university, or that the Yale administration routinely engages in cover-ups of violent crime, then the burden is on the contributors to create a bullet-proof case backed up by lots of cited evidence.Mahnmut 01:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The edits were probably a canard by someone from Harvard, looking to do something about the fact that Yale now has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard. Yale is one of the safest campuses in America and according to Harvard's own police department, at stalcommpol.org, Harvard is significantly more dangerous.
I go to Yale and anyone who says that Yale is one of the safest campuses in America is deceiving themself. Students here are terrified of walking alone at night, more so than at any other University I've encountered with the exception of ones in Philadelphia. Yes, this is my opinion, but I assure you it is shared by a large number of Yale students. For perspective, there are muggings on campus at hours as early as 8PM on a fairly regular basis; those are simple facts and it's hard to interpret that as "safe". Cazort (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Again, just my opinion, but Yale certainly does not cover-up crime; quite to the contrary it's ridiculously diligent at broadcasting a summary of every violent crime to the entire Yale community shortly after it happens. Cazort (talk) 03:40, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Birthplace of New Criticism?

I'd personally contest the statement that "Yale's English and literature departments were the birthplace of New Criticism." Obviously, it is valid that Robert Penn Warren was a major influence in this movement and he was indeed a professor at Yale. But many credit the birthplace of "New Criticism" to the time Robert Penn Warren was at Vanderbilt in literary groups such as "The Fugitives". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitives

[edit] Yearly expenses

A more interesting figure than Endownment (money which you doesn't spend on research) is the actual figure what the university does spend on research and teaching. Please add it to the page.

[edit] Conciseness and relevance

I have spent some time reading this article with a fresh eye, and I want to compliment the community on creating what is arguably one of the better university articles in the Wikipedia. Some of the best attributes of the article in my opinion are that it is broadly informative without being drowned in unnecessary information, that it maintains a consistently professional tone, and that some of the unnecessary POV (both positive and negative) that plagued earlier versions has now been removed.

The article has been fairly stable for some time, and I wanted to challenge the community to try to take the article to the next level. We should look at each part of the article, and ask ourselves whether it is meeting the standard of being informative without providing unnecessary, inappropriate or superfluous information. Conciseness and relevance should be our guiding principles.

For example, the Safety at Yale section (many parts of which I personally authored) feels like it has become an uneasy and over-long compromise between those who want to list all of the crimes that have happened at Yale and those who want to put out statistics showing how safe Yale is. In my opinion, it doesn't rise to the standards of the rest of the article because it reads like two different POVs going head to head, rather than a relevant and concise view of the topic.

In fact, I would suggest that we need to examine why this section even exists in the Yale article. If there was a crime that meaningfully changed the course of history at the University, it should go in the history section with a clear explanation of its historic relevance (rather than a laundry list of every major crime at Yale, some without any context of why they are historically relevant). On the other side, if Yale's safety statistics are not worse than its peer schools, then why do we need an entire section defending how safe Yale really is?

Similarly, Yale in Fiction and Popular Culture is starting to feel like a laundry list of every last pop culture reference that anyone can find. Some of the more literate references may be interesting, but does mentioning "Grounded for Life" or "The Skulls" really add anything to the reader's understanding of Yale? This section is starting to feel like the famous alumni section did when we listed every last Edward Norton or Ron Livingston.

I'm not trying to single out anyone's specific contribution as not being worthy of inclusion (many of my own contributions may not warrant inclusion), but rather I'm challenging the community to look at the article with a fresh and neutral eye, and start making tougher decisions about what should stay in and what should either be moved to separate articles or removed altogether. Mahnmut 19:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening

I think the Atlantic Monthly citation is in poor taste; it's conspicuous references to the "two universities" and its failure to actually name Harvard shows an attempt to establish prestige while not wanting to bring in its competitor. It's some quote from the 1800s, too, which doesn't say much about Yale's standing in the world today. I don't think an article about Yale should say explicitly that it and Harvard are popularly considered the two best schools in the country. Leave that for the article on the "Big Three," or create a page on the Harvard-Yale rivalry. Yale's page should be about Yale. It doesn't need to establish its prestige or be a battleground for the Yale-Harvard rivalry. I'm taking the sentence out.

[edit] Grade Inflation and Teaching Assistants

Given that none of the articles referenced suggests that there is any grade inflation at Yale or an over-reliance on teaching assistants at Yale, and given that it is generally believed that Yale suffers far less from these afflictions than many of her competitors, I am modifying the relevant sections. If anyone has Yale-specific references that can support either of these notions, please feel free to contribute them. Rschon 14:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I should have added that the NY Times article that is referenced, which I am about to remove, is completely non-germane, leading me to wonder about the motivations of why it would have been added. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E5D71130F933A1575AC0A9649C8B63 Rschon 14:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Finally, on further close examination, I have discovered that the article from the YAM supposedly claiming that there is an over reliance on TAs was from an infamous, tendentious, and statistically flawed GESO study. I have left in the reference but attempted to put it into NPOV context. Rschon 14:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Rschon's edits about the GESO study (which can hardly be described as "infamous, tendentious, and statistically flawed") were hardly, in my view, NPOV. I hope that the wording I've crafted is better. 71.77.12.236 23:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, thanks. 129.2.175.110 06:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3 Forms of Urim & Thummim

Previously the hebrew on the logo was hotlinked to the article entitled "Urim & Thummim" as such is the standard translation/transliteration of the hebrew on the logo. But the "Lux et Veritas" on the logo is a translation of the same thing. Nowadays we generally translate Urim & Thummim as "Lights and Perfections," but in various Latin Bibles it is translated as Lux et Veritas, and thus the reference. Anyway, I moved the hotlink from the hebrew to the English for that reason. Any disputations? --Mrcolj 23:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Founding location

Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Saybrook College say the institution was once located in Old Saybrook, but this article says it was originally located in Killingworth, and moved from there to New Haven. -- Beland 04:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Resolved, but references are still needed. -- Beland 06:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
[1] Killingworth: Kelly, pp. 13-15. Yale's first student, Jacob Heminway, arrives at Rector Pierson's house in Killingworth in March 1702. The first commencemen (of Nathaniel Chauncey and Stephen Buckingham), however, occurs in Saybrook 16 September 1702. Also Pierson, Founding of Yale, p. 18-19[1]
[2] Old Saybrook: Kelly, p. 16-19. Last commencement in Saybrook was 12 September 1716.
[3] New Haven: Kelly, pp. 20. First commencement in New Haven was 11 September 1717.
Classes were also held in other towns besides Killingworth and Old Saybrook, such as Milford. - Nunh-huh 02:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  1. ^ Samuel Johnson's "some Historical Remarks concerning the Collegiate School": [The trustees met] first If I misremember not at SayBrook and Chose a Rector viz Mr. Israel Chauncey of Stratford, agreeing (at least a Majr. part of them) that the School should be at SayBrook, & that Mr. Chauncey remove his family thither. But Mr. Chauncey declining it they then chose Mr. Abraham Pierson of Kennelsworth and Concluded that for as much as they had not Sufficient Money to build directly at SayBrook therefore the Students (as many as did Appear) should repair to Kennelsworth till providence should further open a Door for the Settlement of ye School, intending when that should be to Consummate the Settlemt. of it at SayBrook.

[edit] Graduate teachers, contingent teachers, and the new AAUP report

This morning I placed the following sentence at the end of the paragraph about the prevelance of graduate teachers' teaching their own classes: "A 2006 study by the AAUP found that 33.5% of full-time faculty (24.4% of full-time, instructional faculty) were not on tenure-track, and that graduate employees and contingent (adjunct) teachers made up 72.0% of all Yale instructors. To make just one comparison, 45.4% of Harvard's full-time faculty are non-tenure-track, and graduate and contingent instructors make up 76.0% of its total.[1]." User:Mahnmut removed the sentence with the justification "AAUP data, which indirectly touches upon numbers of TAs, doesn't seem very relevant to how much undergraduate teaching TAs are actually doing". I dispute that the data only "indirectly touches" on the question--indeed, the prevelance of contingent and graduate instructors cuts directly to the heart of the matter. I am happy to make this a separate paragraph or change the wording, but I think it is a key piece of data in the question addressed in the paragraph, and simply replacing it with the administration's spin doesn't do the same thing. I'm open to ideas about where to place the AAUP data. 71.77.12.236 03:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this onto the Talk Page - it is an important issue to discuss. I think that one of the reasons this is such a contentious issue for many of us is that many undergraduates and alumni intuitively find the GESO claims that TAs do a majority of the teaching at Yale to be completely inconsistent with our own learning experiences at Yale. There has always been a major disconnect between how the "customer base" (i.e., the undergraduates) view this issue, and how GESO (which has a clear economic interest in its point of view) sees it. To my knowledge, GESO has never cited a credible survey or study establishing student dissatisfaction with the use of TAs and professor accessibility. Quite the opposite, searches of the Yale Daily News and Yale Herald show that accessibility of even Yale's most famous professors is frequently cited by undergraduates as one of Yale's core strengths.
Let me also speak to why I specifically disagree with the AAUP numbers. First, it is misleading to lump graduate instructors and adjunct/contingent instructors together in the same statistic. Many of the adjunct/contingent instructors are some of Yale's most distinguished teachers with unique areas of expertise - like David Swensen, the Yale endowment manager who teaches a popular portfolio management course in the economics department, but who is not on tenure track. Second, it is misleading to lump "support" TAs - those who primarily grade exams, administrate course logistics and lead optional discussion sections for large lecture courses - with TAs who have primary responsibility for developing a curriculum and driving the teaching process forward. I know that support work is important and necessary work. However, let's say a professor spends 2 hours a week lecturing and teaching course material that she developed over several years, and TAs in aggregate spend 20 hours/week grading homework and exams behind the scenes under the professor's guidance. GESO would argue that TAs are doing 10 times as much teaching as the professor in this course, but most undergraduates in the course would be completely bewildered by that claim, especially given that many of them will have never met or interacted with the TAs in question.
The raw number of graduate student TAs floating around (as indirectly reflected in the AAUP data) does not shed light on this issue either. What matters is, how many of Yale's 2,000 undergraduate courses are primarily taught (i.e. curriculum developed by, lectured and taught) by graduate students? And what percentage of undergraduate enrollments are in courses that are primarily taught by graduate teaching assistants? And, do any studies or surveys exist that establish undergraduate student dissatisfaction with professor accessibility, or over-reliance on TAs? GESO argues (from its own financial interest) about how much teaching it is doing, but where are the undergraduates, the actual customers, who see the situation through the same lens? By the way, if you would like to keep this discussion going, it would be helpful if you adopted an identity rather than just signing an IP address. Mahnmut 23:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
(First, about the fact that I don't have a user name: It's intentional, it's thought-out, and it should have absolutely no baring on my opinion and my arguments. One of the key parts of Wikipedia is that it's the encyclopedia anyone can edit, so the fact that I do so without a user name is irrelevant. See my talk page if you'd like to see my reasoning, since this has come up before.) Now to the issue at hand. You instictively bring up GESO, which is entirely besides the point in this question. It happens that, yes, I support GESO (I did as an undergrad and I do as an alum). But we're not arguing about GESO here--we're talking about the way to describe the amount of teaching done by TAs and other contingent teachers. So let's dispense with that. Further, studies about undergrad disenchantment are not the issue, either. First, In the absence of any studies at all, you can't very well claim the hypothetical ones would go in your favor. Second, the question is not whether people are satisfied. The question is whether or not Yale is reliant on graduate and other non-faculty labor in teaching its classes.
Your substantive points, as I understand them, are (a) TAs don't do real instructional work, and (b) the AAUP data aren't relevant. Let's take them in order: To (a), I can only say, again, if you think grading, leading discussion, and the like is not real teaching, is not substantive, does not affect the quality of instruction, you must never have taught. Grading and leading discussions are fundamentally two of the most important parts of teaching. Grading essays, for instance, is how students learn to write. Discussion sections (and, let me tell you, when I was there--not too long ago--in every one of my classes with sections they were mandatory) are an integral part of courses, and the way they are led is deeply important. To dismiss this as merely "support work" is simply silly.
As for (b), I think you're wrong, as I've said. I don't have data, but you'd be surprised how few of the contingent faculty at Yale are of the sort you're describing. Many more of them are language teachers. Look at the Blue Book: anyone listed as a lecturer, at any rank, is contingent faculty. You'll see that they aren'd David Swenson. They're people without job security, with relatively low pay, without say in the way the department they work in operates. This cuts to the heart of GESO's (and others') criticism about casualization. If you're dissatisfied with the way I've presented the data, it's all right there in the AAUP report (the data of which comes from the U.S. Department of Education, by the way) and rephrase it. But it is absurd not to use this verifiable, independent data in discussing this criticism. 71.77.12.236 03:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Let me start by saying that I am fundamentally sympathetic to GESO's desire for fair living wages. Yale has plenty of money, and everyone associated with Yale should receive enough compensation to make a fair living. For me, this discussion has nothing to do with whether Yale is paying fair wages to its employees. Rather, this issue is fundamentally about GESO's claim (and your own claim) that the Yale undergraduate teaching process is somehow built around graduate students and TAs.
There are a lot of arguments I can make here, but I want to keep this simple, so let me make an intuitive argument. If Yale is truly over-reliant on graduate students for undergraduate teaching, then shouldn't this show up in some metric related to the customer base, the undergraduate student body? At Harvard, for example, there is a lot of documented evidence from multiple sources that students are dissatisfied with the quality of undergraduate teaching and with the availability of tenured professors. At Yale, most of the documented evidence (such as the many student surveys published in annual college guides, articles in the YDN and Herald, etc.) is at the other end of the spectrum. Undergraduate focus and faculty accessibility are universally cited as core strengths of the Yale undergraduate experience. Student satisfaction with the academic experience runs very high. And so, I pose the following question to you: if graduate students are really doing the majority of undergraduate teaching at Yale, why isn't anyone noticing it except GESO? Why are the students, the customers who are paying upwards of $100,000 for a Yale education, praising the academic experience and the accessibility of even the most famous professors? I would suggest that student satisfaction with undergraduate teaching stands in direct contradiction to the claim that graduate students do a majority of teaching at Yale, and student satisfaction with teaching is the very heart of the matter.
With respect to AAUP, my issue is not the credibility of the source, it is the relevance of the data. There are roughly 5,000 graduate students at Yale, and many of them are by definition going to be classified as TAs. The real question is how much teaching all of these TA/graduate students are actually doing, and the AAUP data sheds no light on this question whatsoever.
My other issue with the AAUP data continues to be that it lumps non-ladder faculty together with graduate students, and there does not seem to be any way to break the numbers out. I disagree with your assessment that the majority of non-ladder faculty fall in the same boat as graduate students, and if you are going to argue that point, you will need an independent source to back you up. Most of the non-ladder faculty that I knew at Yale were accomplished individuals (often alumni) with special areas of expertise that allowed them to teach unique courses. Many of them were recognized to be among Yale's most gifted and sought-after teachers, and their unique areas of expertise allowed Yale to offer a much broader range of courses in more diverse areas of interest (for example, the residential college seminars). In my experience, non-ladder faculty are an asset to Yale undergraduate teaching, not a problem in the same way that courses primarily taught by TAs would be. If you want to argue differently, you need to find independent sources.Mahnmut 17:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should the term "Elis" be included somewhere?

I've seen the term "Elis" used in place of Bulldogs for the sports teams of Yale. I understand the context (since the disambig for Eli also notes the usage as a nickname for Yale students, but it's surprising to not find it here in the main article (maybe near sports?). Someone with a better familiarity with the article might want to work it in. --Bobak 21:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It definitely should be included and I'm surprised it isn't. For what it's worth, literally yesterday I was working a crossword puzzle with the clue "Tigers foe," for which the answer was "Elis." (The New York Times: Sunday in the Park Crosswords; ed. Will Shortz; #14, "Drop it!"; 58 down).
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, in Chapter 2, we find:
...at each performance of “Ha-Ha Hortense!” half-a-dozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six of the worst-looking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets, further touched up by the Triangle make-up man. At the moment in the show where Firebrand, the Pirate Chief, pointed at his black flag and said, “I am a Yale graduate—note my Skull and Bones!”—at this very moment the six vagabonds were instructed to rise conspicuously and leave the theatre with looks of deep melancholy and an injured dignity. It was claimed though never proved that on one occasion the hired Elis were swelled by one of the real thing.
Google Book searches on "elis yale" turn up numerous relevant hits, both in "full view books" (which are mostly prior to 1923), showing that the usage is old, and in all books, showing that the usage is still current.
A Google search on site:www.yale.edu elis turns up 153 hits, mostly relevant; one on site:www.yaledailynews.com elis yields seven thousand, mostly relevant, and show that "Elis" refers to Yale students in general, not just athletes: "Elis stress local HIV impact," "Five Elis win Rhodes," "Elis experience weightlessness in NASA research, "Elis open Coxe season," "More Elis go overseas," etc. etc.
Dpbsmith (talk) 03:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yale opened in 1701, with one student and two teachers

I read on the first page of the 2002-2003 Information and Application brochure of Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences that Yale opened with one student and two teachers. I find that so compelling in terms of the spirit of educational entreprise, that perhaps it should be added in the article. Anyone in support of this idea? (MidwestAl 11:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)).

While I appreciate the noble effort to personify Yale's first 3 monkeys, I think it's a highly suspect POV to suggest that they classified themselves as two students and a teacher. 129.2.175.110 06:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
But the Yale Alumni magazine says:
In the beginning, Yale was a simple place: one teacher, one student, no campus.
Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, the college that would become Yale opened for business in March 1702, when a young man named Jacob Heminway arrived at the parsonage of Abraham Pierson in Killingworth (now Clinton), Connecticut, paid his 30 shillings for a year of tuition, and began his studies. Heminway, the first student to receive instruction at Yale, graduated three centuries ago.[2]
So, instead of "The ideal college is Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student at the other," I suppose Yale would say "The idea college is Abraham Pierson at one end of a log and Jacob Heminway at the other."
I am intrigued, however, as to what would be the optimum arrangement of two teachers and one student on a log. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
P. S. An acquaintance of mine who attended Columbia University in the 1930s said that it was policy—perhaps now, I don't know—that if four students said they wanted to take a course, they would find someone to teach it. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sex Week at Yale

I added this section that was created as a new article. While it doesn't justify a separate article it seems to merit a section. It is properly sourced regular event of some importance. Bridgeplayer 17:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Your contribution is properly sourced, but you have not established relevance or importance. There is limited real estate in the main article on Yale, and there is not room to establish a separate section on every event/speaker/activity that happens on campus. If we include Sex Week, it opens the door to the article getting out of control with lists of every last activity that happens on campus each year. My initial instinct was to move this to the "Miscellany and Traditions" section, but given its short existence, I am not sure it even warrants inclusion there, since four years is hardly enough time to establish a "tradition". Mahnmut 17:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
It's actually a fairly notable event as demonstrated by the provided sources. Would you like us to provide some more citations? --ElKevbo 17:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
BTW - I don't really care where in the article it lives. I'd be happy with it under "Miscellany and Traditions." --ElKevbo 17:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I have less of a problem with the contribution being a bullet in "Miscellany and Traditions" than if it carries its own section in the article. However, the contribution would be stronger if some context was established around it; e.g. the fact that it is a fairly unique event among colleges and universities, that it has generated some controversy, and that it has become a recognized student organization. Mahnmut 17:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Trojan (the condom company) evaluated American universities in 2006 and gave Yale the #1 ranking on their 'Sexual Health Report Card'. Sex Week at Yale was mentioned in the press release announcing the rankings. Antelan talk 03:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Am I the only person who thinks the "External links" section is *way* out of hand? I don't think it is in line with WP:EL and I would further assert that Wikipedia is not a directory. --ElKevbo 17:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Long/Lat

The longitude and latitude shown are of the sports complex, not the University. Shurely shome mishtake, ed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.254.64.5 (talk) 04:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Admissions

Does anyone know if Yale accepts anything less than a first class honours degree for entry to their graduate programmes?

Hi. This isn't the appropriate place to ask such a question; talk pages of articles serve as a discussion place on how to improve the article, not on factual questions about the subject of the article. For that, please see Wikipedia:Questions. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of cleanup tag from article

I removed the cleanup tag from the body of the article and placed it on the Talk page. The cleanup tag mentioned concerns with the length of the article and the number of external links. Those are relevant and helpful for editors of this article, but it is unnecessary to display that warning to the visitors trying to access information about Yale itself. Antelan talk 03:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this. I have also removed the tag asking for a clearer method of citation in the Yale and Politics section. This tag has been sitting there for months, and no one has stepped forward with a better way of formatting the citations in that section. Regardless, citations are used inconsistently throughout the article, and hopefully someone will step forward to make all of the citations consistent.Mahnmut 15:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

This criticism:


"The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has criticized many of Yale's peer institutions for grade inflation, notably failing to mention Yale, thereby supporting the generally understood notion that this affliction has not been as pronounced at Yale.[1]"

is of Yale's peers, not Yale. Therefore, it does not belong under the "Criticisms of Yale" heading. If anybody disagrees, please comment on why. Thanks. Wikipediarules2221 23:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] (Re)moved text

I moved the paragraph about the KGB file of Sakharov published by Yale University Press to the article Andrei Sakharov. dima 17:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smashing clay pipes

In the 1990s, Yale graduation literature explained that although new graduates once smashed clay pipes smashed underfoot, the tradition had been ended so as not to seem wasteful. Has the smashing resumed? PRRfan 00:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

We definitely smashed them last year, and they smashed them in 2005, as well. Antelan talk 00:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Doops, LGBTQ

The paragraph looks fine, but I'd cut the final sentence about the schools of music, drama, etc. Stereotyping is great and all, but that's really not necessary unless we're going to put the time in to actually attribute that crap. Antelan talk 18:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Beyond that, maybe the real issue is that the "Student Life" § should be longer and have more in it so that LGBTQ ¶ doesn't loom so large. Doops | talk 04:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Labor Unions

The complete lack of mention of labor unions at Yale was a very serious omission in this article. I added the section but it is only a stub; the section ought to be greatly expanded. There are many articles on the history of labor disputes and strikes at Yale, and a large number of these are available with a simple google search. In addition, I added a reference to the official website of the labor unions themselves. That website contains a wealth of information, some of which could be added to this article, if anyone feels up to it. Cazort 14:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the info in the attribution is incorrect. There are more than 3 unions at Yale. There are also the campus cops' union and a small number of teachers in AFT.

All in all, there are 14 (IIRC) categories of "persons" at Yale (as of 2002), and each category has rights, privileges and duties separate from the other - that includes the union "persons" who are governed by contracts. If you want to get this right, Just email Yale's HR Technology and Decision Support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.61.50 (talk) 16:48, August 26, 2007 (UTC)


Though it doesn't merit changing the article, the record should show that although John Kerry is indeed a Former President of the Yale Political Union, the Union is certainly not "advised" by him. He is regarded by many as one of the worst Presidents the Union has ever had.

[edit] "Secret" Societies

There are still references to "Secret" Societies. As a graduate and member of a Senior Society, I can assure you that no one of my era ever used the term Secret Society. In fact, I was specifically told upon initiation that the proper term was Senior Society.

Have things changed since 1961? If so, I'll rest in peace. If not, could someone replace the use of Secret with Senior?

Donnernv 22:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's actually a notable point that you're raising. Yes, the societies are now called "secret", but I am also well aware that they were formerly called "senior societies", as you pointed out. When and why this transition occurred would be a useful addition to this article. Antelan talk 23:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yale Lectureships

Why are they not mentioned here?

Austerlitz -- 88.72.10.255 06:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia is not an announcement board for the Terry Lecturships. --ZimZalaBim talk 11:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] YALE

HOORAY 4 YALE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.196.64.81 (talk) 05:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] split

A suggestion was inserted suggesting that the history section be removed from this article and placed in another. This seems a bad idea to me. Frankly, the history presented here is already quite concise; while it would clearly be possible to write a much longer article on the history of Yale, it would still have to be summarized here, and that summary wouldn't be much shorter than what's here now. The user who made the suggestion should place some argumentation supporting it here. If no discussion is forthcoming, I'll remove the tag. - Nunh-huh 19:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Having a separate history article allows for a more verbose treatment of the history, while keeping the history section of the main article rather concise. See Category:History of United States colleges and universities for existing relevant articles. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 19:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
As I mentioned, I think this article's section is quite concise enough. - Nunh-huh 19:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The point is that a history article allows one to be more verbose. Although, IMO, the "Administration" subsection is somewhat irrelevant to the typical reader. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 23:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I certainly understand that when a section is expanded it can be spun off into a subordinate article. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing that detailed history article; this one doesn't have to be cannibalized beforehand. - Nunh-huh 04:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
In general terms, I am in accord with what was expressed by User:Nunh-huh for the grounds on which he/she rested. -Soft carebare (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Concise or not, it's one of the largest sections on a page that is far too long. Also, most of the information there has little or no relevance or interest to the general audience that would be viewing the main Yale page. Cazort (talk) 03:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I urge very very strongly to split. The Yale page as a whole is WAAAAY too long, and the history section is one of the largest sections. IMHO, Most of the information there is not interesting/relevant to a general audience and does not belong on a main page. I say we keep at most two paragraphs of text giving a very brief summary, and display a link to the full page. Cazort (talk) 03:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Disagree that there needs to be a split, for the reasons Nunh-huh gave above. The History section is the most interesting part of the article and is compactly written. Perhaps the only section that needed trimming was the "Administration" sub-section, as some of this information was duplicated in another article. I do not agree with the logic that "this is the longest section in the article, therefore it needs to be split off"; any article in Wikipedia will have a section that is relatively longer than its sibling sections. I would actually propose splitting off the section "Yale Architecture" into its own article. The "History" section is fine as it is.
SootAndBroom (talk) 19:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I support the split. In fact, I created the article History of Yale University. Now, it is a redirect. The history of Yale is just too long. This university has produced a number of notable politicians. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 08:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
"Producing notable politicians", then, is the section that needs spinning off, as it's distinctly peripheral to Yale's history. - Nunh-huh 10:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This article's History section (including all of its subsections) consists of approximately 1678 words. The intact "Career" section of 20 year old Novak Djokovic is approximately 1104 words (he just won the Australian Open within the past 72 hours); the intact "Career" section of 51 year old Martina Navratalova is approximately 1612 words; the intact "Career" section of 55 year old Jimmy Connors is approximately 1649 words; the intact "Career" section of 26 year old Roger Federer is approximately 2298 words. The length of the History section of this article, by comparison, seems acceptable.
SootAndBroom (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand what would be lost if the page were split. If the material is interesting to people, they will read it on the other page. The problem is not so much that the history section is too long, but that it is the longest section on a page that is too long. Having very long wikipedia pages makes the site harder to use and makes it harder to gather information. Would the people who oppose the merge kindly explain what is gained by keeping it the way it is? This is what I am failing to see. Cazort (talk) 23:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not a college brochure. The history belongs in the article. There's no need for a split. - Nunh-huh 00:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The claim that "this page is too long" is contradicted by longer articles on Wikipedia with longer sections that have been Wikipedia:Featured articles. For example, while this article consists of approximately 6990 words (with its History section, including all of its subsections, consisting of approximately 1678 words), the Featured Article of February 3, 2008 History of American football consists of approximately 8386 words; its "Intercollegiate football" section consists of approximately 4177 words. Wikipedia states that "A featured article exemplifies our very best work and features professional standards of writing and presentation." A split for this article is unnecessary. SootAndBroom (talk) 17:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I still disagree. Cazort (talk) 17:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
You'll still have a history section, but the one in this article will be a more condensed version, while the one in the subarticle will be able to fully cover the subject. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 16:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Propose Deleting Poorly Sourced Statement About Lack of Unity at Yale

I propose deleting the first sentence under the Campus Life section, "Yale has no student union, and this has been cited as a cause of the lack of unity within Yale as a whole, with community centering on the undergraduate residential colleges." This sentence asserts "the lack of unity within Yale as a whole" as if it were a widely-accepted fact. However, the citation leads to an 11-year old article in the Yale Herald about the music club scene in New Haven, written by one undergraduate, which in passing states: "But since Yale has no student union, and the residential college system fosters unity within colleges but not within Yale College as a whole, such a space (a venue to promote independent music) isn't likely to be built anytime soon." This citation is flawed for three reasons. First, the citation is more than 10 years old. Second, its source is a single student at Yale, and does not establish a widely-held opinion. Third, the quote from the citation does not in any way assert or establish "the lack of unity within Yale as a whole" - it simply implies that there is no central student location to build an independent music venue. Mahnmut (talk) 03:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Per the above, I removed the content here. Viriditas (talk) 04:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] William F Buckley Jr

There should be some mention of him here, maybe in notable alumni or in books on Yale, since he wrote "God and man at Yale" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.173.207 (talk) 18:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)