At Yale, the debate over a college’s role in monitoring free expression has remained an issue among faculty. Over 200 faculty members from across the University signed a letter addressed to Salovey’s successor detailing their hopes for the next president, urging simultaneous protection of free expression and students’ right to civil disobedience. Another letter, signed by over 140 faculty, comes from the group “Faculty for Yale” and calls on the University to “insist on the primacy of teaching, learning, and research as distinct from advocacy and activism.”

Students, too, have voiced concerns over Yale’s free expression policies. According to the Presidential Search Committee’s Student Advisory Council report, “overwhelming majorities” of students agreed with the need to protect free speech and academic freedom on campus. 

Yale’s policy on freedom of expression has been guided by the 1974 Woodward Report — commissioned by then-President Kingman Brewster ’41 — since its adoption by Yale in 1975. 

In the midst of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Yale has not been the only college campus at the center of free speech debates. At Harvard University, Interim Harvard University President Alan Garber is expected to announce a working group that will consider a policy of institutional neutrality, according to the Harvard Crimson. Salovey said he believes Yale should do something similar and that he admires Harvard for doing so — but that the University’s next president should pick up that task.

“Neutrality or the ability to speak out is going to affect the next president, so you would want the next president to be involved in that discussion … because it’s going to be binding, but not on me,” Salovey told the News. “I think we should have some kind of conversation about it on campus, probably through a committee, but it would be something I encourage my successor to do.”

Salovey described the tension between the two faculty letters as a “welcome” conversation. He said that the letter from Faculty for Yale is essentially calling for institutional neutrality, a position whereby the university president would not be able to speak out on issues of the day. The other, he said, posits that it is a university’s role “to be an agent for societal improvement” and urges a president to speak out on issues. 

In November, Salovey told the News that the position of institutional neutrality is “best exemplified” by the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report. The report was written when campuses across the country were embroiled with student protests against the Vietnam War and UChicago’s investment policies came under scrutiny. The report suggested that the university remain neutral on social and political issues “out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints.” 

Today, free speech at the University of Chicago is governed under both the Kalven Report and a 2015 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression, now widely known as the Chicago Principles. 

As for Yale’s two faculty letters, Salovey said that he “welcomes” the conversation on free expression, adding that he does not believe it is one the University has had in the last decade. 

He also said that he leans “a bit in the direction of [the University] being able to speak, perfectly recognizing the advantages of neutrality.”

“Most important is these two letters are causing a conversation on campus, primarily among our faculty,” Salovey said. “It is a really good conversation to have. It’s fundamental to issues of academic freedom, to issues of free expression and to the broader issue of, ‘What is a university?’ and ‘What are its values?’”

Jacqueline Merrill, director of the Campus Free Expression Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the News that she does not believe that whether or not a president speaks out on issues should be equated with the topic of free expression on campus. 

She said that a president’s voice falls along two lines: when they are speaking on behalf of the institution and when they are expressing their own views as president. How universities implement policies to address the extent of either, she said, is a “challenging topic.”

Merrill added that the president of a university can serve as a model for students in pursuit of balanced conversations, setting the tone and example, both for the college community and the greater public.

“This is a moment in our society where the values of open inquiry and freedom of expression are being challenged across our political community and across our civil society, and it is especially important that colleges and universities set a high bar because they are preparing the next generation of civic leaders and citizens,” said Merrill. 

Former University President Richard Levin emphasized to the News that a university’s “primary mission” is the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. 

To facilitate this goal, Levin said, a university president must be able to articulate the protection of free expression with a commitment to teaching and learning.

“There’s a list of things that I think are important attributes of the next president of Yale, of which commitment to free expression is certainly high on the list,” Levin said. “It’s a corollary to the principal commitment, which is that we are centers of learning and teaching.”

Salovey told the News in November that the Woodward Report at Yale protects most forms of expression — so long as that expression is not “designed” to harass, directly threaten an individual’s safety or incite violence. He added, however, that making that distinction is not always “easy.”

Levin said that he hopes the University does not revisit the report, which he said is a “lifeline” keeping Yale consistent with its principles. He added, too, that Yale’s report is “essentially indistinguishable” from the Chicago Principles, which have been adopted by 108 other institutions, including Princeton University, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

“Again, that’s a decision for the next president,” Salovey said when asked whether Yale should revisit the report. “But I have to say, I think the Woodward Report provides an important bedrock for any discussion of free expression on campus, and I think it has withstood the test of time.”

The Woodward report is named after C. Van Woodward, former history professor and chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale, which produced the report.

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The exhibition is the culmination of a collaboration between the University’s Belonging at Yale initiative and BlackBull, a nascent Black student affinity group for Trumbullians co-founded by Jenelle Burgess ’26 and Alexander O’Sullivan ’26. According to Burgess, the theme of the gallery exhibition is “bridging community.” The five artists — Faustin Adeniran, Jasmine Nikole, Kwadwo Adae, Moshopefoluwa Olagunju and Marquia Brantley — are all local to the Elm City and will receive an honorarium for showcasing their work.

“​​I really do hope that this gallery will inspire similar things at Trumbull or throughout the Yale community,” Burgess told the News. “Because I do think it is a really beautiful thing to be able to showcase not just the wealth of talent that exists in the Black community and other marginalized communities at Yale, but also that exists in the community that we all walk through every day.”

Burgess said the idea to form BlackBull emerged among friends at a study break her first year but only formalized last semester with the help of newly-appointed Trumbull Head of College Fahmeed Hyder and his wife, Associate Head Anita Sharif-Hyder. 

She said that the gallery was inspired by a similar event held to commemorate Black History Month at Hopkins High School by Hyder’s daughter Laila. Hyder then approached Burgess and proposed hosting such an event at Trumbull, Burgess said.

“I imagined that there was a need and a desire for a community like this and we’ve definitely seen that that is a shared sentiment,” said Burgess. 

She added that the exhibition also came together with the help of Vice President and Secretary for University Life Kimberly Goff Crews ’83 LAW ’86, as well as Associate Dean for the Arts Kate Kreir.

Goff-Crews told the News that she hopes the exhibition inspires students to embark on something similar.

“People think there’s this big distinction between Yale and New Haven, but this helps bridge that divide,” Goff-Crews said. “To have a student in particular create a platform to be the bridge is very inspiring and definitely needed.”

Nikole, one of the artists, told the News that it was a “huge honor” to exhibit her work alongside other New Haven artists at the University.

She added that she hopes her work fosters a sense of belonging in viewers and that similar programs continue to create a “mutual relationship” between Yale and New Haven.

“I grew up in New Haven, and I don’t think I’ve really been on campus and so I think programs like this could be a way to bridge that gap,” Nikole said. “There could be a mutual relationship where it’s not just Yale reaching back to the community but the community imparting their knowledge back into Yale and its community.”

The gallery is open from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. every day this week until Friday at Trumbull College.

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During his travels, Salovey will stop in Côte d’Ivoire and Hong Kong, he wrote in an email to the News, and will deliver a presentation about the University’s developments and strategic goals at the Yale Club of Hong Kong. He will also meet with government officials in Côte d’Ivoire to discuss economic development initiatives and educational collaborations.

“In 2013, during my inauguration, I committed to making Yale more global and unified. Since then, Yale has enhanced international research, teaching, and learning with partner institutions worldwide,” Salovey wrote to the News. “My successor will be able to build on all that we have achieved together at Yale in the past decade.”

Associate English professor and director of the Whitney Humanities Center Cajetan Iheka commented in an email to the News that Salovey’s trip to “cement existing partnerships and catalyze new ones” is “significant” given that the Yale Africa Initiative is now on its tenth anniversary. 

According to Salovey, the University has strengthened long-term relationships with the continent through the Yale Africa Initiative, which creates programs to expand its commitment to Africa abroad and on campus. The Yale Young African Scholars Program, founded in 2013, has increased the number of students from the continent on campus and their presence through student groups as part of the initiative. The creation of student groups like the Yale African Students Association and initiatives like the Yale Africa Innovation Symposium — which recently held its second annual conference — “exemplifies the student energy our increased engagement with Africa has generated,” Salovey told the News. 

“During the past ten years, Yale’s commitment to Africa has yielded wonderful results,” Salovey wrote. 

Iheka, who also serves as chair of the Council on African Studies and head of the Yale Africa Initiative, also wrote that he is “glad” a Francophone country landed on the president’s itinerary. 

He added that he hopes it will result “in stronger multidirectional exchanges” between the University and Africa. 

“We want to see more of Yale’s positive presence on the continent and to bring more of Africa to Yale,” Cajetan wrote. “President Salovey’s trip is a step in that direction. It allows us to foreground the achievements of the Africa Initiative and to set an ambitious agenda for the future.” 

Janette Yarwood, director of Africa and the Middle East in the Office of International Affairs wrote to the News that Salovey’s trip to Africa is a continuation of the University’s effort to form international collaborations around “issues of global importance,” including higher education access, economic growth and environmental preservation. 

Yarwood added that although the Africa trip’s focus is on educational collaboration and economic development initiatives, Salovey will also meet with students at the International Community School of Abidjan — as well as students from across the city — to encourage them to be “lifelong learners” and discuss “Yale’s educational philosophy.” Additionally, Yarwood wrote, Salovey will meet with local university presidents about “enhancing” Yale’s partnerships and educational exchanges with African institutions.” 

Salovey will also participate in “cultural immersion”  in the southeastern town of Grand Bassam, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2012, where he is expected to take a walking architecture tour. 

“President Salovey’s trip to Africa, his third as president, marks the broadening of outreach to include Francophone African countries,” Yarwood wrote. “Throughout his travels, President Salovey will engage in opportunities for networking to help strengthen the bond between Yale and alumni in Africa.” 

The Yale Club of Hong Kong will host Salovey on Tuesday, March 19, for a presentation about Yale’s “latest developments” and “strategic goals for the decade ahead,” according to the club’s site. 

OIA Director for Asia Jieun Pyun wrote to the News that beyond participating in the club’s event, Salovey will also meet with donors in the region. She added that accompanying the president will be School of Music Dean José García-León and School of Public Health Dean Megan Ranney. Both García-León and Ranney joined Yale within the past year and were awarded M.A. Privatim degrees, honorary masters degrees bestowed upon senior University officers, on March 4. 

According to Salovey, the University has worked to rebuild its “traditional strength in Asia,” amassing over 45 faculty members at Yale covering contemporary South Asia in fields including public health, astronomy, religious studies and economics.

“Overall, in the past decade, we have advanced strong collaborations around the globe,” Salovey wrote of his tenure’s impact abroad.

 Upon stepping down on June 30, Salovey plans to return to the faculty after a sabbatical.

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Over the next five years, Yale will commit $2 million annually to establish the Alliance for Scholarship, Collaboration, Engagement, Networking and Development, or ASCEND. The initiative will support research partnerships between faculty at Yale and at historically Black colleges and universities — or HBCUs — and seek to expand the presence of HBCU graduates in the University’s existing programs. 

Tuesday’s announcement comes two weeks after University President Peter Salovey and Senior Trustee of the Yale Corporation Joshua Bekenstein ’80 issued a formal apology for Yale’s ties to slavery. The University concurrently released findings from the Yale and Slavery Research Project and announced a plan to expand research fellowships with historically Black colleges and universities, noting that unspecified “significant” new investments would be announced in the following weeks.  

But Tuesday’s announcement also comes after the NAACP Connecticut State Conference volleyed criticism against the University’s Feb. 16 apology.

In a Feb. 29 statement to the News, Connecticut NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile largely took aim at Yale’s copyright ownership over David Blight’s book “Yale and Slavery: A History,” which was published alongside Yale’s apology announcement. Esdaile further criticized Blight’s book for not including information about Yale’s historical ties to eugenics.

“This is a whitewashed version of the story, and I think that Black historians, Black civil rights activists, Black leaders and Black educators need to come together and tell the real story,” Esdaile told the News in an interview on Tuesday. “I’m not trying to disrespect, but I think that the constructive criticism should be there … by putting in $10 million for students to come back to Yale, how does that help our community?”

The newly-announced ASCEND initiative will support faculty collaboration grants and teaching fellowships for Yale and HBCU faculty who create a “collaborative teaching arrangement” or “joint course experiences.” The initiative will also sponsor faculty research fellowships for HBCU faculty members who wish to pursue research opportunities at Yale.

Additionally, the University is looking to expand its Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, an eight-week program designed for undergraduate students from HBCUs to learn more about pursuing a Ph.D. According to the announcement, Yale will also increase the number of HBCU graduates participating in the University’s post-baccalaureate programs.

When asked about Yale’s pledge announcement on Tuesday, Esdaile referred to the failed attempt in 1831 by New Haveners to establish what would have been America’s first Black college. 

“We were supposed to have our own HBCU that benefited Black people … making Yale a more powerful institution doesn’t help our community,” Esdaile said. “This is a step in the right direction, but I think that [Yale] has so much more that it needs to do.”

Esdaile further said that by maintaining copyright ownership over Blight’s book, the University is “executing a power dynamic that benefits the institution at the expense of marginalized communities.”

When asked about Esdaile’s concerns about the “motives and intentions” of Yale’s copyright ownership the University spokesperson responded that proceeds from the book will go toward funding future projects at the Yale Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. The spokesperson added that the book is available online for free and that the University has also donated copies of the book to local libraries. 

Esdaile also raised concerns about the book’s lack of mention of Yale’s historical connections to eugenics. The American Eugenics Society was founded on Yale’s campus at 185 Church St. in 1926 by economics professor Irving Fisher and was run largely by Yale faculty. 

By not including this history, Esdaile wrote in his Feb. 29 statement that the book “undermines any real efforts toward reconciliation and real justice.”

Blight previously told the News that he decided to conclude the book in 1915 at the unveiling of the Civil War Memorial because the monument marks “the end of the concern over slavery directly.” The memorial, located between the Schwarzman Center and Woolsey Hall, honors the lives of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War but makes no mention of slavery. 

Blight added that the Yale and Slavery Working Group had “great plans” to continue the narrative until the 1930s but that “the book got too long.”

Esdaile told the News that Blight, on the day of the book’s release, told him that the reason eugenics was excluded from the book was because his colleague “was sick.” 

In an email to the News on Tuesday, Blight wrote that he told Esdaile the initial plan was to continue the book until the 1930s and “therefore cover the eugenics story fully” but that the leading researcher on that project “had an illness and we ran into fierce deadlines.” Blight added that, if written, a second volume might “indeed” cover eugenics.

The University currently holds partnerships with five HBCUs, including Claflin University, Hampton University, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T State University and Tuskegee University.

Yolanda Wang contributed reporting

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Donatich said that he plans to return to writing after retiring. He assumed his current position on January 13, 2003. In his announcement, Salovey highlighted Donatich’s “many achievements” — among them Donatich’s $40-million fundraising efforts for the Press, the expansion of the Press’ award-winning trade lists and novel publishing and distribution partnerships.

Robert Weil ’77, Yale Press Board of Governors member and W.W. Norton’s executive editor and vice president, said Donatich mirrors Salovey’s “enthusiasm and vitality.” He said that given Donatich’s background running a trade house, Donatich understood what was “key” to a successful publishing house — namely, the backlist, or books that have been in print for at least one year, which “supplies a steady stream of money to underwrite the front list.”

“[Donatich] really had a huge hand in bringing Yale into the modern age as the stellar University Press and also hiring great people,” Weil said. “John has that business background combined with literature, which is very rare to find.”

Yale University Press is financially and operationally independent of the University and publishes over 400 books across multiple genres annually.

As director, Donatich said one of the best aspects of the job was the background he got in dealing with experts from a wide variety of fields, working with them to understand how their book would contribute to that field. He added that he has also learned how to adapt amid a changing world in publishing — namely, with the rise of artificial intelligence. 

 “I’ve [also] learned to try to keep a sense of balance as we juggle mission and survival and balance to keep our footing during all these kinds of radical changes in the publishing environment,” Donatich said. 

In 2023, Donatich oversaw a novel agreement for a new distributor partnership with W.W. Norton, bringing an end to a 22-year relationship with Lakeside Book Company, formerly known as Triliteral LLC. Donatich will lead the transition between distributors this upcoming fall until he retires. 

Donatich told the News that when considering whether to publish a book, he factors in the book’s “intellectual contribution,” its “financial responsibility” and the “luster” achieved by the Press for each book.

He said that these needs are part of finding a “balance” between being a nonprofit scholarly press that also tracks its success through publicity and book sales.

“This balance between serving mission and staying alive … I think it’s a good challenge, and I like that job,” Donatich said.

Yale Press director of editorial design and production Jenya Weinreb wrote to the News that it’s been an “honor” to work with Donatich for the entirety of his tenure at the University.

Weinreb also wrote that “with change comes challenges,” adding that while Yale Press’ next director will have a strong foundation of the Press’ books and staff to build on, they will also face numerous “unpredictable” challenges. 

“A huge amount of work happens behind the scenes in choosing, curating, developing, editing, designing, producing, distributing, marketing, selling, and accounting for all these books, and John has a hand in every part of it,” Weinreb wrote. 

Some of these challenges, Weinreb wrote, “already loom large” at Yale and abroad, including those of  “inclusivity, freedom of speech, and the promises and perils of AI.”

In the same vein, Donatich also said that he anticipates that adjusting to the digital age, particularly with AI,  will be among the topmost challenges for his successor.

Donatich said that in his final year at Yale Press, he intends to continue fundraising efforts and to “step back and mentor” employees. He added that he hopes this 16-month succession plan will leave the Press “suitable” for the next director to implement their own vision.

Per Salovey’s Friday announcement, the University will soon embark on a global search for Donatich’s successor. Donatich said that although he does not anticipate having a say in who his ultimate successor will be, he hopes and is “happy to offer” his opinions on the future needs of the Press.

Yale University Press was founded in 1908.

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The term bill includes tuition costs, which will rise to $67,250, and room and board for students who live on campus, which will rise to $19,900. The 2023-24 tuition was $64,700, and the room and board was $19,180. 

Despite the increase, University administration confirmed its commitment to financial aid and affordable tuition for students.

“People have difficulty understanding the relationship between the sticker price and the actual cost to them of an education at Yale,” University President Peter Salovey said. “We have to do a better job communicating that difference.”

Tuition costs have risen “mostly due to inflation,” Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis told the News. Twenty years ago, tuition was $29,820, and in 2014, tuition was set at $44,000. Ten years later, tuition now stands nearly $25,000 higher.

But, Lewis said, the costs of higher education rise at higher rates than the national inflation rate. Indeed, tuition has doubled in the last decade even though $100 in 2014 would be worth only about $127 in 2024.

Lewis said that tuition costs cover roughly one-fourth of Yale College’s total costs, with the endowment covering half and research grants and other funding covering the last quarter. 

The total budget to run the University is about $5 billion, Lewis said, citing the 2022 Yale budget report, but “the ratios haven’t changed all that much” as tuition has grown.

Lewis said that the largest expense for Yale College is salary and benefits, from both faculty and staff salary, which make up about half of the budget. 

In April 2022, Salovey’s For Humanity capital campaign — the University’s fourth and most ambitious fundraising effort — announced a $1.2 billion fundraising goal as part of the $7 billion campaign. In October, Eugénie Gentry, associate vice president for development and campaign director, referred to this announcement as the beginning of a larger marketing effort called “Be the Key,” which has yet to publicly launch.

By the April announcement, the figure raised for this effort was greater than $603 million and included gifts that have allowed Yale to offer universally free tuition at the David Geffen School of Drama and need-based, full-tuition scholarships to students at the Divinity School.

“Yes, it’s true that for a family where they don’t qualify for any financial aid from Yale, they are going to pay more to be here and those tend to be families in the top couple of percent of the income distribution,” Salovey said. “For any other family, when tuition goes up, they should feel that that increase will be taken care of by increased financial aid and more.”

Among the challenges of leading an institution like Yale is the public’s distrust of higher education because of the belief that it is not affordable, Salovey told the News in September. 

He added that, at present, Yale is “more affordable than ever” because of its generous financial aid programs. However, Salovey said that this is a “very hard” message to communicate to the general public because “many colleges and universities can’t provide those funds,” which Ivy League universities and other member institutions of the Association of American Universities can provide. 

Politics, Salovey also said, complicates this message even more, making it more challenging to “champion what’s great about universities.”

“All of that exists in a very polarized political climate that makes it difficult for a university in so many ways,” Salovey said in September. “What we really need is a pride in our university college and university system which I think is second to none in the world and, unfortunately, for various political reasons, universities are [often] attacked [which] has made it harder to run a university.” 

Despite an increased sticker price, the University emphasized that Yale College’s need-based financial aid will not be affected. 

“If a family’s financial circumstances stay the same, their net cost will stay the same,” Kari DiFonzo, director of undergraduate financial aid, told Yale News last month.

Yale’s undergraduate financial aid budget has more than tripled since the 2007-08 academic year, according to Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. For the 2023-24 academic year, the financial aid budget was $241 million.

According to Quinlan, Yale is one of only eight American colleges that does not consider a student’s financial need when evaluating them for admission and meets every student’s demonstrated financial need without loans.

Yale’s need-blind status was challenged in a recent lawsuit alleging that the University — along with 16 peer institutions — was part of a price-fixing cartel. The University settled earlier this year but denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

The admissions office’s top priority in its outreach work is raising awareness about Yale’s affordability and need-based financial aid, according to Mark Dunn, senior associate director for outreach and recruitment at the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Dunn pointed to Yale’s college cost estimation tool, MyinTuition Quick Cost Estimator, which he said has been useful in helping families understand the difference between Yale’s sticker price and the price they will actually pay. More than 50,000 net price estimates were generated using the tool last year, according to Dunn.

Additionally, since 2013, the admissions office has run a postcard campaign for prospective students from low- and middle-class neighborhoods. The campaign advertises the extent of Yale’s need-based financial aid policies. Dunn told the News that he believes the campaign is largely responsible for the increase in applications from lower-income students over the past decade.

“Sharing Yale’s commitment to affordability is the top communications priority for the admissions office in all of our outreach work,” Dunn wrote.

The University’s endowment was $40.7 billion in 2023.

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The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in March 2022 by alumni Victor Ashe ’67 and Donald Glascoff ’67, alleging that the Corporation’s 2021 decision to end the alumni petition process for a position among the governing group was a violation of Yale’s 1872 charter.

“Don Glascoff and I are disappointed in the decision on the Yale Corporation,” Ashe wrote to the News. “We are reviewing our options but an appeal is likely. This decision, if not reversed, means Yale can deny any meaningful alumni participation in the election of Alumni Trustees.  Alumni views can be ignored.”

Before its abolition in 2021, the petition process allowed alumni who acquired three percent of eligible alumni voters’ signatures to have their names on the ballot for the alumni fellows election. Six of 19 spots on the Yale Corporation are reserved for alumni fellows.

The decision was made to prevent “issue-based candidacies,” and candidates who sought to gain a seat on the Corporation to promote specific platforms, according to a 2021 announcement made by then-Senior Trustee Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85. 

University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News that Yale is “pleased” with the decision.

Ashe, Glascoff and Eric Henzy, the lawyer representing them, allege that the University’s decision is an overstep of the regulations outlined in an 1872 amendment to the University’s charter – which designates six seats on the Yale Corporation for alumni and allows them to vote on candidates.

Specifically, they claim that the Corporation can only regulate the time, place and manner of the elections. Other restrictions, such as removing the petition process and raising the number of signatures required, are in violation of the amendment’s original language, they argue.

Yale, represented by Connecticut law firm Wiggin and Dana LLP, says that the University is entitled to full regulatory authority of the elections process. 

Judge John Burns Farley concurred with this claim in his decision and granted the University’s motion for summary judgment.

“The charter does not impose on [Yale] an obligation to conduct alumni fellow elections in any particular manner,” he wrote in the decision. 

Opponents of the change argue that it allows the Corporation too much control over Yale’s direction. The only other path onto the ballot is through the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee, which is made up of several Yale Alumni Association officers, three University officials and one successor trustee from the Corporation. 

Scott Gigante GRD ’23, co-founder of the climate activist organization Yale Forward which supported a petition candidate in the 2021 election, told the News that he does not consider the decision reached in the case as a loss in the fight to reinstate the petition process. Instead, he said he sees the decision only as a confirmation that “the fight” will not be won by legal means.

Gigante added that although he cannot speak to the legality of the decision, he believes it was “morally” incorrect. 

“The fight to reinstate a petition for alumni to be able to get ballot access for the alumni election, independent of a body run and organized by Yale, will continue,” Gigante said. “When you’re playing a game where your opponent controls the rules it’s very hard to win, and you have to be very creative so we’ll have to figure out what that creative solution looks like.”

Per the Alumni Fellow Election website, this year’s election for Alumni Fellows will launch in early spring and close on Monday, May 19. The University Charter states that all alumni and honorary degree holders are eligible to vote, but Yale College students are only eligible if they have held their degrees for five years.

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The L&B room, located just to the right of the Cross Campus entrance to Sterling, closed when the library shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when Sterling reopened on Aug. 31 of that same year, the L&B room remained closed because the room failed to meet pandemic air-handling standards required by the University, according to Patricia Carey, the Yale Library director of communications. 

“What we’re able to do with this renovation is restore an important room that has been has been in the hearts and minds of generations of alumni, but also create a space for future Yale students that I think will be equally delightful and modernized,” University Librarian Barbara Rockenbach told the News. “We’ve got a track record of this room being important, and I know it will be to future generations of students as well.”

Among the features added during the renovation, which aimed to restore architect James Gamble Rogers’ initial vision for the space, are modern heating, cooling and electrical systems. Rockenbach said that the renovation was more about upgrading the “mechanicals” of the room while restoring and maintaining its history.

The L&B room’s restoration costs $10 million, according to lead donor and University Library Council member Fred Berg ’66. 

Berg told the News that the $10 million figure was the latest he had heard. Basie Gitlin ’10, the Yale Library director of development, declined to verify the total cost of the project beyond Berg’s estimate but directed the News to the gift guide for the L&B renovation on the For Humanity capital campaign’s site. 

The gift guide specifies that gifts of $100,000 or more for the renovation will be recognized on a group plaque. Gifts of $1,000,000 or more, according to the guide, correspond with the naming of one of the reading room’s six alcoves.

“What I can say is that we’ve gotten a really wonderful groundswell of support from people from across generations, and at a number of different gift levels who are supporting this project,” Gitlin said.

The renovation is part of a larger University project, Sterling 2031, to renovate and reimagine aspects of the library by the library’s centennial. Previous projects included the creation of the Hanke Exhibition Gallery, the relocation of the Yale Film Archive to Sterling’s seventh floor and the creation of the Franke Family Digital Humanities Laboratory.

According to Rockenbach, the University is considering various “opportunity spaces” for renovations. She added that the University is considering renovating the International Room and the Periodical Reading Room on the first floor. 

Rockenbach said that as part of Sterling’s “master plan process,” the library is working closely with an architecture firm to find other opportunities throughout the entire building. She added that the University Library Council is also looking to add more collaborative spaces in Sterling based on feedback from the Student Library Advisory Committee.

“There have been many, many renovations of Sterling in the last decade,” Rockenbach said. “L&B is in a way a kickoff of Sterling 2031, allowing us to show the campus that we will carefully and intentionally renovate these spaces, and ensure that the spaces will fit the needs of future scholarship.”

Yale Library Associates member John Raben ’67 heads the Rossi Family Foundation, which gives seed money to new nonprofits and operational support for existing nonprofits, and made a donation to restore one of the room’s alcoves. 

Raben told the News that other projects that the foundation has supported at Yale include the Rossi Glee Club room and the Rossi Foundation Gallery of Art of the Ancient Americas.

“Like every Yale undergraduate, I think one of the things I remember fondly would be L&B,” Raben said. “It’s been a pleasure for the foundation to support Yale, and I’m delighted to be able to support the University, particularly the library, and hopefully it’ll benefit students for many, many years to come.”

A previous renovation closed off two of the entrances’ three archways with wood paneling to create an anteroom to house the library’s bibliographic press. Rockenbach said that finding the best place for the press is among the priorities for the Sterling 2031 project.

Berg made the “leading gift” for the L&B renovation that was put toward restoring the L&B room entrance, which will be renamed the Berg Family Foyer. 

Berg said that for his 50th class reunion in 2016, he proposed that his class financially support the L&B room renovation. Yale’s Office of Development, however, decided that the project was not a priority at that time, according to Berg. By 2020, Berg said, the project reached the University’s top list of priorities. 

He added that when members of the Library Council floated the idea of the L&B room’s renovation in 2020, he “took the first leap” and made a “significant gift” to restore the foyer in his parents’ memory.

“I wanted to do this in part because I was a first-generation, low-income student and neither of my parents had gone to college,” Berg told the News. “I wanted to do something in their honor because they made some sacrifices, so I could attend Yale, and … stimulated me to become a better student.”

Carey said that the vision for the 17,000-volume collection in the reading room is centered around “leisure reading,” which she said is in line with the original vision for the room as a “private library” or “grand living room.”

According to Gitlin, the foyer will house “several hundred” browsable and circulating books on Yale and New Haven, which are being selected in partnership with the University archivist.

“It’s very deliberate that we’ve chosen both Yale and New Haven because of the importance of the fact that Yale is in New Haven, and we’ve increasingly been focused on our partnerships and the importance of the city we live in,” Rockenbach said.

Sterling Memorial Library opened in 1931.

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The report, which the News obtained in late January, summarized data from over 1,800 student respondents in a survey focused on student concerns for the next president of Yale. 

The SAC was created after widespread student demand for student representation on the Presidential Search Committee and included 15 students from across the University. Forty percent of respondents to the SAC’s survey listed student mental health as the top challenge the University will face, and 38 percent listed mental health policy as an issue where the University performed worse than peer institutions. 

Student mental health care policy has been a point of contention for students in recent years, particularly the policy for students facing mental health challenges who want to take leave. In September, Yale settled a class-action lawsuit which was filed by mental health advocacy group Elis for Rachael and current students against the University in November 2022. In January 2023, in the midst of the suit, the University announced “momentous” changes to leave of absence policies. 

University President Peter Salovey said that the president does have much power over mental health policy. Instead, he said these policies usually fall to Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff Crews or deans. 

“[Presidents] don’t make policy for services and generally and for issues affecting students,” University President Peter Salovey told the News. “Having said that, I’m a clinical psychologist who still has a license to practice — though I don’t practice — so student mental health is hugely important to me.”

However, Salovey said that Yale’s president can still influence mental health policy through three avenues. Namely, they can “give voice to the challenge” to raise awareness about the issue of mental health, raise funds to “support a more robust mental health strategy” and weigh in on policy decisions that are under consideration.

He added, for example, that the University’s expansion of its mental health resources to residential colleges through the Yale College Community Care, or YC3, program was a change for which he long advocated.

“Long before it was implemented, I was a very strong proponent of decentralizing mental health services and reducing the barriers in order to make it easy for students to access it,” Salovey said. “What became called YC3 is consistent with a point of view about how to deliver psychological care on campus that I’ve long championed.”

YC3 was established in April 2021 to provide short-term mental health care in the residential colleges with wellness specialists and clinicians associated with YMHC. In 2022, some students spoke of positive experiences with the organization, while others told the News that the short-term nature made it difficult to use for mental health care. 

Among the most challenging aspects of being Yale’s president are the changing needs of students, Salovey told the News in September. 

Salovey told the News in November that students today — and their parents — have different “expectations” of the University that involve institutions “being far more intentional about developing students.” This shift in expectations, he said, necessitates that universities respond with a multitude of services.

“When I was in college, the student attitude about many, many things with respect to the institution could be summarized in the following sentence: ‘leave us alone’ …  my generation for whatever reason as young adults was focused on autonomy,” Salovey said. “As a psychologist, I love that the stigma around getting help for psychological issues like anxiety or depression seems to largely be gone and students want that help … but it does change the demand and the nature of how a university responds to that demand.”

Chief of Yale Mental Health and Counseling Paul Hoffman attributed the large student concerns to students going through the COVID-19 pandemic, the political climate and influence of social media, all of which he said have taken a toll on students’ mental health. He said that rates of students in therapy nationally have risen from 13 to 36 percent, and the rate of students taking medications for mental health have increased from 12 to 29 percent.            

Yale, Salovey said, “is moving aggressively” to expand mental healthcare but is not “100 percent there yet.” 

In addition to the leave policy, concerns around mental health policy have also centered around long wait times and the YC3 program’s branding as being “short-term.”

Prior to the lawsuit regarding leave policies, in April 2022, the University relaxed the coursework and interview requirements for reinstatement following leave. The 2023 policy changed the process of taking leave for mental health reasons from a “withdrawal” to “medical leave of absence,” which now allows  students who take time off to have benefits like health care coverage through Yale Undergraduate Affiliate Coverage and the ability to work student jobs. Students are now also able to enroll in two course credits at the start of the term or drop down to two course credits with urgent medical and mental health needs. 

Despite these changes, Ben Swinchoski ’25, co-director of the Yale Student Mental Health Association, told the News that there are still some concerns about access to mental health care. Swinchoski described mental health care as “a lot better post settlement,” but raised concerns about wait times students face at Yale Mental Health and Counseling.  

“I think there are still some issues that persist,” Swinchoski said. “There’s a lot of variability in the wait time and also in the quality and consistency of care that people get.”

Swinchoski described hearing student concerns about wait times for the intake process, or the time until the initial appointment, as well as the time it takes to get matched with a therapist post-intake. Swinchoski said that the main role he sees the University president in helping this issue is raising funds for more clinicians at YMHC. 

Chief of Yale Mental Health and Counseling Paul Hoffman said that YMHC has expanded over the past four years, increasing the number of clinicians from 34 to 73 as well as partnering with Yale College to create the YC3 program. Hoffman added that YMHC has the largest staff of any school of equivalent size and one of the largest staffs of any college mental health center in the country. Additionally, YMHC has partnered with Yale’s graduate and professional schools to create counseling programs in eight schools and opened two additional locations — 205 Whitney Ave. and 60 Temple St. 

“This extensive growth has led to significantly reduced wait times both for initial appointments as well as the time to get matched to a therapist,” Hoffman wrote to the News. 

Yale Mental Health and Counseling is located at 55 Lock Street.

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