Last month, in a page of the News’ Black History Month special issue, nine Yale students contributed to a section called “Being a Black engineer at Yale,” highlighting their experiences as Black students in departments such as Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Students expressed feelings of isolation and discouragement at the lack of representation in the University’s STEM majors.

“It’s discouraging to walk into an auditorium where I can count on one hand the amount of other Black people in my lectures,” Deja Dunlap ’26, a Black applied mathematics major, told the News. “In discussion, I feel pressured to be exceptional and to be more than just the ‘Black person in the room.’”

Dunlap also highlighted the lack of Black professors in Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Just two out of 153 faculty members in SEAS identify as Black or African American, a meager 1.3 percent compared to five percent across all Yale faculty and six percent among the faculty of Arts and Sciences.

This issue is not unique to Yale; Ivies across the country hire disproportionately low Black faculty members to teach engineering and other STEM fields. Zero percent and four percent of Harvard’s tenure-track and tenured engineering faculty are Black or African-American, respectively. The Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering has one Black associate professor out of 70 faculty members.

Vincent Wilczynski, deputy dean of the engineering school, declined to comment about the lack of Black faculty representation. He pointed instead to the school’s “fairly robust DEIB program,” which houses several affinity groups and professional organizations for students from historically marginalized backgrounds.

Wilczynski also told the News that Charles Brown, a physics professor and National Society of Black Engineers faculty advisor, will be bringing a team of over 10 Yale members of the National Society of Black Engineers – of which Dunlap is the Yale chapter vice president – to the organization’s annual meeting in Atlanta, which will take place later this month.

Brown did not respond to the News’ request for comment on the trip.

Wilczynski said that the convention is an exciting opportunity for students to meet and network with colleagues from all over the nation.

“From the school side we go ahead and make sure that the support is there and work hard to make sure that there’s a faculty advisor to integrate students into this professional society network,” he added.

Solomon Gonzalez ’23, who graduated from Yale last spring with a degree in mechanical engineering, said that NSBE had less of a presence on campus when he arrived at Yale. 

He described his experience in the major as “individual.”

“It felt like I was just doing it on my own,” Gonzalez said. “Being part of a major and seeing nobody else who looks like you, it makes you wonder, ‘Does it even make sense that I’m here?’”

Both Dunlap and Gonzalez said that the number of Black peers in their majors decreased as they moved to more advanced courses.

Dunlap, who attended a public high school in Las Vegas, recalled her experience taking Math 115 –– an intermediate course –– while others in the major began in Math 120, which is more advanced. She speculated that “working from behind” could discourage students from public high schools — who are disproportionately students of color. 

She suggested that Yale permit students to take introductory math courses such as Math 115 for free the summer prior to their first year in exchange for course credit. Yale does provide preparatory Online Experiences for Yale Scholars, a free program that helps students adapt to the rigor of quantitative study at Yale — though the program does not count for credit.

“I didn’t realize it would be like this when I arrived,” said Dunlap, referring to the introductory math sequence. “Yale could do more to acclimate students from lower-income backgrounds.”

Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science was founded in 1852. 

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Yale’s ambitions for a Ukrainian program are not new, but Tytarenko and Edyta Bojanowska, Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures, told the News that in the face of the war in Ukraine, this objective has grown more urgent. Tytarenko, who comes from a background in education and academia, brings to Yale her fluency in Ukrainian, Russian and English, as well as skills in language pedagogy and research in Russian mysticism and mythology.

“I consider it a noble task to start a Ukrainian program,” Tytarenko told the News. “Especially now, during this moment when there is a heightened interest in Ukrainian studies and a need for an understanding of Ukraine, its cultures, history, politics and the relation between Ukraine and Russia.”

Tytarenko received a B.A. and M.A. in English Language and Literature from Ukraine’s Lviv Ivan Franko National University. Initially, she planned to teach English as a foreign language — but when she moved to the United States to earn a Master’s degree in Russian and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University, she opted to stay and pursue an academic career. In 2016, she earned a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Toronto.

Almost immediately after defending her dissertation, Tytarenko began working at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she said she taught for seven years and completely “rebuilt” the Russian curriculum. She was presented simultaneously with an offer for a tenure-track research-oriented position at UNL and the opportunity to teach at Yale.

Tytarenko said that ultimately, she decided to join the Yale faculty so she could build a Ukrainian program.

“I thought it would be a very meaningful way to contribute to the Ukrainian cause,” she said. “Because it was challenging to be here and not to be in Ukraine while everyone was in Ukraine.”

Tytarenko told the News she found it “surprising” that a robust Ukrainian program does not already exist at Yale.

Since Tytarenko was on maternity leave in the fall and began teaching courses this Spring, she plans to introduce course offerings in Ukrainian in the fall, as the department requires both semesters of instruction.

“[Teaching Ukrainian] is something the department has been talking about for a while,” Bojanowska told the News. “But the war in Ukraine made this all the more imperative.”

Bojanowska said the department ran a search for a language lector, seeking a lector who was fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian. She said that Tytarenko, trilingual and a “dynamo in the classroom,” was the perfect fit.

She added that she hopes that, by having the same lector teaching both languages, students can understand that speaking the Russian language does not equate with a Russian nationalist identity.

Tytarenko said she hopes the Ukrainian language department will work closely with the Ukraine House student group, offer extra-curricular community events and become a “hub” for cultural events and exchange.

In the future, she also wants to create an interdisciplinary course on Ukrainian identity, culture and mentality explored through the lenses of art, music, folklore, mythology and literature. She also aspires to teach Ukrainian literature in translation — a skill that she has honed as a translator for several literary works.

Tytarenko added that these courses in Ukrainian studies will diversify the Slavic department’s offerings and help students understand the complexities of Ukraine-Russia geopolitical and cultural relations.

After the war, Tytarenko said she hopes to forge connections with schools in Ukraine and facilitate exchange programs — though she said this planning feels “premature” now.

Alongside being a senior lector and associate research scholar and teaching first- and second-year Ukrainian, Tytarenko endeavors to expand and develop her dissertation — a study of Russian folk mysticism narratives and the mythology behind rebellion — into a full-length book manuscript.

She added that this research has resounding relevance nowadays.

“We can see the political mythology in supporting propaganda narratives and the place of mythology in nation-building and in the current regime in Russia,” Tytarenko said.

In addition to her research in Russian mysticism and mythology, Tytarenko also has experience researching pedagogical practices and curriculum-building.

She uses virtual reality and immersive technology to help her students improve speaking and communication skills. She cited an example of a course she taught at UNL about Russia through art, in which students would use glasses to experience galleries, stores, streets and rooms immersively with visual and audio input.

“I have seen how effective this is as an innovative tool in boosting motivation for students,” Tytarenko told the News. “Students are more engaged with the learning material they have. They have better focus on the task. They demonstrate better retention of the material.”

Tytarenko told the News that the program will have to gauge student interest to determine how expansive offerings in Ukrainian will be.

Bojanowska echoed this perspective, urging students to be receptive to classes in Ukrainian.

“The ball is in your court because students now need to come and take these courses,” she said.

Although Yale currently lacks its own Ukrainian language program, some opportunities for Yale students to pursue Ukrainian already exist.

Jordan Shevchenko ’27 is a half-Ukrainian student taking Elementary Ukrainian II, a Columbia University language course offered to Yale students through a Shared Course Initiative program.

“A lot of my Ukrainian family are unable to speak English, so by learning Ukrainian I can communicate much more with them,” Shevchenko wrote to the News.

He shared that Yale students, who are in a classroom together, use high-definition video conferencing technology to connect to the Columbia language class, which is taught by a Ph.D. candidate there.

So far, Shevchenko wrote that his course focuses on grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing — but students also talk about Ukrainian culture, history and politics through discussions.

“Russia’s full-scale invasion is trying to compromise and eliminate Ukrainian culture, and alongside this the Ukrainian language,” Shevchenko wrote. “By learning Ukrainian, one can help combat these measures, and also express their solidarity with the people of Ukraine more easily.”

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Tamar Gendler expressed excitement at Tytarenko’s plans for the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

She wrote to the News that Tytarenko, who has published extensively on the subject of language teaching, will create new offerings that will dynamically accommodate student interests.

“Ms. Tytarenko is an expert in language pedagogy,” Gendler wrote.

Bojanowska echoed Gendler’s enthusiasm, saying that Tytarenko has the expertise and the passion to build a strong Ukrainian language and culture curriculum.

Yale’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures was established in 1946.

The post New lector Olha Tytarenko to spearhead Ukrainian language program at Yale appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Data released by Yale’s Office of Institutional Research from the 2022-23 academic year has revealed a notable gender disparity in certain academic areas — particularly in arts and humanities and in physical sciences and engineering.

According to data released by Yale’s Office of Institutional Research — which presents figures through a gender binary — there are 664 junior and senior male majors within the Physical Sciences & Engineering realm, compared to 351 women. Meanwhile, the number of female Arts & Humanities majors far outnumbers male ones, with 701.5 women and 420 men. The decimal point accounts for interdisciplinary majors that fall in more than one of the four dominant divisions — for example, the Archeological Studies major being classified under both Arts & Humanities and  Social Sciences. 

Although the percentage of women in Physical Sciences & Engineering has increased between the 2000-01 academic year and now — from 26.3 percent to 34.5 percent — for the last 10 years, this percentage has fluctuated between 33.6 percent and 38.8 percent without a clear upward trajectory.

On the national level, numbers are worse. The American Society for Engineering Education, for example, reported that women were awarded only 24.1 percent of the total number of bachelor’s degrees in engineering in 2022.

Though Yale has seen more success in gender diversity than the national average, the University is falling short compared to peer institutions. At Princeton, 40.6 percent of the bachelor of science in engineering degrees that the school distributed in 2023 were to women. At MIT, 48 percent of undergraduates studying engineering were women. The same year at Yale, only 34.5 percent of junior and senior physical sciences and engineering majors were women.

Vincent Wilczynski, deputy dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, told the News that engineering faculty maintain a close relationship with admissions officers while admissions decisions are being made.

“Admissions clearly, clearly, clearly has its eye on this topic,” he said regarding gender diversity.

Internally, too, Wilczynski said diversity and inclusion remain central priorities at the engineering school. He cited several professional organizations — including the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers — which he said help create safe environments for engineering students who are part of underrepresented minorities.

Wilczynski said that the engineering school has many support systems in place, aimed at combating the “national and international problem” of gender inequity in STEM.

Though some engineering departments — such as biomedical and chemical engineering have more female students — most departments in the engineering school are male-dominated.

For the electrical engineering and computer science combined major, for example, the class of 2025 has 10 men but only one woman in the major.

Rajit Manohar, the director of undergraduate studies for the electrical engineering component of the electrical engineering and computer science major, told the News that he thinks his area of study has an “image problem.” He said he thinks this dissuades students of all genders from studying the discipline as he thinks that many students do not have an accurate understanding of what engineering is.

“I had a really interesting conversation with some folks at the art school and I said, you know, we are much more similar to you than you think,” Manohar told the News. “Because engineering is about creativity. You’re designing something new.”

Along with engineering, physics is also a disproportionately male major at Yale, with 46 declared junior and senior men and 13 women in the 2022-23 academic year.

Sarah Demers, the director of undergraduate studies in physics, said that within the already male-dominated physics major, there are four introductory sequences, and the department has noticed many fewer women in the most advanced sequence.

“Physics is a subject that’s traditionally seen as very challenging. It has that stereotype and that in some ways works against us in terms of people feeling like they don’t belong if things start to get really hard,” Demers told the News. “If people aren’t open and communicating and they don’t realize, ‘oh, wait a second, this actually is pretty tough for everybody,’ they might assume that they’re the only one who’s confused.”

Demers penned an op-ed about gender bias in science in 2013. She wrote about a 2012 study that revealed that when science faculty members were shown identical applications for a lab manager position from men and women, they were more likely to see men as more competent and deserving of a higher salary.

The gender inequality in physics majors is echoed in an uneven faculty gender distribution, Demers said. Still, Demers added that she is hopeful about improvements that have been made in recent years.

“I believe the numbers are seven women out of 37 tenure track faculty members,” Demers said. “Which is actually very good in the national context. If you go back 20 years ago, there was a period when there were one or two.”

Demers told the News that her department is focusing not only on gender but also on other types of diversity, specifically citing race and ethnicity.

She said that diversity is important for reasons deeper than optics — that different perspectives and backgrounds can improve a work environment as well as the ideas and findings that come out of that space.

“It also is a benefit to the science,” she said. “I mean, we’re just not going to be doing as much physics or as good physics if we’re restricting unnaturally who participates, right?”

These issues are central to “Being Human in STEM,” a science course led by professors Rona Ramos GRD ’10 and Benjamin Machta.

The course addresses topics of diversity and representation in STEM disciplines, seeking to study solutions to these stagnancies.

The bulk of the class focuses on discussions of readings, including peer-reviewed papers on subjects such as stereotype threat — a phenomenon that finds that people tend to fall back on vocalized stereotypes of themselves in performing intellectual tasks.

“It’s great that I get to hear the youth’s perspective on this,” Machta said. “It’s quite a fun course.”

As a final assignment, students aim to create and implement a project that will improve STEM culture at Yale.

Machta noted that the gender inequity problem is complex, and one without obvious reasoning.

“It’s a problem of culture, really,” Machta told the News. “And culture is slow to change.”

Yale College first welcomed women in 1969.

Pam Ogbebor contributed reporting.

The post Gender disparities persist in several areas of study at Yale, data show appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In the foreword of the book, University President Peter Salovey wrote that he asked Blight to lead a team research initiative exploring Yale’s history of slavery. He wrote that Blight readily accepted the task, choosing to expand the initial proposal of a scholarly report into a more accessible narrative for a broader readership.

Michael Morand ’87 ’93 MDiv, director of community engagement at the Beinecke Rare Book Library and a researcher and chapter author for “Yale and Slavery,” wrote to the News that he worked in close collaboration with Blight on the book.

“As an alum, a Yale leader, and a New Haven resident, I know our university and community only grow stronger if we are honest about our history,” Morand wrote. “I am proud to be part of a university willing to rigorously shine light on truth.”

The Yale and Slavery Research Project began in late 2020 as a commitment to better understand Yale’s formative ties to slavery and racism — as well as the ongoing repercussions of that history. Last Friday, Yale issued a formal apology statement addressing the project’s research findings and listing next steps the institution plans to take. The book is one component of this larger initiative, which also includes a lecture series in fall 2024 and updates to campus tours.

“Yale and Slavery,” which is divided into 12 chapters with five interludes and an epilogue, stretches across centuries of history. The book draws on a wide range of archives and other texts in an effort to remain specific and resonant to Yale while also relevant and applicable nationwide.

“I was determined to not write a conventional report but to write a real history that ordinary people could and would read,” Blight wrote to the News.

Blight wrote that after the project was launched, webinars and a major conference followed. The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, which Blight directs, was central to the project’s management.

Morand wrote that the Beinecke Library Community Engagement program also managed much of the Yale and Slavery Research project, with more than 20 online programs over the past three years. These programs included a 2022 documentary film on the 1831 Black College proposal and the “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery” exhibit at the New Haven Museum.

Hope McGrath, the Beinecke research coordinator for Yale, New Haven and Connecticut history, has served as the project’s lead researcher since she joined in Jan. 2022. Along with organizing a team of researchers and conducting primary and secondary research, she authored two chapters and three interludes in the book.

She wrote to the News that one of the project’s major challenges was finding a way to tell the many stories of Yale’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade and abolition in a coherent narrative.

“We were always asking ourselves, what are the through-lines of this story? What are the key themes and tensions that run through over 300 years of Yale history?” McGrath wrote.

She wrote that though the book is over 400 pages, she thinks it is told in a way that will leave readers with a clear perspective about how Yale’s history with slavery has unfolded.

Blight echoed the difficulties of condensing centuries of stories into one readable history.

“The many challenges in writing this book came from the mountains of material and evidence and the tasks of converting it into a narrative history that moved over nearly 250 years,” Blight wrote.

In his acknowledgements, Blight named many student researchers, Beinecke archivists, Yale professors and other community members who played important roles in the making of “Yale and Slavery.” Ultimately, he and Morand both credited Salovey for providing the initial impetus for the book and the broader Yale and Slavery Research Project.

Salovey told the News about his experiences with the University’s archives and primary sources he encountered that told a troubling story.

“I saw for the first time the invoices reflecting payments or requesting payments from the University to those who had enslaved people that they owned whose labor built Connecticut Hall,” Salovey said. “You were looking at wages not paid to the people who worked on that building but paid to somebody else for the people who worked on that building — who received nothing for working on that building.”

Although the idea for the project came from Salovey, Blight told the News he was given free rein to decide how he would conduct his research and write the book.

Blight said Salovey and his office did not attempt to censor his project, and although the timeline was somewhat controlled, the book’s content was not.

“The only rules were the rules of scholarship,” he told the News.

McGrath wrote to the News that she hopes the scholarship in “Yale and Slavery” will inform and enact change in the Yale community.

“By providing historical context, we can better understand why early Yale was funded by profits from human trafficking, or how Yale ended up naming a residential college for John C. Calhoun in the 20th century, to give just two examples,” she wrote.

Looking forward, Blight wrote that there will be follow-up measures and responses to “Yale and Slavery” around the Yale campus and in the surrounding New Haven community.

He noted that one of the most important of these efforts is to use their findings to help New Haven’s public schools.

“Our book and the exhibition are important steps in ongoing reckoning with history,” Morand wrote to the News. “I hope students and community residents will engage this history and seek to learn more.”

The book, which is currently a number one Amazon New Release in Higher & Continuing Education, is currently for sale as a hardcover for $35 and also available online.

The post Yale confronts ties to slavery in Professor David Blight’s ‘Yale and Slavery’ appeared first on Yale Daily News.

CourseTable, originally created in 2012 and rebuilt by the Yale Computer Society in 2020, is an open-source website that presents data from Yale’s course catalog and evaluations database through an interactive user-friendly interface. A small team headed by YCS member Alex Schapiro ’26 introduced and updated several features last semester including mobile calendar view, friends, Google Calendar integration, worksheet summary, links to courses and more search options, as they wrote in an email to the Yale undergraduate community on Jan. 23. The email also included that the site has processed 5.26 million requests in the past month.

“It’s awesome to walk in the library and see everybody using a website that you’ve worked on,” Schapiro told the News. “It’s a great feeling.”

CourseTable has a complex history with the Yale administration. After Peter Xu ’14 and Harry Yu ’14 created Yale Blue Book +, which would eventually become CourseTable, in 2012, Yale’s administration became concerned about the site and shut it down in 2014.

While the CourseTable team no longer faces active resistance from administrators, Sida Chen ’26 — a developer on the team — said that administrators don’t seem to be in support of the platform, either. 

“Even though we face no push back, we also have no collaboration with the administration and this creates a lot of obstacles,” Chen told the News.

He explained how sometimes their work is blocked or limited because it is only possible to submit a certain number of information requests simultaneously in the Yale system.

A small group of unpaid volunteers in the Yale Computer Society runs CourseTable. The group uses data from Yale, with scripts that run through Yale’s course website at 3 a.m. each morning and a scraper that goes through Yale’s “archaic” course evaluations database semesterly.

Though the team does not plan to charge students for their work, Schapiro and Chen said that they hope to communicate with Yale administration and establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Students can also support the CourseTable team with donations.

“We would love if we could have a more official relationship where maybe we could be more fairly compensated for the work and utility and value that we’re creating on campus,” Schapiro told the News.

Part of the reason CourseTable initially received pushback from Yale is the same reason it is so popular with students: the site displays past students’ ratings and written responses about courses and professors in an accessible way. It can also function as a replacement for Yale’s in-house course website, Yale Course Search.

“That’s kind of the bread and butter of why our product is used,” Schapiro said.

Diana Contreras Niño ’27 said CourseTable is an invaluable resource when it comes to choosing classes for the next semester.

She said that she especially likes adding friends and being able to see past students’ evaluations for courses she is considering.

“CourseTable is so helpful because I can look at different layouts of potential schedules and see them visually on the ‘worksheet,’” Contreras told the News.

Schapiro noted that a computer science professor from Harvard reached out to him about using CourseTable at the school. Because CourseTable is open-source, the code can be adapted for use at peer universities.

Schapiro and Chen suspect that other institutions may use similar models to display course data, as well as ratemyprofessors.com.

The reason CourseTable is so successful at Yale specifically, Schapiro conjectured, is because Yale forces every student to evaluate their courses before viewing their grades, which creates a pool of information about every course — though last semester, Yale Hub’s grade suppression mechanism temporarily failed, allowing some students to bypass this requirement.

Chen told the News that CourseTable has room for improvement.

He said the team hopes to make the site more “uniform” and create more filters, as well as a slider for professor ratings.

“We want to work out a way where users can more intuitively interact with these gigantic numbers of features,” Chen said.

The small CourseTable team meets weekly. They have a roadmap, listing features they hope to add, and they divide tasks between members. The work is individually focused, but the team works in collaboration to maintain a uniform style and ask each other for help.

Team members explained that they constantly have new ambitions and goals for what they want to achieve next on their site.

“We want CourseTable to be the hub for everything about the courses at Yale,” Schapiro said.

Evaluations from last semester became available to Yale College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences faculty on Jan. 9.

Correction, Jan. 31: One quote in this article was misattributed; it has since been resolved.

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Topping the list is “Introductory Macroeconomics” — a foundational economics lecture taught by economics professor Fabrizio Zilibotti — with 344 students enrolled. “Bioethics and Law,” with 288 students, is the second, taught by Stephen Latham, a professor of political science and director of Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center of Bioethics. The course focuses on “the treatment by American law of major issues in contemporary biomedical ethics,” according to the class’ description on course search. “Intermediate Macroeconomics,” taught by economics professor Marnix Amand, has the third highest enrollment.

Zilibotti wrote to the News that his course prepares students to understand the world we live in — a world where economics is “pervasive.”

“The course provides the basic tools for understanding the daily debate on very topical questions in our society: growth, unemployment, inequality, inflation, poverty,” he wrote.

Zilibotti aims to keep his course relevant and resonant to our moment in history, he added.

He also wrote to the News that he bases discussion on recent trends including the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial crisis of 2007-08 and recent trends in income inequality.

Zilibotti said that he believes his course, as well as “Introductory Microeconomics,” are popular because they are requirements for the Economics major, though his course attracts students in other majors.

Due to the course’s popularity, it uses a team of instructors, including course director William Hawkins, as well as teaching fellows and peer tutors.

Because of the class’s breadth, Zilibotti wrote that his class does not have enough time to go into great depth on any of the covered topics, though he mentioned that more advanced courses are designed for that purpose.

Ryan Kulsakdinun ’27 described “Introductory Macroeconomics” as “welcoming” due to its “low commitment” structure. The class meets twice a week for 75-minute lectures as well as for weekly 50-minute sections.

Kulsakdinun told the News his main reason for enrolling in the class was for his combined major, Computer Science and Economics.

“Having a good foundation of micro and macro is really important,” Kulsakdinun said, “And I thought taking a macroeconomics class at the college level would be helpful.”

“Bioethics and Law,” the second most popular course, is a social science course that focuses on timely and relevant issues in medicine, such as abortion access, professor Stephen Latham wrote to the News.

“With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, states are going in wildly different directions with abortion rights,” he wrote. “So, a very large proportion of the topics we talk about in class show up in the headlines every week.”

Latham hopes that the course will equip students with skills and knowledge to argue their positions on bioethical matters thoughtfully, discussing issues such as abortion, assisted reproduction, medical aid in dying and public health responses during pandemics.

In the class, he also teaches about how the American legal debate on healthcare issues differs from that in other countries.

Dean Centa ’25 is enrolled in “Intermediate Macroeconomics,” the class with the third-highest enrollment this semester. Although not originally keen to take the course, Centa told the News he took the class because it is a requirement for his major, adding that many seniors in the class held off taking the requirement until their final semester.

Giovanni Maggi, the director of undergraduate studies for economics, wrote to the News that the reason for the rising interest in economics is multifaceted.

“I have to be a good economist here,” he wrote to the News. “The question of what explains the high and growing popularity of economics courses is not an obvious one, and it would take a rigorous empirical investigation to understand the causes of this phenomenon.”

Still, he cited some factors that may have influenced the department’s popularity: excellent job and research opportunities, high quality of teaching and the fact that certain economics classes are compulsory for majors, including global affairs and economics.

Centa shared similar perspectives to those of Zilibotti, saying that some students take these economics courses out of curiosity, but most take it as a requirement.

“If you go on Coursetable, and look at the reviews, everyone is just taking it because it is a requirement,” Centa told the News.

Centa also told the News that first years and sophomores interested in economics start with “Introductory Microeconomics,” “Introductory Macroeconomics” and onto “Intermediate Macroeconomics” during their Yale career. 

Sean Barrett’s “General Physics Laboratory” and Steve Chang’s “Cognitive Neuroscience” were the fourth and fifth most popular courses, with 247 and 243 students respectively.

The post Economics, political science classes see highest enrollments in spring 2024 appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Robinson — a prize-winning drama historian and scholar — will serve a five-year term, succeeding Kathryn Lofton, the current FAS Dean of Humanities. A committee of faculty headed by Joanne Meyerowitz, a professor of history and American studies, began its selection process last fall.

Robinson has previously held other administrative positions at Yale — serving as the chair of the Theater, Dance and Performance Studies program as well as acting chair of the English Department — but his role as FAS Dean of Humanities presents the opportunity to work on a larger scale.

“I am eager to gain a panoramic perspective on subjects that before I’ve understood only in the context of one relatively small program and one vast department,” he wrote to the News.

When Robinson assumes the position on July 1, Lofton will resume her role as a professor of religious studies and American studies.

Lofton, who was appointed in February 2020, expressed her confidence in Professor Robinson’s appointment and emphasized his commitment to leadership in the humanities.

“Professor Robinson is an astute and deeply humane leader who thinks about scholars and scholarship with the same level of perception he thinks about drama and dramatists,” she wrote to the News.

During her time as dean, Lofton oversaw the division through times of transition, as well as large development projects. In her job, she oversaw the opening of the Humanities Quadrangle at 320 York St. in 2020, consolidating two-thirds of the humanities departments into a single building.

Robinson also expressed admiration for Lofton, praising the work of his predecessor.

“All 27 departments and programs in this division are stronger thanks to [Kathryn Lofton’s] stewardship,” Robinson wrote to the News. “I aim to maintain that strength by supporting my faculty colleagues in every aspect of their work, and by helping to attract pathbreaking new scholars and artists to our ranks.”

Robinson began teaching at Yale in 1993 as an adjunct assistant professor of theater studies and drama. Since then, he has participated in several committees ranging from the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct to the FAS Creative Arts Advisory Committee.

Robinson has also published and edited acclaimed criticisms and studies of theater, including “The Other American Drama” and “The American Play.”

Robinson told the News about the process leading to his appointment, which involved interviews with divisional deans, the deans of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University Provost Scott Strobel and FAS Dean Tamar Gendler.

In an email to the News, Robinson praised his colleagues on their lively teaching and rigorous research.

“I hope to ensure that faculty have the resources and the freedom to continue creating the knowledge they share with students,” he wrote.

As dean of humanities, Robinson will oversee hiring, including recruitment and retention. He will also be responsible for managing faculty lifecycle issues, including tenure, promotion and retirement.

In addition to his daily responsibilities, Robinson will sit on several committees, including the FAS Steering Committee, which oversees FAS policy matters, and the Faculty Resource Committee, which oversees FAS faculty searches. 

Robinson will report to FAS Dean Tamar Gendler. 

“[Robinson] has a deep and nuanced understanding of the workings of the University and the needs of Yale faculty and students,” Gendler wrote to the News. “He is a scholar of incredible intellectual breadth and vision. I am excited to see the FAS Humanities division continue to thrive under his leadership.”

Robinson’s term will last until 2029.

The post Marc Robinson appointed FAS Dean of Humanities appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Around 200 students surrounded the Women’s Table on Cross Campus during the protest. The event featured speeches by students and professors as well as chants from the crowd denouncing Yale’s “complicity in genocide and war crimes.” 

The walkout was promoted in a joint Instagram post by Yalies4Palestine and Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

The post’s caption referenced a statistic, which is from United Nations monitors, that reports the Israeli military offensive to have damaged over 70 percent of schools in Gaza. The Associated Press reported last week that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.

“As Yale students return to campus, we are walking out of classes, recognizing that there is no back-to-school in Gaza…” the post read. “There will be no business as usual as long as Gaza is under siege.” 

The protest follows months of student activism related to the Israel-Hamas war. On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and took 250 people as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel responded to the attack with a declaration of war and full bombardment of Gaza. Israel has killed more than 24,000 people in Gaza through its military onslaught, Palestinian authorities said earlier this week. 

The walkout, which marks the first student protest of the semester, also took place the day following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with one speaker describing an alignment between King’s work and the goals of the walkout.

“We stand resolute in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi in speaking truth to power,” a speaker at the walkout said to the crowd. “Violence only begets more violence. It creates a cycle that can seem never-ending, but it must end. And when we look beyond our differences to reach that common humanity it will end.”

The protest grew in size after noon, and students stood with flags and posters. One sign read “Demands” with a list of points, including “Call for Ceasefire Now,” “Fund Palestine Studies” and “Defund Genocide-Denying Programming and Partnerships.” Chants included “Down, down, down with occupation; up, up, up with liberation,” “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime” and “Apartheid kills; Yale pays the bills.”

Fareed Salmon ’27 attended the protest to stand in solidarity with Gaza. Salmon told the News that he thinks the Israeli attacks on Gaza have been unfair to Palestinians.

He also added that this Saturday, which was a global day of protest in support of Palestine, motivated his attendance at the protest.

“I’m here today because I don’t think I’ve been as involved as I wanted to be in this effort,” he told the News. “I’m Muslim, so this is a very important topic and thing for me.”

Organizers of the event declined to comment and directed the News to the student who was in charge of press for the event. This press liaison declined to comment to the News and insisted that the News stop interviewing protest attendees. 

In a separate joint post, dated the morning of the protest, the two student groups — Yalies4Palestine and Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine — provided a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ for the rally were provided, along with a list of demands directed at Yale. The suggestions for students included reading a statement before walking out of their classes and informing their professors of their desire to read a statement ahead of time. The list of don’ts included a “DON’T speak to the press” line, advising students to instead direct press to a “designated press liaison” or a “marshal.”  

The press liaison directed the News to a copy of the Yale Palestinian Solidarity Coalition’s press release explaining the goals of the protest which is dated Jan. 16.

The press release outlines five demands directed at the Yale administration: public support by the University for “a ceasefire and an end to the occupation,” the suspension of “all genocide-denying programming and partnerships,” the implementation of boycott, divestment and sanctions in investment policy and divestment from weapons manufacturing, support for Palestinian studies and scholars and the protection of freedom of expression on campus while acting “against anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic harassment.”

Many of these issues have remained a source of student concern over the past months, particularly student safety on campus and divestment from weapons manufacturing. Student safety concerns grew in November with the arrival of ‘doxxing trucks’ on campus which displayed the faces of students with the label “Yale’s Leading Antisemites.”

The press release specifically references an incident in October in which a student wrote “Death to Palestine” on a whiteboard outside a Grace Hopper College suite. In response, Head of Grace Hopper Julia Adams emphasized Yale’s commitment to “academic freedom” — a reaction the press release deems a “double standard.”

The press release also mentions University President Peter Salovey specifically, noting that despite having spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Salovey has not  spoken out against Israel. The press release calls on Yale to refuse business and collaboration with Israeli universities. 

In his initial Oct. 10 statement following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Salovey condemned the attacks in the “strongest terms”

In Salovey’s “remarks on compassion and civility,” on Nov. 3 he noted that there are “waves of hatred” toward Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian people and emphasized that antisemitism and Islamophobia are “empathetically against” the University’s values.  

Salovey’s statement about the Russia-Ukraine War in March 2022 detailed Yale’s support for Ukrainian scholars and students, academic collaboration with Ukraine and stated that the University and the Investments Office support companies who stand with Ukraine. 

“His reluctance to name Israel — as he named Russia — as the perpetrator of countless war crimes and the most intense bombing campaign in modern history” suggests “racist double standards,” the press release states.

The press release references Yale’s history of divesting from companies that provided assistance to the perpetrators of the genocide in Sudan in 2006. 

The press release also raises concerns over Yale’s response to public safety issues and cites Salovey’s Nov. 3 message, which states that Yale Public Safety has “worked with the FBI and other agencies on campus safety.”

The press release further accuses Salovey of “collusion” in working with the FBI to monitor campus safety, which the release says “perpetrates a climate of surveillance and criminalization of solidarity with Palestine.” 

According to the press release, “variations of these demands” have been sent to the Yale administration by members of the Yale community, but did not receive any acknowledgment or response from administrators. 

These demands include a letter on Nov. 2 and a follow-up letter on Nov. 20th, which, according to the statement, Yale administration “refused to acknowledge.” 

In response to questions from the News, the University spokesperson referred to Salovey’s Dec. 7 statement called “Against Hatred.” The statement urges “open exchange of ideas” and points students toward resources for safety and mental health support. In the same statement, Salovey also announced new educational programming on Islamophobia, a designated space for Middle Eastern and North African students — seemingly in response to years of student advocacy in support of a separate MENA-designated cultural space— and the hiring of a second Muslim chaplain. Salovey also announced a new standing committee to address the needs of MENA and Muslim students. 

“Students in Palestine cannot go back to school, so that was the reason for the protest. That is why I thought it was important and necessary [to come to the protest],” Freddie Swindal, a New Haven resident who attended Tuesday’s walkout and demonstration, told the News.

Yalies4Palestine has since posted information about a “week of reading for Palestine” slated for this week.

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Organized by a group of students and advertised by the student organization Yalies4Palestine and the Instagram account @yalepalestineaction, the event stretched across the intersection of Grove Street and College Street. Students chanted through megaphones and held signs denouncing University President Peter Salovey, the Yale Corporation and Yale trustees for being “complicit” in “war crimes [and] genocide.” 

“Our goal, our demand is that Yale Corporation withdraws from these investments and puts their money towards life and not death,” one protestor, who chose to remain anonymous due to safety concerns and fear of doxxing, told the News.

The Yale Corporation — the University’s 16-member board of trustees — met on campus this weekend, which was a motivator of the rally, according to organizers. Students demanded that Yale reevaluate their investments and entirely withdraw their stakes in the weapons industry. The morning of the rally, a group of students unfurled a banner outside of Woodbridge Hall that listed the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the war.

President Salovey previously told the News that Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, or ACIR, is reexamining policies and will determine if there are adequate grounds for divestment from weapons manufacturers.

Yale’s Ethical Investment Policy is the framework under which the University purports to decide its investment strategies. However, policies have often changed over the years following  global events and student action. In 2018, Yale released a statement of divestment from retail outlets that sell assault weapons to the public. 

A petition demanding complete weapons divestment, sponsored by the Endowment Justice Coalition and advertised on Yalies4Palestine’s Instagram account, garnered over 1,600 signatures as of Sunday evening. It cites Yale’s financial ties to Lockheed Martin — a weapon supplier to Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia and several other nations. The University has more than $600,000 in shares of an exchange-traded fund with holdings in Lockheed Martin, according to SEC filings.

The petition speculates that Yale’s other investments and shell companies — more than 99 percent of which are private — could potentially be tied to weapon production, though the investments are not transparent.

The rally took place nearly two months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking 240 as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. In its military response against Gaza, Israel has killed more than 15,500 Palestinians, the Associated Press reported on Dec. 3. The Associated Press called the December estimates from the Gazan Health Ministry a “sharp jump” from the previous Nov. 20 count of over 13,300 killed, noting in November that officials in the Hamas-controlled region have only been able to sporadically update the count since Nov. 11 and fear thousands more might be dead. 

The Friday rally also came just as a seven-day pause in fighting came to a close. The temporary ceasefire began on Nov. 24 and was initiated to allow for the release of some of Hamas-held hostages and to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to the Associated Press. That pause ended early on Dec. 1. Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after claiming that Hamas had fired toward Israeli territory and thus violated the ceasefire’s terms in its final hours.

Sarah Sotomayor ’24 came to the rally to show support for Palestine.

“We very much believe in Indigenous people reclaiming their land and not being driven from the places that they were born,” she said. “Not to mention, being a Yale student, I want to do what I can to not be complicit.”

Students displayed posters and signs with pro-Palestine sentiments, including “Viva Palestine,” “Health Workers 4 Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now.”

One poster presented a photo of Salovey’s face and the words, “Salovey, Salovey, you can’t hide. You sign off on genocide.” Other posters bore images of Yale Corporation members, accompanied by the text, “You are funding genocide.” One displayed a blood-splattered image of Benjamin Franklin and read, “Money talks, Yale’s screams bloody murder.”

Protester Will Salaverry ’24, a Jewish student whose great-grandparents escaped Ukrainian pogroms, expressed frustration with Israel’s actions.

“Israel has turned around and done the exact same thing to people, in many ways, that was done to us, and to my great-grandmother, and has called it Judaism and what we’re about,” he told the News. “And I don’t agree with that. I don’t feel that that’s in line with who we are as Jews.”

The rally began at noon on the intersection’s sidewalks and later headed into the street, blocking traffic. Protesters formed a circle around a group of leaders, who led chants from the center.

The chants included, “Israel bombs, Yale Corp pays, how many kids have you killed today?” and “The people, united, will never be defeated.”

“President Salovey has made clear that antisemitism, Islamophobia and hatred toward Palestinians and Israelis are emphatically against our values and principles at Yale,” a University spokesperson wrote to the News. The spokesperson added that Yale seeks to cultivate and maintain a welcoming space for all with initiatives such as Belonging at Yale and increased security.

On Friday, Dec. 1, after students put up the banner outside Woodbridge Hall, Yale’s spokesperson referred the News to the University’s 2018 policy mandating that Yale divest from retail outlets that publicly market and sell assault weapons. The spokesperson reiterated those comments to the News for this story.  

“The Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility is studying whether there are grounds to revisit the policy under the university’s ethical investment framework,” the University told the News on Friday.

Yale established the ACIR during the 1972-1973 academic year, prompted by the publication of “The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility” by Yale University Press in 1972.

Correction, Dec. 4: This article has been updated to include a more current estimate of Palestinians killed, reflecting Dec. 3 reporting from the Associated Press. 

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Since then, Harvard and Yale have fought ferociously on the gridiron. The first contest at Hamilton Park saw a Harvard victory at 4–0 followed the next year by Yale’s first at 1–0. A few years later, in 1894, came the infamous “Springfield Massacre” at Hampden Park where more than a handful of players were critically injured and carried off in what one newspaper labeled as “dying condition.” Due to this, The Game was put on pause for two years. 

Without codified and consistent rules, football was a dangerous game in its infancy. The lucky few were left with blackened bruises and broken bones. Tragically, 45 athletes died from football injuries and accidents between 1900 to 1905. The engagement at Hampden Park contributed to greater calls for reform and safety which made their way to President Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard alumnus and admirer of the sport. At his urging, top university officials across the nation, including representatives from Harvard and Yale, assembled to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States which would evolve into what we know today as the NCAA. Football’s maturation in development and popularity was due in part to the Yale-Harvard rivalry, and as the latter evolved in the decades that followed, so did American football.

The Game was played for the first time at the Yale Bowl in 1914 to a crowd of roughly 70,000 spectators, including former presidents Roosevelt and Taft, both alumni of Harvard and Yale, respectively. The first game played at Harvard Stadium was held eleven years prior in 1903. Throughout this period, Yale dominated The Game. By the 1950s, Harvard and Yale would fight and alternate for the title. In 1959, columnist Red Smith would popularize the phrase “The Game” many decades after it was coined in 1898 by Harvard team captain A.F. Holden in a letter to coach William Cameron Forbes. It was billed as “The Game” a year later and has been referred to affectionately as such ever since. 

In its storied history as the third-most played college football series and the second-oldest college rivalry, there is perhaps no other contest as famous as the 1968 game at Harvard Stadium. In its final few minutes, Yale led Harvard 29–13 only for the Crimson to tie the Bulldogs in the final forty-two seconds, bringing the score to 29–29. Despite this tie and in light of the fact that Yale had a 16-game winning streak hitherto, the Harvard Crimson decided to run the infamous headline — “Harvard Beats Yale 29–29.” This vignette is but one of many storied aspects of The Game and the Yale-Harvard rivalry in its totality. 

Harvard and Yale students don’t leave their clever wit and cunning at the library; the 148 year-old football rivalry is marked with spirit, traditions and most notably, pranks.

Harvard bit first in 1933, when members of the Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine, allegedly kidnapped Handsome Dan II. Members of the Yale community spun into a state of anxiety at the loss of their mascot, who didn’t appear until the morning after The Game — a Yale loss — in a ubiquitous photograph of Dan licking the John Harvard statue. Slabs of meat had been smeared on John Harvard’s feet.

Another one of Harvard’s publications, The Harvard Crimson, struck in 1961. Staff members distributed a fake clipping of the Yale Daily News that claimed that John F. Kennedy, the current president and a Harvard alumnus, would attend The Game in Cambridge. On game day, as the Harvard Band played “Hail to the Chief,” Crimson president Robert Ellis Smith strutted onto the field wearing a mask of President Kennedy and surrounded by men dressed as Secret Service agents. The spectacle deceived many.

Indeed, the THC-YDN rivalry goes hand in hand with the football one: throughout the years, the publications have parodied each other. Another striking example was in 1969, the first year of co-education at Yale. The Crimson forged a copy of the News with the headline, “Disease Strikes 16 Eli Football Starters; Bulldogs Forced to Forfeit Harvard Game.” A section on the bottom of the page read, “Cheerleaders May Be Source,” referring to an invented STD explosion spreading through the football roster.

The next noteworthy offense was in 1992 — this time a battle of the bands. Harvard aimed to sabotage the Yale Precision Marching Band’s half-time show, forming an “X” over the Yale band’s “Y.” However, Yale was a step ahead, having early intel about Harvard’s plan and proactively broiling their own. As the Harvard band approached, the Yalies formed an “H,” making it such that Harvard crossed themselves out.

Yale retaliated in what is often deemed the most iconic prank of the long-standing rivalry: 2004. Yalies, clad in “Harvard Pep Squad” attire, distributed crimson and white placards to Harvard fans, who thought the handouts would spell “Go Harvard.” Alternatively, when the fans raised their placards in unison, they spelled out “We suck.” Several media outlets covered the fabulous prank. Though Harvard won The Game in 2004, it was Yale who came away with the last laugh. Now, we await the next deception.

Beyond the sporting arena, both universities have produced acclaimed luminaries of stage and screen and of song and story; names on the Fortune 500 and the Time 100; and members of Congress and numerous sports teams. Clearly, much has happened since that fall weekend in Hamilton Park in 1875. Harvard and Yale’s rivalry, its cold war, has since transcended its athletic origins. Older than the Edison–Tesla feud yet as famous as that between the Capulets and Montagues, the Yale-Harvard rivalry has transformed into an enshrined part of American culture. 

The existence of a rivalry between Harvard and Yale should come as no surprise. The laws of physics state that two large objects will be attracted to each other by the strong force of gravity. Harvard and Yale, being the intellectual powers they are, were always meant to clash, whether it be on the gridiron or beyond. And regardless of who you are, whether you are a proud Bulldog or a prideful member of the Crimson, you cannot fail to acknowledge the fact that when two giants collide, greatness is born.

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