The new space is a collaboration between SAS, the Good Life Center and student activists across Yale’s campus. Over the summer of 2023, SAS began the process of converting a former classroom assigned to the office into a student lounge, but the idea of an initiative for an inclusive space for Yale students with disabilities to socialize and relax has been a longtime aspiration for SAS and the Good Life Center. 

Corinne Coia, director of Yale College Wellness Programs, told the News about her goal to open more Good Life Center satellite spaces.

“Our original space is at the Schwarzman Center, and we opened our first satellite location at the Divinity School,” she told the News. “Our mission is to remind students that relaxation is important for academic and personal growth as well.”

Kimberly McKeown, director of SAS, told the News that what was initially a small-scale project became a larger collaborative effort. After SAS employees reached out to colleagues at the Good Life Center for tips on improving the atmosphere of the lounge, the two groups began working together to create a co-sponsored space.

The space was specifically designed in consideration for students with disabilities, featuring various seating options, lighting control, snack options and environmental considerations. Coia said that the teams at SAS and the Good Life Center thought carefully about the design of the space, especially concerning students who use wheelchairs and have sensory disabilities. 

Vanessa Blas ’22 SPH ’23, Woodbridge Fellow and director of programming at the Good Life Center, told the News that they wanted to create the atmosphere of a “lived environment.” The space, which features live plants and a moss wall, was curated by members of the Good Life Center. With a wide array of seating options and a cozy interior, the Good Life Center team said that they not only want the space to serve many purposes for students with disabilities but also to act as a place to relax and hang out with friends. 

Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86, secretary and vice president for university life at Yale, leads the Belonging at Yale initiative, which aims to advance Yale’s mission for vibrant community life and the fostering of a learning environment in which every student feels a sense of belonging. At the space’s opening celebration, she told the News about her pride and appreciation for student activism’s role in making the space possible. 

“We had a lot of excited students coming together,” Goff-Crews told the News. “We had students that were thinking about SAS and thinking about the intersection of support for students with disabilities. A lot of this was done in part by the students. It really got us thinking about our work of promoting wellness on campus and about what Yale is as an institution.” 

As of 2022, the number of students reporting disabilities to SAS had almost doubled in three years, a number affinity groups noted was likely an underestimate. Up to the opening of the Good Life Center at SAS, the group has not made any spaces available specifically for students with disabilities.

Elizabeth Conklin, associate vice president for institutional equity, accessibility, and belonging and a Title IX coordinator, was also present at the event. She told the News about her excitement at the space’s opening and expressed hope that its future will continue to inspire the creation of new satellite spaces for Yale’s diverse student body.

“It became apparent to me that we needed more space for students with disabilities to congregate,” Conklin explained to the News. “And it came together beautifully.”

The Good Life Center at SAS is located at 35 Broadway. 

The post Yale celebrates opening of Good Life Center at Student Accessibility Services appeared first on Yale Daily News.

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.

The post ‘Not on me’: Salovey to let successor tackle free expression at Yale appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The cohort joins the 709 applicants who were accepted via restrictive early action in December, as well as the 72 students who matched with Yale through the QuestBridge National College Match program. In total, of the 57,465 students who applied to join the class of 2028, 3.7 percent — or 2,146 students — were admitted, marking the lowest acceptance rate on record. The admitted class includes students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, two U.S. territories and 62 countries. 

The 3.7 percent acceptance rate for the class of 2028 is the lowest in Yale’s history, down 0.65 percentage points from last year’s 4.35 percent acceptance rate. The decrease continues a downward trend in acceptance rates that began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with applicants seeking admission to the class of 2024.

“The diverse range of strengths, ambitions, and lived experiences we saw in this year’s applicant pool was inspiring,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan wrote in a press release. “We gauge the success of our outreach efforts by these qualities, and not by the total number of applications. But it is heartening to see that Yale College continues to attract exceptionally promising students from all backgrounds.”

The class of 2028 applied amid a changing admissions landscape. They are the last group of students to apply in a test-optional admissions cycle. Yale announced in February that it would resume requiring test scores for applicants seeking a spot in the class of 2029. A News survey found that under a test-optional policy, students on financial aid were more likely to have omitted test scores from their Yale applications.

The cohort is also the first to be admitted to the University since the fall of affirmative action in June. This year, admissions officers did not have access to information about applicants’ self-identified race when evaluating them for admission. 

Admissions officers involved in the application reading process will have access to neither this information nor aggregate information about the racial makeup of the class of 2028 until after the admissions process has officially ended. According to Mark Dunn ’07, the senior associate director for outreach and recruitment at the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the admissions cycle will not be officially completed until the final applicants have been offered admission off of the waitlist.

“Because some first-year applicants will be offered a spot on Yale’s waiting list, the admissions office’s selection process will not be complete on March 28,” Dunn wrote in an email to the News. “We will continue to maintain safeguards to ensure that the admissions officers involved in the review and selection of candidates from the waitlist do not have access to any race or ethnicity data at either the individual or aggregate level.”

Earlier this year, the admissions office hired two new full-time employees, whose jobs are devoted exclusively to community outreach and partnerships. Because these officers are not involved in the application reading process, they have access to aggregate racial data about the class of 2028; however, they will not be able to publish this information until after the admissions cycle has officially ended.

Due to delays with the rollout of FAFSA, the admissions office also does not have information about the proportion of students in the admitted class who are eligible for Pell Grants. However, Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid Kari DiFonzo told the News earlier this week that this will not delay financial aid offers for admitted students.

Each year, around the time matriculating first-year students arrive on campus in the fall, the admissions office publishes a detailed profile of the class, that includes information about demographics like racial and socioeconomic background. Dunn said that the release of the profile of the class of 2028 will not change this year from previous years.

All newly admitted students will be invited to campus in April for Bulldog Days. This year’s Bulldog Days will be the third in-person iteration of the event since the pandemic.

Admitted students will have until May 1 to respond to their offer of admission.

The post Yale admits 3.7 percent of applicants, lowest acceptance rate ever appeared first on Yale Daily News.

But rollout this year of the modified FAFSA is occurring on a months-delayed timeline, forcing many colleges to push back deadlines for students to respond to their offers of admission, and leaving many students to choose a college without final financial aid offers.

But federal delays will not affect Yale College’s ability to release initial financial aid offers to admitted students, according to Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid Kari DiFonzo. Come Thursday, when regular admission decisions are released, admitted students will receive an initial financial aid offer detailing the amounts their families are expected to contribute toward their Yale education, DiFonzo said. When FAFSA information becomes available, families will receive a follow-up financial aid package, specifying how much aid will come from Yale and how much will come from federal Pell Grants.

“There are many reasons why the process of completing a financial aid offer can take longer for some families, but, thankfully, the FAFSA delays are not impeding our ability to assess families’ need and package offers,” DiFonzo told the News. “The proportion of admitted students with completed financial aid offers at the time admissions decisions are released is very similar to last year.”

The goal of the FAFSA Simplification Act was to make the application for federal student aid as easy as possible, but rollout problems caused more harm than good, DiFonzo said.

In a normal year, the FAFSA form is released for families in October. This year, however, due to complications with system changes, the system did not launch until late December.

“Many families — those who were able to access the system — were able to complete the form in maybe 10 minutes or less,” DiFonzo said. “The problem has really been with the rollout. It came out much, much later than it should have. Even when it was introduced, it was intermittently available, and it was down for maintenance all the time.”

According to DiFonzo, when assembling a student’s financial aid package, Yale looks at the “full financial aid profile” of their family, using information from the student’s CSS profile, their FAFSA documents and their federal tax documents.

The Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid uses a process called “institutional methodology,” when determining a family’s financial aid package, DiFonzo explained. This allows financial aid officers to gauge a family’s financial need without access to FAFSA documents, using only information from their CSS profile.

Because of Yale’s robust financial aid program, the role of the FAFSA in the assembly of a financial aid offer is mainly to determine what amount of a family’s aid will come from federal dollars, DiFonzo said.

“What we do is we start with the total cost of attendance, and then subtract out the family share that we calculate, and then you are left with a student’s total need,” she said. “That total need can be thought of as a big bucket, one which is filled both with Yale financial aid dollars and federal financial aid dollars. So the role of the FAFSA is really just in figuring out how much of that need bucket is filled with federal aid versus institutional aid.”

Yale has the resources to meet 100 percent of every student’s demonstrated financial need, DiFonzo said; however, she added that the financial aid office counts on some portion of the aid given out being subsidized by federal dollars in the form of Pell Grants.

But because of Yale’s promise to meet all demonstrated need, it is possible to send out initial offers without FAFSA information detailing how much of their financial aid will come from Pell Grants. According to DiFonzo, the initial offers will be less about telling families exactly how much financial aid they will receive from Yale and more about making families aware of how much they should plan to pay for the following academic year.

“I feel strongly that students and families need as much time as possible to plan,” DiFonzo said. “If we wait until we’ve had the opportunity to review all of the FAFSAs, which likely won’t be until July, one or two months of a payment plan will have already passed. The bill will already have been posted. This way, at least families can start thinking about what their payment plans will look like.” 

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan echoed the importance of giving families as much time as possible to plan. 

Cost is typically the top concern for most admitted students, Quinlan told the News, so releasing these initial packages will give families ample time to process their aid packages and ask questions.

Despite a delayed and complicated rollout of FAFSA this year, the financial aid office is not making any adjustments to its timeline for returning students. There is an April 1 priority deadline for returning students to submit their financial aid applications.

DiFonzo said it is possible that financial aid packages for current students, which are scheduled to begin releasing in the coming weeks, might also be released without FAFSA information and adjusted later on.

Every financial aid package sent out to an incoming first-year student includes a cover letter from DiFonzo that explains information about Yale’s financial aid program and the contents of their aid packet. Historically, returning students’ aid packages do not include a similar letter.

However, DiFonzo said that due to this year’s FAFSA complications, returning students will also get a cover letter from the office along with their initial financial aid package detailing that there may be changes to their financial aid package once their FAFSA is reviewed on the delayed timeline.

These discrepancies between the financial aid package given in the coming weeks and those given when the FAFSAs are all processed may also occur for incoming students. 

Although the information on a student’s CSS Profile should align with that on their FAFSA form, DiFonzo said there are occasional discrepancies. In previous years, such discrepancies have been resolved by clarifying certain details with families before releasing their aid packages. 

But because this year’s FAFSA forms will be released after initial aid packages have already been sent out, if there is discrepant information between a student’s CSS Profile and their FAFSA, the office might have to make slight changes to a family’s financial aid offer, according to DiFonzo.

“We are making sure that, when we send out initial financial aid packages, we are saying clearly to students that this is not a final financial aid offer,” DiFonzo said. “Rather, it is a tentative offer, pending review of their FAFSA; if students qualify for federal aid, their Yale financial aid package might change. We want students to understand that they will get another letter later on, but their end result — the amount their family is expected to pay — will be the same.”

The Yale College Council has been campaigning for years for increased transparency from the financial aid office, according to YCC president Julian Suh-Toma ’25.

Suh-Toma said that, while he is happy with the office’s decision to communicate initial assessments to students as quickly as possible, he is worried about the possibility of packages shifting pending new information from FAFSA documents.

“This plan of action feels like the best of a poor lot in the face of an admissions cycle where families may otherwise have no estimated cost of attendance to work off of,” Suh-Toma wrote in a message to the News.

The FAFSA was first issued in 1992 with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

The post Despite FAFSA delays, financial aid office promises no changes to timeline appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Salovey, who is stepping down as president at the end of the year, is a longtime supporter of the team. He often sits courtside at home games with his wife, Marta Moret.

“I wish I could have been there in person with the students and coaches,” Salovey wrote to the News, referring to Yale’s win over Brown on Sunday. “The team plays with a ‘never say die attitude,’ and that comes through!”

Against Brown, The Bulldogs fought back from a six-point deficit in the game’s final thirty seconds and won on a buzzer-beating layup by Matt Knowling ’24. The win earned Yale the Ivy men’s basketball conference title and the league’s automatic bid to March Madness.

Salovey and his wife, Marta Moret, attending a Yale basketball game

Salovey, who is currently on a two-week trip to Cote d’Ivoire and Hong Kong to strengthen the University’s international partnerships, wrote that he woke up early from Hong Kong Monday morning to check the score and watch the game’s highlights.

“My favorite is the assist that sets up the final bucket to best Brown,” he wrote. “What a great bounce pass and wonderful court vision.”

He also wrote Yale head coach James Jones a note to congratulate him and the team on the win, and “doing so in such an exciting fashion.”

The twenty-third University president has spent much of his time as a Yale faculty member. Salovey joined the department of psychology as an assistant professor in 1995, the same year that Jones joined the team as an assistant coach. 

Salovey’s tenure as Yale president has coincided with the most dominant era of Yale basketball in school history. 

Since 2013 – the year of Salovey’s appointment – Yale has finished in third place or better in every Ivy League season and racked up five Ivy League championships. Since the league introduced the four-team Ivy Tournament in 2017, Yale is the only school to have qualified in all six tournaments and has advanced to the championship game in five of them. 

In 2016, the Bulldogs made March Madness for the first time since 1962 and upset No. 5-seeded Baylor in the tournament’s first round. Yale has qualified for the tournament three more times since then. 

Salovey “wished the team luck” ahead of Friday’s game against No. 4 Auburn and will be “cheering the Bulldogs on” from Hong Kong.

Friday’s game is set to tip off at 4:15 p.m. Eastern, which will be 4:15 a.m. in Hong Kong. 

The post ‘A never say die attitude’: Salovey’s message for Yale ahead of matchup with No. 4 Auburn appeared first on Yale Daily News.

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.

The post Salovey to visit Côte d’Ivoire, Hong Kong over spring break appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The exhibit and documents reflecting Yale’s ties to enslavement were displayed as a part of the Yale Slavery Research Project. The findings of the project were highlighted in a book, “Yale and Slavery: A History,”  written by history professor David W. Blight with the Yale Slavery Research Project. 

The book discusses Morse’s legacy, as a scientist, inventor and painter who vehemently opposed abolition, immigration and Catholicism. A graduate of Yale College in 1810, Morse published a book in 1863 that defended enslavement. 

The exhibit was arranged by Michael Morand ’87 DIV ’93, director of community engagement at the Beinecke, and Hope McGrath, lead researcher of the Yale and Slavery Research group and the Beinecke research coordinator for Yale, New Haven and Connecticut history.

“Actually seeing the physical evidence tells you something and convinces you of its reality and power in ways that can only be done when you’re with materials in the archives,” Morand said. 

Inspired by a discussion with Head of Morse College Catherine Panter-Brick and Assistant Director of Operations Alexa Martindale, the Beinecke compiled artifacts from Morse’s life to be viewed by community members. Morse College hosted an unveiling of the new book on Feb. 16. 

While this is the first event focused on residential college namesakes, other residential colleges are currently planning to hold future exhibitions discussing the legacies of their namesake’s history. 

Morand said that the exhibit places Morse in the context of his father, Jedidiah Morse, a man who is known for his contributions to American geography, and played a role in Yale and New Haven’s ties to slavery. The exhibit included a table chronicling the history of Yale’s ties to slavery and a separate table on Jedidah and Samuel Morse. The Morse part of the exhibit included maps drawn by Jedidah and writings and artistic pieces from Samuel’s life, including his writing in opposition to abolition that he published in 1863. 

McGrath said that the first part of the exhibit was intended to show the influence and role of enslaved people in Yale’s history. The exhibit began with the 1701 charter for the founding of Yale as the Collegiate School of Connecticut, and the table continued to illustrate growth in Black community building in New Haven through Black political resistance. 

The exhibit draws specific attention to the proposal for the first Black college in New Haven in 1831, a proposal that was shot down by the leadership of Yale and New Haven. 

Morand said that this exhibit is one aspect of the larger movement to confront Yale’s past truthfully. He said that Blight and the Yale Slavery Research Project’s published book is another aspect, along with new audio added to Yale walking tours and “Shining Light on Truth,” an exhibit at the New Haven Museum that features the essential history of enslaved and free Black people in New Haven’s history.

Martindale added that seeing these items in person “drives home” the history. Panter-Brick described the group experience of viewing and reading archival material surrounded by fellow community members as “shocking” and “sobering.” 

Panter-Brick also spoke about the importance of including New Haveners, not just students and Yale community members, in these conversations. 

“It’s a broader issue than what’s happened here on our grounds,” Martindale said. 

Martindale and Panter-Brick said that residential college leaders gathered a task force to brainstorm specific responses for their colleges following the book’s release in February. This led to Panter-Brick reaching out to Beinecke administrators about doing a curated exhibit. 

Morand said that he hopes the exhibit will serve as a jumping-off point for history, where learning about Morse is an “access point” into a larger story about Yale, New Haven, America and the world. 

“It’ll be truly a success if [attendees] go away, wanting to know more and thinking about how they can write the history and understand the history of themselves,” said Morand. 

Karim Najjar ’27, who is in Morse and visited the exhibit, told the News that it made him reflect the importance of understanding the meaning of Morse’s name. 

“Eating lunch under Morse’s name each day, I believe it is critically important to understand what the name has meant over time,” Najar wrote to the news. 

Ai-Li Hollander ’27, another student in Morse, said she appreciated the opportunity to learn about Yale’s history and gain collective community knowledge. 

On why he chose to attend the exhibit, Manav Singh ’25, who is in Morse, echoed the other Morse students in emphasizing the significance of knowing their college’s history.   

Panter-Brick added that while this was the first exhibit on Morse’s legacy, it will not be the last.

“It’s not the last session at all, I will very happily take another group of people, for example, first-year students next year … so they’re also grounded in that history,” said Panter-Brick. 

The Beinecke is hosting a session on “New Haven, Yale and Slavery in the Archives” with the Greater New Haven African American Historical Society on Sunday, March 17. 

The post Beinecke exhibit reflects on Samuel F. B. Morse’s legacy, Yale and slavery  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Ferando, who is a lecturer in the history of art, is stepping down to become the Head of Academic Affairs for the Yale Center for British Art. She along with her husband, Jason Atkinson, and her son are leaving JE in August. She was appointed in 2016 to succeed former JE dean Jody Spooner.   

“JE has the warmest, kindest people and I will miss seeing friendly, familiar faces every day,” Ferando wrote to the News. “I know this is true for every residential college, but I particularly love our JE spirit.”

Before becoming dean, Ferando got a doctorate in art history and archaeology at Columbia University. Ferando has worked with a variety of commercial and non-profit galleries, museums and auction houses including the Yale University Art Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art, and she has taught courses in art history at Columbia and Williams College.

Ferando’s upcoming job as head of academic affairs at the YCBA is an inaugural position that Ferando said will include planning research initiatives centered on YCBA’s collection and British art as well as collaborating with faculty and colleagues across the University. 

“I’m thrilled to be joining this world-renowned museum and working with amazing colleagues there, some of whom I have had the privilege of working with already,” Ferando wrote. “My first book was published this year, and this seemed like a great moment to return to the world of art history, which I have missed the past few years.”

Ferando wrote that she will miss the staff, students and residential college fellows, as well as the dining hall which she called “the heart of the college.”

In an email to JE students on March 7, Head of Jonathon Edwards Paul North wrote that Ferando oversaw the college through contentious political times and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as changes in registration and housing policies. He added that through these challenges, she kept everyone “on track and moving.”

“Dean Ferando is the most caring, and also the most firm, the most knowledgeable, and also the most fun, and all around the most responsible person I could have imagined sharing direction of JE with,” North wrote. “Her capacity for empathy is only equaled by her understanding of the arcane maze that is Yale.”

Anthony Kurz ’26 told the News that Ferando helped him adjust to college life and transition his health care provider when he moved to Yale. 

He described Ferando as a “wonderful dean” and that she has “only ever tried to make things easier for [him].”

“She has a warm and welcoming presence in the role,” Kurz said. “You can go into her office and ask her questions about anything concerning what’s going on in your life.”

Allison Lee ’25 met Ferando as a first year in 2021 and has worked with her as a college aide. She described Ferando as a “powerful and really inspiring character within JE.”

Lee, who is the incoming head first-year counselor for Jonathan Edwards, said she will be working closely with the next dean of JE and hopes that the new dean will be active in JE’s residential college life and traditions.

“She has been an incredibly profound part of a lot of JE students’ lives and we’re really thankful for her work,” Lee told the News. “We’re so sad to see her leave, but she’s only going to the Yale Center for British Art just across the street, so she won’t be very far and so it’s great that we’ll be close to there.”

Jonathan Edwards College is located at 68 High St. 

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The new period product dispensers also come after years of student activism and initiatives to increase access to free period products on campus. In 2019, YCC started providing free menstrual products in residential colleges. 

“Having period products right in spaces everyone has access to will level the playing field and make everything more equitable. It will help to remove barriers from educational opportunities — if someone would have to miss class because they don’t have access to a product — or even professional opportunities — if someone has maybe an interview and needs a tampon,” Maddy Corson ’26, co-president of YaleBleeds said. “These are really important moments in our lives and non-menstruators don’t have to think about or worry about if they’re gonna get their period in the middle of them.”

Facilities purchased 150 period product dispensers to install in restrooms near student classrooms last semester. They have now been installed 58 out of the 150 dispensers in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms around campus, and 20 more installations are expected over spring break, per Director of Facilities Operations Samuel Olmstead. These new motion-activated dispensers come in addition to preexisting turnstile dispensers that were installed in some buildings, such as the Humanities Quadrangle and the Schwarzman Center. The University does not plan to replace existing dispensers, per Olmstead.

Uneven access 

Yet, amid the ongoing installation of new dispensers, many bathrooms, particularly those with older turnstile dispensers, lack tampons and pads or do not have any dispensers at all.

Out of 18 bathrooms visited by the News, four had the new dispensers installed, 10 had the old dispensers and four had no period products or a dispenser. Out of the four new dispensers, two of them were full and stocked. Out of the 10 bathrooms with old dispensers, only two contained period products.

In the Humanities Quadrangle, eight bathrooms have turnstile dispensers, with six bathrooms unstocked and two stocked. A turnstile dispenser was also found unstocked in a bathroom outside Marsh Hall in the Yale Science Building. 

The Gilmore Music Library’s bathroom has a new dispenser, which is fully stocked and functional as of March 6, but was empty on March 2 in Bass Library, both are new, but only one is filled, while the other dispenser is empty with products left next to the sink.

In one basement bathroom at the Schwarzman Center, there was no dispenser at all, while another had an old, unstocked dispenser. In the Watson Center’s downstairs bathroom, the basement of William L. Harkness Hall and at Leet Oliver Memorial Hall, there was neither a dispenser nor any period products. 

In reference to the empty dispenser in Bass, Olmstead wrote that because the dispensers are touch-activated, the machines sometimes dispense when someone walks by, so people will often put the dispensed product on a nearby shelf or on top of the dispenser. Facilities is looking into whether or not the machine sensitivity can be dialed back to fix this problem.

He added that restrooms are often cleaned and restocked in the morning, so it is possible that the machines were found unstocked by the News because the products had been used or otherwise dispensed. 

“I will be following up with the managers of these buildings to make sure that any remaining issues are resolved promptly,” Olmstead added. 

Student advocacy

In the past month, multiple student groups have advocated with Yale facilities for more consistent stocking of the dispensers.

According to Corson, at a meeting with two leaders from the Local 35 union last month, YaleBleeds leadership learned that Facilities custodial staff had at that time not received information from Facilities administrators to restock the dispensers and discussed how to best manage the additional labor for facilities workers of restocking the dispensers.

“From what we learned in meeting with the union leaders of Local 35 is that facilities custodial staff had not received any information from facilities administrators to restock the dispensers. And if they were to be the folks responsible for restocking the dispensers, the additional labor may lead to possible renegotiations, conversations about labor contract,” she said. “What we talked about during the meeting is what we can do to support custodial staff and help to find a solution where we can have accessible period products, while also not adding a burden of labor to the already very hardworking, busy custodial staff on campus.”

Corson added that YaleBleeds leadership has struggled with hearing back from Facilities administrators, but is planning to meet with them, and separately union leaders who work in Facilities, after spring break.

Additionally, YCC Senators Emily Hettinger ’26, Mimi Papathanasopoulos ’26 and Orah Massihesraelian ’25 proposed an open letter this past week, calling on Yale facilities to stock the period product dispensers. In the letter, the authors urged Yale “to finish the important menstrual equity work it started with its installation of dispensers, and actually fill them.”

Olmstead wrote to the News that they have had “occasional miscommunications and setbacks” keeping the dispensers stocked, but facilities administrators are now “confident those have been worked out, and that our custodians are now stocking the dispensers regularly.” 

Olmstead also said that he has had “positive conversations” with Local 35 on this initiative. 

“We all agree on the importance of free period product dispensing in ensuring a welcoming environment for our campus community. Our custodians have a critical role to play, and I have full confidence in their ability and willingness to make this initiative a success,” he said. 

Local 35 leadership did not immediately respond to the News’ request for comment.

The Graduate and Professional Student Senate also launched an initiative during the 2018-19 school year, when students began stocking products in restrooms near graduate and professional student spaces. The senate provides the funding for the products.

“We stock some bathrooms through graduate and professional volunteers, who are primarily putting supplies in the bathrooms closest to their places of work (e.g., a mechanical engineering student stocking their laboratory, or a drama student stocking their theater),” GPSS Advocacy Chair Adora Svitak GRD ’27 wrote to the News.

Per Svitak, this senate initiative does not overlap in terms of location with undergraduate-led initiatives, such as the new period product dispensers.

In 2023, the YCC was also able to receive approval to move the location of menstrual products in residential colleges from laundry rooms to dining hall bathrooms “as the location of the stockpile in laundry rooms often posed barriers to menstruating students,” YCC President Julian Suh-Toma ’25 wrote to the News.

Last semester, YaleBleeds also released a petition and hosted a Period Day of Action event. They also released a petition, which received 487 signatures, calling on the University to make menstrual products more accessible on campus. 

Karley Yung ’25, co-treasurer of YaleBleeds, emphasized the difficulty students face when they cannot access period products.

“While periods can be predictable for a lot of people, that can also not be the case. Having a period and not expecting it and not having products in the bathrooms is a really difficult situation to be in,” Yung said. “It’s an arduous experience that probably every menstruator has experienced at some point in their life. Wanting to relieve this burden is why we advocated for the dispensers in the first place.”

Yung added that although the installation of the dispensers “isn’t perfect,” it is “a step in the right direction.” 

Crishan Fernando GRD ’25, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, who helped to start the GPSS period product access project in 2019, said that he is also motivated by the unfairness in not supplying free period products.

“From my perspective as someone who doesn’t menstruate, it’s like what if the university just didn’t provide toilet paper, and all of a sudden all of us had to bring our own toilet paper,” Fernando said. “That’s a huge burden. It’s unfair, that we’re sort of punishing people who menstruate for just having to menstruate.”

YaleBleeds — formerly known as PERIOD@Yale — was formed in 2018.

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Tappe, who worked as an administrator at New York University before Yale, orchestrated the fraud scheme during her employment at NYU. She rerouted $3.5 million earmarked for university equity programs to two fictional shell companies. Using the companies, she stole over $660,000 to cover personal expenses, including an $80,000 swimming pool and over $500,000 in renovations to her home in Westport, Connecticut.

Tappe had previously been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with one count of first-degree money laundering, one count of second-degree grand larceny, two counts first-degree offering a false instrument for filing and two counts of first-degree falsifying business records. In January 2023, the DA’s office said that she had pleaded not guilty to all four counts of the indictment. 

However, in late February, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. and New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced that Tappe pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree grand larceny.

According to a press release from the office, Tappe will be sentenced to five years’ probation, will sign a written waiver of her right to appeal and provide full restitution totaling $663,209.07 in advance of sentencing.

“Cindy Tappe shamelessly used her high-ranking position at NYU to steal more than $660,000 in state funds,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Her actions … deprived student programs of key resources meant to aid children with special needs and young English Language Learners.”

Before coming to Yale, Tappe was the director of finance and administration for NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools. During her time in the position, she redirected money from a pool of $23 million in New York state funding. The funding was allocated to administer two state educational programs that help school districts improve results for English language learners and address disparities in special education.

The funding agreements require that a certain percentage of subcontractors on grant-related projects are awarded to minority- and women-owned business enterprises — or MWBE — to comply with New York state law, the statement said. At NYU, Tappe distributed over $3.5 million of the funding to three certified MWBE subcontractors to provide services related to the grants. 

However, none of the companies worked on the contracts. Instead, according to the district attorney’s office, they acted like “pass-throughs”: Each company took 3 to 6 percent of the invoiced amounts as overhead and sent the remaining $3.25 million to two shell companies she created: High Galaxy Inc. and PCM Group Inc. Tappe also drafted fictional invoices on company letterhead to justify the payments.

Although Tappe used some of the routed funds for NYU payments and employee reimbursements, she kept more than $660,000 for personal expenses, such as renovations to her Connecticut home that included an $80,000 swimming pool. 

“Ms. Tappe strongly regrets her misconduct,” wrote Deborah Colson, Tappe’s lawyer, in an email to the News. “She accepted responsibility for her wrongdoing in open court and will pay the restitution in full prior to sentencing. She looks forward to putting this case behind her.” 

Tappe was confronted by NYU leadership in 2018, before leaving the school. She was hired by Yale in 2019 as the School of Medicine’s operations director; following Tappe’s indictment, Yale initially placed her on leave and later fired her. 

“Yale University terminated Ms. Tappe’s employment after learning of the indictment,” University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News. “Like all Yale employees, she underwent pre-employment screening, including reference and background checks.”

Bragg emphasized that Tappe’s schemes were harmful for the minority groups that grant funding was intended to support.

“Her fraudulent actions not only threatened to affect the quality of education for students with disabilities and multilingual students, but denied our city’s minority and women owned business enterprises a chance to fairly compete for funding,” Bragg said in a press release. 

Tappe was fired from Yale in 2023.

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