Residential colleges of Yale University
[1][2] Construction and programming for eight of the original ten colleges were funded by educational philanthropist Edward S. Harkness.
All fourteen colleges are built in an enclosing configuration around a central courtyard; all but two employ revivalist architectural styles popularized at Yale by James Gamble Rogers.
Each has a dining hall, library, recreational facilities, a Head's House, apartments for resident fellows and Dean, and 250 to 400 student rooms, with most arranged in suites.
[7][9] Anna Harkness, Edward's mother, gave money for the Memorial Quadrangle and a few other dormitories, but growth in enrollment still outpaced new residential space.
[8] Harkness admired the Oxbridge colleges as models of academic community and in 1926 offered $12 million to fund the plan.
[7][13][14] A "Committee on Quadrangles" was convened to name the colleges, appoint masters, select designs, organize faculty fellowships, and determine their degree of autonomy within the university.
[8][19] Due to the abolition of the Freshmen Year and growing enrollment, the university sought to expand the college system.
Since their opening, most had seen only routine maintenance and incremental improvements to plumbing, heating, and electrical and network wiring.
To allow renovations to be done during the academic year, Yale built a residence hall between Payne Whitney Gymnasium and the power plant, commonly called "Swing Space.
[22][27] In June 2008, President Rick Levin announced plans to build two new colleges in the northern part of the campus between Grove Street Cemetery and Science Hill.
Members of Timothy Dwight, Silliman, Benjamin Franklin, and Pauli Murray are the only students to live in their college as freshmen.
Yale faculty affiliate with the colleges as fellows by appointment of the Council of Masters, the governing body of the residential system.
Fellows advise students, attend ceremonial functions of the college, and participate in its social and academic life.
The program offers dining hall meals and access to college facilities to the graduate students as well as mentorship for undergraduates.
Rogers had previously designed the Memorial Quadrangle as a Gothic dormitory, which was renovated to become Branford and Saybrook Colleges.
A small group of artisans—including blacksmith Samuel Yellin and sculptor Lee Lawrie—executed most of the buildings' elaborate details.
Calhoun College—now known as Grace Hopper College—[17] by John Russell Pope, employed Rogers' Gothic style with greater emphasis on brick materials.
Silliman College, assembled from existing facilities of the Sheffield Scientific School by Eggers & Higgins, is an amalgamation of Gothic Revival, French Renaissance, and Georgian.
Constructed 30 years later, Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges were conceived by Eero Saarinen, a mid-century modernist architect, as angular reinventions of the Tuscan village.
[39] Printing arts are still taught through college seminars, and the remaining shops are managed by students with assistance from master printers.
Past Tetelman Fellows include James Watson, Murray Gell-Mann, Ben Carson, and the Dalai Lama.
Past Chubb Fellows include Aung San Suu Kyi, Chinua Achebe, George H. W. Bush, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lewis Mumford.
[45][46] An investigation of the prize caps by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal found no violation of donor intent.
[54] In the 2015–16 school year, the colleges' relation to slavery and racial oppression received heavy attention.
In the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, Calhoun College received particular attention as one of several American institutions named for the white supremacist Vice President.
[55][56] Simultaneously, the word "master", a title borrowed from the UK collegiate tradition but also a synonym for "slaveowner" in the U.S., received scrutiny at several U.S.
[57][58][59] In April 2016, Yale President Peter Salovey announced that it would follow Harvard and MIT in changing the appellation of "Master" to "Head of College".
[61] In February 2017, Salovey reversed his decision on Calhoun College, announcing that it would be renamed for Grace Hopper, the United States Navy rear admiral and pioneer computer scientist.
[62][63] In addition to these titular connections, Pierson and Timothy Dwight Colleges have strong architectural associations to slavery.
"[68] In Branford and Calhoun Colleges, stained-glass windows depicting pastoral scenes of Black American enslavement were installed prominently.
