[20] Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School", a would-be charter passed in New Haven by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9, 1701.

Jason Haven, minister at the First Church and Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, had been considered for the presidency on account of his orthodox theology and "Neatness dignity and purity of Style [which] surpass those of all that have been mentioned", but was passed over due to his "very Valetudinary and infirm State of Health".

[24] In 1718, at the behest of either Rector Samuel Andrew or the colony's Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted the Boston-born businessman Elihu Yale to ask for money to construct a new building for the college.

Through the persuasion of Jeremiah Dummer, Yale, who had made a fortune in Madras while working for the East India Company as the first president of Fort St. George, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum of money.

They were instrumental in developing the scientific curriculum while dealing with wars, student tumults, graffiti, "irrelevance" of curricula, desperate need for endowment and disagreements with the Connecticut legislature.

[28][29][page needed] Serious American students of theology and divinity, particularly in New England, regarded Hebrew as a classical language, along with Greek and Latin, and essential for study of the Old Testament in the original.

They concentrated on developing a person possessed of religious values strong enough to sufficiently resist temptations from within, yet flexible enough to adjust to the 'isms' (professionalism, materialism, individualism, and consumerism) tempting them from without.

Presidents Arthur Hadley of Yale, A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, and Woodrow Wilson of Princeton worked to develop moderate reforms to reduce injuries.

While unsuccessful in the courts, the legal reasoning changed the landscape of sex discrimination law and resulted in the establishment of Yale's Grievance Board and Women's Center.

Yale instituted policies in the early 20th century designed to maintain the proportion of white Protestants from notable families in the student body (see numerus clausus) and eliminated such preferences, beginning with the class of 1970.

[67] Also in 2009, an alliance was formed among Yale, University College London, and both schools' affiliated hospital complexes to conduct research focused on the direct improvement of patient care—a field known as translational medicine.

[73] Yale spent most of his professional career in the employ of the East India Company (EIC), serving as the governor of the Presidency of Fort St. George in modern-day Chennai.

Other alumni who have made serious bids for the presidency include Amy Klobuchar (2020), Tom Steyer (2020), Ben Carson (2016), Howard Dean (2004), Gary Hart (1984 and 1988), Paul Tsongas (1992), Pat Robertson (1988) and Jerry Brown (1976, 1980, 1992).

Yale also owns and has restored many noteworthy 19th-century mansions along Hillhouse Avenue, which was considered the most beautiful street in America by Charles Dickens when he visited the United States in the 1840s.

[130][131] Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings portray contemporary college personalities, such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading.

Similarly, the decorative friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes, like a policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette.

The library includes a six-story above-ground tower of book stacks, filled with 180,000 volumes, that is surrounded by large translucent Vermont marble panels and a steel and granite truss.

Alumnus Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Washington Dulles International Airport main terminal, Bell Labs Holmdel Complex and the CBS Building in Manhattan, designed Ingalls Rink, dedicated in 1959,[138] as well as the residential colleges Ezra Stiles and Morse.

(Interior moulding is said to have belonged to Benedict Arnold); Manuscript Society, King-lui Wu with Dan Kiley responsible for landscaping and Josef Albers for the brickwork intaglio mural.

[158] In 2004, the national non-profit watchdog group Security on Campus filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, accusing Yale of under-reporting rape and sexual assaults.

[198] They argued in the petition that—while Calhoun was respected in the 19th century as an "extraordinary American statesman"—he was "one of the most prolific defenders of slavery and white supremacy" in the history of the United States.

[207][208][209] In his 2019 book Assault on American Excellence, former Dean of Yale Law School Anthony T. Kronman criticized the title and name changes and the lack of support from Salovey for the Christakises, who were targeted by the student activists.

Yale's secret societies include Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf's Head, Book and Snake, Elihu, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Manuscript, Brothers in Unity, Linonia, St. Anthony Hall, Shabtai, Myth and Sword, Daughters of Sovereign Government (DSG), Mace and Chain, ISO, Spade and Grave, and Sage and Chalice, among others.

Notable among the songs commonly played and sung at events such as commencement, convocation, alumni gatherings, and athletic games is the alma mater, "Bright College Years".

[243] In response, the university convened a commission to evaluate their readmission policies after a mental health withdrawal, renaming the process to "reinstatement" as well as eliminating the $50 reapplication fee.

[309] Academy Award winning actors, actresses, and directors include Jodie Foster,[310] Paul Newman,[311] Meryl Streep,[312] Elia Kazan,[313] George Roy Hill,[314] Lupita Nyong'o,[315] Oliver Stone,[316] and Frances McDormand.

Hugo Boss Prize winner Matthew Barney,[323] famed American sculptor Richard Serra,[324] President Barack Obama presidential portrait painter Kehinde Wiley,[325] MacArthur Fellows and contemporary artists Tschabalala Self,[326] Titus Kaphar, Richard Whitten, and Sarah Sze,[327] Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau,[328] and National Medal of Arts photorealist painter Chuck Close[329] all graduated from Yale.

[338] In business, Yale has had numerous alumni and former students go on to become founders of influential business, like William Boeing[339] (Boeing, United Airlines), Briton Hadden[340] and Henry Luce[341] (Time Magazine), Stephen A. Schwarzman[342] (Blackstone Group), Frederick W. Smith[343] (FedEx), Juan Trippe[344] (Pan Am), Harold Stanley[345] (Morgan Stanley), Bing Gordon[346] (Electronic Arts), and Ben Silbermann[347] (Pinterest).

Other business people from Yale include former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings Edward Lampert,[348] former Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes,[349] former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi,[350] sports agent Donald Dell,[351] and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton,[352] Alumni distinguished in academia include literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates,[353] economists Irving Fischer,[354] Mahbub ul Haq,[355] and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman;[356] Nobel Prize in Physics laureates Ernest Lawrence[357] and Murray Gell-Mann;[358] Fields Medalist John G. Thompson;[359] Human Genome Project leader and National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins;[360] brain surgery pioneer Harvey Cushing;[361] pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper;[362] influential mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs;[363] National Women's Hall of Fame inductee and biochemist Florence B. Seibert;[364] Turing Award recipient Ron Rivest;[365] inventors Samuel F.B.

Morse[366] and Eli Whitney;[367] Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate John B. Goodenough;[368] lexicographer Noah Webster;[369] and theologians Jonathan Edwards[370] and Reinhold Niebuhr.