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. 

The post Jonathan Edwards Dean Christina Ferando to step down appeared first on Yale Daily News.

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.

The post Facilities installs new period product dispensers, access issues persist appeared first on Yale Daily News.

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.

The post Former School of Medicine administrator pleads guilty to $3.5 million fraud scheme appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The partnership follows a September commitment from Yale College administrators in response to the Supreme Court’s summer ruling to overturn affirmative action. One of the initiatives on the list was to host a “high-impact college preparatory summer program” for students from underrepresented backgrounds within two years. Now, Yale’s partnership with LEDA will seek to accomplish that goal.

LEDA’s free five-week intensive program — the Aspects of Leadership Summer Institute — focuses on providing “leadership training, academic writing instruction, standardized test preparation, college guidance, and community building” to high-achieving, lower-income students, according to the nonprofit’s website. The program has historically been hosted on the Princeton University campus; students will still spend their first four weeks in New Jersey before coming to New Haven for their fifth and final week.

Moira Poe, Yale’s senior associate director of admissions for strategic priorities, said that the University was impressed by LEDA’s ability to reach high-achieving high schoolers with “an amazingly diverse set of under-resourced backgrounds.”

“For many years, Yale admissions office staff have connected with LEDA scholars and staff during the program at Princeton,” Poe wrote to the News. “We think spending time residing on a college campus provides LEDA scholars with a tangible sense of what to expect in college, empowering them to feel confident that they have the skills needed to navigate university resources.”

In 2023, 55 percent of LEDA scholars were admitted to at least one Ivy League school, MIT or Stanford University, including 21 who were accepted to Yale.

Almost 100 LEDA scholars have matriculated to Yale since the program’s founding in 2003, according to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan. He also noted that LEDA Scholars are often “exceptionally strong and compelling college applicants.”

Diego Lopez ’24 said that his college counselor at his high school in a low-income area of Los Angeles recommended that he apply to the summer program, which he was accepted to and attended. He said that LEDA has been very helpful to him during both high school and college, especially in terms of providing mentorship and guidance.

“LEDA has done so much to expand opportunity and help first-generation, low-income students believe in themselves and know that they’re capable of applying to these higher-ed institutions,” Lopez said.

Lopez, who is graduating this year, remains involved with the organization and said he plans to apply for LEDA Legal. The program, which guides students through the law school admissions process, was established last year in partnership with the Yale Law School.

David Garza, executive director at LEDA, said that Yale has consistently been a top destination for LEDA Scholars, and that conversations have long been underway to create a partnership beyond LEDA Legal.

“For several years, we have had conversations about ways that we can partner together to make sure that we are creating this avenue for students from underserved communities to be able to get into a school with the talent and sort of resources of Yale,” Garza said.

Charlize Leon Mata ’26 participated in the Aspects of Leadership Summer Institute when she was in high school. She said she submitted her application after coming across a YouTube video where a college student who offers advice to high schoolers mentioned the program.

Leon Mata said that she thinks most LEDA Scholars share a passion for social justice and helping their lower-income communities, which she said creates a unique community among Scholars.

“The Aspects of Leadership Summer Institute was very instrumental for us to start thinking of our communities from a different perspective,” she said, explaining that part of the program consists of reading social justice literature and “applying those lessons from greater literature to our personal experiences.”

Like Lopez, Leon Mata has remained deeply involved with LEDA since coming to Yale. In addition to staying close with several members of her cohort, she now mentors a Yale first-year student through LEDA’s mentorship program, participates in the Yale LEDA club and is a LEDA Career Fellow with the organization’s career development program.

Leon Mata said that she is excited that the summer program will be coming to Yale, but hopes that the program will expand in future years for students to stay on Yale’s campus for longer.

“I’m not sure if one week is really enough time for students to grapple with what it would be like to be a student here at Yale,” she said. “But I do think that it’s a great starting point for Yale to make this partnership and also for LEDA to expand beyond Princeton.”

Both Garza and Poe told the News that there are ongoing discussions about expanding the partnership in future years. Poe added that in following up on its September commitment, Yale is “continuing conversations with other high-impact summer enrichment programs.”

As of 2022, LEDA has worked with 1,850 students across its enrichment programs.

The post Yale to host 100 low-income high schoolers over summer through new partnership with nonprofit appeared first on Yale Daily News.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yolanda Wang contributed reporting

The post Yale pledges $10 million to strengthen partnership with HBCUs, faces NAACP criticism  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The policy change, announced last month, comes after four years of a test-optional policy first adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, the News found that students from low-income backgrounds were more likely to omit scores from their Yale applications under test-optional policies. Additionally, international students have long expressed difficulties accessing SAT and ACT test centers in their home countries. 

Yale’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions has maintained that test scores are only one part of a student’s application. They have also emphasized that scores can help contextualize other parts of Yale’s holistic review process, which considers students’ high school GPAs, recommendation letters and extracurriculars, among other factors — which, research suggests, may mean that test scores could prove more advantageous to low-income applicants than often thought.

Several students expressed generally positive reactions to the new test-flexible policy; however, they also expressed hopes that the University will double down on its commitment to inclusive messaging and to eliminating barriers to testing access.

“I’m really happy with this change and I think this should be the model that other Ivies follow,” said Annalie Diaz ’27, a QuestBridge match scholar who submitted her scores when applying to Yale. “They also should continue to push those explicit words, saying ‘we will take your score into context, we will be aware of the context of your school.’”

Reactions to and hopes for test-flexibility

In a statement posted on its website, the admissions office notes that test scores are considered in relation to others from an applicant’s high school.

“No exam can demonstrate every student’s college readiness or perfectly predict future performance,” the statement reads. “Tests can highlight an applicant’s areas of academic strength, reinforce high school grades, fill in gaps in a transcript stemming from extenuating circumstances, and — most importantly — identify students whose performance stands out in their high school context.”

For Diaz, the coupling of the new test-flexible policy with messaging that explicitly details how scores will be used and considered has alleviated many of the concerns she previously had about standardized testing.

Coming from an under-resourced high school, Diaz said that her score — which was below Yale’s average but well above her high school’s — was necessary in contextualizing other parts of her application.

Since announcing its test-flexible policy, the admissions office has expanded the range of scores published on its standardized testing page. Previously, Yale published scores from its 25th to 75th percentiles. Now, however, it lists the range of ACT and SAT scores from the 10th to 90th percentile.

Diaz said the decision to expand the published range is “great.”

“By extending the range of published scores of students at Yale, students can see that people from similar backgrounds with similar scores have submitted those scores and gotten into Yale,” she said. “They will be comforted by the knowledge that they don’t have to do as well as the students going to private prep schools, they just have to be able to stand out within their own context.”

But Christopher Vera, a senior at Wilbur Cross High School who was recently admitted to Yale’s class of 2028, looked less favorably upon the new policy. 

He said that standardized testing adds an extra stressor to high school seniors who are likely already stressed about college applications. Vera said that he does not think that expanding the types of accepted test scores — which now includes Advanced Placement, or AP, and International Baccalaureate, or IB, exams — will do much to alleviate this stress.

“Even though my school offers APs, I think that if this policy did affect me, I would still heavily prioritize the SAT,” Vera said. “Maybe I’d even prioritize it more than I did when Yale was test-optional. I feel like now that all students are required to submit scores, they will pay more attention to them. Now that scores are such a hot topic, I feel like I’d feel pressure to just get as many on my application as I could.”

Diaz holds the opposite view, and is hopeful that the expanded list of permissible tests will make it easier for students to obtain and submit scores.

She thinks that all acceptable test scores are useful in leveling the playing field between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

“For me, what made me see the [tests] as this great equalizer between all students is that this is the one point in the admissions office in which all students can have at least somewhat similar grounding,” she said. “So for example, with extracurriculars, someone’s wealthy parents can get them an internship. For essays, students can hire private writing tutors. But everyone is taking the same [tests].”

Going forward, Diaz added that she said she would like to see the admissions office promote free resources to help students study for the tests from which they will now be requiring scores.

Reactions from international students

Last month, a News survey found that domestic respondents were 12 percentage points more likely to have taken a standardized test before college when compared to international respondents.

In line with the survey results, several international students described difficulty accessing standardized testing centers in their home countries, adding that tests are more accessible for wealthy international students.

Tajrian Khan ’27, who is Bangladeshi, described extensive financial barriers to taking SAT and ACT tests in Bangladesh. Unlike domestic high schools, which frequently distribute fee waivers, Khan said it was difficult to get financial help paying for testing because few students from his school were applying to college in the United States.

Khan is from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Every testing center in the country is located either in Dhaka or in Chittagong, the country’s second-largest city, he said. Students from anywhere but those two cities have to travel long distances and find overnight accommodations in order to take SAT or ACT tests, Khan said.

“The new policy doesn’t really do anything at all in the context of problems for international students,” Khan said. 

Jesse Okoche ’25, who is from Botswana and could not access a testing center when applying to Yale, shared similar concerns and called the new policy a “bummer.”

He said that his family has been scrambling to assemble the funds to send his little sister, who is currently applying to college, to Botswana’s only SAT testing center — five hours away from their home.

Adding APs and IBs to the list of accepted scores does little to alleviate international accessibility issues, Khan said. Even if a Bangladeshi student were able to access an AP or IB testing center, he said, they would have to self-study for the exam, putting them at a disadvantage to domestic students or students who are able to enroll in AP classes to prepare for the tests.

“No schools in Bangladesh offer AP classes,” Khan said. I know before this year, there were no AP testing centers in all of Bangladesh, so even if you wanted to take the test without a class, that wasn’t an option.”

Overall, though, Khan said he believes that test scores are an important measure and that he hopes to see Yale expand the list of acceptable scores in the future.

Okoche, however, was disappointed to see test scores become again required in any capacity, and agreed with Khan that the addition of AP and IB scores does little to improve international access.

Okoche said that, in addition to few SAT and ACT testing centers, IB curriculum is also rare in Botswana. He said there is only one private school in the capital city that offers IBs.

In the spring of 2023, a digital version of the SAT was offered internationally; the first digital version of the SAT will be administered in the United States later this month. Okoche said he is hopeful but not confident that a digitized SAT will improve international access.

“As an international student from a country that doesn’t send many students to Yale, I felt like, as one of the first to do something, I have this responsibility to open the door for the rest,” Okoche said. “And so this new policy is basically telling me that everything I’ve done has failed to open that door, failed to show Yale that [students who were unable to access tests] are capable, even though they don’t have that one metric Yale is looking for.”

But even though the new digital SAT and the new test-flexible policy don’t solve all of the access problems faced by international students, Okoche said he appreciates that the change is a “step in the right direction.”

Yale’s new policy makes it more accessible to low-income international students than policies recently adopted by other schools, Okoche said. As an example, he said that a student who could not apply to Dartmouth or MIT — two schools that recently reinstated a more stringent SAT or ACT score requirement — could perhaps still apply to Yale going forward.

“From all of this, my takeaway is hope,” Okoche said. “We’ve taken a step, and I’m hoping we can continue to take more steps.”

The first domestic digital administration of the SAT will take place on March 9.

The post Students share mixed reactions to Yale’s new ‘test-flexible’ policy appeared first on Yale Daily News.

All other testimonies — which came from students, student collectives, college groups, a non-profit and the Yale College Council — supported the bill. One organization, the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, did not fully support or oppose the bill.

If passed, the bill –– SB 203 –– would prohibit public and private institutions in the state from “inquir[ing] about or consider[ing] a prospective student’s familial relationship to a graduate of such institution” when making admissions decisions.

Committee co-chair Sen. Derek Slap, who has championed the bill, said that he was encouraged by the hearing, which he called “part of a national movement” in state governments to reevaluate legacy admissions.

Slap said that the hearing was “by far the most robust conversation about admissions, legacy, privilege and opportunity in higher education” in which he has participated while part of the General Assembly. 

According to a study last year that drew on internal admissions data from several elite colleges, including Ivy League schools, legacy applicants are often “slightly more qualified yet are four times as likely” to be admitted to top schools.

Yale’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, Jeremiah Quinlan, testified against the bill for more than an hour over Zoom. In his remarks, Quinlan said he does not believe the General Assembly has the right to interfere with the university admissions practices.

“Just as every Connecticut college or university teaches different classes in different ways in fulfillment of its educational mission, each institution should likewise be allowed to assemble a student body that promotes its educational goals,” Quinlan wrote in a statement that he read out at the hearing. “A university may make a voluntary decision to forgo consideration of legacy status in the application process, but a Connecticut state law dictating that decision for independent colleges and universities would be unprecedented and would invite future legislatures to impose their own views on who should be admitted in ways that threaten academic freedom.”

Quinlan further described progress that the University has made toward enrolling more first-generation and low-income students since he began his tenure as Yale College’s dean of admissions. He argued that banning legacy admissions would not be necessary or useful to the cause of recruiting diverse classes, given the work Yale has done to increase access.

Per his testimony, 22 percent of students in the Yale College class of 2027 are eligible for Pell Grants, 21 percent are first-generation college students and 59 percent are domestic students who identify as members of a minority racial or ethnic group. Over the past 10 years, he said, the number of Pell-eligible students has doubled, and the number of first-generation students has increased by more than 60 percent.

Instead of banning legacy admissions, Quinlan suggested tht the state prioritize initiatives that directly help promote access for first-generation and low-income students, such as increased support for recruitment and outreach programs. He specifically noted increased support toward enrichment programs for less-advantaged high school students and increased funding of the Roberta Willis Scholarship Program, which offers need-based grants to Connecticut students enrolled at any of the 18 participating public and non-profit private colleges in the state. 

State Rep. Gary Turco said that preference for applicants with legacy status creates an “uneven playing field” that he believes has contributed to a larger national trend of decreased trust in higher education. Citing nationwide declines in enrollment numbers, high student loan debt and admissions scandals, Turco said that the message the bill might send about fairness would be as important as any practical impact on the universities’ diversity.

Turco estimated that currently, around 40 or 50 legislators would be prepared to vote in favor of the bill, noting that most others have not yet made a decision and only a “handful” would likely vote against it, out of the total 151 legislators in the House. He hypothesized that those who would vote against the bill are likely to do so because they are concerned about overregulating private institutions, not necessarily because they are in favor of maintaining legacy preference in admissions.

Turco said that although he thinks the bill is likely to pass in committee, he suspects it will struggle in a broader vote in the legislature because “private universities hold a lot of weight in the state.”

Rep. Dominique Johnson said that while they support the idea of a bill banning legacy preference, they are not satisfied with the current bill and would like to see it also ban schools from considering the donor status of an applicant’s family. Johnson is also advocating for the bill to clarify whether it applies to graduate and professional schools as well as undergraduate schools.

Birikti Kahsai ’27, who is a senator representing Branford College in the Yale College Council, testified at the hearing on behalf of the YCC. She told the News that the YCC has begun to advocate against legacy admissions as part of a broad collaboration between several student governments of Ivy League universities that have been adopting a unified stance against legacy admissions.

“We emphasize that the archaic practice of granting advantages in the application process on the basis of familial ties is antithetical to Yale’s commitment to meritocratic admissions,” the YCC testimony states. “Those historically granted the opportunity to form such connections were overwhelmingly White, wealthy and Protestant, due to the inaccessibility of higher education.”

Kahsai stressed that the goal of the YCC in opposing and testifying against the bill is not to attack individual legacy students but rather to pressure the Yale administration about its use of legacy preference, which she said YCC views as “incompatible” with Yale’s other admissions policies.

The testimony from the YCC was undersigned by seven Yale cultural clubs as well as The Yale First-Generation and/or Low-Income Advocacy Movement.

Jim Zhou GRD ’24 also testified at the hearing. He explained that he relied on food stamps throughout his time at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He said that UCLA’s legacy-blind admissions approach has allowed the school to “excel with socioeconomic diversity” — and that Yale is lagging behind.

“I think that legacy admissions are perhaps one of the biggest barriers to achieving socio-economic diversity on campus because legacy applicants overwhelmingly come from backgrounds that have enormous amounts of privilege,” Zhou told the News.

New Haven civil rights attorney Alex Taubes LAW ’15 explained that the Connecticut legislature draws its authority to regulate private institutions, including universities, from an authority of state governments known as “police power.”

“This power allows the state to impose certain requirements on private institutions to ensure they contribute positively to the state’s goals for its education system and the overall well-being of its residents,” Taubes wrote in an email to the News. “When it comes to education, states have a particular interest in ensuring that institutions serve the public good, as education is closely linked to economic development, civic participation, and social equity.”

Taubes added that consumer protection law specifically could provide potential justification for a ban affecting private universities, with prospective students considered as consumers who ought to be protected from unfair or discriminatory practices.

Slap said that a vote on the bill in the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee will likely take place on either Tuesday or Thursday of next week; if passed, the bill will progress to the Senate floor of the larger legislature.

The bill, if enacted, would go into effect on July 1.

The post Yale opposes state bill to ban legacy preference appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Director of the Asian American Cultural Center Joliana Yee wrote that she and assistant director Sheraz Iqbal toured 305 Crown St. earlier this semester, along with the lead architect, to see the future home of the newly-announced MENA space. The “cultural suite” will be built over the summer on half of the first floor, according to Yee, who added that she arranged for a workshop on Friday, March 1 to solicit input from MENA students.

The lack of a MENA cultural center has long been a source of student frustration, with the new space coming after nearly six years of student organizing.The Asian American Cultural Center currently has a dedicated room for MENA students on its third floor, and, this year, the AACC sponsored the University’s first AACC-MENA peer liaisons.

“It is my goal to remain in communication with the architect and design team to ensure that the renovated space meets the needs and expectations of the MENA community within the parameters that have been approved by the University,” wrote Yee, who also an assistant dean of the College.

The latest development comes after University President Peter Salovey promised the creation of a “more plentiful and fully dedicated space” for MENA students in December. Salovey’s commitment was part of a larger message on the University’s actions to “enhance support” for students in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, including permanent security at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale and the hiring of a second Muslim chaplain.

“In recent years, university leaders have discussed with MENA students their requests for additional space and recognition, and we are committed to work with them and to provide resources and guidance,” Salovey wrote in his “Against Hatred” message. 

In January, administrators told the News that the new MENA center would have its own dedicated peer liaisons, assistant director and physical space — distinct from the AACC — by the fall 2024 semester. 

Yale added a job posting on LinkedIn for assistant director of the “MENA Cultural Community” on Jan. 18. Responsibilities include liaising with facilities staff to maintain the current MENA space in the AACC and “provide guidance throughout the build out of the new space in 305 Crown,” and to work with the AACC director in “strategic planning, financial management, program assessment, and departmental reporting.” 

Lewis told the News in February that the MENA space will have a separate budget from the AACC with “substantial funding.” He said that the YCDO will use a survey to find out how many students would be engaged with the MENA center because the U.S. Census Bureau, which the Common Application uses, does not include a category for Middle Eastern and North African identity.

“In the case of some races, we get [racial demographic] information after students have been admitted from the Common App, but I think with MENA, because it’s a complex category and not exactly one of the categories in the census, we have to just ask people,” Lewis said.

Although the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action last summer, the University can still use self-reported racial identity data gathered after the application process.

Last April, University administration ordered student groups to vacate their previously assigned spaces at 305 Crown St. by the end of the year, citing “inequities” with the building hosting only 15 student groups out of hundreds on campus. At the time, Dean of Student Affairs Hannah Peck wrote to the groups that instead, each would receive a shelf in the 305 Crown storage room. 

This year, the Yale Herald and the Yale Record both have offices on the third floor of the building, and First Year Outdoor Orientation Trips — one of the Camp Yale orientation programs — also uses rooms on the first and second floors for storage.

The post 305 Crown St. to be renovated to Middle Eastern and North African cultural space appeared first on Yale Daily News.