Campus clips

Princeton and Harvard each announced last fall that they will stop using the title “master” for the faculty members in charge of their residential colleges and houses. Princeton will instead use “head of college”; Harvard hadn’t decided on a replacement at press time. The title was adopted in imitation of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges that use it, but many have expressed unease over the word’s association with slavery. At Yale, President Peter Salovey ’86PhD says a change is under consideration; a decision is expected by the end of the academic year.
 

Eighty-five members of the Yale chapter of the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon are being sued by the victims of an accident at a Yale-Harvard tailgate party in 2011. One woman was killed and another severely injured when they were struck by a U-Haul truck driven by a member of the fraternity. (The driver, who passed a field sobriety test, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and received a form of probation that will clear his record.) Jury selection in the case was to begin in mid-December.

Yale University Art Gallery

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Van Gogh’s masterpiece The Night Café belongs to Yale, according to a ruling by the Second Circuit US Court of Appeals in October. The court upheld a decision rejecting the claim of Pierre Konowaloff that the painting rightfully belonged to his family. The painting had been taken from Konowaloff’s great-grandfather by the Russian government in 1918; a later owner donated it to Yale.