Updates

Committee to oversee Spanish and Portuguese

The Spanish and Portuguese department will be overseen by a program committee that includes its own faculty and Yale faculty from outside the department for the next three years. Sterling Professor of French Howard Bloch will chair the committee, which will make decisions about hiring and promotion in the department. The move is a further response to divisions among the faculty and complaints from graduate students (“Conflict in Spanish and Portuguese Department,” March/April), which led to the appointment of Japanese studies professor Edward Kamens ’74, ’82PhD, as director of graduate studies.

Schwarzman Center will be bigger

As planning continues for the Schwarzman Center (“$150 Million Gift for New Student Center,” July/August 2015), the university announced in September that the project has expanded to provide more space for student activities. Besides Commons, Memorial Hall, and their basements and upper floors, the project will include a 5,400-square-foot addition to the Grove Street side of Commons, 11,200 square feet of new underground space below Hewitt Quadrangle (also known as Beinecke Plaza), and a new entrance from Hewitt Quadrangle. The center is named for Stephen Schwarzman ’69, who gave $150 million to support the project.