Conference addresses
equity and access in college admissions
A two-day conference in October brought together students,
policymakers, school administrators, and others to discuss issues of access to
higher education. "A Seat at the Table: Socioeconomic Diversity and Access to
Selective Colleges and Universities" was sponsored by the Roosevelt
Institution, an organization founded by Yale and Stanford students and called by
them "the nation's first student think tank." President Levin gave the Friday
plenary along with William Bowen, former president of Princeton and of the
Mellon Foundation. Other panels and sessions featured Tony Marx, president of
Amherst College; William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard; Chaka
Fattah, U.S. representative from the 2nd district of Pennsylvania; and Jerome
Karabel ’72, author of The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and
Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Scribble, Scribble, Scribble
The Writing Center at Yale continues to grow as a
resource for writing assistance on campus. One-on-one tutoring is available in
several forms and locations: the Bass writing tutors, most of them experienced
professional writers, are located in the residential colleges and provide
sustained, long-term help to students; and student Writing Partners are
available at the center on a drop-in basis five nights a week. These partners
have a "student's-eye view" of the challenges in writing papers and are
available to help with smaller problems in short sections of a paper. The
center's website (www.yale.edu/writing) spells out requirements, lists faculty,
explains the tutoring program, discusses internships and jobs, describes
creative writing courses and courses for non-English speakers, offers tips for
writers and resources for faculty, and provides a comprehensive list of campus
student publications, as well as information about the new Yale Journalism
Initiative.
Paying it forward
Two recent Yale College grads are giving back in the same way that they
received help. Ruth DeGolia ’03, who said financial aid was important in
attracting her to Yale, arrived on campus as an activist committed to social
change. She went to Guatemala after her sophomore year, and received a Yale
fellowship to do research in Guatemala during the summer of her senior year to
work on a thesis about the impact of globalization on political and economic
development in that country. Since graduation DeGolia and Benita Singh ’04 have
created Mercado Global, a nonprofit fair-trade company that sells traditional
Guatemalan handicrafts made by women, with all profits going towards education
costs in the Guatemalan communities. DeGolia and Singh were featured in Newsweek magazine this past July in the article, "Fifteen
people who make America great: The Giving Back Awards."
School Days for Faculty
A special orientation offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
brought together all new faculty, junior and senior, during their first days at
Yale to meet the provosts and deans of the college and graduate school and to
share in a general university orientation (complete with a song called "There
is Nothing Like a Dean"). Faculty learned about applying for grants, heard
presentations on the galleries, museums, and collections, and toured New Haven
by bus to become acquainted with the community and its attractions. During
lunch at the provost's house each new faculty member was welcomed with a
specially chosen book written by another member of the faculty.
loading
Print
Email