School Notes: Yale College
September/October 2010

Student journalists take internships in the field

Eight students received funding from the Yale Journalism Initiative (YJI) this past summer to pursue internships in locations around the country. Established in 2006, YJI prepares Yalies for careers in journalism. Students apply to become Yale Journalism Scholars after completing an advanced seminar in journalism taught by a renowned professional journalist. Past instructors have included Steven Brill ’72, ’75JD, the founder of Court TV and theAmerican Lawyer magazine, and Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times. In addition to the seminar, Yale Journalism Scholars complete a summer internship, write for campus publications, and take additional related courses. Yale Journalism Scholars receive career counseling, attend lectures by visiting journalists, and gain access to a network of Yale alumni in the field. Six other undergraduates received Block Fellowships for summer work at newspapers in Pittsburgh or Toledo. For further information, visit www.yale.edu/writing/journalism.

Yalies give back to the New Haven community

The President’s Public Service Fellowship (PPSF) program awarded fellowships to 36 students for internships in New Haven this summer. President Richard C. Levin founded the PPSF in 1994 to strengthen Yale’s ties to New Haven and encourage students to seek service internships in the community. Each year, participants pursue 8- to 11-week internships that support community priorities: revitalizing the downtown area and neighborhoods, renovating public schools, promoting youth programs, fostering economic development, and more. Students begin the summer with a one-week orientation and submit a final report based on their work. Since the program’s inception, more than 500 Yalies have contributed in excess of 200,000 hours to 50-plus New Haven organizations and city agencies.

This summer, two PPSF participants, Lynda Blancato ’11 and Erica Irving ’11, received fellowship support from the Courture Family Fund, which encourages Yale students to explore careers in early childhood education. Blancato interned at Footebridge, a collaboration between Foote School and the New Haven Public Schools that combines a summer program for kindergartners and first-graders with teacher training in curriculum development, classroom management, and literacy instruction. Irving worked on major projects in school reform in the New Haven Public Schools system. More information on the PPSF program is online at www.yale.edu/ppsf.

Students’ summer projects span the globe

This summer, 485 students traveled with help from the International Summer Award (ISA) program, which guarantees that all Yale College students with demonstrated financial need get support to pursue a summer experience abroad. Each year, ISAs enable the global adventures of hundreds of Yalies in programs including Yale Summer Session courses abroad, Yale-in-London, International Bulldogs internships, global science research, and independent projects. Just over one-third of this year’s awards were made possible through donor-endowed funds. France and the United Kingdom, perennial favorite destinations, had 79 and 55 students respectively, while Cambodia, Slovenia, and Syria had one ISA recipient apiece. Yale Summer Session programs ranged from the “Age of Cathedrals” in France to Arabic language in Jordan; International Bulldogs students took internships in Buenos Aires, Beijing, and everywhere in between; and research projects examined bicycling in urban Europe, rainforest management, and molecular biology, just to name a few. The Center for International Experience, which administers the ISA program, is online atwww.yale.edu/yalecollege/international.