Two candidates for trustee election

Yale graduates will choose between a movie producer and a college president in the annual election of an alumni trustee to the Yale Corporation, Yale's governing board. Alumni have begun receiving e-mails with links to online balloting in the election, which closes on May 19.

The two candidates are:

• Bruce Cohen ’83, Academy Award–winning producer of American Beauty, Milk, and Silver Linings Playbook, among other films. Cohen, a supporter of film studies and LGBT studies at Yale, is president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which is funding the court challenge of California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage. Cohen and his husband, Gabe Catone ’95, live in New York with their two-year-old daughter.

• Catharine Bond Hill ’85PhD, economist and president of Vassar College. As an economist, Hill has worked in international development in Africa. She has also done research and advocacy related to low-income students and their access to elite colleges, including Vassar. She and her husband live in Poughkeepsie, New York, and have three children.

All alumni who have held a Yale degree for more than five years are eligible to vote. The Yale Corporation includes 12 successor trustees who are appointed by the Corporation itself and 6 alumni trustees, who are elected by alumni for six-year terms. Cohen or Hill would succeed former Seattle Art Museum director Mimi Gardner Gates ’81PhD. The Secretary's office has more information on the election process here.