Campus clips

A $50 million gift will fund the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, a vehicle for expanding Yale's academic offerings in international relations. The institute, funded by John W. Jackson ’67 and his wife Susan G. Jackson, will also sponsor lectures and conferences, house a distinguished fellows program, and offer career counseling in international fields. It will be part of Yale's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Yale also has a separate Center for the Study of Globalization.

Yale College's admission rate hit a record low: 7.5 percent for the Class of 2013, as 1,951 candidates were admitted from a pool of exactly 26,000. Last year's admission rate was 8.43 percent.

Two paintings by David Gelernter ’76, ’77MA, the computer science professor and cultural critic, were stolen in March from the Slifka Center for Jewish Life, where they were on exhibition. A third painting, by Gelernter's son Dan Gelernter ’09, was also taken. Police recovered the paintings two weeks later and charged a New Haven man with stealing them and other artworks in order to buy heroin.

Two Texas women pleaded guilty in March to misapplying employee benefit funds they were managing for Yale in 2001. Jeanne Baker and Robin Birdsong of Fort Worth had already paid a million dollars to Yale to settle a civil suit over the matter; they spent 60 days in jail and received ten years' probation after paying another $600,000 in restitution.

Co-ed suites in Yale College will not be happening for at least another year. An ad hoc committee of administrators and the council of residential college masters have endorsed making "gender-neutral housing" an option, but the Yale College Dean's Office says it needs more time to study the question. Advocates of gender-neutral housing argue that gay and transgender students may feel more comfortable living among the opposite sex.