School Notes: Yale College
July/August 2016

Pierson alumna to lead AYA

J. Weili Cheng ’77 has been appointed executive director of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA). Weili has long been actively involved as a Yale volunteer, serving on the AYA Board of Governors from 1986 to 1996 and as chair from 1992 to 1994—the youngest and first female graduate of Yale College to hold that position. She has been a board member of the Yale Club of Washington, DC, including serving as its president, and has served as chair of the Class of 1977 class council, an Alumni Schools Committee volunteer, and a trustee of the Yale Library Associates. Since 1994, she has served on the board of directors of Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., which until recently published the Yale Alumni Magazine. For her service to Yale, Weili was awarded the Yale Medal in 1997. She and her husband, Brad Dobeck, are also Yale parents: their son, Stephen, graduated from Yale College in 2010.

Journalist honored by college council

Anderson Cooper ’89 returned to campus on April 22 to receive the Yale undergraduates’ Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes his lengthy career in journalism. The Yale College Council (YCC) and the President’s Office established the award last year with the goal of bringing prominent college alumni back to campus to interact with undergraduates both en masse and in smaller, more intimate settings. The award is the only one in Ivy League history that is elected and administered entirely by students, said YCC president Joseph English ’17. 

Trumbull alumna to lead Ezra Stiles

Nilakshi Parndigamage ’06 has been named the next dean of Ezra Stiles. Originally from Sri Lanka, Parndigamage earned her BA in political science and went on to University of Virginia for her JD. At Yale, she received numerous awards and fellowships for her work, including the David Everett Chantler Award to a graduating senior exemplifying “the qualities of courage, strength of character, and high moral purpose”; the Charles P. Howland Fellowship; and the European Union Studies Council Fellowship. Parndigamage will move into Stiles this summer with her husband and 17-month-old son.