New roles on Old Campus
"Everything at Yale is such an old tradition that it has been a fun
opportunity to be part of something so new," says Tahia Reynaga (BR ’98), an
Old Campus Fellow and a member of Yale's development staff. "I remember when I
was a freshman in 1994 -- the first time I moved into Vanderbilt Hall -- and now, living here again, I
find it is an exciting challenge to balance 1,100 exuberant freshmen and blend
that with Yale's culture of civility in residential life." This year is Reynaga's
second as an Old Campus Fellow. "I guess that makes me a sophomore," she quips.
Reynaga was one of the first two Old Campus Fellows. Two more positions
were added this year, "to provide additional eyes and ears on the Old Campus,
and to play a role in expanding programs for freshmen at Yale College," says
Dean of Freshman Affairs George Levesque. The four Old Campus Fellows are also
assigned to two or three residential colleges and provide extra support for the
residential college deans and masters by helping to keep track of the freshmen
who do not live within the walls of ten of the residential colleges. Anchoring
the four corners of the Old Campus in apartments created out of student suites,
the fellows join the freshman counselors, who still provide essential
counseling, supervision, and a direct connection to the residential colleges.
The Old Campus Fellows eat all their meals in the residential colleges and at
Commons Dining Hall and spend their evenings on the Old Campus, occasionally
hosting students in their apartments.
Old Campus Fellow Allison Norris (SY ’94), who lives in Welch Hall, is
no stranger to residential life. A former head of freshman counselors, Norris
also lived for five years in Branford College, where her husband, Thomas "Dodie"
McDow (SY ’93), was the college dean. Allison, a postdoctoral associate at Yale's
Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, moved into Welch with Dodie and
their three children, Maggie, Franklin, and Solomon. Levesque believes that
this might be the first time that children have ever lived on the Old Campus.
Nathan Gault, the Yale College webmaster, took up residence in Durfee this
fall, and former Woodbridge Fellow Lauren Thompson (CC ’05) moved into new
quarters in Farnam.
These three, along with Reynaga, are involved with expanding programs
for freshmen. "Our programs bring notable people from around the university and
introduce them to the freshmen right where they live, in an environment where
they are comfortable," says Reynaga. "When I was a student -- and I
considered myself well informed about the resources at Yale -- I don't think
I was as aware as I could have been about the incredible opportunities all
around me."
This year, the Old Campus fellows will help coordinate a series of
seminars on adjustment to college life, including sessions on study skills,
time and stress management, and a host of other pressing concerns for new
college students. "While freshman orientation is packed with programs and
information for our newest students," says Levesque, "there remains only so
much you can do and say in five days. Our goal is to expand the opportunities
for freshmen to ask questions and acclimate to Yale's culture, and the Old
Campus fellows are part of that effort."
Reading assignments
A longstanding program for freshmen at Yale College got a new twist
this year: the traditional Sunday evening keynote address to freshmen was
preceded by a reading assignment. Spelman College president Beverly Daniel
Tatum delivered the talk. Her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, was mailed to members of the Class of 2011 as a
summer reading assignment. Following the address, freshmen gathered with
freshman counselors and other panelists for open discussions about the speech
and the reading assignment. "I think the reading assignment provided students
with common ideas to discuss, disagree with, or embrace," said Dean of Freshman
Affairs George Levesque. "It was also a fitting introduction to a Yale
education, which demands critical reflection and civil discourse, and to the
Yale Class of 2011, which happens to be the most diverse in Yale's history." At
the same time, the Yale College deans have taken on a reading assignment
themselves this semester: a book by Tony Kronman, former dean of the Yale Law
School, entitled Education's End: Why Colleges and Universities Have Given
Up On the Meaning of Life. [An
essay adapted from the book appeared in the Forum department of the
September/October issue.] The deans plan to discuss and debate the book among
themselves and then to invite Kronman to talk about it with them. They hope for
a challenging and stimulating discussion that will focus them on considering
their students' intellectual experience.
DeVane Lectures focus on world performance
This semester, Professor Joseph Roach, the Charles C. and Dorathea S.
Dilley Professor of Theater and professor of English and African American
studies, is offering a series of lectures on the impact of the performing arts
on people and cultures. The talks are part of the DeVane lecture series, which
is both the core of a university course and a program open to the public. It is
named in memory of William Clyde DeVane, dean of Yale College from 1939 to
1963.
Professor Roach, whose writings on performance have received wide
acclaim, has been a major force in developing the field of performance studies.
In 2006 Roach received a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation that has enabled him to create the World Performance Project at
Yale. Roach's DeVane series is devoted to the core subject matter of this
project and, in the words of Professor Roach, "to the emerging field of
performance studies -- in theater, dance, music, ritual, and highlighted
social practices -- that bring together people from around the world as
audiences and leave them changed by the experience." The lectures are being
coordinated with the 2007-2008 season of the project, which includes
special performances by visitors and artists-in-residence, and a sequence of
performances organized in connection with the Yale Center for British Art
exhibition "Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His
Worlds," which documents the era when slavery was abolished in the West Indies.
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