School Notes: Yale College
September/October 2012

Musicologist directs Whitney Center

In July, Gary Tomlinson, professor of music and humanities, began a new role as director of the Whitney Humanities Center. Tomlinson, who earned his BA from Dartmouth College in 1973 and his PhD in musicology from the University of California–Berkeley in 1979, arrived at Yale in 2010 as a visiting professor. For more than 20 years, he served on the music faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. His teaching covers such topics as the history of opera, early-modern European musical thought and practice, the musical cultures of indigenous American societies, jazz and popular music, and the philosophy of history and critical theory. He has been a fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center for two years and organized and taught the 2012 Shulman Seminar, given every year on a topic that bridges the humanities and sciences. His topic was “Music and Human Evolution.” To learn more about the Whitney Humanities Center, visit yale.edu/whc/.

Fall break provides travel and study opportunities

This year, Yale College adopts a new academic calendar that includes a five-day fall break for students. University officers approved the new calendar in January 2011. The new break will be held in mid-October, Wednesday to Sunday, and will offer undergraduates an opportunity to participate in faculty-led or self-guided field trips designed to enhance course curriculum and stimulate student interest in a particular area of study. The break’s five days could allow for trips ranging from local excursions in New Haven to extended travel within the United States, or possibly even abroad. Professors will now have the opportunity to make site visits with students: geology and geophysics classes could take trips to study geological formations at local quarries and road cuts, or members of the architecture and urbanism and American studies major could visit historic sites around Connecticut and Massachusetts and participate in architectural competitions. While many classes offer field trips during the spring break in March, the new vacation may allow for additional trips through which students can engage firsthand with course material outside of the classroom.