School Notes: Yale College
September/October 2015

Schwarzman Center to be student hub

A major renovation of Yale’s historic Commons and Memorial Hall, made possible by a $150 million gift from Stephen A. Schwarzman ’69, will transform the buildings into a world-class campus center dedicated to cultural programming and student life at the center of the university. The gift also includes a significant commitment for programming in the center, which will be designed to draw together students and faculty from all of Yale’s schools and colleges. An advisory committee will organize opportunities for input at each of the schools and in the residential colleges in the early fall.

New directors for cultural centers

Three campus cultural centers are welcoming new directors this fall. Risë Nelson Burrow, previously director of the Student Success Program at Cornell, has been appointed director of the Afro-American Cultural Center; Eileen Galvez, former assistant director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Illinois Wesleyan University, has been appointed director of La Casa Cultural; and Kelly Fayard, who was assistant professor of anthropology at Bowdoin and Bowdoin’s faculty representative for the Native American Student Association, has been appointed director of the Native American Cultural Center. The appointments come at a time of increased support for the centers, which will now have direct supervision from the newly appointed Associate Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Student Engagement Burgwell Howard.

Classics scholar named Branford dean

Sarah E. Insley has been appointed dean of Branford College. Ms. Insley earned a bachelor of arts degree summa cum laude in Greek and Latin and in medieval studies from Catholic University of America and a PhD in classics (Byzantine Greek) from Harvard. At Harvard, she taught courses in the Department of Classics at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and won an award for teaching excellence. In 2013 she was awarded an ACLS New Faculty Fellowship, which she held at Brown University, where she taught courses ranging from a seminar for freshman students to an independent study for graduate students.