School Notes: Yale College
November/December 2015

A conversation about Calhoun College

President Peter Salovey and Dean Jonathan Holloway, in their addresses to first-year students, invited the freshmen, then the entire Yale community, to join a conversation about the name of Calhoun College. President Salovey framed the conversation by saying that it was prompted by the Charleston murders earlier in the summer that had led the South Carolina legislature to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol, and Dean Holloway placed the conversation in its broader historical context, focusing not only on John Calhoun but also on Yale’s founder, Elihu Yale. The texts of both addresses, a form for submitting responses, and related images and events appear on Yale College’s website. (President Salovey’s address also appears in this issue; see page 51.) The dean and the president, in inviting the entire campus to join the conversation, said, “We also hope to educate not just the public, but ourselves.”

Yale and MAD announce food project

Yale University and MAD, a Danish nonprofit dedicated to improving food culture, have formed a partnership to develop a new leadership institute for chefs. This program, to be piloted next spring at Yale, will help create and curate new discussions among leading chefs as their influence continues to develop past the walls of the restaurant. The program will draw on the work of the Yale Sustainable Food Program, which runs two teaching farms on campus, and supports a range of curricular and extracurricular study. The program connects students from across academic disciplines to opportunities for study and practice in food, health, and the environment. The program will feature lectures, workshops, and discussion seminars, as well as visits to nearby farms, kitchens, and food system innovations and innovators. With faculty mentorship from Yale and other institutions and organizations, participants will engage controversial and complex issues with critical academic rigor.