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Below is the complete list of suggestions from the magazine and our alumni readers for names of the two new residential colleges Yale may decide to build. Click here to add your own suggestions to the list.
Brewster College and Giamatti College
Rufie Blake College Alice Rufie Jordan Blake, 1886LLB, got into the Yale Law School on a technicality: she applied using only her initials. The school then tightened its rules to expressly bar women; as a result, she remained the only woman graduate of the Law School until 1920. Writing to suggest Blake and her fellow pioneer Josephine Miles Lewis (see below), Liza Grandia '95 says, "The courage and valor these women showed in getting degrees from an unwelcoming bastion of patriarchy are surely worth honoring."
Jane Matilda Bolin College The first African American woman admitted to the Yale Law School, Jane Bolin '31LLB (1908-2007) went on to be a family court judge in New York for 40 years. She was the first black woman judge in the United States. (Suggested by Harold Levine '78)
Edward Bouchet College As a corrective to the ten colleges named for white men (eight of them slaveholders), why not name one for the first African American to earn a BA at Yale? Edward Bouchet '74, '76PhD (1852-1918), was also the first African American to earn a PhD anywhere.
A twofer, like Cambridge's Gonville and Caius College. A name honoring William Sloane Coffin Jr. '49 (1924-2006) and Kingman Brewster '41 (1919-1988) would celebrate the sea change in Yale's character over which the two controversial men presided. As a side benefit, it would keep this magazine's Letters editor supplied for years to come.
Harvey Cushing College Elliott M. Marcus '54 suggests his fellow physician Harvey Cushing '95 (1869-1939), "a graduate of Yale College who went on to essentially found neurosurgery in America." Cushing spent the last years of his career at Yale and gave his collection of books to the medical school, which named its library in his honor. (He also gave the school a collection of dozens of brains in jars of formaldehyde. They are still awaiting display.)
Emily Dickinson College What does the poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) have to do with Yale? Well, her father, Edward, was a graduate of the Class of 1823. That's good enough for reader Lawrence N. DiCostanzo '67. "She was not a judge, investor, or doctor," writes DiCostanzo. "But poets are much more rare. Besides, her voice is still with us."
Theophilus Eaton College Theophilus Eaton (1590-1658) was the cofounder, with John Davenport, of the New Haven Colony. A prosperous businessman, Eaton was the colony's first governor; he more or less ran the secular side of things while Davenport attended to the colonist's souls. (He was also Elihu Yale's step-grandfather.) He was nomonated by Sharon Noble Eaton of Guilford, Connecticut.
Murray Gell-Mann College Can a college be named after a living person? If so, Michael Humphreys suggests Murray Gell-Mann '48 (b. 1929), the noted physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1969 for his work on elementary particles. Gell-Mann was a child prodigy who entered Yale at 15 and had a PhD from MIT by the time he was 22.
Josiah Willard Gibbs College Perhaps the most influential scientist ever to graduate from Yale, Josiah Willard Gibbs '58, '63PhD (1839-1903), spent nearly his entire career at the university, where he authored major laws of thermodynamics. "He's been called by historians the greatest American scientist," writes Robert H. O'Connor '45W-'48.
Annie Goodrich College Annie Warburton Goodrich (1866-1954) is known at Yale as the founding dean of the School of Nursing, which she led from 1923 to 1934. Before that, she served as organizing dean of the Army School of Nursing in World War I. She is in the hall of fame of the American Nursing Association, which called her " a crusader and diplomat among nurses." (Suggested by Richard Mooney '47)
Nathan Hale College Yale's fondness for Nathan Hale (1755-1776) makes one wonder why his name was passed up when the earlier colleges were built. Kent Chen '92 makes a case for the Revolutionary spy from the Class of 1773: "It is time to elevate Mr. Hale from a mere statue in Old Campus and give him the recognition he richly deserves."
Grace Hopper College Grace Hopper (1906-1992), who earned her doctorate in math and physics from Yale in 1934, was a rear admiral in the Navy and a computer pioneer. She famously traced a problem in an early Navy computer to a trapped moth, which she mounted in a log book with the notation "first actual case of a bug being found." So the college intramural nickname (go Bugs!) is ready-made.
Charles Ives College Composer Charles Ives '98 (1874-1954) combined traditional American music with twentieth-century dissonance and atonality -- all while running an insurance company. Ethan Hill '80 writes that a college named for Ives would honor "his contribution to twentieth-century music and Yale's commitment to the fine arts."
Josephine Miles Lewis College A painter, Josephine Miles Lewis '91BFA (1865-1959) was the first recipient of the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Yale. The School of Fine Arts, open to women from its founding in 1869, was Yale's first coeducational school.
Sinclair Lewis College Elliott M. Marcus '54 nominates Sinclair Lewis '08 (1885-1951), the first American -- and the only Yale alumnus -- to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Lewis, who shined a harsh light on Middle America in books such as Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, might stand for what Lewis Lapham '56 has called Yale's "spirit of remonstrance and dissent."
Saunders Mac Lane College You may never have heard of Saunders Mac Lane '30 (1909-2005), but if you had a degree in mathematical finance like Michael Humphreys '83, you'd know that he was "one of the greatest theoretical mathematicians and leaders in mathematics education of the twentieth century." Mac Lane, who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, was a cofounder of what is called category theory.
Lafayette Mendel College Lafayette Benedict Mendel '91 (1872-1935) was a Sterling Professor of Chemistry who discovered vitamins A and B during his Yale career. He was also one of the first Jews on the Yale faculty. The suggestion comes from Richard Lafayette Herrmann '65, a relative of Mendel's who (with his brother Robert Friend Herrmann '68) donated Mendel's papers to Sterling Library.
Pauli Murray College Christina Peppard '05MAR suggests Pauli Murray '65DSL (1910-1985), one of the founders of the National Organization for Women. Murray had a remarkable career as a lawyer, professor, poet, and, late in life, the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. In addition to her earned doctorate from the Law School, Yale awarded her an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1979.
Uriah Parmelee College "Uriah Parmelee left Yale in his junior year to join the Union army. He was a radical abolitionist; for him the war was not simply about the Union, it was about what he called 'the great heart wound, Slavery.' Twice promoted in the field, his commander said he had 'never seen a braver soldier,' yet Parmelee had considered desertion because emancipation did not come fast enough for him. His war was a moral war, and he stayed because he fought, he said, for 'Freedom.' He died at Five Forks, Virginia, only a week before Lee's surrender at Appomattox. The next time Yale wants to name a residential college for someone, here would be a worthy candidate."
Gifford Pinchot College Suggesting that scientists are underrepresented among the current college namesakes, Edward Gaffney '64 nominates Gifford Pinchot '89 (1865-1946), the influential conservationist who was the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and the founder of Yale's forestry school.
Cole Porter College Is there another Yale graduate who contributed more joy and fun to the world than Cole Porter '13 (1891-1964), the composer of "Night and Day," "Let's Do It," and (of course) "Bulldog?" It would surely be Yale's most delightful, delicious, and de-lovely college.
Joseph Sheffield College Joseph Earl Sheffield (1793-1882) came to New Haven having already made his fortune in the cotton trade. He bought a building and established an endowment for what became the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale's science and engineering division from 1861 to 1956. Writes William Davison Glover '50E: "The departments and schools of science and engineering at Yale would be honored and elevated in both the university community and the general public mind" by a Sheffield College.
Gertrude Stein College One of the twentieth century's most influential women in the fields of literature and art, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) had little connection to Yale before she left her papers (and those of her partner Alice B. Toklas) to the university. The Stein and Toklas papers are now an important holding of the Beinecke Library. Noting the dearth of women suggested by readers, Harold Levine '78 nominated Stein.
Swensen College John Wesley '96 thinks chief investment officer David Swensen '80PhD is college-worthy. Under Swensen's management, the university's portfolio has grown from $1.3 billion to $18 billion since 1985. Wesley sees Swensen -- who might have been a billionaire if he had used his talents in private business -- as "the embodiment of dedication to Yale."
William Howard Taft College We hesitate to bring up any of the four recent U.S. presidents to graduate from Yale, but history has had time to judge William Howard Taft '78 (1857-1930). He was the only person to be both president of the United States and chief justice of the Supreme Court, and he taught at Yale Law School between those two gigs.
Roosevelt Thompson College Jeff Orleans '67 reminds us of "a brilliant and extraordinarily caring and inspirational graduate": Roosevelt Thompson '84 (1962-1984), a Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas who died in a car accident in the spring of his senior year. Though his life was short, Thompson seemed to make an impression on everyone he met, including Bill Clinton '73JD, for whom Thompson worked as a gubernatorial intern. A branch library in Little Rock was named for him in 2004.
Noah Webster College It's surprising the campus has done so little to commemorate Noah Webster '78 (1758-1843), Yale's most ubiquitous man of letters. Without Webster's Americanized English, we'd still be sending people to gaol; surely he's worthy of the honour.
Yung Wing College Ben Lee '92, '99MA, suggests that a college be named for the first Chinese student to graduate from Yale -- or any American university. Yung Wing '54 (1828-1912) went on to organize the Chinese Educational Mission, which brought 120 Chinese students to America in the 1870s and sparked Yale's long history of engagement with China. |
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