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Light & Verity
February
2002
Levin
Breaks Ranks to Oppose Early Decision
Six years
ago, Yale joined the growing number of selective colleges that offered
a binding early-decision program to applicants. Now, as the number
of early applicants continues to rise and as colleges fill an increasing
percentage of their classes from the early decision pool, President
Richard Levin believes the practice has gone too far.
In an
interview with the New York Times in December, Levin said
he believed colleges should agree to abandon early decision. "If
we all got rid of it, it would be a good thing," Levin told the Times. "It pushes the pressure of thinking about college
back into the junior year of high school, and the only one who benefits
is the admissions office."
Under
a binding early decision plan, students apply early to their first-choice
college and find out by mid-December if they have been admitted.
If they have, they are obligated to attend that college. The rush
to apply early has been fueled by the belief among students and
counselors that applying early increases one's chance of being accepted.
A recent Harvard study supports this idea, demonstrating that applying early is comparable to adding 100 points to a student's SAT score.
Although early decision can benefit applicants who are certain about their
college choice -- if they are admitted, they don't have to apply
to other schools or wait until April to learn of their fate -- early
decision has been criticized by many people involved in the admissions
process because it forces students to make college decisions earlier
and discriminates against those who need to compare financial aid
packages. The Harvard study also noted that students from private
schools and more privileged public schools are more likely to know
about the advantages of applying early than those in less competitive
schools.
But early
decision helps colleges by getting more of the work of admissions
done sooner -- Yale fills more than a third of its classes with early-decision candidates -- and by improving their "yield" statistic
(the percentage of admitted students who matriculate -- a factor
in college ranking systems).
Levin's
statement brought wide attention to the issue of early decision.
Many counselors and admissions officers voiced their support, and
the Times editorialized that Levin had "picked a just battle"
and that early decision "does far more harm than good." But some
college officials, including Columbia president George Rupp and
University of Pennsylvania president Judith Rodin, said they favored early decision. Levin says that Yale will not act unilaterally to end the practice, but that he hopes to persuade other college presidents
to take up the issue.
Student
Charged In Beinecke Theft
According
to police in Connecticut and Wisconsin, a college student managed
to steal nearly $2 million worth of rare documents from the Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library while working there as a summer employee last year. Benjamin W. Johnson, 21, who is a student at
the University of Wisconsin, was charged in November with 12 counts
of first-degree larceny and 11 counts of criminal mischief after
police found more than 50 stolen items in his parents' Hamden, Connecticut,
home and his dormitory room. Valuable signatures had been cut out
of some of the documents so that they might be sold separately.
Johnson
first fell under suspicion when he sold an original signature by
George Washington to Philadelphia collector Catherine Barnes for
$3,750. Barnes said she was surprised by the condition of the signature,
which was far more pristine than those usually in circulation. When
Johnson offered to sell her other cut signatures, she contacted
authorities in Wisconsin. When approached by police, Johnson led
them to a stash of manuscripts, maps, and letters in his dormitory
room. Police also found at least one fossil in the Johnson home
that they said was missing from the Kline Geology Laboratory, where
Johnson had worked in 1996 and 1998.
Johnson,
who is free on bond, could face up to 240 years in prison if convicted
on all counts. Beinecke officials would not say how Johnson was
able to remove the items from the library, but they did say that
security has been "enhanced" since the crimes occurred.
Dean
Resigns Amid Divinity Dispute
Tension
between Yale officials and the Berkeley Divinity
School over the School's future came to a head in December as
Berkeley dean R. William Franklin resigned to take a position at
the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Three months earlier, President
Levin had confronted the Berkeley board of trustees with the results
of a University audit that alleged the School was not conforming
to University financial policies.
The audit
report, which was obtained by the Hartford Courant in December,
alleged that Franklin had received perks from Berkeley that were
not authorized by the University. But Berkeley board chairman Christian
Sonne says that the board "concluded that none of the issues identified
by the auditors involved was a cause for punitive action." The Right
Rev. Paul Moore '41, the retired Episcopal bishop of New York and
a former senior fellow of the Yale Corporation, wrote in a letter
to the New York Times that Franklin is "a man of great integrity
and one of the finest leaders of the Episcopal Church."
Sonne
said Berkeley has commissioned an independent audit by the firm
of Deloitte & Touche to insure that its practices will conform
to Yale's in the future. Meanwhile, Connecticut attorney general
Richard
Blumenthal said in late December that his office would investigate
the School's finances to determine if any charitable donations were
misused.
Once
a freestanding Episcopal seminary, Berkeley became formally affiliated
with the nondenominational Yale Divinity School in 1971. Since then,
it has had neither its own faculty nor its own students, although
it has a separate board of trustees and its own endowment. Berkeley,
which is still an accredited Episcopal seminary, offers a Diploma
in Anglican Studies to Episcopal students in the Divinity School.
Franklin
oversaw a capital campaign that raised $3 million to remodel two
pavilions in the Sterling
Divinity Quadrangle as a Berkeley chapel and administrative
offices. In November, the University said it wanted to change the
16-year-old affiliation agreement between the institutions, giving
Yale sole authority to appoint Berkeley's dean. If Berkeley's board
does not agree to the new condition, it could choose to end its
formal affiliation with YDS and become an unofficial extracurricular
center for Episcopal students. And in December, President Levin
told the Berkeley board that the University was canceling the plan
for Berkeley to move into the Divinity Quadrangle.
In further
fallout from the audit, YDS facilities manager Krishna Ramsundar
was arrested in January on charges that he kept $16,000 in rent
payments from students.
College
May Offer Minors (Sort of)
Two years
ago, when Yale was evaluated for reaccreditation, the team of visitors
from the New England
Association of Schools and Colleges noted with some concern
the proliferation of majors in Yale College. They suggested that
a system allowing students to choose a second subject as a minor
might be of greater use to the student body. Now, the College faculty
is following up by considering a proposal to create a "correlated
program" that would allow students to study a subject related to
their major without the burden of a double major.
The idea
would not allow students to minor in any subject, as is possible
at some colleges. The correlated programs would be offered only
in certain new interdisciplinary fields, and only to students who
were majoring in a related subject. In the first such proposal under
consideration, students majoring in certain subjects could participate
in a correlated program in urban studies. The selective program
would have its own advisers, seminars, and a supervisory committee.
If it is approved, the program could be in place by the fall. Future
proposals for other correlated programs will be reviewed -- as was
this one -- by the College's Committee on Majors.
Urban
studies has seen increasing student interest in recent years. A
faculty committee on the subject was formed in 1999, and a catalog
of courses related to cities and urbanism is published annually.
Professor of political science Cynthia Farrar, who heads the faculty
committee, says that urban studies is a good candidate for correlated-program
status. "We were pretty clear that we don't want to be a major,"
says Farrar, "because urban studies is not really an academic discipline,
and we think that majoring in a discipline is a good thing."
Admissions
Info Moving to Web
Perhaps
no demographic group is more at home on the Internet than college-bound
students, which means that more and more, the battle among colleges
for the hearts and minds of high school seniors is being fought
online. Yale fired two new salvos in December: an Internet-based
system to report admissions decisions and the first phase of an
online "tour" of Yale.
This
year's early-decision applicants were the first to find out online
whether they were admitted, deferred, or rejected, using a password
that had been e-mailed to them in advance of December 15, when the
decisions were posted online (and when the more traditional thick
and thin envelopes were mailed). Those who were admitted were sent
to a Web page custom-built with links to match their interests and e-mail contacts for students from their areas. Within two days,
1,800 of 2,100 early-decision candidates had viewed their personalized
pages.
The online
tour (www.yale.edu/about/tour.html),
launched at the same time as the online reporting system, allows
prospective students to check out the inner workings of a residential
college, experience the changing seasons in New Haven, and look
at 360-degree panoramas of selected campus spots.
"Most
other online campus tours literally lead you from building to building,"
says University Printer John Gambell, who supervised the design
of the site by the New York graphic design firm 2x4.
"Our paradigm was more magazine than tour, coming out of the observation
that our audience is tuned into magazines oriented toward their
interests."
The first
phase focuses on Yale as a place. Gambell says that future additions
will include information on freshman year, academics, and College
activities.
Marriage
Styles Affect Life Span
While
scientists have shown that married people tend to live longer, healthier,
and happier lives than men and women outside of matrimony, a trio
of Yale investigators recently demonstrated that when it comes to
helping ensure the well-being of husbands and wives, not all unions
are created equal.
"There's
clearly a protective style of marriage," says Roni Beth Tower '80PhD,
a researcher at the School of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH),
"and it's not a politically correct style."
In a
study that will be published next month in the journal Psychosomatic
Medicine, Tower, along with EPH professor Stanislav Kasl
and statistician Amy Derefsky, examined the impact of four different
types of what they termed "marital closeness" on the likelihood
that members of 305 couples would die within six years. Each person
in the study was over the age of 65 and had been surveyed earlier
as part of the landmark Yale Health
and Aging Project of nearly 3,000 elderly residents of New Haven.
The researchers established closeness by examining the answers to two survey questions
that asked each couple member to name the person he or she would
turn to as confidant or for emotional support. Contrary to contemporary
notions about marital bliss, men and women fared better in marriages
in which the wife named her husband but the husband didn't name
his wife. According to the study, this style of marriage had a major
impact on longevity (the researchers found that the effect was strongest
among wives who had children). In marriages with other naming combinations,
husbands were 3.3 to 4.7 times more likely to be dead in six years.
Tower emphasized that while the men in the most protective marriage style
were not "sensitive, New Age-type guys," they were hardly emotionally
distant. They were good listeners and dependable providers.
"Men
and women experience closeness differently," says Tower. "She's
able to lean on him, and being needed seems to keep husbands alive.
It's a very romantic view of love, and it tells us to respect the
fundamental differences between the sexes. Attempting to make men
behave more like women is a terrible mistake -- the data suggest
that it can also be a life-shortening mistake."
A
Solemn Tour Of Ground Zero
Calhoun
College master William Sledge says that the events of September
11 had a palpable effect on his students -- some became more withdrawn,
while others seemed to be involved in more confrontations. When
Sledge, a professor of psychiatry, shared these observations with
Ben Zitron '59, Zitron came up with an idea he thought might help.
On December 13, some 50 Calhoun students and several members of
the Class of 1959 boarded two buses to New York to see for themselves
the devastation at the World Trade Center site.
For four
years, the Class of 1959 and Calhoun have had what Sledge calls
"the most amazing relationship." The Class has adopted Calhoun,
providing assistance ranging from financial contributions to career
advice. Zitron asked his class to fund a trip to Ground Zero and
arranged for the group to have special access to the site. "I thought
the students might benefit from seeing the purpose and dedication
of the people who are slogging away at Ground Zero," says Zitron.
"Maybe they'll find some relation to their own lives."
The visitors
were escorted to the newly built viewing platform by Paul Iannizzotto,
a firefighter who was at the Trade Center when the buildings collapsed.
He spoke of the work at the scene from both a professional and personal
standpoint. "I'm on site every day; I still don't get used to it,"
said Iannizzotto.
A
Rush to the CIA? Not Exactly
In the
weeks after September 11, it was noted with satisfaction in some
quarters that the Central
Intelligence Agency was popular again on college campuses --
particularly Yale's. Newspapers and magazines offered reports of
Elis crowding around the CIA table at job fairs and suggested that
seniors were turning away from jobs in the business world and setting
their sights on public service.
The only
trouble is, it's not happening, notes Philip Jones, director of
the office of Undergraduate
Career Services. "We're not seeing large numbers of students
who say they've changed their minds and are considering public service,"
says Jones. "The CIA did well at our nonprofit career fair, but
they always do well."
Jones
says that the recent economic downturn has changed the plans of
some graduating seniors, but the number interested in the public
sector -- about 30 percent of the class -- has remained the same.
What has changed, Jones says, is the number going into the business
world, especially since corporate recruiting visits are down by
25 percent. "When there is a downturn, students who might have gone
into the corporate sector will go to law school instead," he says,
adding that the number of students taking the LSAT
is up 20 percent.
So why
the media buzz about Yale and the CIA? Jones doesn't know, but he
said he had gotten a number of calls about it. "I tell them it's
a non-story," he says. "To say that no one has changed their plans
would be foolish. But we're not seeing anything like a mass movement."
Rough
Riders
Forget
ice hockey. Imagine going three-on-three in an indoor arena where
checking is allowed -- on horseback. That is intercollegiate polo,
the indoor cousin of the sport of kings and a game that is said
to rank with auto racing among the most dangerous sports. The game
has been played at Yale since 1920, when the ROTC used it to train
cavalry officers. Since then, Yale has won more championships than
any other college. As in football, the days of Yale's dominance
of the sport are long gone -- polo has not been a varsity sport
here since the 1970s -- but both men and women still come out to
play.
"Yale
had the first woman playing intercollegiate polo," says team member
Alexandra Redding '02. "Daniel Wallace, who was coach in 1972, put
graduate student Debbie Lee '72MArch into a men's game against Harvard.
The next year, Yale formed the first women's team, and they won
the first women's championship in 1976." Redding has been documenting
the history of Yale
polo in hopes of making the University community aware of its
long tradition here.
Redding
and other team members are also working to rebuild the team's network
of alumni support, which has fallen off in recent years. That support
is crucial, Redding says, in persuading Yale to renovate and expand
the polo
and equestrian facilities near the Yale Bowl, a goal toward
which the polo team is working with the equestrian team. The polo
team's largest source of funding is the celebrated Harriman Cup,
an annual see-and-be-seen event in Darien, Connecticut, where Yale
and Virginia alumni play for bragging rights.
Despite
the visibility of such events, Yale team members reject the popular
view of polo as a sport for plutocratic WASPs. "I'm fascinated by
how little our team fits the stereotype," says Catherine Pitt '04,
the team's publicity director. "It's very eclectic. Not everybody's
white, and not everybody's male. The people are actually a bit quirky."
Many of them never played polo before coming to Yale. (The children
of polo-playing families now tend to favor Cornell or UVA over Yale.)
Few people
are even aware of the teams' existence, but to those who play, says
Redding, "it's extremely addictive. I've never been an obsessive
athlete, but I can't get enough of this game."  |
