Yale-NUS College
The Singapore college
I first learned of the official closure of the Yale-NUS College in Singapore from a taxi driver while attending a wedding in Singapore last July (“Twelve years in Singapore,” July/August). The taxi driver’s daughter attended Yale-NUS, and he was beaming with pride at her accomplishments. The curriculum was inspired, he said, with two rigorous years devoted to the Common Curriculum, a shared roster of courses in philosophy, history, literature, and the sciences that every Yale-NUS student took as foundation for their studies.
His daughter and her friends agreed with Pericles Lewis, Yale-NUS founding president and current dean of Yale College, that there was a “collective effervescence” about the robust academic experiment taking place on the campus. I shared with our driver my own gratitude at taking part in the Directed Studies program as an undergraduate at Yale, beautifully similar to the Common Curriculum, before majoring in Southeast Asian studies following a year of travel in Southeast Asia. The Yale-NUS collaboration offered a shining opportunity to be a creative laboratory for what it means to be a rich liberal arts education.
Pericles Lewis and all involved with the project should be rightly proud of what they accomplished. The taxi driver and I were saddened by the ending of the project but heartened by the lessons learned. The twelve years in Singapore are now a part of Yale history as the college continues to encourage creativity, support enthusiasm in the sciences, and encourage innovation, all the while remaining respectful of our deep debt to thinkers and ideas upon which our civilization is built.
Marc Dummit ’76
Kennebunk, ME
During the first decade of this century, I enjoyed some of the most rewarding moments of my life while teaching in lecture halls and leading tutorial sessions in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the National University of Singapore. For this reason, I find both utterly inaccurate and terribly unfair the magazine’s characterization of Singapore’s system of higher education before the arrival of the Yale-NUS College as one marked by a “premium on memorization,” whereby there was “one right answer to each question.” In fact, such misinformed commentary reflects the broad lack of a commitment to understanding Singapore and its society that marked Yale’s participation in its misadventure in that country from the very start.
Speaking in Tokyo a year or so ago, then-president Peter Salovey remarked that a rigorous postmortem on that misadventure was warranted. One awaits the publication of the resulting report with curiosity greater than Yale ever demonstrated in Singapore.
Michael Montesano ’83
Tokyo, Japan
I read with interest the article about the end of the Yale-NUS College. When this was initially proposed by President Levin, I did not see the benefit to Yale. While the costs were to be paid by Singapore, it seemed to me that Yale was still putting in substantial time and effort by both administrative staff and faculty with little direct benefit for the undergraduates or graduate students in New Haven. Also, the Yale name would be tied to an institution that Yale did not fully control.
Just 12 years later, Singapore has pulled the plug on funding and Yale-NUS will be no more. The operation has been a lame duck since 2021. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is to focus on the many challenges of operating Yale University and not to engage in efforts that distract from providing the best all-around education to those who attend.
Joseph Kasimer ’72
Annandale, VA
“Twelve Years in Singapore” touches only briefly on the extraordinary curriculum developed at Yale-NUS College under the brilliant leadership of Bryan Garsten, professor of political science and of humanities. That foundation, and the collaborative, student-focused faculty whom founding president Pericles Lewis attracted and inspired, underlie my very positive impressions of the institution when I visited and interviewed leaders, teachers, and students for “An Educated Core” (Harvard Magazine, July-August 2017). Research universities like Yale and Harvard, which aspire to excellence in undergraduate education, still have a great deal to learn from Garsten’s curriculum and from the resulting sequence of interdisciplinary, core courses as very effectively taught at Yale-NUS.
It is encouraging to note in the same issue that Garsten is directing the new Yale Center for Civic Thought (Campus Clips, July/August). His continuing contributions merit a full profile in a future issue, given the disastrous state of public discourse in this and other countries today—the theme at the center of President Maurie McInnis’s baccalaureate address. And Lewis’s current service as Yale College dean may advance the cause, at least in New Haven.
With Garsten, Lewis, and McInnis focused on pertinent scholarship and education in the face of this crisis for democracy and for constructive exchanges within the academy, Yale faculty members and students may continue to benefit from the experiment with NUS, whatever Singapore’s reasons for moving on. That would be a good return on the university’s intellectual investment.
John S. Rosenberg ’75
Lexington, MA
Rosenberg is a former editor of Harvard Magazine.—Eds.
More on faculty diversity
If anyone wonders how the Ivy League ended up in the crosshairs of the current administration, there is no better place to look than the letters in the last Yale Alumni Magazine (Letters, July/August). The Buckley Institute found that Democrats on Yale’s faculty comprise 77 percent of the total while Republicans make up only 3 percent. In the social sciences and the humanities, the ratio jumped to 78 to 1.
Instead of acknowledging the problem, one Yale alumnus responded to this fact by resorting to attacks on all Republicans. The essence of his argument is that conservatives are too dumb for Yale. The attitude that only progressives are intelligent—dominant at elite institutions like Yale and exemplified by his letter—undermines trust in higher education and energizes efforts to crack down on the university.
The Ivy League could have avoided many of its current challenges. The Halloween costume incident, the shout down of a panel on free speech, the encampments, and countless other incidents in between should have galvanized Yale and its peers to action. Instead, the idea that progressives know best made progress all but impossible. Groupthink makes self-reflection very difficult.
To fulfill its mission of Lux et Veritas, Yale must work toward an environment that welcomes diverse views and free speech. Both are critical to the unfettered pursuit of knowledge.
Lauren Noble ’11
New Haven, CT
Noble is executive director of the Buckley Institute.—Eds.
I have to admit a certain delight in reading the letters from the numerous apologists for the complete absence of ideological diversity in Yale’s faculty, as detailed by the Buckley Institute and others. This seems of a piece with the blindered and arrogant disdain for the “other” that has hurt the Democrats in recent elections. I mean, who needs Republicans?
But with Buckley reporting, from a 2023 survey, that half of Yale’s students believe that “Yale is unwelcoming to students who hold political opinions that are unpopular on campus,” perhaps having an all-Democrat faculty, although popular with many alumni, is not ideal for students.
Brian J. Fenton ’75
Atlanta, GA
Trust in higher ed
In the July/August 2025 issue, a Campus Clip noted the public’s growing distrust of higher education and reported that President McInnis appointed a faculty committee to investigate. I commend her desire to get answers, but I doubt this committee is the way to do it, because faculties are too much a part of that which needs investigating, and no group should be asked to investigate itself. Instead, since this issue goes well beyond Yale, she should ask other university presidents to join her in hiring objective outsiders to lead this effort, possibly a law firm or a group of retired judges, pollsters, and/or investigative journalists.
Jim Staffaroni ’68
Shelton, CT
Rudolph Hall remembered
I was taken by the image of the newly conceived mace representing the School of Architecture in this year’s commencement procession (Light and Verity, July/August). It presents a scaled impression of Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture building, opened in 1963, and printed with 3D modeling software. The building, boastful of its monolithic concrete massing with fenestration of lattice-like facets, became a wellspring of discontent when first open. June 14, 2025, represents the 56th anniversary of the devastating fire in the Art and Architecture building that displaced students and teachers working in the building at the time as well as those arriving for the fall semester.
That September, I arrived in New Haven to begin studies in the School of Art as a graduate student. The fire represented a burgeoning societal upheaval that rose in temperature during our brief residency in New Haven and in the rest of the country. We were scattered around the city occupying underused buildings owned by the university as studios and workspace. The School of Architecture moved to facilities near Ingalls Rink. In my experience, a feeling of uncertainty and dispiriting isolation prevailed in the School of Art graduate programs, impacting focus and well-being. The campus was on edge with the Vietnam War, a controversial Black Panther trial, and rounds of protest.
After a makeshift renovation of the upper floors of the A&A Building, occupancy resumed in the fall of 1970. While the mace has emerged as a symbol used in processions and ceremonial events, a symbol of institutional authority, yet historically an instrument of war, and combat, Rudolph Hall, as it is now named and recently restored, was then a symbol of institutional authority in disarray. It is encouraging now to see Rudolph’s building highlighted in a new respectful atmosphere. For me, it exists as a complex, naturalistic, crystalline form rendered from a single, humble material, willful and impervious to whatever slings and arrows it has deflected since 1963.
Dan Hill ’71MFA
Brooklyn, NY
Voices heard
I am responding to a column written by then-editor Kathrin Day Lassila, entitled “Lifting Their Voices” (From the Editor, July/August 2023). Her article reviewed Dana Rubin’s recent book, Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women. The book sounded so very provocative and necessary that I immediately purchased a copy online and read it cover to cover.
Out of curiosity, I searched the collections of my local libraries and could find no copies, which was not surprising as it was a new publication. I was, however, disturbed that there was not even any awareness of this important new publication among staff. Needless to say, I requested that copies be purchased for their collections, and I’m happy to say that they were soon available on the shelves.
Jennifer Harper ’03PhD
Vancouver, WA
Institutional memory
In your most recent magazine, the photo of Judy Schiff’s gravestone (Letters, July/August) and an appeal for information on the Morse dining hall mystery (Object Lesson, July/August) struck a chord in me. Judy’s combing of Yale’s archives for her Old Yale column was essential to its phenomenal success and longevity. At the same time, the need to ask alumni for their memories regarding the fiber sculpture in Morse reminds us all that archives at Yale would not exist without the efforts of students, faculty, administrators, and alumni in giving serious thought to preservation. The repository for all things relating to Yale—records of art works, posters for a campus protest, photographs of student events, department websites, copies of the output from campus printing presses—is Manuscripts & Archives. Our memories are short-lived, but archives are not.
Jennifer Julier ’77
Hamden, CT
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Correction
The July/August School Notes from the Divinity School referred to Henri Nouwen, who taught at the school from 1971 to 1981, as a Jesuit priest. He was a Catholic priest, but he was not a member of the Jesuit order.
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