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Quoted
November/December 2012
We Skype sex because she lives in TD and that’s too far away.
—an unnamed person overheard and quoted on Twitter by Rumpus, the undergraduate tabloid, on September 20. (Any unusual sound you may be hearing is a collective sigh from pre-coeducation alumni, who used to drive to Poughkeepsie just in hopes of a slow dance.)
September/October 2012
I would like for Geronimo’s skull to be united with his body. Geronimo is my kinsman.
—Amos Dailey, a Native American from Arizona, quoted in the July 27 New Haven Register. Dailey came to New Haven to pray in front of the Skull and Bones building for several days.
Skull and Bones members claimed in 1918 that they had stolen Geronimo’s skull (see “Whose Skull and Bones?” May/June 2006). Whether the skull is still there, and whether it really was Geronimo’s, are in question.
July/August 2012
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
expresses profound regret that a member of an Institute of Consecrated Life,
Sr. Margaret A. Farley, RSM, affirms positions that are in direct contradiction
with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality. The Congregation warns
the faithful that her book Just Love: A Framework for Christian
Sexual Ethics is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church.
Consequently it cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching,
either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious
dialogue.
—from a June 4 notification issued by the Vatican on a 2006 book by Sr. Margaret Farley ’73PhD, a professor emerita of Christian
ethics at the Yale Divinity School. The notification cited the book’s
discussions of marriage and homosexuality, among other things.
The book was not intended to be an expression of
current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this
teaching. … I fear the Notification … misrepresents (perhaps unwittingly) the aims of my work and the nature of it as a proposal that might be in service of, not against, the church and its faithful people.
—from Farley’s statement responding to the
notification.
May/June 2012
I am writing to state, in the strongest possible
terms, that police surveillance based on religion, nationality, or peacefully
expressed political opinions is antithetical to the values of Yale, the
academic community, and the United States.
—Yale President Richard Levin ’74PhD, in a February 20
message to the Yale community after it was revealed that the New York Police
Department had monitored the websites of several college Muslim Student
Associations, including Yale’s.
I don’t know why keeping the country safe is
antithetical to the values of Yale. Yale’s freedoms to do research, to teach,
to give people a place to say what they want to say is defended by the law
enforcement throughout this country.
—New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, responding to
Levin’s remarks at a February 21 press conference.
March/April 2012
In the past, many students in the lecture were doing Facebook or e-mail or all kinds of things on their computers, so for me it’s better if there’s a room where that is not possible.
History of art professor Alexander Nemerov ’92PhD, in the Yale Daily News, explaining his decision to teach his popular Introduction to the History of Art course in the Art Gallery’s McNeil Auditorium—which has no wireless Internet access. The alternative was the Law School auditorium, which is larger but has wi-fi. Nemerov’s decision meant capping the class’s enrollment at 270.
January/February 2012
Princeton has a slight leg up over Yale, which has a slight advantage over Harvard, though they are all pretty comparable. The larger point is that an insane proportion of the New York Times wedding section is given over to graduates from these three schools. When we add up all three schools, we find 18 percent of people who appeared in the wedding section had a degree from at least one of them, compared with 0.18 percent of the US population.
—“The Odds of Getting Into the New York Times Wedding Section,” an article on the Atlantic Wire, December 1. Having parents from Greenwich, Connecticut; being a congressional staffer, elite lawyer, or investment banker; and marrying someone of the same sex were also found to increase one’s chances.
November/December 2011
I had no idea what was going on, but it was great.
—Lisa Viscuso, in the October 10 Yale Daily News. On
October 8, Viscuso and her husband, Raffaele, had just been married and were
posing for wedding portraits on the steps of the Branford College master’s
house when a game of bladderball erupted onto the street. Students cheered the
newlyweds as they passed. The Yale College fall bladderball tradition is now
strictly forbidden by Yale, and was broken up by police after only 11 minutes.
September/October 2011
Women my vintage never learned to brag the way many scientists do. It’s not unusual for colleagues to talk openly about their superiority or the breathtaking impact of their own work. I was uncomfortable with this kind of discourse—which a female colleague dubbed ‘combat physics.’
Girls are instead socialized to respond to others and consider their ideas. In the academic marketplace, it’s all about putting your own ideas forward. A male colleague once told me, ‘Don’t ask us what we think, don’t try to forge a consensus. Just bang on the table and tell us what to do.’ This style doesn’t come naturally to many women.
—Meg Urry, director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and chair of the physics department, in a July 19 Huffington Post column.
July/August 2011
It’s become very glamorous to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, and everyone likes to think they have some great idea.
—Keila Fong ’13 in a June 10 New York Times article about how The Social Network, last year’s hit film about the creation of Facebook, has caused a resurgence of interest in computer science on college campuses. Fong, a newly declared computer science major, helped launch an online business called The Closer Grocer, which delivers groceries to Yale dorms.
May/June 2011
I want to be the one to say, ‘You think Yale is impossible, but it’s not.’
—Timeica Bethel ’11, quoted in a March 27 Chicago Tribune article that described Bethel’s journey from a troubled Chicago housing project to Yale. She plans to return to her old neighborhood to teach next year.
March/April 2011
On Thursday, this newspaper was dismayed to learn that the Yale administration is considering banning smoking on campus. The proposal is premature, infantilizing, and wrongheaded.
—Yale Daily News editorial, January 21. The previous day’s News reported that “a committee comprising Yale Health officials, faculty, staff, and students is investigating whether a campuswide smoking ban is feasible at Yale”
January/February 2011
We are the first a cappella group in history. We invented it.
—Whiffenpoofs leader Stefan Weijola ’11, having an Al Gore moment on the NBC series The Sing-Off. The famed Yale ensemble was one of ten a cappella choirs that competed on the show; they appeared on two episodes before being eliminated.
November/December 2010
There ain’t no party like a Stiles-Morse party cuz a Stiles-Morse party don’t stop! Until the assault rifles come. Then it stops very quickly.
—from a Facebook invitation to a November party thrown by Ezra Stiles and Morse residential colleges. The previous Stiles-Morse party, on the night of October 1 at a local nightclub called Elevate, ended when New Haven police SWAT team members with assault rifles entered the club. One student was tased by police. The police department later said the club was dangerously overcrowded. Five students were charged in the incident. Thirty students have filed complaints with the city, which has promised to investigate.
September/October 2010
I am going to teach at Yale. It’s in the works. I have a very special class that I will be teaching next January.
—actor and incoming graduate student James Franco on Good Morning America, July 17
As a grad student in our program, he would not ordinarily teach until his third year. [Franco] was referring to another project: a proposal for a college seminar that did not work out for this year.
—English department chair Michael Warner, quoted on the Yale Daily News Cross Campus blog, July 23
July/August 2010
At many elite schools and for some other schools, grades have gone up because of better students, but that influence is not as significant as the fact that professors are simply grading more leniently than they ever have. … The idea that students who go to places like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton today are all vastly superior to those of years ago is without basis.
—former Duke geophysics professor Stuart Rojstaczer on the New York Times Economix blog, May 13. Rojstaczer’s comforting words for Yalies of a certain age stem from his research on university grading trends and grade inflation.
May/June 2010
Forbidding
relationships between students and faculty members who don’t even have a
significant academic relationship with one another? That seems awfully
paternalistic. We are talking about legal adults, remember. Students will
inevitably encounter power imbalances—rooted in differences in age, financial
status and so on—in their personal lives. I fail to see how it’s any of the
university’s business unless the relationship—‘damaging’ or not—has a direct
impact on a student’s academic life.
—Tracy
Clark-Flory in Salon’s Broadsheet blog on April 6,
responding to the news that Yale has banned sexual relationships between
faculty members and undergraduates
March/April 2010
The Yale Bubble is small enough as is. Don’t let President Levin make it even smaller.
—from the manifesto of a Facebook group called “Keep the New York Times in Yale’s Dining Halls.” In January, the president’s office asked the Yale College Council to assess student interest in the free copies of the Times provided in dining halls at university expense. When the YCC recommended reducing the number of copies or cutting back to Sunday only, some students voiced their objections via Facebook and an online petition. The issue had not been settled by mid-February, when this magazine went to press.
January/February 2010
I wish to protest the News’s headline ‘For some Yalies, split allegiances’ (November 17). There are and can be no split allegiances among Yalies. A person split between Yale and Harvard is with Harvard. At Yale students are taught to know where they stand.
—political science professor and Branford College master Steven Smith, in a letter to the Yale Daily News published on Thursday, November 19, two days before The Game
November/December 2009
This
is genuinely interesting subject matter that some people have never been
exposed to. It’s valuable even if it doesn’t make English majors cry.
—Christina
Cicchetti ’11, discussing Professor William Summers’s course Biology of Gender
and Human Sexuality, in the September 17 Yale Daily News. Summers stopped teaching the class
this year after a faculty committee decided undergraduates could no longer use
it to fulfill their science requirement.
September/October 2009
The critics argue that during the past year, a traditional portfolio of 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds would have lost only 13 percent of its value, rather than the 25 percent lost by the diversified portfolios of the largest [university] endowments. … Over the past ten years, Yale’s endowment realized average annual returns of 11.7 percent to reach its current value of $16 billion; a 60–40 portfolio would have earned 2.1 percent, resulting in an endowment of only $4.4 billion. The moral of the story is that universities should stick with the Swensen strategy, not abandon it now.
—President Rick Levin ’74PhD, defending the investment model of Yale CIO David Swensen ’80PhD in an August 17 Newsweek essay.
July/August 2009
It
is true that the fancier your alma mater, the more famous people you will know
when you’re 45. You, however, will not necessarily be one of those famous
people yourself. You could very easily wind up being the deputy assistant to a
person who graduated 40th in her class at Wichita Tech.
—New
York Times columnist Gail Collins on the Times’s Conversation blog, June 10, 2009
May/June 2009
They
[US Airways] employed oppressive and deceptive tactics in an attempt to
frustrate me and choke out my claim. And what’s worse is that it normally
works—people tire of the process and eventually give up. … US
Air needs to know that their deplorable license-to-steal attitude will not be
tolerated.
—Jesse
Maiman ’10, quoted in the March 23 Yale Daily News. Maiman drew both scorn and
sympathy when the Cincinnati Inquirer reported that he was suing US Airways for a million
dollars over the alleged theft of an XBox 360 video game system from his
checked luggage during his flight home to Cincinnati in December.
March/April 2009
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who’s a Yale alum,
once joked that if Osama bin Laden had gone to Yale, the alumni association
would know exactly which cave he was in.
—reporter Naomi Lewin ’74, ’80MusM, on public radio’s Marketplace, in
a February 5 story about how the Association of Yale Alumni is teaching
Australian National University the peculiarly American art of alumni relations.
January/February 2009
NYC
might be going down the toilet, but it doesn’t take a Yale scholar to realize
that nearby New Haven, Connecticut, has been sprucing itself up and actually
going a bit more upscale. To show off their assets, the city just sent a bunch
of us press whores down for its first-ever Restaurant Week of compulsive
gorging, and I came back happily looking like a Herman Melville character.
—Village
Voice gossip
columnist Michael Musto on his blog, November 20, 2008
November/December 2008
King-size
bed, air conditioning, wireless, big television. We even get chocolates on our
pillow!
—Lesley
Kiger ’10, in the September New Journal, describing the benefits of being exiled to the Omni
Hotel. Kiger was one of the “Omni 15,” a group of students in Jonathan Edwards
College whose rooms were not ready at the beginning of the semester after the
college underwent a 15-month renovation.
September/October 2008
It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few
holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes
needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a
short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and
I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone
like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so
mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few
minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher
education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and
stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness.
—William Deresiewicz, a former associate professor of
English at Yale, from “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” an essay in
the American Scholar, Summer 2008
July/August 2008
Now, this paper was about fifty pages long. And
there were extensive footnotes citing French, German, and Italian material. … Clearly, then, it wasn’t the kind of thing an 18-year-old could have
written—even one who spoke a little French. Once again, though, I got an "A."
Either Betty was too stupid to recognize the larceny (my assumption at the
time), or—having recognized it—too lazy to bring me up on charges. Or too
indifferent. Or too kind. Or maybe, I now realize, she never read it.
—literary critic and University of Iowa English professor Kevin
Kopelson ’79, in the May 22 London Review of Books, describing the time he submitted a graduate-school
paper, written by his brother, for an undergraduate music class at Yale.
("Betty" is a pseudonym for his Yale professor.)
May/June 2008
We have already experienced something that looks very much like a carbon tax, and a very large one. … In 2002, the price of crude oil averaged $25 per barrel. Today it is close to $100 per barrel, an increase of $75 per barrel. … What have we learned from this ‘natural experiment’ with oil prices? … First, until the recent credit crunch in the United States—an event largely unrelated to the increase in oil prices—the world economy has prospered. … Europe and the United States have experienced robust growth since 2002, while China and India have shot out the lights. So it is clear that we have the capacity to absorb a carbon tax.
—Yale president Richard Levin ’74PhD, testifying in favor of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, April 3.
March/April 2008
What I say to men when they think the vibrator will replace them is ‘This is not your competition, it’s your colleague.’
—Pepper Schwartz '74PhD, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, quoted in the Yale Daily News. Schwartz spoke on “Myths & Misconceptions
about Sex and Relationships” on February 11 as part of Sex Week at Yale, a student-run series of lectures and discussions about sex and love.
January/February 2008
With this crowd, if you only get two streakers—that’s not bad.
—an unidentified Yale police officer at the midnight opening of the new Bass
Library on October 19 (see This is CCL?), quoted in the Yale Daily News.
November/December 2007
The results of the recent change in leadership and strategy in Iraq
have made it plain that the war there is not lost nor is defeat inevitable, yet
opponents of that war, even as the situation improved, have rushed to declare
America defeated. They offer no plausible alternative to the current strategy
and take no serious notice of the dreadful consequences of swift withdrawal.
They seem to be panicked by the possibility of success and eager to bring about
withdrawal and defeat before success can get in the way. Such are the actions
of defeatists and political opportunists; in no way can they be called patriotic.
—Sterling Professor of Classics and History Donald Kagan,
speaking at a 9/11 memorial service in Strathcona Hall. Noting that Congress
has designated September 11 as Patriot Day, Kagan devoted his address to a
defense of patriotism. Kagan’s invitation to speak at the service was
controversial; the Yale College Democrats withdrew as a sponsor of the event in
protest.
September/October 2007
There are many versions of the cliché that ‘a conservative is a
liberal who has been mugged,’ and Robert Bork has just given rise to another. A
tort plaintiff, it turns out, is a critic of tort lawsuits who has slipped and
fallen at the Yale Club.
—Editorial, the New York Times, June 14. Bork, a former appeals court judge and
Yale Law School professor, fell and was injured last year while ascending a
dais to speak at the Yale Club of New York City. He is suing the club for $1
million plus unspecified punitive damages, arguing that the club’s failure to
provide stairs and a handrail constituted gross negligence.
May/June 2007
It was a stupid thing to do.
—Said Hyder Akbar '07, according to a New Haven police spokesperson. Akbar and two freshmen, Nikolaos Angelopoulos and Farhad Anklesaria, were arrested around 3:00 a.m. on April 3 and charged with setting fire to a U.S. flag hanging from a Wooster Square house. Akbar’s lawyer later said there was “no political motivation.” Akbar, a U.S. citizen, published a 2005 book on his experiences in Afghanistan when his father went to work for the government there after the overthrow of the Taliban. The other two students are citizens of Britain and Greece. Lawyers for all the students say Akbar set the fire alone.
March/April 2007
We cannot wait for our governments to act. … Large organizations all over the world with the power to act independently
should take matters into their own hands and begin to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions now.
—President Rick Levin, addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 24, 2007. Yale reduced its own emissions by 6 percent last year toward a goal of a 43 percent reduction from its 2004 level by 2020.
January/February 2007
I used to teach at Yale, which was at one time a center of postmodernist literary theory. Derrida was there. Paul de Man was there. I originally wrote the bull---- essay at Yale, and a physics professor told me that it was appropriate that this essay should have been written at Yale, because, after all, he said, Yale is the bull---- capital of the world.
—Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor
Emeritus of Philosophy at Princeton, in the New York Times Magazine, October 22, 2006. Frankfurt is the author of On Bullshit, a 1986 essay that was published as a book by Princeton University Press in 2005.
November/December 2006
Yale Shmale. Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t
necessarily mean you’re smart.
—Text of ads for Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The
ads, accompanied by a photo of President George W. Bush '68, met with a mixed response
from students and faculty at the school.
September/October 2006
On a straight proportional basis, [Yale Law School] should graduate less than one person from Fargo per decade. Yet, in fact, remarkably, YLS will graduate four people from the Fargo area this year, and five total in the next three years. What explains this phenomenon? Is 'the Force' particularly strong in Fargo? Are open spaces good for open (legal) minds?
—Dakota Rudesill '06JD, one of the four natives of Fargo, North Dakota, to graduate from the Law School this year. Dean Harold Hongju Koh says there were more people from Fargo in the Class of 2006 than from Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.
March/April 2006
Yale’s no-soap tradition soon may be all washed up
—Chicago Sun-Times
Yale, in a lather over soap, relents
—Seattle Times
Yale comes clean
—Orlando Sentinel
A soap opera ends at Yale
—Boston Globe
Soap and man at Yale
—North County Times
If it happens at Yale, it’s news: more than 80 newspapers and online publications picked up an Associated Press story in January detailing the university’s pilot program to install liquid soap dispensers in bathrooms in three residential colleges. The move came after years of student lobbying.
January/February 2006
Thanks to Yale, I didn’t wake up butt naked in a château wearing handcuffs, thinking, ‘Why am I here—with a headache?’ Who would have thought an Ivy League education would have come in handy that way?
—actress Joy Bryant '96, in Complex magazine, explaining that her Yale experience helped her steer clear of Paris “playboys” as a young model. Bryant most recently starred with rapper 50 Cent in the film Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
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