Author Archives: Cullen Macbeth

When I arrived at Yale as a freshman three years ago, I came armed with a strong sense of my own identity as a political liberal. In dinner-table conversations, my family generally approached politics from a decidedly left-of-center orientation, and, while I was too young to vote in 2004, I was disappointed when John Kerry »

Stand-up comedian and Comedy Central contributor Mike Birbiglia will perform at this year’s Fall Show on Oct. 12th, according to a schedule posted on Birbiglia’s Web site. Officials for the Yale Student Activities Committee and the Yale College Council said they cannot confirm that Birbiglia is coming to the University because they have not yet »

The window in Beth Fiedorek’s ’08 Calhoun College bedroom last year did not close all the way. Often when it rained, Fiedorek said, water would collect on her windowsill and then spill onto her bed, leaving her sheets and pillows soaked. In the winter, the heater would come on and off sporadically, sometimes leaving the »

When she was elected last spring, Rebecca Taber ’08 became the first woman chosen as Yale College Council President in seven years. But Taber has brought more than a new gender dynamic to the YCC, council members and administrators said — she has also brought a zeal for reform that they said promise to make »

Twenty-four new Yale College Council representatives, chosen by students in each of the 12 residential colleges in elections that ended last night, will take their places on the Council when the YCC holds its first meeting of the year on Sunday. In the same elections, each college selected one representative to serve on the Yale »

The effectiveness of the Yale College Council has long been the butt of student jokes, but this year’s YCC officers hope to change that stereotype, once and for all. Frustrated by the Council’s inefficiency and bureaucracy in recent years, the YCC Executive Board has redesigned the organization’s committee structure and meeting format in an effort »

A new University program launched this week will make recordings of lectures and presentations available to the general public through Apple Computer’s popular iTunes software. Yale’s portion of iTunes U — an interactive multimedia initiative meant to make classroom materials more accessible to students at schools across the country — features talks by prominent faculty »

Racism is a system of advantage based on race, a combination of racial prejudice and social power. Because they benefit from this arrangement, almost all white Americans — but not their black peers — can fairly be called racist. Or so says Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum, who delivered the freshman keynote address Sunday »

When former Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg — known as the “dean of deans” among student affairs administrators nationally — announced last November that she was stepping down this summer, “Betty T” left big shoes to be filled in the Yale College Dean’s Office. But Trachtenberg’s successor, former Middlebury College Associate Dean Marichal Gentry, »

Though the “Campus Cash” system will not be ready for the fall semester as was hoped, the University has officially committed to setting up the program, a YCC brainchild in which Yalies will be able to use funds on their student ID cards at more on-campus facilities as well as off-campus restaurants. The program will »

Yale College Dean Peter Salovey confirmed over the weekend that Middlebury College Associate Dean Marichal Gentry will replace outgoing Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg, effective August 1. The announcement was made in an e-mail to the Yale College Dean’s Office on Friday afternoon. In the same message, Salovey announced that Shelley Lowe, who is »

Middlebury College Associate Dean Marichal Gentry will replace outgoing Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg, effective August 1, a student familiar with the search process said Friday. Before being named Associate Dean of the College in 2005, Gentry served as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs after his arrival at Middlebury in 1999. In his »