Author Archives: Jessica Marsden

Graduate students’ stipends will grow 5.5 percent for the coming year, and students will see several other improvements to financial aid despite University-wide budgetary constraints, Graduate School Dean Jon Butler announced Monday. The nine-month stipend for humanities and social science students will be $19,000 for the 2006-07 academic year, an increase of $1,000 over the »

While Yale promotes international experience as a key part of undergraduate education, students continue to identify bureaucratic challenges to term-time study abroad. Students preparing to go abroad next fall — who had to confirm their plans with University study abroad administrators last Friday — cited difficulties in securing the transfer of academic credit and finding »

A year after Yale reformed its financial aid policy to keep pace with its competitors, Harvard University has again pulled ahead of the pack. Harvard announced Thursday that it would eliminate the parental contribution for students from families with annual incomes below $60,000 and reduce the parental contribution for students from families earning between $60,000 »

In a report released Wednesday night, an internal committee found that the Graduate School does not systematically discriminate against students of Chinese origin, but noted that departments could improve communication with all students about finances and evaluations. The committee, which was chaired by professor Donald Engelman, was created last fall after allegations of discrimination were »

Campus activists renewed their calls for the University to divest from investments in Corrections Corporation of America at a rally and a meeting with the Advisory Committee for Investor Responsibility on Monday afternoon. Approximately 150 protesters gathered on Beinecke Plaza Monday for a rally supporting divestment from CCA, the country’s largest private prison operator. After »

After several years of steadily increasing enrollment in Arabic language classes and growing student interest in the Middle East, the University is considering plans to create a new undergraduate major in modern Middle Eastern studies. Following a recent proposal by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations to create a new modern track within »

The faculty’s recent appointment of psychology professor Brian Scholl to a tenured post marks the first time the department has promoted an internal candidate to a senior position in more than a decade. Scholl, whose research focuses on visual cognition, received tenure fairly early in his Yale career, about five years after he arrived at »

The addition of five new professors to Yale’s Philosophy Department next fall is the latest step in a decade-long rebuilding process for the program, a project that has had mixed results. Recent appointments have more than doubled the size of the senior faculty in the past decade, though the rebuilding process has been impeded by »

Current concern that the Harvard College Curricular Review will be delayed by the departure of the university’s two top administrators highlights major differences between the HCCR and a similarly expansive Yale curricular review that began in 2001. The Harvard review, now in its fourth year, has not yet produced votes on its major recommendations following »

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers’ resignation last week threatens to delay one of his major initiatives — the undergraduate curricular review that he launched in 2002. The Harvard review, which was launched about a year after the Committee on Yale College Education began a similar assessment of the undergraduate experience at Yale, has gone through »

From building a new Old Campus social space to banning grain alcohol at campus parties, the recommendations of Yale’s Committee on Alcohol Policy address nearly every aspect of drinking on campus. The committee’s recommendations, which will be publicly released today, focus on promoting alternative social events, the freshman social experience, and education and counseling, while »

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers announced his resignation Tuesday morning amid spiraling conflict with professors critical of his leadership and management style. Summers’ announcement that he will resign effective June 30 followed a year of conflict with members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, who planned to vote on a no-confidence motion at the »