Author Archives: June Torbati

Less than a year after their creation last February, the modern Middle East studies and computing and the arts majors are already generating interest among students. But it is still unclear whether the majors will continue to attract students, administrators said. Students have already enrolled in the computing and the arts major, and enrollments in »

When asked to share an anecdote that characterizes Peter Salovey’s four-year tenure as dean of Yale College, Deputy Dean Joseph Gordon does not describe a time when the dean delivered a rousing speech, hosted a fundraising event or recruited a coveted faculty member. Instead, he points to a regular day at the office. Salovey was »

As Yale’s most popular interdisciplinary major undergoes a change in leadership, current professors say they hope to make some key changes to the structure of the Ethics, Politics and Economics program to bring some much-needed stability to its faculty roster. Both EP&E director Seyla Benhabib and Director of Undergraduate Studies Jennifer Bair will step down »

Student demand for the services of residential-college writing tutors is at an all-time high. But despite the surge, tutors’ hours will remain capped. The 12 college writing tutors — who are seeing approximately 15 percent more students than they were three years ago — are almost completely booked for the rest of the academic year, »

This article has been corrected. You may view this article’s correction here. University President Richard Levin announced Thursday evening the new master and associate master of Ezra Stiles College: American Studies professors Stephen Pitti ’91 and Alicia Schmidt Camacho. Pitti and Camacho will succeed Stuart Schwartz and Maria Jordan, a Latin American Studies professor in »

In an effort to meet increasing student demand for upper-level writing classes and bolster the writing concentration, the English department is augmenting current offerings in both fiction and nonfiction writing classes, English Director of Undergraduate Studies Lawrence Manley said this week. The size of the writing faculty — currently totalling about 14 — will also »

Pointing to an increasing national and University focus on self-assessment, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey announced last week a new position within the Dean’s Office to be charged with coordinating all the University’s surveys. Judith Hackman has assumed the new position of Associate Dean of Assessment in addition to her current role as the director »

Three years after Yale College implemented new curricular requirements, administrators are probing students about their academic experiences to assess the impact of those changes. The University’s Office of Institutional Research — along with the Yale College Dean’s Office, the Writing Center, the Center for Language Study and other parts of the University — has begun »

Dean of Freshman Affairs George Levesque will step down from his post at the end of this academic year in order to assume a new position as assistant dean for academic affairs, the Yale College Dean’s Office announced Monday. Levesque, who has held the freshman-affairs post since its creation in August 2005, will be responsible »

When Jill North, an assistant professor in the philosophy department, was considering a job offer from Yale four years ago, she could think of only one real downside: the University’s outdated, opaque tenure system. Under that system, revised last year after an 18-month review, junior faculty members in humanities departments like philosophy had an almost »

Last semester, Japanese Literature professor Edward Kamens, then the acting director of the Whitney Humanities Center, noticed a consistent refrain in conversations with professors — and it wasn’t particularly uplifting. Those with whom Kamens spoke, he recalled, were concerned about drops in humanities enrollment, particularly in history, art history and philosophy. So Kamens organized a »

After spending over 20 years at the University as both a student and a teacher, Divinity School professor Serene Jones DIV ’85 GRD ’91 will leave Yale this fall to become the first female president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Jones’ appointment to Union, which was announced in late February, will halve »