Author Archives: June Torbati

This article has been corrected. You may view this article’s correction here. Facing sharply declining undergraduate course enrollments, the Sociology department is attempting to reinvigorate its program by reaching out to sophomores and stabilizing faculty attrition, department chair Karl Ulrich Mayer said this week. The number of undergraduates enrolled in sociology courses has decreased nearly »

Undergraduates anxious to sign leases or begin room draws for next year are not the only ones at Yale with housing worries. As of right now, there are no definite plans for the Sociology Department’s future permanent home if its current one is knocked down to make room for two new residential colleges. As Yale »

Five current junior faculty members at Yale were awarded tenure Wednesday afternoon by the Joint Boards of Yale College and the Graduate School. In a move that Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said “brings diversity on many dimensions” to the University’s senior faculty, political scientist Gregory Huber, historian Jennifer Klein, linguist Maria Pinango, biologist Weimin »

Even as the University continues aggressive efforts to increase diversity in its faculty ranks, Latino professors remain a visible minority on campus — and not just at Yale, but in the rest of the higher education community as well. Since 2005, when the Provost’s Office announced a seven-year Diversity Initiative to add 30 faculty members »

Asian-American students make up the largest minority on campus. But many feel their culture is a bit underrepresented in the Blue Book. So this academic year, students have made efforts to bolster the Asian-American Studies Task Force, to push for an increase in courses addressing Asian-American issues and to encourage an increase in the number »

Despite the University’s formal commitment to recruiting a more diverse faculty, women faculty members still perceive a sharp gender divide — resulting in what they see as significant inequalities between male and female professors. Female faculty members at Yale are twice as likely as their male counterparts to feel left out of informal departmental networks, »

A survey of junior faculty members’ opinions on the mentoring — or lack thereof — they receive from senior faculty at the University is accelerating efforts to formalize the mentoring process. In a survey published this month by the Provost’s Office, 58 percent of junior faculty members said they do not feel they have received »

When history professor Lillian Guerra entered a campus building in early February to administer a doctoral exam, she received an unintended compliment. The guard at the front door refused to believe she was a professor, insisting instead that she must be a graduate student. “He thought I was joking when I said I was a »

In the most significant stipend policy change in recent years, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that base student stipends in the humanities and social sciences will increase 20 percent and be extended over the entire year rather than just nine months. Starting next year, humanities and social science doctoral students will »

Drilling, bad-tasting fluoride and sore jaws aside, some Yale students would still like to be able to go to the dentist’s office more often. Since early last semester, members of Yale’s graduate- and professional-school organizing bodies have been working to convince University administrators of the need for student dental insurance, which is currently not included »

Yale College faculty members voted unanimously Thursday for the creation of two new undergraduate majors: Modern Middle East Studies and Computing and the Arts. Both majors received the faculty stamp of approval after lengthy campaigns by professors and administrators to design the interdisciplinary majors and drum up faculty and student support. The formalization of the »

As administrators gear up to undertake a semester-long review of the Committee on Yale College Education’s 2003 curricular overhaul, some language faculty are hoping they will take a closer look at the newly implemented language requirements. The three-semester language requirement, first instated for the class of 2009, leads students to drop intermediate language courses before »