Author Archives: Martha Fulford

As the University considers the recommendations of its first academic review in 30 years, about 45 students met with Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead and academic review committee members Wednesday to discuss issues including cultural studies, theater courses and course requirements. In an open forum arranged by the Yale College Council, Brodhead and three of »

Plans to increase the size of Yale’s faculty, the costliest part of the Committee on Yale College Education’s academic review report, elicited enthusiasm from faculty members in spirit but concern about how they would be implemented. The committee recommended a 10 percent or more increase in Yale College faculty over the next 5 years to »

Filling gaps in areas such as U.S. women’s history and modern Germany, the Yale History Department recently hired two senior professors and a junior professor. Ute Frevert, an expert in German history from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, will join the department as a full professor in fall 2003. Joanne Meyerowitz, an authority on American »

If the Committee on Yale College Education implements its recommendations successfully, students may have a reduced language requirement and more flexibility with study abroad opportunities. While most professors acknowledged that students could benefit from these proposed changes, some speculated that less classroom instruction may ultimately hurt students’ foreign language education. For students starting language study »

In response to the Committee on Yale College Education’s recommendations for improving science education for nonmajors, many professors and students said they supported the ideas in theory but remained unsure about their feasibility. Other schools have had difficulty bridging the divide between science and non-science students through structural changes, and at Yale, faculty and students »

In response to proposed changes to distributional requirements, students and professors supported the goal of broadening academic horizons, but some feared a liberal Credit/D/Fail policy could reduce academic accountability. In its review released last week, the Committee on Yale College Education recommended requiring students to take two courses in each of five areas: the humanities »

Famed history professor Robin Winks, a former department chairman and master of Berkeley College who wrote mystery novels in his spare time, died Monday morning at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He was 72. Winks, who joined Yale’s history department in 1957 and served as its chairman from 1996 to 1999, cancelled his classes last fall after »

Five days after the Committee on Yale College Education released its findings, the report garnered mixed reviews this week from a small handful of students and faculty members. The report, which was released Thursday, includes recommendations based on more than a year of evaluating Yale College education. Committee members now plan to solicit input on »

The Committee on Yale College Education released the results of its long-awaited academic review Thursday, recommending an increase in faculty, the creation of a science teaching center on central campus and changes in distributional requirements. The committee’s 85-page report focused primarily on undergraduate teaching, distributional requirements, science education, international education and advising. While many of »

When Brandon Brei GRD ’06 was an Eagle Scout in middle school, he went to Philmont, a Boy Scout ranch in New Mexico. The troop was on a two-week survival mission for which they had to carry their food and supplies in backpacks. But even though Brandon’s pack was heavy and he had far to »

The physics major will undergo significant changes next year, following a review by the Physics Committee on the Undergraduate Program. Physics majors will no longer have the choice between a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree. The department will instead offer only a bachelor of science degree, and students will eventually have to »

A graduate student on a Yale-sponsored trip to Puerto Rico drowned and was presumed dead Saturday after he tried to save another student who was swimming, the trip’s leader said. Brandon Brei GRD ’06 and nine other Yale students from the graduate school and the School of Public Health went swimming in the ocean near »