Author Archives: Patrick Ward

The party life at Yale has changed. When I arrived here three years ago, the Yale Police Department was seen as the benevolent protector of Yale students, and the University administration had a safety-first attitude toward regulating student partying. As of this year, much has obviously changed. The YPD can hardly be seen as benevolent, »

What started two weeks ago at the University of Florida as a physical battle for free speech has left the editor in chief of the Rocky Mountain Collegian at Colorado State University fighting for his job. While both situations have yet to see their final outcomes, the pattern of events has demonstrated just how tenuous »

I love the food from the Yale Sustainable Food Project. I look forward to each week’s all-sustainable meals and get excited when I see a favorite recipe on a day’s menu. During freshman and sophomore years, I ate as much as possible in the all-sustainable Berkeley College dining hall. Nevertheless, amid the numerous puff pieces »

To describe Yale to the incoming class, I am inclined to use my favorite quotation by Yale historian George Pierson: “Yale is at once a tradition, a company of scholars, a society of friends.” Nevertheless, the description is too heavy on sentiment and too light on reality. Undoubtedly this neo-Gothic campus abounds in groups of »

Temporary or not, unilaterally made or not, Dean Betty Trachtenberg’s ban on the use of realistic stage weapons in Yale productions is an affront to the entire University. Ours is a community founded on and sustained by ideas and the expression of those ideas. Freedom of expression is one of Yale’s most cherished values, one »

In its most diligent work to improve the residential college experience, the Council of Masters has devised a policy to make each Sunday night “Family Night” in the dining halls. Under the policy, only members of a given college are permitted to dine in that college on Sunday nights — all others must be turned »

Walking around New Haven near the Yale campus, one notices more than a few vacant storefronts. At any one time, some turnover must be expected, but the presence of longer-term vacancies, especially in the Broadway area, is notable. One might think a troubled business climate is responsible for the vacancies, but business is strong for »

Our liberty as citizens and our respect as members of society are threatened by the latest proposed legislation in the Connecticut General Assembly. I speak on behalf of all 18- to 20-year-olds, whom the proposed law would prohibit from buying cigarettes. Most efforts to reduce smoking among young people and the general population are laudable, »

Know thyself,” commanded the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. This admonition has carried civilization far in the quest for knowledge and understanding of humanity, but its modern importance for individual self-knowledge should not be underestimated. In any society and in the university community particularly, the knowledge of oneself is essential for relationships »

This may be an unprecedented situation for the Oldest College Daily, but I’m about to scoop the news desk on an important campus story right here on the opinion page. Yes, I realize that the tradition is to comment on stories that have already been reported, but I just felt this one couldn’t wait. Headline: »

An understanding of science and technology is increasingly important for educated debate, public policy and daily life. Reasonably, Yale has emphasized the importance of engaging with science during an undergraduate career — even if one is studying English or sociology. This emphasis on science for all is valuable; however, its implementation in the undergraduate curriculum »

Final exams … anxious waiting … final grades. During the last two years, the stretch of anxious waiting has also been marked by a strange new routine. I refer not to the general filling out of course evaluations, a task — nay, a duty — with which we are confronted before we can receive our »