Author Archives: Philip Rucker

In an effort to synthesize the University’s multiple online administrative services, Yale officials are working to revamp the online classes server and will begin testing one new option in a limited form in January. In addition to managing courses, Yale hopes the new software, called Sakai, will allow for a more “user-centric” portal similar to »

In light of controversy regarding Yale’s tenure policies, the University’s Steering Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has been considering potential reforms to its tenure system in weekly meetings this semester. The discussions between top administrators sitting on the committee, which is headed by Provost Susan Hockfield and includes Yale College Dean Peter »

Students with a craving for sweets and schmoozing are in luck. Yale College Dean Peter Salovey will soon begin hosting weekly “Desserts with the Dean” gatherings at his new on-campus home near Ingalls Rink. Salovey is currently moving into the century-old colonial manse at 202 Prospect St. that was previously occupied by his predecessor, Richard »

Princeton University decided this week to rank undergraduates in quintiles based on grade point average and add the statistic to students’ academic records. A students’ rank will be used only for internal purposes and administrators said they hope the new ranking system will help students see where they stand with respect to their peers and »

In a move administrators characterized as a major boost to the University’s internationalization efforts, Yale tapped a leading scholar of comparative politics and international law to take an interdisciplinary professorship in the Law School and Political Science Department this fall. Alec Stone Sweet, who since 1998 had headed the Comparative Government Department at Oxford University, »

Yale science professors are reviewing grading scales and requirements for undergraduate science courses, particularly those designed for non-science majors, in anticipation of the new distributional group requirements that will go into effect next fall. The grade review is an effort by the professors who sit on the Science Council to make grading processes in science »

Amid a more stringent visa process enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the number of foreign students’ applications to American graduate schools dropped by 28 percent in the last year while the number of international students admitted to American graduate schools declined by 18 percent, according to a report released last week by »

A convoy of Yale administrators visited Beijing late last week to discuss new undergraduate academic collaborations with Chinese universities, acting in line with a broad plan to establish “sister school” relationships with universities around the world. University Vice President Linda Lorimer and Yale College Dean Peter Salovey led the delegation of Yale officials that met »

Late last spring, Harvard University released its first undergraduate curricular review in 30 years, recommending broad changes that were strikingly similar to those put forth by the Committee on Yale College Education in April 2003. Of 13 major recommendations in Harvard’s report, 11 were similar to recommendations made in Yale’s academic review or were moves »

Freshmen expecting long nights of cramming for “Intensive Introductory Physics” need not go it alone. Thanks to Yale’s expansion of a mentor program, now they can turn to new undergraduate “teaching interns” for help along the way. The program allows undergraduates who were successful in particular science courses in previous terms to work as teaching »

Duke University President and former Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead ’68 GRD ’72 had no way of knowing his first day as a Blue Devil would entail a trial by fire. Hours after reports circulated through the Durham, N.C. campus that the school’s legendary basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, was considering an offer from the Los »

Yale’s new freshman seminar program went into effect this semester and has proven popular: around a third of the freshman class applied over the summer. The year’s course offerings feature 16 seminars with senior professors that are designed specifically for first-year undergraduates. They cover subjects ranging from “German Culture, Arts and Letters” to “Radiation, Nuclear »