Author Archives: Rachel Payne

Yale is a place infused with a tradition of political engagement. Over the last 18 months, this tradition has both continued and changed. During the 2008 elections, broad coalitions of students worked together to elect a long list of Democratic candidates. Last spring, Yalies again proved the depth of their political convictions, this time on »

This is the time to play the Yale card. Wall Street giant Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, graduated from Yale in 1969, is an active supporter of the University and has served as an adjunct professor at the School of Management. He is also heavily invested in the construction of »

When the Yale a cappella group Spizzwinks(?) journeyed across Asia on its 2007 summer tour, a trip to the nonprofit school Gitameit Music Center in Rangoon, Burma, struck a memorable chord. Visiting Burma’s only community music school, the students were moved by the performances of the Gitameit choir, Spizzwinks(?) member Nathaniel Granor ’09 recalled. After »

Magevet, Yale’s coed Jewish a cappella group, did its part to shame America’s latest white-collar crook on Sunday night with its spring jam, “Bernie Madoff: The Musical.” Nothing unusual happened in the first moments of the show. The 17 members filed in, men donning tuxes and women wearing the strappy black dresses traditional for a »

Jan. 20, the first day of the Obama presidency, marked the return of poetry to American life, Elizabeth Alexander ’84 said. As Alexander, the inaugural poet and Yale professor, addressed an audience of about 90 people at an Ezra Stiles College Master’s Tea on Thursday afternoon, she reflected on the experience of reading her poem »