Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeffrey Brenzel announced today that he will step down from his position at the end of the academic year in June.
Brenzel notified students in Timothy Dwight College of his decision in an email this afternoon, following an email on the subject that University President Richard Levin and Yale College Dean Mary Miller sent to administrators and admissions office staff less than an hour prior. Brenzel will continue to serve as the TD master next year, a position he has held since 2010, and will begin teaching again in Yale College.
“I’ve loved both of my dual, and sometimes dueling, roles: admissions dean and college master,” Brenzel said. “It’s both fascinating and compelling work to be responsible for bringing together the entire undergraduate community of Yale.”
Brenzel did not specify the exact reason for his decision, but he said he is “ready to take advantage of yet another Yale opportunity and start another Yale adventure.” He added that he is looking forward to spending more time with students in Timothy Dwight.
Brenzel, who arrived at Yale in 1971, stepped into his role as dean of undergraduate admissions in 2005.
University Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86 will chair the search committee for a new dean of admissions.
Read his full email below:
I’m writing a personal note to follow up President Levin’s campus leadership announcement below, regarding my decision to step down from my position as Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at the end of this academic year in June.
Happily, and more than just happily, I will continue as your Master in TD and I will also be taking up teaching again in Yale College.
Who could be more grateful than I am for Yale opportunities? Startled by my letter of admission, I arrived here from Kentucky in 1971, graduated in 1975 a philosophy major, and launched into the world anticipating, sadly enough, that Yale itself would never again figure in my life.
For a long time, however, I volunteered as an admissions interviewer and served in local alumni organizations, discovering a second Yale life as the member of a worldwide community. Then when I was twenty years out, Yale signed up as a customer for a new education venture I had started – my third Yale engagement.
Six years later, the President appointed me director of the alumni association, a fourth Yale phase. Four years after that I began teaching in Directed Studies, my fifth Yale endeavor. Four years later again, in 2005, the President asked me to take stewardship of undergraduate admissions, Yale role number six.
So finally we get to lucky number seven: being appointed Master of Timothy Dwight College in 2010, almost forty years after walking through the Temple Street gate, back when I was as green a prospect as ever checked into entryway F.
I’ve loved both of my dual, and sometimes dueling, roles: admissions dean and college master. It’s both fascinating and compelling work to be responsible for bringing together the entire undergraduate community of Yale. It’s also a unique privilege to welcome a group of freshmen that I’ve admitted into the residential college community that I experienced and treasured here myself.
At the same time, I’m ready to take advantage of yet another Yale opportunity and start another Yale adventure. I am very glad that starting next fall I’ll be able to spend significantly more time with you here in TD. I’m also excited to be diving back into scholarship and also back into the classroom as well: teaching in the Directed Studies philosophy courses, collaborating with Carlos Eire of a new course we will be proposing for next year on the Catholic tradition, and co-teaching as well with Adam Glick (father of Noah, TD ’14) in his terrific seminar course Great Big Ideas.
We’re about to launch into reading several thousand early admissions applications on Hillhouse Avenue, which means bearing down hard in both of my current roles from now through June. But I can’t hold back from telling you how much I’m looking forward to what’s ahead in TD.