Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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In April the days are growing longer and the scent of Spring is heavy in the air. On such a day, April 19, 1963, at 5 in the afternoon, A. VVhitney Griswold died. The University, hardly prepared by a brief notice of his illness in the NEWS the week before, was stunned. In thirteen years the austere and witty Professor of History had established him- self among America's foremost educators. He had assured Yale of continued eminence, and along the way had become the patron saint of American architecture. Then he was gone. Grief and mourning were mitigated only by the realiza- tion, phrased by Dean Acheson, that Whitney Griswoldis life was a happy one as the Greeks thought of happiness, for he exercised his powers to the full, achieving excellence in an environment affording him scopef, A. Whitney Griswold had from the beginning of his term recognized the necessity of defining clearly the University's role. He spoke eloquently of the need for educated men to be prepared for the demands of later life by a grounding in the Liberal Arts. In keeping with this policy, the Institute of Human Relations, the Department of Education, and Vari- our professional schools at the undergraduate level were abolished as being too seperated from the main stream of the University, and too vocational. Yet, in the paradoxical way that real situations often dictate that policy be formed, it was during the Griswold administration that Yaleis present level of involvement in the New Haven community began. For the Ivory Tower is an ambiguous blessing to the academic institution. At once the University is protected from the tumult of the everyday world, and isolated from the problems of contemporary society whose solution poses perhaps the greatest challenge to scholarship. The position of Yale in New Haven, physically central yet spiritually estranged, served only to emphasize her solitude. President Griswold had wanted to change that. He began to redirect the atten- tion ofthe school to the world immediately outside its doorstep. In 1953 a young newspaperman won probably the most significant election victory in recent New Haven history. Defeated by two votes in 1951, Richard C. Lee ran again two years later, to become the youngest Mayor in New Haven history. President Griswold's relationship with the former head of the University News Bureau was a close one. Follow- ing his lead, many members of the Yale community began to take integral roles in the initiation of new policies and the formation of new commissions. Then, suddenly, Griswold was gone, and the man who once said, 'SI came here in large part because of affection for and admiration of Whit Griswoldn had to take up his burden. Since that time, the University has continued to seek twin goals: advancement as a scholarly community, able to view the world reflectively, and greater involvement in the pressing concerns of the world around it. Yale students and faculty are playing a larger role than ever before in the revitalized New Haven which, thanks to the strong guidance of Mayor Lee, is undergoing an enormous and highly progressive program of urban renewal and redevelopment. As Mayor Lee has pointed out, the close relationship between city and University has not yet needed to be institutionalized: rapport on a personal level has so far sufficed. After many years as a nondescript city surrounding a great university, New Haven has won fame and respect quite independent of Yale. Yet this process would not have been the same without the height- ened involvement of the Yale community. Yet the involvement of the University in the city, important as it is, must be considered to be subordinate to the Uni- versityis own development as a community. In December came the announcement that Yale and Vassar intended to study the possibilities of closer affiliation. The Brewster administration seems to have found in unexpected guise the rich widowi' for whom it had been searching, and coeducation, a topic long facetiously discussed at fraternity debates, may soon become real for Yale. President Brewster noted to an alumni meeting in February the many changes to be ex- pected if and when Vassar comes to New Haven, ranging from greater liveliness in classes, to an improved social and moral quality at Yale. This is probably the most dramatic alteration and most decisive stand to come from the action of the present administration and the influence of the preceding one. Beyond this, however, are many smaller but yet significant changes in the academic life. One can now gain an M.A. in four years, a B.A. in Five, and leave the Graduate School with a M.Phil. The distributional requirements have been revised for greater flexibility, and student advisory committees have been created in many departments. The result has been to increase the flexibility available to the student in the formation of his curriculum. Undergraduates have found to some degree a new perspective for their academic and social lives. New men now occupy many posts in the University. Even as the University is remodeling its house for the years ahead, it has begun to participate more significantly in the world beyond its ivy-covered wallsf' The source of these changes lies in the past two administrations, and increasingly the University community we live in is the creation of the present administration. The quality of life in a particular community is dependent on many things. The major themes that we can discern have been outlined briefly in the preceeding paragraphs. The succeeding pages are devoted to a detailed account of our vision of Yale in 1967. We hope that in our reporting, and equally in our attempt to evoke images of more personal aspects of the little world we have lived in, we have seen with sufficient clarity to give a true picture. Richard B. Devereux

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- -1-V17 V - 7 11: ms f if X INTRODUCTION

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FACULTY if ADIVIINISTRATIUN