.Remade, rebuilt, renewed: a walking tour of Yale >>> now & tomorrow
A quarter century on, Yale & New Haven have been renewed and rebuilt. Our classmate Michael Morand has been in the thick of campus and community renaissance as Yale's associate vice president for New Haven affairs and now as the University's deputy chief communications officer. He'll lead us on a tour of old Yale now renewed, new Yale inconceivable in 1987, and the rebuilt fabric of New Haven, focused on the residential colleges, Broadway, the dramatic transformation of Yale & the Dixwell neighborhood, Ingalls Rink, the new residential college site, Science Hill & Hillhouse Avenue, and the new.
Meet on Broadway outside the Apple Store near the Yale Bookstore.
Friday, May 25, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Monday, April 30, 2012
Reunion Attendance
The registrations are rolling in and we are on pace to have phenomenal attendance. Really, terrific. But, that's not what people are talking about. People at talking about which residential college will be best represented at Reunion. Those numbers are in, too. Here they are:
Calhoun 15%
Silliman 12%
D'port 9%
Morse 9%
Stiles 8%
Branford 8%
JE 8%
TD 7%
Pierson 7%
Saybrook 6%
Trumbull 6%
Berkeley 4%
We will try to post the figures next Monday -- if you register now you might be able to move your college up the rankings!
Calhoun 15%
Silliman 12%
D'port 9%
Morse 9%
Stiles 8%
Branford 8%
JE 8%
TD 7%
Pierson 7%
Saybrook 6%
Trumbull 6%
Berkeley 4%
We will try to post the figures next Monday -- if you register now you might be able to move your college up the rankings!
What Reunion is Really About
Dear Classmates,
With reunion just a few weeks away, some of you may still be thinking about whether you should join the hundreds of classmates who have already registered. We thought it might be helpful if we shared our thoughts on what our 25th Reunion is, and is not, about.
First what it is not about. Reunion is not about accomplishments and accolades, or who has attained fame and fortune. And, reunion is not about measuring how life has stacked up to the dreams we had 25 years ago. All of us have had struggles and disappointments. We have not met a classmate who contends that their life has turned out just as they had planned. We have all lived enough life to know that we must cherish the good times and find the strength to endure the more challenging times.
Next, what it is about. At its core, Reunion is about people -- reconnecting with friends and classmates who share a common bond. It's about finding out what kinds of lives others have built, what they have overcome, what they have done to grow, what passions they have pursued and where they are going next. That's what so interesting and exciting about seeing our classmates again.
When everyone sees each other a few weeks from now at Reunion, we will no doubt be tempted to focus on the basic questions that help us peg where each other are -- where do you live? what do you do for a living? do you have kids? etc. These questions are natural, and are a lot like the questions we asked all those many years ago during Freshman year -- where are you from? where did you go to high school? what college are you in? Ultimately, though, we didn't make friends with people, we didn't get to really know those we got to know, based on these basic questions. We got to know our friends because of what kind of people they were, what passions they followed, and whether they could make us laugh or think or grow -- and that is precisely what we should be thinking about when we go to Reunion.
That is why we have worked to put together a great reunion; and, that is why we would really like to see everyone there.
We really do hope to see you at Reunion. Log on to www.aya.yale.edyu/reunions and register today. We will all be glad you did.
Lisa, Tim and Darcy
With reunion just a few weeks away, some of you may still be thinking about whether you should join the hundreds of classmates who have already registered. We thought it might be helpful if we shared our thoughts on what our 25th Reunion is, and is not, about.
First what it is not about. Reunion is not about accomplishments and accolades, or who has attained fame and fortune. And, reunion is not about measuring how life has stacked up to the dreams we had 25 years ago. All of us have had struggles and disappointments. We have not met a classmate who contends that their life has turned out just as they had planned. We have all lived enough life to know that we must cherish the good times and find the strength to endure the more challenging times.
Next, what it is about. At its core, Reunion is about people -- reconnecting with friends and classmates who share a common bond. It's about finding out what kinds of lives others have built, what they have overcome, what they have done to grow, what passions they have pursued and where they are going next. That's what so interesting and exciting about seeing our classmates again.
When everyone sees each other a few weeks from now at Reunion, we will no doubt be tempted to focus on the basic questions that help us peg where each other are -- where do you live? what do you do for a living? do you have kids? etc. These questions are natural, and are a lot like the questions we asked all those many years ago during Freshman year -- where are you from? where did you go to high school? what college are you in? Ultimately, though, we didn't make friends with people, we didn't get to really know those we got to know, based on these basic questions. We got to know our friends because of what kind of people they were, what passions they followed, and whether they could make us laugh or think or grow -- and that is precisely what we should be thinking about when we go to Reunion.
That is why we have worked to put together a great reunion; and, that is why we would really like to see everyone there.
We really do hope to see you at Reunion. Log on to www.aya.yale.edyu/reunions and register today. We will all be glad you did.
Lisa, Tim and Darcy
Sunday, April 29, 2012
10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You (from the Wall Street Journal)
Here is something I read in the Wall Street Journal. I thought it was apt:
Class of 2012,
I became sick of commencement speeches at about your age. My first job out of college was writing speeches for the governor of Maine. Every spring, I would offer extraordinary tidbits of wisdom to 22-year-olds—which was quite a feat given that I was 23 at the time. In the decades since, I've spent most of my career teaching economics and public policy. In particular, I've studied happiness and well-being, about which we now know a great deal. And I've found that the saccharine and over-optimistic words of the typical commencement address hold few of the lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead. Here, then, is what I wish someone had told the Class of 1988:
1. Your time in fraternity basements was well spent. The same goes for the time you spent playing intramural sports, working on the school newspaper or just hanging with friends. Research tells us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings. Look around today. Certainly one benchmark of your postgraduation success should be how many of these people are still your close friends in 10 or 20 years.
2. Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I'll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one year after college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple. The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire.
3. Don't make the world worse. I know that I'm supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I'm going to lower the bar here: Just don't use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that "changing the world" also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.
4. Marry someone smarter than you are. When I was getting a Ph.D., my wife Leah had a steady income. When she wanted to start a software company, I had a job with health benefits. (To clarify, having a "spouse with benefits" is different from having a "friend with benefits.") You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water. I also want to alert you to the fact that commencement is like shooting smart fish in a barrel. The Phi Beta Kappa members will have pink-and-blue ribbons on their gowns. The summa cum laude graduates have their names printed in the program. Seize the opportunity!
5. Help stop the Little League arms race. Kids' sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it's fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. We know that success isn't about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don't make the traveling soccer team or get into the "right" school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That's not right. You'll never read the following obituary: "Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place."
6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.
7. Your parents don't want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn't always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices. Theodore Roosevelt—soldier, explorer, president—once remarked, "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Great quote, but I am willing to bet that Teddy's mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.
8. Don't model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee—and so on. But only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don't let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are "shirking" your work. But it's also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship. That's just not how we usually think of it.
9. It's all borrowed time. You shouldn't take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the "hit by a bus" rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don't get hit by a bus.
10. Don't try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn't, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.
Good luck and congratulations.
— Adapted from "10½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said," by Charles Wheelan. To be published May 7 by W.W. Norton & Co.
Class of 2012,
I became sick of commencement speeches at about your age. My first job out of college was writing speeches for the governor of Maine. Every spring, I would offer extraordinary tidbits of wisdom to 22-year-olds—which was quite a feat given that I was 23 at the time. In the decades since, I've spent most of my career teaching economics and public policy. In particular, I've studied happiness and well-being, about which we now know a great deal. And I've found that the saccharine and over-optimistic words of the typical commencement address hold few of the lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead. Here, then, is what I wish someone had told the Class of 1988:
1. Your time in fraternity basements was well spent. The same goes for the time you spent playing intramural sports, working on the school newspaper or just hanging with friends. Research tells us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings. Look around today. Certainly one benchmark of your postgraduation success should be how many of these people are still your close friends in 10 or 20 years.
2. Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I'll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one year after college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple. The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire.
3. Don't make the world worse. I know that I'm supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I'm going to lower the bar here: Just don't use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that "changing the world" also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.
4. Marry someone smarter than you are. When I was getting a Ph.D., my wife Leah had a steady income. When she wanted to start a software company, I had a job with health benefits. (To clarify, having a "spouse with benefits" is different from having a "friend with benefits.") You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water. I also want to alert you to the fact that commencement is like shooting smart fish in a barrel. The Phi Beta Kappa members will have pink-and-blue ribbons on their gowns. The summa cum laude graduates have their names printed in the program. Seize the opportunity!
5. Help stop the Little League arms race. Kids' sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it's fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. We know that success isn't about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don't make the traveling soccer team or get into the "right" school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That's not right. You'll never read the following obituary: "Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place."
6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.
7. Your parents don't want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn't always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices. Theodore Roosevelt—soldier, explorer, president—once remarked, "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Great quote, but I am willing to bet that Teddy's mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.
8. Don't model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee—and so on. But only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don't let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are "shirking" your work. But it's also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship. That's just not how we usually think of it.
9. It's all borrowed time. You shouldn't take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the "hit by a bus" rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don't get hit by a bus.
10. Don't try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn't, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.
Good luck and congratulations.
— Adapted from "10½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said," by Charles Wheelan. To be published May 7 by W.W. Norton & Co.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
YaleNews | Global Yale Day of Service a catalyst for Yalies giving back wherever they live
On Saturday, May 12, more than 4,000 Yale alumni, staff, students, family, and friends will make a difference in their local communities across the United States and around the world as part of the fourth global Yale Day of Service.
Service for society is a core tradition at Yale, both among students in New Haven and with generations of alumni and friends around the country and across the globe. The Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) has been organizing and supporting this worldwide mission with the annual day of service since 2009.
This year, Yale alumni will gather in service at hundreds of sites. Many of these projects are catalysts for ongoing community service by alumni throughout the year. All Yale students, staff, faculty, family, and friends are invited to participate. Site and registration information can be found online at www.yaledayofservice.org.
The program includes work with community partners in 36 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, as well as sites in Nigeria, Switzerland, Japan, China, India, the Netherlands, Canada, Israel, Australia, Germany, Cameroon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ghana, and the Netherlands. Examples of a few of the nearly 200 sites include:
- In the Dominican Republic, volunteers will work with the Saint George School in Santo Domingo and Yspaniola, a Yale student organization-turned-nonprofit that helps marginalized Batey communities of Dominicans and Haitians in the Dominican Republic empower themselves through university scholarships, leadership training and community development.
- Among the many sites in greater Los Angeles, the Yale Club of Southern California will be registering people in the Be the Match national bone marrow registry as part of “Mandi’s Challenge” in honor of Mandi Schwartz '10 (1988-2011).
- Volunteers in New Haven will volunteer at East Rock Park, in addition to work at a dozen other sites.
- The Yale Club of Boston’s sites include wok with The Harvest Food Pantry in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a nonprofit that offers a fully-stocked clothes closet and gives away close to two tons of free food a month.
YaleNews | Global Yale Day of Service a catalyst for Yalies giving back wherever they live
Dear Reunion Committee
Dear Reunion Committee,
What kind of music will you be playing at Reunion? Curious minds want to know.
Best,
Deney Terrio and the Solid Gold Dancers (Class of '87)
Dear 80's Dancing Icons,
Thanks so much for the note. We will definitely have music at Reunion. It will be good music. Really good music. Music you can dance to. Music you can enjoy. Music you will know.
We are giving the DJs a simple rule: the Music should be from the 80s. Preferably nothing released after May 28, 1987.
And, we will be taking requests. So, please do pass along any special song you would particularly like to hear. We'll make sure that the DJs get the list.
Yours,
The Committee
What kind of music will you be playing at Reunion? Curious minds want to know.
Best,
Deney Terrio and the Solid Gold Dancers (Class of '87)
Dear 80's Dancing Icons,
Thanks so much for the note. We will definitely have music at Reunion. It will be good music. Really good music. Music you can dance to. Music you can enjoy. Music you will know.
We are giving the DJs a simple rule: the Music should be from the 80s. Preferably nothing released after May 28, 1987.
And, we will be taking requests. So, please do pass along any special song you would particularly like to hear. We'll make sure that the DJs get the list.
Yours,
The Committee
Friday, April 27, 2012
Reunion Day of Service
The Association of Yale Alumni is proud to announce a new partnership with Dwight Hall at Yale, and the establishment of the Reunion Day of Service in New Haven. This pilot program will give the Classes of 1982, 1987, and 1992 the opportunity to celebrate their reunion by giving back to the New Haven community. Just as your contributions to the New Haven community made a difference when you were a student, your commitment to volunteer at Reunions is greatly appreciated.
On Friday, May 25th, registrants will convene promptly at 1:00 pm for a brief welcome and orientation prior to departure to one of five different sites by shuttle bus. Dwight Hall will provide background information and site leaders to accompany each group, and will gather for reflection following your service.
For more information, please click here.
Updated Reunion Schedule
Yale and your Class are working to have a terrific set of Panels and experiences for all who attend the Reunion. To see what is planned at Reunion, please click here.
Reunion Attendance
Here's a quick update: right now, we are tracking to have amazing attendance. Our class has had better registration response six weeks prior to reunion than all other Yale classes, save one. And, we are just shy of being even with them.
In other words, we are on track to having one of the best attended 25th Reunions ever. Hope you can join in the fun!
Register now, by clicking here.
In other words, we are on track to having one of the best attended 25th Reunions ever. Hope you can join in the fun!
Register now, by clicking here.
Breeding
Who has the record in our class for most children? One of our classmates has six children. Does anyone have more?
How many of our classmates have children who attend or have attended Yale?
How many of our classmates have children who attend or have attended Yale?
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