STRATEGIC PLANNING

FOR YALE COLLEGE

2023–2028

DECEMBER 2023
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Is it not a pleasure to learn and, when it is timely,
to practice what you have learned?
CONFUCIUS, ANALECTS 1.1, TRANS. ANNPING CHIN
Preface
New Haven, Connecticut

September 13, 2023

Yale aspires to be the research university most committed to teaching. Yale College, the oldest
part of the university, continues to provide a liberal education to all the university’s
undergraduates, across the traditional arts and sciences, engineering, multidisciplinary fields,
and the creative arts. In 1828, an influential report from the Yale president and faculty indicated
that the goal of a liberal education is to teach students “how to learn.” This goal remains central
to our efforts today, almost two hundred years later.

Yale College has several advantages that permit it to remain a world leader in undergraduate
education. Our distinguished faculty have a demonstrated commitment to teaching and
mentoring undergraduates. We have attracted an outstanding and diverse student body. The
generosity of alumni and friends has permitted the development of a beautiful and functional
physical campus. Excellent staff are attracted to work at Yale and show their dedication daily.
Relations with the City of New Haven have greatly improved, and the city and state are thriving.
Yale’s residential college system and vibrant culture of student organizations forge character and
lifelong friendships. We can draw on all the resources of a great university.

Universities in general, and colleges devoted to liberal education in particular, face a number of
challenges today:

• Leading universities are often perceived as elitist and not serving the broader society.
• The rise of artificial intelligence challenges traditional methods of instruction.
• In a polarized political environment, universities may face internal conflicts as well as
external pressure.
• Universities have not always successfully conveyed the value of research and scholarly
knowledge to the broad public.
• Students and their families sometimes question the value of a liberal education for their
career and personal development.

With these concerns in mind, I spent my first year as dean engaging with students, faculty, staff,
alumni, and parents. The senior associate deans and other senior staff of the college have worked
with their teams and with faculty committees to outline a number of key actions needed to
continue to attract a diverse and excellent student body, foster curricular innovation, strengthen
our community of learning, and communicate internally and externally about our mission.

No full-scale review of undergraduate education at Yale has taken place since the Committee on
Yale College Education, which in its 2003 report introduced our current system of distribution

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requirements and several other important innovations. Twenty years later, the strategic plan
contained in these pages does not offer answers to all the questions facing the college. Rather, it
presents a blueprint for how to address these questions and continue to improve our educational
program over the next five years.

Yale College has an opportunity to continue—and to expand—its leadership in the field of

undergraduate education, but there are challenges particular to Yale, and unique to our era, that
we should acknowledge at the outset. Yale has typically remined fairly conservative about
changes in the way we accomplish our mission. A traditionally polite culture may result in
excessive caution when discussing controversial topics. A certain elite legacy has at times
downplayed the importance of more practical or technical topics and concerns. At the same time,
perhaps even more than most places, we tend to suffer from the excessive busyness and
fragmented focus that permeate our society. Students’ attention is splintered among many
different activities and pursuits. This contributes to the high level of stress among students (and
perhaps also among faculty and staff).

Nonetheless, the present moment offers Yale College a great opportunity to extend its leadership
in innovative ways. The rise of artificial intelligence may be perceived as a threat—if our job is to
teach students how to learn, then what does it mean when the products of machine learning
become almost indistinguishable from those of a moderately talented first-year student? And will
the further development of generative AI make large swaths of the undergraduate curriculum
obsolete? But this is in fact a moment where our goal of teaching students how to learn becomes
that much more important. Rather than shy away from the challenge of AI, we should be
educating students who can learn at a higher level than any machine. This will mean that in
addition to traditional writing, language, and quantitative skills, they will need higher-order
skills that allow them to push forward the frontiers of scientific and technical knowledge, make
effective use of emerging technologies, and direct them ethically to accomplish social goods.

The university’s new investments in science and engineering offer us an opportunity to attract
both faculty and students who might in the past have chosen one of our peer institutions. Only
with strength in science and engineering can Yale provide the full range of a university education.
This need not come at the expense of our world-leading programs in the arts, humanities, and
social sciences, which continue to be funded and supported at the highest levels. Likewise,
opportunities arise from the university’s investments in promoting faculty excellence, diversity,
and inclusion. Successful investments will result in a university that is greater than the sum of its
parts and a college that can truly integrate learning across many disciplines. Yale’s tremendous
existing strengths and ability to identify and direct new resources give us opportunities shared by
few other institutions to shape a liberal education for this century.

In the past year, we have taken a number of steps, some small and some just a little bit bigger,
towards addressing the themes summarized in this report. In particular:

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 • The Office of Educational Opportunity has been established, in cooperation with the
Poorvu Center, to coordinate academic support programs for a variety of students,
including first-generation and low-income students.
• In response to the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, the admissions office
has developed an aggressive strategy of outreach to continue attracting a diverse student
body.
• In light of record-high admissions applications, yield, and enrollment, the dean’s office is
analyzing the resources needed for a sustained expansion of the size of the entering class
from the previous target of 1,550 to about 1,650.
• New speaker series and related events have been established to encourage and model the
free exchange of ideas.
• The college has revised its policies on mental health leaves and other options for time
away and is working with Yale’s Mental Health & Counseling department to provide
expanded support for students facing mental health challenges as well as everyday stress.
• The roles and expectations of residential college heads and deans have been clarified, and
new processes implemented for their recruitment.
• Systems for advising, course registration, and housing selection have been (or are being)
redesigned for greater effectiveness.
• Communications with students, families, faculty, staff, and alumni have been
strengthened.
• The college staff has been reorganized to encourage collaboration and improved decision-
making. The main organizational branches of the college are:

o Admissions and Financial Aid

o Career Strategy and Fellowships
o The Residential Colleges
o Student Affairs
o Student Engagement
o Undergraduate Education

These initial steps have put Yale College on track to address the goals of the strategic plan. The
next step is to engage faculty even more fully in the educational mission of the college. After
presenting the strategic plan to the Yale College faculty, I will be working with deans in the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of
Engineering and Applied Science, and the other professional schools to charge task forces of
faculty and staff (and, where appropriate, students) with reviewing and further developing the
suggestions contained in this report. I look forward to engaging with you in ensuring that Yale
College continues to provide the best possible liberal education for the world today.

Pericles Lewis
Dean of Yale College
Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature
Professor of English

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Contents
Overview ................................................................................................................................... 1
Educational Opportunity .......................................................................................................... 2
Leading in Admissions and Financial Aid ................................................................................... 3
Supporting Students’ Transition to College ............................................................................... 3
Advising, Mentorship, and Opportunity Programs .................................................................... 4
Fostering Academic Growth and Exploration ............................................................................. 5
Building Students’ Pathways Beyond Yale ................................................................................. 5
Spotlight: The Role of Yale’s Faculty in Shaping the Curriculum ...................................................... 7
Curricular Innovation ............................................................................................................... 8
Identifying Opportunities for Innovation ................................................................................... 9
Promoting a Culture of Exploration ......................................................................................... 10
Supporting Outstanding Major Programs ................................................................................ 10
Enhancing Yale’s Disciplinary Excellence ................................................................................. 11
Partnering with the Graduate and Professional Schools ............................................................ 12
Spotlight: A New Era for Engineering & Applied Science in Yale College ......................................... 14
A Community of Learning....................................................................................................... 15
Enhancing Our Residential Communities ................................................................................ 16
Fostering Social Experience and the Free Exchange of Ideas ..................................................... 16
Advancing Campus Life ........................................................................................................... 17
Fostering Identity, Engagement, and Enrichment .................................................................... 18
Promoting Students’ Well-Being ............................................................................................. 19
Spotlight: Residential Colleges, Home of Yale’s ‘Bright College Years’ ............................................. 21
Shared Mission ....................................................................................................................... 22
Strengthening Our Shared Purpose ......................................................................................... 23
Fostering Partnership and Collaboration .................................................................................. 23
Communicating Thoughtfully and Effectively.......................................................................... 25
Modeling Excellent Use of Financial Resources ........................................................................ 25
Measuring and Assessing Our Outcomes ................................................................................. 26
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 27
Overview
Following conversations with leaders in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering
and Applied Science, the Council of Heads of College, and other faculty members and
stakeholders, the dean of Yale College has proposed the following vision.

Yale College will innovate to continue providing the best possible liberal education for the world today.
We will:
• Educate talented students of diverse backgrounds to lead and serve in a complex and changing
society.
• Provide a supportive residential community of learning in which social experience and the free
exchange of ideas underpin the pursuit of knowledge.
• Cultivate both the broad intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities and the more specialized
skills that will allow students to thrive beyond the college gates.
• Draw on the distinctive strengths and traditions of Yale University as a globally recognized leader
across the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering, and the professions.

Accordingly, this report is organized around four themes and accompanying goals:

Educational Opportunity
For Yale College to stand as a beacon of opportunity—from admissions to post-graduation,
and at every point between—for talented students from a diversity of backgrounds,
perspectives, and experiences

Curricular Innovation
For Yale College to serve as an innovator and world leader in liberal education, grounded in
curricular and pedagogical excellence, by promoting a culture of exploration and responding
to emergent social and intellectual priorities

A Community of Learning
For Yale College to prepare its students to thrive in complex environments and serve all
sectors of society through participation in a vibrant residential community dedicated to lux et
veritas, with robust resources spanning co-curriculum, campus life, and well-being

Shared Mission
For Yale College to be an exemplar of partnership, communication, and best practices,
recognized for its effective collaborations, both internal and external; commitment to its
outstanding staff; and culture of self-assessment and improvement

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Educational Opportunity
Goal
For Yale College to stand as a beacon of opportunity—from admissions to post-graduation, and
at every point between—for talented students from a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and
experiences

Guided by Yale’s mission to improve the world today and for future generations, the
college educates talented students of diverse backgrounds to lead and serve in a complex
and changing society. Providing the benefits of a Yale education to an increasingly diverse
cohort of promising scholars begins with admissions outreach; continues through the
undergraduate lifecycle, with programs that support educational equity and ensure that
all undergraduates have widespread and ready access to Yale’s educational, advising, and
co-curricular opportunities; and extends to the resources that help students to identify
and pursue their continued professional, educational, and personal growth beyond the
college years.

Strategies
The college will welcome and educate students from all backgrounds, perspectives, and
experiences by continually enhancing its world-leading programs in admissions and
undergraduate financial aid.

The college will ensure a cohesive and equitable foundation for all students by coordinating the
transition from admission to matriculation and offering a first-year experience that effectively
orients students to Yale.

The college will provide excellent and well-organized advising, mentorship, and support
resources at all stages of the undergraduate lifecycle, enabling students to navigate the university
and knowledgably shape their programs of study.

The college will innovate in its programming to foster holistic academic growth and
exploration, including undergraduate research, study abroad, summer courses, and fifth-year
combined degree programs.

The college will offer outstanding resources to shape students’ pathways beyond Yale,
supporting their personal aspirations and providing exceptional opportunities for professional
and educational growth.

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Actions
Leading in Admissions and Financial Aid
Ø Sustain our commitment to seeking out, recruiting, and enrolling a diverse student body, and
examine all the elements of our admissions process under the new U.S. legal framework to
ensure compliance with the law.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Admissions

Ø Review our policies, procedures, and collection and use of data to ensure sustainable and
successful consideration of applicants, maintaining the best of our tradition of thoughtful
whole-person review.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Admissions
Partner: Office of Institutional Research

Ø Consider the feasibility of a small increase in the size of the entering class to better attract and
enroll an increasingly diverse student body. Convene a task force to provide guidance on the
resources needed for a possible expansion in enrollment: this group will be charged with
assessing the resources and considerations necessary to support an undergraduate population
of between 6,400 and 6,800, including the attendant implications for the curriculum and for
residential and student life. (The current student body, due primarily to Covid deferrals, is
somewhat over 6,800).
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partners: Undergraduate Admissions; Undergraduate Financial Aid; Committee on
Admissions and Financial Aid; Council of Heads of College; Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
School of Engineering and Applied Science

Ø Maintain Yale’s leadership in offering the best financial aid worldwide, ensuring access to the
opportunities of a Yale education for students of all backgrounds.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Financial Aid
Partner: Office of the Provost

Ø Expand our efforts to communicate to prospective students—and to the public at large—the

affordability and value of a liberal education at Yale.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Admissions; Communications

Supporting Students’ Transition to College

Ø Review the flows of information to admitted students, and between staff in Yale College, to
ensure that students have appropriate expectations of ongoing support and that college
offices can efficiently “pass the baton.”
Responsibility: Undergraduate Admissions; Student Affairs—First-Year Affairs

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Ø Building on the redesign of orientation in 2022, review and experiment in our programming
and resources for new students, making use of possibilities beyond the opening days.
Responsibility: Student Affairs—First-Year Affairs
Partner: Council of Heads of College

Ø Orient students to their responsibilities as members of a community of mutual tolerance and

respect, including in their use of social media and other emerging technologies.
Responsibility: Student Affairs
Partner: Council of Heads of College

Ø Review the First-Year Counselor and Peer Liaison programs to consider whether our system
is appropriate for current students’ needs, strengthen training, and communicate
expectations to ensure these programs deliver consistently effective support.
Responsibility: Student Affairs—First-Year Affairs; Student Engagement
Partner: Council of Heads of College

Ø Strengthen the Student Athlete Mentors program to guide first-year student-athletes in

successfully navigating academic and sporting life at Yale.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—Academic Affairs
Partners: Student Affairs; Yale Athletics

Advising, Mentorship, and Opportunity Programs

Ø Consider, develop, and implement revisions to our academic advising system, with particular
focus on the first year and on providing nuanced, varied models of support for advising by
directors of undergraduate studies in differently sized departments and programs.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising

Ø Under the newly launched Office of Educational Opportunity, provide greater coordination
of programs that provide mentorship, academic strategies and enrichment, and community
to students, particularly those from first-generation, low-income, and other
underrepresented backgrounds.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Office of Educational Opportunity Advisory Committee

Ø Study current programs that support students’ transitions to college-level learning, including
First-Year Scholars at Yale and Online Experiences for Yale Scholars (ONEXYS), and
consider potential additions—for example, programs to prepare students for the study of
chemistry, biology, mathematics, or English.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Office of Institutional Research

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Ø Promote excellent and responsive accessibility resources for students by investigating new
ways to support faculty members in providing accommodations.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Student Accessibility Services; Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning; Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences

Fostering Academic Growth and Exploration

Ø Encourage undergraduate research through programs including Science, Technology and
Research Scholars (STARS); support a culture of research in Yale College; and ensure
opportunities across the physical sciences, engineering, and the biological sciences, as well as
for students of varying preparation—from outstanding STEM-intending applicants to those
without high school research experience.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—Science & Quantitative Reasoning Education

Ø Support students in furthering their academic and personal interests through study abroad
by lowering financial and other barriers to participation, and by investigating and publicizing
how study abroad enhances the curriculum and positively affects students’ professional and
personal opportunities.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—International and Summer Programs, Study
Abroad

Ø Investigate how summer course offerings can serve as laboratories for innovative pedagogy,
support our students’ degree progress, complement academic-year course offerings, and
provide academically rigorous and innovative courses both to Yale students and to visiting
students; consider a funding or financial assistance model for Yale’s summer programs to
increase affordability and accessibility for Yale College students.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—International and Summer Programs, Study
Abroad
Partner: Undergraduate Financial Aid

Ø Review current opportunities for Yale College students to pursue simultaneous bachelor’s
and master’s degrees; investigate 3-2 programs and other five-year options for engineering
students, as well as other possible five-year programs similar to that offered in partnership
with the School of Music.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education

Building Students’ Pathways Beyond Yale

Ø Develop leading approaches and tools to support students’ preparation for careers,
fellowships, and graduate school, including new resources to help students navigate the
growing prevalence of artificial intelligence in many aspects of the job search process.
Responsibility: Career Strategy

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Ø Respond to changes in the Yale student population by performing a gap analysis of current
Yale fellowships, using existing data to identify emerging needs, and developing a plan to
approach prospective donors.
Responsibility: Fellowships; Development, External Affairs, and Special Projects

Ø Monitor growing and contracting areas of the labor market to offer targeted support, and
work closely with individual students, faculty members, and alumni to build new employer
relationships and provide thoughtful career and fellowship advising.
Responsibility: Career Strategy; Fellowships

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SPOTLIGHT: THE ROLE OF YALE’S FACULTY IN SHAPING THE CURRICULUM
Yale aspires to be the research university most committed to teaching and learning. The faculty
of Yale College are gifted scholars and talented teachers whose diversity of backgrounds and of
expertise is essential to the richness and relevance of the undergraduate curriculum.

Yale College Faculty Meetings are chaired by the dean and address matters involving curriculum,
methods of instruction, and scholastic requirements, such as approval of undergraduate course
offerings, changes to the requirements of undergraduate majors, and other matters involving
policies and practices related to the life of the college.

Yale’s faculty will play a crucial role in guiding all facets of the strategic plan for 2023–2028
through standing committees, councils and committees that guide the curriculum’s
distributional skills and area requirements, ad hoc task forces, and other engagement.

Standing committees participating in the strategies described in this document include:

Ø Course of Study Committee

Ø Committee on Honors and Academic Standing
Ø Committee on Majors
Ø Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising

In addition, new time-limited task forces will be convened in phases over the next several years
to offer focused advice on topics spanning the curriculum. Plans for the first of these groups, a
Task Force on Engineering and Applied Science Education to be co-convened with the dean of
the School of Engineering and Applied Science, are described in the next “spotlight” of this
strategic plan.

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Curricular Innovation
Goal
For Yale College to serve as an innovator and world leader in liberal education, grounded in
curricular and pedagogical excellence, by promoting a culture of exploration and responding to
emergent social and intellectual priorities

Deeply rooted in the values of the liberal arts and sciences, the college educates students
to become curious, engaged citizens. By giving attention to both the broad intellectual,
moral, civic, and creative capacities and the more specialized skills that will allow
students to flourish beyond the college gates, we cultivate undergraduates who are
broad-minded and autonomous, young people capable of making judgments and taking
responsibility for their decisions, active learners able to thrive in complex environments.
To do so, we draw on Yale’s distinctive strengths in the arts and humanities,
multidisciplinary social sciences, science and engineering, and the professions, led by a
diverse and talented faculty committed to innovative teaching and learning.

Strategies
The college will continually identify areas of opportunity for innovation in the curriculum,
supporting the faculty in developing new curricular models, creative pedagogical approaches,
interdisciplinary offerings, and courses in emerging fields of inquiry.

The college will promote a culture of exploration by encouraging students to engage with a
broad array of fields of inquiry, approaches to knowledge, and global perspectives, and by
communicating the purposes and value of a liberal education.

The college will support departments and programs in the delivery of outstanding major
programs that offer multiple entry points for students with differing levels of preparation, as
well as opportunities for non-majors to explore their fields.

The college will develop its curriculum by building on Yale’s distinctive strengths and areas of
emerging excellence in disciplines spanning the arts and humanities, multidisciplinary social
science, and the sciences and engineering.

The college will partner with Yale’s graduate and professional schools to support a robust
teaching fellow program, and to offer students access to distinctive courses and programs that
enhance the curriculum and undergraduate experience.

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Actions
Identifying Opportunities for Innovation
Ø Explore areas of possible innovation, including interdisciplinary courses; courses that
introduce non-majors to distinctive ways of seeing the world; grade distributions;
compression in course offerings; seminars or smaller lecture courses in certain fields,
especially the sciences; patterns of language instruction; and support for writing.
Responsibility: Standing Committees; Undergraduate Education

Ø Prepare and disseminate guidance for major programs to incorporate experiential learning in
their courses; explore new curricular vehicles, apart from majors, that blend traditional and
experiential learning; and encourage faculty members to consider course-related travel
during the semester.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning; Committee on Teaching, Learning, and
Advising

Ø Partner with the deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and
Applied Science to support recruitment of faculty who bring new intellectual directions and
emerging fields of inquiry to Yale, thereby responding to our students’ diversity of
backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, and encouraging students to consider new
approaches and explore the world in all its complexity.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partners: Faculty of Arts and Sciences; School of Engineering and Applied Science

Ø Support interdisciplinarity through encouraging the design of courses that cross multiple
departments or divisions. The last decade saw a steady increase in demand for such courses,
but growth in student registration exceeded growth in the number of courses offered.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Office of Institutional Research

Ø Promote faculty innovation in using artificial intelligence and social media to enhance
teaching and prepare students to critically engage with emerging technologies.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Ø Ensure that the college’s academic regulations are calibrated to support curricular excellence
and innovation in the twenty-first century by drafting revised academic regulations that aim
for simplicity, transparency, clarity, and accessibility.
Responsibility: Committee on Honors and Academic Standing; Undergraduate Education—
Academic Affairs

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Promoting a Culture of Exploration
Ø Communicate the value of a liberal education and the purposes of the Yale College
curriculum, and how these cultivate and prepare students for leadership and service.
Responsibility: Communications; Undergraduate Admissions; Career Strategy; Fellowships

Ø Reinforce the place of international education in the curriculum by exploring opportunities to

better integrate high-quality experiences abroad—thus giving students a global lens for
seeing the world, including their own countries and cultures, anew and differently.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—International and Summer Programs

Ø Monitor student patterns of fulfilling distributional requirements and consider actions to

support students’ exploration of the curriculum.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Office of Institutional Research

Ø Support the development of new certificates and other special programs that respond to the
shifting landscape of undergraduates’ interests and help to prepare our students for
professional and other outcomes.
Responsibility: Committee on Majors; Undergraduate Education

Ø Investigate students’ choices in taking four or five courses per semester to determine whether
the overall workload of the curriculum supports educational effectiveness: Do students take
courses perceived as easier in five-course semesters? Does the number of courses correlate
with GPA? Can we tell if students require greater support in five-course semesters?
Responsibility: Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising; Undergraduate Education

Ø Examine course selection in light of changes to the registration calendar and add/drop
period: How should we support experimentation in course selection? How best can we
encourage responsible decision making by students within the registration framework?
Responsibility: Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising; Undergraduate Education
Partner: University Registrar’s Office

Supporting Outstanding Major Programs

Ø Conduct regular reviews of majors, and consider and implement appropriate mechanisms to
ensure that departments and programs regularly review their majors and course offerings.
Such review may be through a standing item of faculty meeting business or, in larger
departments, the work of a committee chaired by the director of undergraduate studies.
Responsibility: Committee on Majors; Undergraduate Education

Ø Consider additional support for introductory courses and sequences; encourage departments
and programs to make use of the self-assessment tool developed by the Committee on Majors
to assess both those courses by which students fulfill major requirements and those popular

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 with non-majors; and explore structures for teaching and service requirements to provide
incentives for ladder faculty members to teach introductory courses.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Faculty of Arts and Sciences; School of Engineering and Applied Science

Ø Support innovation in the liberal arts and sciences by continually monitoring the number of
majors in Yale College and student and faculty interests in emerging fields, as well as the
corresponding administrative burdens to departments and programs.
Responsibility: Committee on Majors; Undergraduate Education

Enhancing Yale’s Disciplinary Excellence

Ø Foster Yale’s excellence across the arts and humanities, multidisciplinary social science, and
the sciences and engineering through admissions outreach that gives renewed attention to
humanities and arts recruitment; highlights the data science certificate and other distinctive
opportunities in the social sciences; and continues to build on our recent success in attracting
the most promising applicants intending to major in engineering, science, and mathematics.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Admissions

Ø Identify areas of opportunity in the arts, including space needs for arts courses (theatrical,
studio) and use of the Center for Creative Arts and Media as a locus for curricular and other
activities that span the arts, engineering, and the sciences.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—Arts

Ø Enhance and extend the college’s preeminence in the humanities by fostering the
development of innovative courses that capture students’ interest and imagination across the
study of languages, cultures, histories, philosophies, traditions, and other facets of who we
are, what we are, and what we might become.
Responsibility: Committee on Majors; Undergraduate Education

Ø Work with Yale’s museums, galleries, and libraries to study and make recommendations on
the services and expertise that enable teaching using the collections; the use of object-based
learning in assignments and curricula; and digital tools and methods that support collection-
based teaching and learning, such as the new LUX: Yale Collections Discovery platform that
links objects, people, places, concepts, and events across the university’s collections.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education

Ø Build on strengths and recent investments in qualitative social science by working with social
science, cross-divisional, and interdisciplinary departments and programs to develop
innovative courses, the ethnography certificate, and other curricular innovations, such as
international experiences; support emerging student and faculty interest in using humanistic,
cultural, and interpretative approaches to critically examining human societies and their
interactions with nature.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Faculty of Arts and Sciences

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Ø Expand quantitative and data literacy course offerings by working with departments, the
divisions of science and of social science, and the deans’ offices to consider how best to
encourage development of the habits of mind that will enable all our students to identify the
strengths and weaknesses of empirical evidence, ask probing questions about empirical
claims, and use quantitative evidence wisely in forming opinions and making decisions, as
well as to provide clear pathways for interested students to reach high levels of expertise.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Faculty of Arts and Sciences; School of Engineering and Applied Science

Ø Partner with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied
Science to design courses in support of a proposed new data literacy requirement.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Faculty of Arts and Sciences; School of Engineering and Applied Science;
Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising

Ø Assess, and develop recommendations to support persistence in science majors. Items for
consideration may include introductory sequences for majors, students’ desire for
interdisciplinary courses and courses for non-majors, additional courses to meet student
demand, smaller classes, courses that fulfill the curriculum’s writing requirement, and grade
distributions.
Responsibility: Science Council; Undergraduate Education—Science & Quantitative
Reasoning Education

Ø Develop and review recruitment programs, including the Hahn Scholars and Yale
Engineering and Science Scholars, to augment our efforts to attract the most promising
students in STEM to Yale.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—Science & Quantitative Reasoning Education

Partnering with the Graduate and Professional Schools

Ø Explore new curricular vehicles to promote interactions between students and faculty across
schools, respond to interest in emerging fields of inquiry, and support students’ development
of real-world problem-solving skills.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education

Ø Pursue arrangements with Yale’s professional schools to further coordinate undergraduate

participation in their courses, with particular attention to the organization and support of
majors for which a significant proportion of the faculty belongs to a professional school or is
instructional or adjunct: architecture, art, creative writing, engineering, environmental
studies, global affairs, music, theater and performance studies, and urban studies.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education

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Ø Seek greater alignment of course meeting times among Yale’s schools to lower barriers to
students taking courses in other schools.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Office of the Provost; School Deans; University Calendar Committee

Ø Support a robust teaching fellow program that is guided by Yale’s educational and research
mission, collaboration with the faculty on their instructional needs, and a commitment to
excellent pedagogical training.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

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SPOTLIGHT: A NEW ERA FOR ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE IN YALE
COLLEGE
Yale’s transformative expansion of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, including
ongoing investments in the school’s faculty and infrastructure, provides Yale College with an
opportunity to innovate in undergraduate engineering and applied science education.

In the context of a review of the engineering majors by the Committee on Majors, the dean of
Yale College and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) will charge a
task force on opportunities for innovation in engineering and applied science pedagogy and
curriculum. Items for the task force’s consideration may include: the curricular opportunities
brought by new faculty members and facilities; student desires for interdisciplinary courses and
courses for non-majors that introduce engineering skills or ways of seeing the world appropriate
for a liberal arts education this century (computer programming, for example, is particularly
popular); supporting persistence in SEAS majors; grade distributions; possible compression in
course offerings; and introductory sequences accessible to all Yale students. In all its work, the
task force will attend to recruitment and persistence in engineering and applied science majors,
especially for women and underrepresented minorities.

To build our momentum in educating the engineers and applied scientists of the twenty-first
century, we will also:
Ø Determine how to best share with prospective applicants the distinctive opportunities of
studying engineering within a liberal arts curriculum.
Ø Consider whether further investments are needed in technical subjects of interest to students,
including accounting and computer programming.
Ø Provide opportunities for exceptionally able and well-prepared students to pursue five-year
courses of study resulting in bachelor’s and master’s degrees, beginning with the master of
science in technology management for engineering majors that will be launched jointly with
the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Management in fall 2024.

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A Community of Learning
Goal
For Yale College to prepare its students to thrive in complex environments and serve all sectors of
society through participation in a vibrant residential community dedicated to lux et veritas, with
robust resources spanning co-curriculum, campus life, and well-being

Yale’s pursuit of light and truth is advanced by a vibrant community of learning whose
members encounter a broad array of ideas, are treated with dignity and respect, and are
welcome to make their voices heard. Many of the greatest benefits of a Yale education
derive from students encountering faculty and peers with richly varied backgrounds,
perspectives, and experiences. Our fourteen residential colleges offer a supportive
environment for learning in which social experience and the free exchange of ideas
underpin the development of students’ intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities.
Across all facets of undergraduate life, the college provides resources to foster
community; engage and develop a wide range of extracurricular interests and talents;
and ensure the health and well-being of our students.

Strategies
The college will reinforce and enhance the role of the residential college system as a cornerstone
of Yale’s mission to bring together students of all backgrounds under the guidance of
exceptional scholars, leaders, and mentors.

The college will consistently articulate the importance of academic freedom and freedom of
expression in scholarly and social life, and support faculty and staff members in fostering
conversation among a broad array of perspectives.

The college will support campus life that deepens students’ education through social
experience, the free exchange of ideas, and cultivation of capacities in an environment of
welcome, inclusion, and respect.

The college will foster students’ sense of cultural identity, engagement, and enrichment by
providing resources and advising to support a flourishing environment for undergraduate
communities, organizations, artists, and athletes.

The college will promote students’ physical, mental, and social well-being with supportive
education, coaching, and counseling, and by developing cultural norms that celebrate and
prioritize healthy life practices.

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Actions
Enhancing Our Residential Communities
Ø Recruit, retain, and support outstanding faculty members to serve as heads of residential
colleges by monitoring and adapting, as needed, recruitment processes that invite interested
faculty members to nominate themselves to serve as heads of college, and which involve
advisory committees in confidential discussion of nominees.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partner: Council of Heads of College

Ø Recruit, retain, and support outstanding staff members to serve as deans of residential
colleges by monitoring and adapting, as needed, the job description and reporting structure
for the residential college deans.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partners: Council of Heads of College; Student Affairs; Undergraduate Education—
Academic Affairs

Ø Determine and carry out steps to best support residential college fellowships’ role in
enhancing college life, including exploring the possibilities for developing and
communicating clear and specific expectations for fellows’ involvement.
Responsibility: Council of Heads of College; Office of the Dean

Ø Develop innovative and flexible housing approaches that maintain community by

encouraging students to live in the residential colleges while responding to their desired
living arrangements. Monitor and adapt, as needed, recent revisions to on-campus housing
processes and renew consideration of on-campus housing options that allow students to form
housing groups with students from other colleges.
Responsibility: Student Affairs; Student Engagement

Ø Support students who live off campus, including Eli Whitney students: Determine steps to
foster connection to the residential colleges; gather data on which students live off campus
and why; and consider whether additional accommodation should be sought in New Haven.
Responsibility: Academic Affairs; Council of Heads of College; Student Affairs; Student
Engagement
Partners: Office of Institutional Research; Senior Vice President for Operations

Fostering Social Experience and the Free Exchange of Ideas

Ø In programming and communication, emphasize complexity and nuance, thoughtful
listening, and the exploration of ideas by consistently articulating Yale’s commitment to
academic freedom and freedom of expression; offer programs that expose undergraduates to
a greater range of views; and build students’ skills for managing disagreement and conflict.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partners: Council of Heads of College; Student Affairs; Student Engagement

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Ø Provide research-based resources to instructors on how to best cultivate conversation and
expose students to a greater range of views through environments of trust and openness, in
which ingenuity, creativity, and innovation can thrive.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Ø Support the residential colleges’ role in fostering an atmosphere of conversation and mutual
respect by developing opportunities to strengthen intellectual, moral, civic, and social
exploration through the informal encounters that come from students living together and
from their interactions with administrative, dining, custodial, and grounds staff.
Responsibility: Council of Heads of College

Advancing Campus Life

Ø Review the work of the ad hoc Committee on Social Life and Community Values and
consider whether additional study or actions are merited; develop and communicate high-
level expectations for student life that offer a vision for living within a community and
provide principled limits to encourage students to be responsible for themselves and others.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partners: Student Affairs; Communications

Ø Recognize challenges in the City of New Haven from climate change and social and economic
pressures; engage students in community life that extends beyond the college gates and
reinforces Yale’s deep commitment to its home city by encouraging participation in service
activities.
Responsibility: Student Affairs
Partners: Council of Heads of College; Dwight Hall at Yale

Ø State and enforce expectations for student behavior by revising the undergraduate
regulations to ensure their transparence, clarity, and congruence with the college’s values and
practices while reducing complexity.
Responsibility: Student Affairs—Student Conduct
Partners: Undergraduate Education—Academic Affairs; Residential College Deans;
Communications

Ø Make use of emerging university resources that support preventive and restorative practices,
direct students to these resources, and train student life staff in these practices to assist in
conflict resolution.
Responsibility: Student Affairs—Student Conduct; Student Engagement
Partners: Undergraduate Education—Academic Affairs; Residential College Deans

Ø Develop a model that outlines expectations and responsibilities for large-scale student events,
including levels of staff involvement and any financial support.

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 Responsibility: Student Affairs—Student Organizations
Partners: Yale Conferences & Events; Yale Schwarzman Center; Office of General Counsel;
Student Engagement; Council of Heads of College

Ø Consider creating a regular yearly pattern of major social events to be held on campus,
potentially reviving the past tradition of residential colleges hosting events for all
undergraduates; this process will give careful attention to security and other staffing, as well
as the sharing of expertise, including through the creation of templates for major events.
Responsibility: Student Affairs; Student Engagement; Council of Heads of College

Fostering Identity, Engagement, and Enrichment

Ø Review resource allocations to the four cultural centers to ensure that their distribution
reflects current student demographics and use of the centers, determine a sustainable level of
financial and other support for graduate and professional students in the cultural centers, and
clearly express and explain this level of support.
Responsibility: Student Engagement
Partners: Office of the Secretary and Vice President for University Life; Graduate and
Professional Schools

Ø Strengthen support for student life by developing collaboration among student affairs and
student engagement staff; review how and when centers, offices, and services that support
student communities are convened and their activities coordinated; assess and clarify
expectations for student organizations, including openness to all students, support for
student safety, financial probity, and conflict resolution; and exploring potential new models
of advising for student organizations, such as assigning each group a residential college
fellow as an adviser.
Responsibility: Student Affairs; Student Engagement; Operations
Partner: Office of General Counsel

Ø Consider options for supporting emergent communities—students who do not closely

identify with the four cultural centers but for whom identification with a culture is of
significance—such as increasing the availability of multicultural programs, resources, and
spaces in which student-organized activities can take place.
Responsibility: Student Engagement

Ø Enhance student life that draws on Yale’s distinctive strengths in the arts by maintaining and
enhancing resources (space, funding, equipment, guidance) for student-led performances
and exhibitions; help to create and embrace opportunities for undergraduate student arts
through the new dramatic arts building; and support co-curricular arts organizations, with
special attention to the funding models for the Yale Bands and the Yale Symphony Orchestra.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education—Arts

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Ø Provide guidance and monitor college and university resources to ensure that student-
athletes, members of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, Eli Whitney students, transfer
students, visiting international students, and others with significant co-curricular obligations
or non-traditional pathways to Yale are supported toward successful educational outcomes.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Academic Affairs; Yale ROTC Offices; Faculty Committee on Athletics

Promoting Students’ Well-Being

Ø Reinforce and augment our commitment to students’ safety through continued close
collaboration with university police, security, and safety services, and by reviewing and
enhancing programming offered by the Office of Gender and Campus Culture and the
Alcohol and Other Drugs Harm Reduction Initiative.
Responsibility: Student Affairs
Partner: Yale Public Safety

Ø Partner with university health services to develop and maintain an infrastructure that
supports our students’ health in the face of routine and emergent health risks; respond to
changing environmental and public health challenges.
Responsibility: Student Affairs
Partner: Yale Health—Campus Health Office

Ø Build students’ capacity to make effective use of college and university services (including
accessibility accommodations, support for well-being, and other programs that promote
successful engagement with campus life and the demands of college) through
communications that articulate students’ own responsibility in seeking assistance and help
them to better navigate and select among the resources available to them.
Responsibility: Student Affairs; Communications; Undergraduate Admissions

Ø Create a framework for the student experience across all years that guides our undergraduates
toward healthy and sustainable habits. Investigate additional measures to shift campus
culture and ensure that our official activities reflect the best evidence for creating
environments of good health—for example, exploring whether the college calendar can
further support well-being through greater use of summer session, and reviewing practices
such as late-night hours by First-Year Counselors and routine communications outside of
ordinary hours to consider whether they perpetuate patterns of lack of sleep among students.
Responsibility: Student Affairs; Undergraduate Education; Communications

Ø Review patterns of use of Yale College Community Care (YC3), the Good Life Center, and
Mental Health & Counseling, and promote evidence-based skills to support well-being;
identify further measures to track student well-being, including attention to which students
do not complete courses, use summer programs to maintain academic standing, or receive
hospital treatment; and consider which mental health and wellness services are best provided
through the residential colleges.
Responsibility: Student Affairs

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 Partners: Office of Institutional Research; Undergraduate Education; Development, External
Affairs, and Special Projects; Council of Heads of College

Ø Provide excellent resources to all students to further their physical fitness, mental well-being,
and social connection through sports and recreation, and explore opportunities to enhance
club, intramural, and recreational sport and exercise.
Responsibility: Student Affairs
Partners: Council of Heads of College; Yale Athletics

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SPOTLIGHT: RESIDENTIAL COLLEGES, HOME OF YALE’S ‘BRIGHT COLLEGE
YEARS’
The residential college system is a cornerstone of Yale College’s mission of bringing together
and educating exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds. Each college has its ethos,
traditions, and activities; all are close-knit communities guided by dedicated faculty and staff.

Yale is one of few institutions in the United States to provide integrated support and enrichment
for college students in a residential setting. All incoming undergraduates are assigned to one of
the fourteen colleges, remaining affiliated through graduation and beyond. Membership in a
particular college is core to students’ identities: “What’s your college?” is a common
conversation-starter, even as each college is a microcosm of an undergraduate student body
comprising many backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Residential college deans serve as students’ chief academic and personal advisers, while heads of
college actively shape the social and intellectual life of residential college communities. The
colleges are a primary context for students’ exploration and development of intellectual, moral,
civic, and creative capacities, and for connection to their peers and the university. They offer
integrated advising and other support for students; house and feed almost all first-years and
sophomores, as well as many juniors and seniors; and provide a vibrant space for events
including teas and fireside chats, academic programming such as senior Mellon Forum
presentations, intramural athletic competitions, and creative and performing arts.

Participation in Yale’s residential system encourages students to become curious, engaged

citizens and helps them develop as active learners who thrive in complex environments.
Throughout the “bright college years,” from move-in day to college diploma ceremonies, our
undergraduates benefit from a rich community of learning whose diversity and commitment to
social experience and the free exchange of ideas underpin the pursuit of knowledge.

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Shared Mission
Goal
For Yale College to be an exemplar of partnership, communication, and best practices,
recognized for its effective collaborations, both internal and external; commitment to its
outstanding staff; and culture of self-assessment and improvement

While the college’s goal of educating talented young people for future leadership has not
changed since its founding, Yale’s continued excellence depends on a spirit of growth and
evolution, a sense of shared purpose and common activity, and sustained attention to
the effectiveness of our programs and processes in supporting our educational mission.
This work encompasses the cooperation and mutual support of partners around the
university, communication that reinforces the college’s values and priorities,
identification and responsible stewardship of resources, and a commitment to the use of
data in decision-making so that we can measure and assess the success of our efforts.

Strategies
The college will strengthen its sense of shared purpose and common activity by engaging all
employees in Yale’s educational mission; promoting staff diversity, professional growth, and
sense of belonging; and identifying new opportunities for cooperation within and across units.

The college will foster effective and mutually enriching collaboration with university partners
who enable Yale to provide the best possible liberal education to our students, from facilities and
dining services to support for pedagogical innovation, campus life, and alumni relations.

The college will communicate thoughtfully with students, staff, and faculty, and innovate in its
methods of sharing information, to provide accessible, relevant, timely, and actionable messages;
set expectations; and reinforce our values and priorities.

The college will be a model of financial stewardship and responsibility, ensuring stable and
responsive program funding, directing attention to fundraising priorities, calibrating students’
financial expectations, and embedding new mechanisms for financial compliance.

The college will gain insight from evidence-based measurement and assessment so that we can
be accountable to our goals for educational excellence and continually evaluate the effectiveness
of our programs and processes in support of Yale’s mission.

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Actions
Strengthening Our Shared Purpose
Ø Consider new ways to bring together staff across all offices and from within the residential
colleges, including through shared interests and enrichment opportunities, and ensure that
staff meetings and other activities foreground the shared purpose of employees’ contributions
to the college.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Operations

Ø Support collaboration across the residential colleges by convening sessions for heads to share
best practices and coordinate services; create additional training for deans on their position as
a college’s chief academic adviser and provider of holistic mentorship and support; and
develop and disseminate a syllabus of programs and activities (e.g., big siblings, fireside
chats, sophomore advising nights, a yearly social event open to all undergraduates) that each
residential college can carry out in its own way each year.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Council of Heads of College; Student Affairs;
Undergraduate Education—Academic Affairs

Ø Recruit and retain a diverse and excellent staff representing an array of backgrounds,
perspectives, and experiences by seeking diverse pools of candidates for all positions;
calibrating job descriptions and expectations for consistency and equity; clarifying policies
and expectations for hybrid, evening, and weekend work; reviewing the division of labor
across the college to ensure fair distribution of projects; providing appropriate management
training for all relevant staff members; and examining the state of belonging in the college’s
centers, offices, and programs to provide advice to the dean and other leaders.
Responsibility: Operations
Partner: Committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Ø Promote staff development, and make professional growth more accessible and equitable, by
raising awareness of training opportunities, making full use of Yale’s performance
management system, developing and communicating promotion pathways, supporting
employees’ long-term career progress within and beyond the college, and creating
mechanisms to measure, analyze, and develop staff members’ skills.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Operations

Fostering Partnership and Collaboration

Ø Optimize the use and quality of our facilities by co-locating offices to promote collaboration
and provide accessible and welcoming “front doors” for students, faculty, and staff;
considering the best deployment and possible multipurpose uses of buildings including
305 Crown Street; reviewing classroom equipment, infrastructure, and maintenance to
ensure that they support exceptional teaching and learning; securing the availability of
specialized classroom and studio space for the curricular arts; exploring opportunities to
build community through buildings and groups (for example, creating a shared outside space

23
 between the Asian American Cultural Center, La Casa Cultural, and the Native American
Culture Center); and ensuring that college buildings are assessed for facilities work on a
recurring cycle to remain fitting to today’s and future needs, including emerging climate and
public health challenges.
Responsibility: Operations; Undergraduate Education—Arts; Development, External Affairs,
and Special Projects
Partners: Office of Facilities; Office of the Provost; Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences

Ø Provide an outstanding residential college dining experience for students, faculty, staff, and
their guests; consider the best model for providing meals to students, including dates and
hours of service; identify and implement solutions to structural issues, such as feeding
groups of students outside of standard term time and offering mealtimes that fit student
athletes’ schedules; and seek innovative ways to maintain and augment the residential dining
experience, in which college community is nurtured through shared meals and conversation.
Responsibility: Operations
Partners: Yale Hospitality; Council of Heads of College

Ø Strengthen and enhance channels for collaboration and input from the undergraduate
community through continued close engagement with student leadership.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean
Partner: Yale College Council

Ø Foster innovations in pedagogy that support Yale’s leadership in undergraduate education by

encouraging faculty members’ and other instructors’ use of pedagogical resources, awarding
prizes to recognize excellence in teaching, and creating and sharing a framework for academic
integrity that is responsive to developments in artificial intelligence.
Responsibility: Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Advising; Undergraduate Education;
Student Affairs—Student Conduct
Partner: Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Ø Partner with Yale Schwarzman Center to host dining, conversation, and the arts as integral
parts of the undergraduate educational experience. Engage a faculty advisory committee to
work closely with the center’s executive director to further shared goals, and deploy the
associate dean for the arts to serve as a special adviser to the center.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Undergraduate Education—Arts
Partner: Yale Schwarzman Center

Ø Align activities, events, and other programs for Yale College alumni so that they reflect the
college’s priorities, and set mutual expectations about responsibilities for alumni engagement
that supports the university’s work both with students and with alumni.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Communications; Development, External Affairs, and
Special Projects
Partner: Yale Alumni Association

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Communicating Thoughtfully and Effectively
Ø Develop a communications strategy for internal audiences (students, staff, and faculty) that
includes direction for overall messaging; consider whether there should be greater
coordination of messages sent by the college’s centers, offices, and programs; and prepare
model messages to support emergency responses and other sensitive messaging.
Responsibility: Communications; Student Affairs; Student Engagement

Ø Develop a communications strategy for parents, alumni, donors, and the general public to
share the college’s story and its values and priorities; this strategy will include direction for
overall messaging, a cadence of yearly messages, and strategic use of social and other media.
Responsibility: Communications; Development, External Affairs, and Special Projects

Ø Pursue innovation and regular improvement in our use of communications tools and
technologies by taking advantage of podcasts, social media, and other vehicles to reach
students and others directly; exploring the use of artificial intelligence to create a user-
friendly interface that would answer frequently asked questions and explain policy; and
revising the Yale College website to meet the needs of varied audiences.
Responsibility: Communications

Ø Coordinate with other university offices to speak in one institutional voice, streamlining
communications to faculty and students; make use of the recommendations of the Faculty of
Arts and Sciences ad hoc Communications Advisory Committee.
Responsibility: Communications; Undergraduate Education
Partners: University Registrar’s Office; Faculty of Arts and Sciences; School of Engineering
and Applied Science; Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Ø Equip and empower staff to communicate well by providing training on when and how to
send emails and other messages, recognizing that emailing students has become a major part
of many jobs in the college.
Responsibility: Communications

Modeling Excellent Use of Financial Resources

Ø Conduct regular long-range financial planning, including analysis of the effects of the size of
the student body; monitor financial aid awards to ensure generous, world-leading support
for our students; and continually review resource calibration and organization to ensure that
the college is properly equipped with programmatic and staffing budgets.
Responsibility: Operations

Ø Enhance support for and attention to financial compliance by aligning accounting practices
and sharing metrics that encompass the college and its broader financial context.
Responsibility: Operations

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Ø Determine the appropriate sustainable funding model for ongoing projects currently covered
by spendable gifts and reserves, including First-Year Scholars at Yale, ONEXYS, STARS, and
YC3, identify new priority projects, and develop plans to secure their funding.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean; Operations; Development, External Affairs, and Special
Projects

Ø Determine and communicate the principled boundaries of the college’s financial support for
its students; set clear expectations for students and their families about sharing the costs of
students’ education; and clarify the appropriate uses of funding sources including financial
aid, Safety Net, and other mechanisms.
Responsibility: Operations; Student Affairs: Student Engagement; Undergraduate Education

Measuring and Assessing Our Outcomes

Ø Facilitate faculty teaching, student learning, and institutional decision-making through the
effective use of information systems and student data.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partner: University Registrar’s Office

Ø Make good use of data in superintending the curriculum by providing high-quality,

actionable data to faculty committees, and by identifying and anticipating which data each
standing committee should review on a regular timetable.
Responsibility: Undergraduate Education
Partners: Office of Institutional Research; Standing Committees

Ø Enlist data to create greater transparency about students’ career choices, fellowships, and
pursuit of advanced degrees by providing departments and offices with the online outcomes
visualization tool, which includes the option to show student outcomes by major on
departments’ and programs’ websites, and by sharing high-level information on outcomes
with the faculty, residential college heads and deans, students, prospective students, and the
public.
Responsibility: Career Strategy; Fellowships

Ø Continually review data gathered through the Consortium on Financing Higher Education
and other surveys to track trends and identify potential problems and opportunities, and—as
permitted—compare ourselves to peers; consider what additional information could be
publicly shared.
Responsibility: Office of the Dean—Management Team
Partner: Office of Institutional Research

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Conclusion
In 1701, the Connecticut legislature passed an act to establish “a collegiate school” in which
“Youth may be instructed in the Arts & Sciences” and “fitted for Publick employment.” The
collegiate school became Yale College in 1718. For more than three centuries, Yale has provided
leadership in undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences. Now on the cusp of the
two-hundredth anniversary of the seminal Report on a Course of Liberal Education,* the college
remains a world-recognized leader in teaching students “how to learn” and preparing them to
carry out the university’s mission to serve all sectors of society.

The report of 1828 asserted that “as knowledge varies, education should vary with it”—a truth
that informs the goals and actions laid out in the preceding pages. Although the Yale faculty of
the nineteenth century scarcely could have envisioned a world in which machines can write an
essay, complete a problem set, or create a work of art, their depiction of a liberal education as
“not…stationary, but continually advancing” resonates to this day. So, too, do the habits of
thinking that the college seeks to cultivate in its students: sustained attention, critical analysis,
careful listening, curiosity—qualities of mind that advance personal and intellectual growth, civic
engagement, and participation in a lifelong community of learning that aspires to the ideals
described by a Yale great of the twentieth century, Pauli Murray ’65 J.S.D.: equality, mutuality,
and reciprocity.

Twenty years after the Committee on Yale College Education reaffirmed the centrality of
exploration and discovery, breadth of preparation, and development of skills to the university’s
mission, those foundational values of a liberal education continue to resonate throughout our
work as educators and are embodied by those we educate. Yale College students are distinctive:
more than in peer institutions, our undergraduates are engineers and musicians, historians and
entrepreneurs. In a way that was unimaginable two centuries ago, and to a degree that was not
possible even twenty years ago, they are preparing for lives in a world of exponentially increasing
complexity and interconnection—a world that, more than ever, needs globally minded citizens
willing to shape the conversations that shape our society.

This strategic plan—and the opportunity, innovation, community, and mission that are its four
cornerstones—was created with a view both to our particular moment in time and to the
timelessness of Yale’s core endeavor. It is meant to guide the college’s concrete actions over the
next five years, and to serve as a roadmap for further action and an invitation for continued
faculty and staff involvement. Although, like our predecessors, we cannot know what the longer
term may bring, our work today positions Yale to shape the conversation about liberal education
for tomorrow and beyond.

*
See https://www.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/1828_curriculum.pdf.

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 Yale College
Office of the Dean
1 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, Connecticut