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Yale moves toward college expansion
February 28, 2008

Yale’s trustees are one step closer to making the decision to build two new residential colleges and expand the undergraduate student body by around 12 percent. The outcome, many officials say privately, is a foregone conclusion.

At its February meeting, the Yale Corporation requested that the administration prepare a budget for building the new colleges and for the increase in operating costs that would accompany expansion. They also asked the development office to prepare a fund-raising plan to support the project. President Rick Levin, who has endorsed the expansion plan, says he will seek final approval at the Corporation’s June meeting.

At the same time as the Corporation meeting, Yale released the report of the committees charged with investigating the effect of two new residential colleges. (Levin’s statement about the report is available here, and the report itself in PDF format here.) The report neither endorses nor rejects the idea of expansion; instead, in just over 100 pages, it outlines what would be needed to make the plan work.

Expanding the number of undergraduates, for example, will require adding seminars and courses (and thus teachers) in some departments, particularly those that are already oversubscribed, such as chemistry, English, economics, and political science. The report also suggests that expansion will require more activity spaces for the things students like to do, particularly theaters and exercise rooms.

As for the site itself, the committee recommends livening up Prospect Street to make the new colleges seem less remote, improving shuttle transportation, and developing a “robust security plan.”

President Levin had initially assumed that the new colleges would house their own freshman--as Timothy Dwight and Silliman do--but many people the committees spoke to believe that freshmen in the new colleges should be housed on Old Campus. The report recommends convening a task force to sort out that question.  

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Students wary of college expansion (Jan/Feb 2008)

President Levin on expansion (Mar/Apr 2007)

Should Yale College get bigger? (Jan/Feb 2007)

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