Snapshots
Veterans Day Yale family
November is Veterans and Military Families month and nowhere was that more apparent than at Yale’s recent Veterans Day ceremony. Over 300 people attended the event outside in Hewitt Quadrangle and among them was Tristan Kiekel, Yale Police Officer, and her family—daughter Alanna, and husband Matthew, who served as a military police sergeant in the Connecticut Army National Guard.
School of Management, Edward P. Evans Hall
It’s been over two months since students returned to Yale and at the School of Management, Edward P. Evans Hall, they have found their study spots on the second floor. The library is on the left with its wall of windows facing Whitney Avenue, which are parallel to the windows on the right that bring light in from the courtyard with its grove of trees.
Sunrise on Sachem Street at Hillhouse
It’s sunrise on Sachem Street as Roy Lichtenstein’s stainless-steel sculpture looms large behind a student who might be an early bird on the way to the library or one of a tired flock who just pulled an all-nighter. “Modern Head” was presented to Yale in 1993 by Jeffrey H. Loria, B.A. 1962, and James Goodman to commemorate the inauguration of Richard C. Levin, Ph.D. 1974.
The Rose Walk in autumn
Fall on Yale’s campus is picture worthy. This maple tree flames brightly on The Rose Walk, the pedestrian walkway that runs in front of Sterling Memorial Library. Dedicated in 1993, the walk was a gift from Frederick P. Rose, Class of 1944, and his brothers Dan and Elly, also Yale alumni—a fitting place for the blazing color of sugar maples.
Marquand Chapel, Yale Divinity School
There is a peaceful place on campus where faculty, staff, and students are welcome to go for reflection, and rejoicing in a communal encounter with God— Monday through Friday at 11:30 a.m. It is daily worship at Yale Divinity School’s Marquand Chapel. On Friday, October 8, Michael Libunao-Macalintal, Chapel communications manager and liturgical minister, preached a light-filled message of rest and community care.
Costume Shop, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, Yale Repertory Theatre
A visit to the Costume Shop at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and Yale Repertory Theatre, found Clarissa Wylie Youngberg (left) and Pat Van Horn creating a costume for “She Kills Monsters,” the second student play to open this season at The Yale Repertory Theatre. The shop also boasts the talents of Deborah Bloch, Mary Zihal, and Christine Szczepanski, all of whom have been working on-campus throughout the pandemic.
Facilities’ Capital University Planning department
Office of Facilities’ James Elmasry, senior program planner in Capital University Planning, peruses building plans in his office at 2 Whitney Grove. The scene from his eighth-floor window is a breathtaking view of central campus that takes in many projects that he and a team of four colleagues have been collaborating on over the last several years, including the Schwarzman Center.
McNay Café at Yale School of Management
McNay Café at the Yale School of Management is a go-to for coffee, breakfast muffins, lunch, sweets, and snacks—not just for graduate students attending classes and studying, but also for staff members whose offices are in walking distance. Just before the afternoon rush, we found Clenone Irvin, Yale Hospitality retail worker, preparing specialty coffees for customers.
Ceiling in Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall
Now that the campus is bustling again, many of Yale’s iconic buildings are no longer quiet. Once again, their interior treasures, like this ceiling in Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall (SSS), can be enjoyed as the works of art they are. SSS stands at the corner of Grove and Prospect Streets and was designed and built in 1931, first housing the Sheffield Scientific School.
Commons reopens in Yale Schwarzman Center
A sight for sore eyes? Definitely. Commons is alive and well and bustling with hungry students, staff, and faculty. With the iconic 50-foot vaulted ceiling and exposed timber-trusses restored to their original grandeur, the food hall now offers four diverse menu stations. Yale Hospitality has other dining experiences in the works at the Yale Schwarzman Center, including an all-day café.
Yale Health Pharmacy
Yale Health Pharmacy is 30 members strong, and its staff members have been onsite throughout the pandemic. Here, Pharmacy Technicians M’Ballou Kane (foreground) and Carol Blum retrieve prescriptions for customers. Those of us who have relied on the pharmacy over the last 18 months (and will continue to) are grateful for their presence and perseverance.
See what’s new: Tsai CITY
Whether you’re on campus or back in October, consider a visit to Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking (Tsai CITY), the new two-story, oval, steel, and glass building tucked behind Becton Center on its Plaza. Tsai CITY was developed to foster connections between entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. It is a major donation by Joseph C. Tsai ’86 B.A., ’90 J.D.
Yale freshmen move-in
The day after tropical storm Henri made landfall in New England, students began arriving on campus. On August 23, Yale freshmen with their parents swung open car doors and trunks to begin moving into their colleges, carting suitcases and boxes through rain and windy conditions. The rain did nothing to dampen their spirits, however, and Yale ponchos made the trek less soggy.
Heidi and Yale Police Officer Rich Simons
The team of Heidi, trained service/therapy dog, and Yale Police Officer Rich Simons has been working as ambassadors for Yale Public Safety since September 2020. On Monday, August 23, the duo interacted with first-year students and their parents as they arrived on campus. These meetings will continue this week and next as all students return to Yale to begin the fall semester.
Yale dining halls
Joyce Baker, pantry worker and desk attendant, serves up Yale Hospitality’s signature three-cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, which top the list of students’ favorites along with chicken tenders. These and other mouth-watering selections will soon be heaped on the plates of Yale’s undergraduate and graduate students when campus dining halls officially open on August 31.
The Bass Tower
The Edward P. Bass Tower, framed in this photo by leafy treetops (particularly, horse-chestnut blossoms on the left and red-oak leaves overhead), stands 190 feet tall and signals Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin colleges’ 6.7-acre campus, which is now four years old. Bass Tower houses seminar rooms, and offers views that will likely take in next week’s return of Yale students.
Get ready for Yale’s football season
A spring visit to Yale Athletics’ Football Office found Elijah Weeks, director of Player Development, working to secure summer internships for Yale football players. With practice starting this month, Elijah is organizing alumni mentorship pairs for incoming freshman players. The season begins at home on September 18 against Holy Cross. Yale is the defending Ivy League co-champion.
Lunch at West Campus
It was a summer afternoon on Yale’s West Campus when this photo was snapped of colleagues taking their lunches on the terrace next to the Conference Center, which houses the Café. It’s a lunch option available to everyone at Yale and is just a short drive or shuttle ride away from New Haven.
Yale Broadcast Studio
Rick Leone, executive director, Yale Broadcast Studio, is directing a multi-input recording with Professor Papademetris for a course entitled ”Creation of the Medical Software.” While most staff have been on campus since spring, the studio was open on a limited basis during COVID, even acting as a Zoom base for Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith to conduct White House COVID briefings.
Campus benches
When was the last time you just sat down on a campus bench and visited with a colleague? Now that we can still do so without a mask, consider taking advantage of the healthy benefits that work friendships bring to our lives. Research shows that engaging with friends increases your sense of belonging and purpose, boosts your happiness, and reduces stress.
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail
Enter the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail on bikes or on foot at 24 Hillhouse Avenue and discover that the paved path connects Yale’s central campus to Science Park. Continue past Science Park, and trail travel 84 miles to Northampton, Mass. Staff often choose biking the trail to and from work, running or walking it during lunchtime, or strolling along it to meetings.
The Yale Farm
Yale Sustainable Food Program’s Jeremy Oldfield, Yale Farm manager, and Jacquie Munno, manager, International and Professional Experience, prune tomatoes, harvest marigolds. During COVID, Farm produce went to New Haven hunger relief groups. The team also cultivated plant-based dyes: marigolds, indigo, tansy, scabiosa. Since students couldn’t gather over pizza events, they dyed masks for local partners, and more.
Peabody Museum Collections at West Campus
Peabody’s Cathy Lash, vertebrate paleontology preparator, cleans and repairs fossil specimen oreodont, which represents an extinct group of mammals that lived between 40 and 5.3 million years ago. We observed Cathy in the Vertebrate Paleontology Preparation Lab at Yale West Campus while touring with Tim White, director of Museum Collections & Research.
Food trucks and outdoor dining
The food trucks that line up daily on Sachem Street in front of Yale’s hockey rink are a big draw during lunchtime all year long, but more so when the weather is nice. Many staff members and students buy their meals and then cross the street to sit at the picnic tables on the terrace next to Pauli Murray College.
Information Technology Data Center Operations Center
Images of servers fall under the watchful eye of Peter Morazzini, shift coordinator in the Information Technology (IT) Data Center Operations Center. This is where Yale’s Computing Systems and Applications, Networks, Public Safety Switches, Phones, and Data Center Infrastructure are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Peter’s support keeps Yale’s IT environment running smoothly.
Yale Center for Molecular Discovery
In the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery on West Campus, Montrell Seay and Laura Abriola, biotechnology associates, carry out their work of partnering with Yale scientists who are looking for new or modified drugs to advance their translational research. In aiding target and drug discovery, Montrell and Laura have access to 300,000 small molecules and 18,000 genomic probes.
Yale University Art Gallery
A June trip to the Yale University Art Gallery, a day closed to patrons, found Museum Technician Alicia Van Campen, Exhibitions Department, replacing light bulbs while Gustave Corbet’s La Liberté (1875) looked on, basking in the spotlight. This bronze sculpture (with dark brown patina) was given to the Gallery as a gift by Richard L. Feigen, B.A. 1952.
Nathan Hale statue on Old Campus
Hail Nathan! Consider Nathan Hale’s heroism in the Revolutionary War—schoolteacher turned spy for the Continental Congress; hung by the British in 1776; purported to have said, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” This Old Campus statue stands next to Connecticut Hall where Nathan lived as a Yale student (B.A. 1773, M.A. 1776).
Yale Visitor Center
There’s an open dog—rather door—policy at the Visitor Center and Handsome Dan XIX (aka Kingman) is never shy about seeing what his colleague Patrick Pitoniak, assistant director, is up to. While the Center is still closed and only running virtual tours, staff members are back working together as a team—Handsome Dan included, when he is not making appearances.
Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Art Gallery painting conservator Sydney Nikolaus treats an oil study by Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) from the Gallery’s collection for his Holy Grail murals in the Boston Public Library. Working in the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage’s shared conservation lab on West Campus, she carefully removes surface grime and hazy white efflorescence material.
Yale Department of Pharmacology lab
Lei Zhang, research associate, is at work in Yale’s Department of Pharmacology lab, which is led by Dr. Anton Bennett, professor of Pharmacology and Comparative Medicine. Lei supports research that Dr. Bennett says “uses multidisciplinary approaches to understand the impact of protein phosphorylation in cell signaling and its health-related impact in metabolic diseases.”
Yale West Campus
It was a “picture-perfect” June afternoon when a walk on Yale’s West Campus (YWC) revealed landscaped green space that has transformed 9 acres. New pathways connect the research buildings and lead to the Conference Center hub. YWC is home to 7 institutes comprising partners from university departments, schools, and museums, and also to the Yale School of Nursing.
Sterling Memorial Library
Barbara Rockenbach (left), the Stephen F. Gates ’68 university librarian, and Sara Machowski, senior executive assistant, carry on their day-to-day business in their Sterling Memorial Library offices. Barbara joined Yale in July 2020, four months into the pandemic, and reminds us that the library has been open the entire time—online at first, now in person.
Yale High Street Bridge
When was the last time you walked under Yale’s High Street Bridge? It’s likely been a while. But the next time you do, look up, and you’ll see four architectural reliefs of winged females, which represent Architecture, Drama, Painting, and Sculpture. The bridge and its winged women were designed by architect Egerton Swartwout (Class of 1891) in 1928.
Yale Center for British Art
On June 4, Yale Center for British Art re-opened to the public for the first time since a three-weekend opening in fall 2020. Here, Jennifer Lahert, Yale security officer, greets two visitors. The Center will be open on Fridays, noon to 7:00 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 4:00 p.m. Free timed-entry tickets are strongly encouraged. A total of 668 people visited on this first weekend.
IT’s Engineering and Operations team
IT’s Operations team, led by David Highsmith, gathered for the camera at 25 Science Park on a recent May afternoon (left to right): Kelsey Viani, Eric Alford, Jeff Brown, Brian Murray, Antonio Valderrama, Victor Soto; not pictured is Phil Mondo. Also not pictured are Engineering team members led by Tim Sheets: Dean Baruffi, Paul Johnson, Tony Ventura.
Sachem's Wood
Next time you’re in the vicinity of Sachem’s Wood (off Sachem Street), feel free to admire this renovated green space whose design aims to connect Science Hill to the rest of central campus. Find curving walkways bordered by fresh landscaping, new benches, and grey cobblestone runnels (efficient water drainage). Walk around, take a seat. Enjoy yourself.
Yale Athletics
Alex Barmore (right), chief of staff and director of Football Operations, hands Sam Rubin, assistant director of Strategic Communications, completed swab kits from the Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale. Football team members swabbed their cheeks to join Be The Match Registry as possible genetic matches for patients needing marrow transplants.
Commencement 2021
Two Yale Security staff members survey Old Campus in all its Commencement 2021 finery. This year’s 600 socially distanced chairs have been welcoming Yale graduates in seven separate ceremonies over the course of four days. These in-person celebrations, albeit without visitors, remind us of this joyous time of year on campus, especially when the sun shines.
Yale Printing and Publishing (YPPS)
Every year like clockwork, Yale Printing and Publishing Services (YPPS) produces programs, booklets, signage, certificates, diplomas, and so much more, for Yale Commencement. Here, Mable Thorne, printing representative, fills the Class Day bags that Yale College students will receive for the May 23 virtual event. YPPS produced over 1,200 bags; created the 2021 Commencement website; and prints all Yale diplomas this Friday night.
Berkeley College Dining Hall
While some staff members have been working remotely since March 2020, others have been here all along, supporting the campus Community. We’ll be sharing snapshots of life on campus over the next few months as we return to Yale—featuring our people, places, and traditions. Recently, we got a look inside Berkeley College’s dining hall where Joel Alberto, third cook, was cooking up something delicious.