On Jan. 24, American civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who became a symbol of the movement as a young girl in the early 1960s when she integrated an all-white elementary school, spoke about the continued fight for educational justice during Yale’s annual commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In March, local first-graders were among the first to visit the Yale Peabody Museum after a transformative four-year renovation. The project, made possible by a landmark $160 million gift from philanthropist Edward P. Bass ’68, more than doubled the museum’s exhibition spaces, added 10 classrooms equipped with the latest audio-visual technology, and paved the way for a new education center for K-12 students from the New Haven area. Like the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, the Peabody now offers free public admission.
Hundreds gathered at Yale’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium in April for a solar eclipse watch party. Viewers in New Haven observed the moon covering 91% of the sun (despite a brief interruption by the clouds); student volunteers and staff were on hand to help visitors safely view the celestial event.
David Schrader, a properties craftsperson for the Yale Repertory Theatre, transformed a wooden stool frame into a faux-giltwood seat. The theater’s prop shop supplies all manner of items for use on the stage — including large pieces like furniture and wooden trees and smaller items like pillows, glassware, and gardening tools.
On Yale’s West Campus, a new 20,000-gallon “Tech Tank” allows researchers to test amphibious robotics, marine observation devices, and other water-based innovations. Housed in a former warehouse, the tank features a wave generator, a moveable mesh ramp, and climate control. Managed by the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, it is open to researchers in all fields from Yale and beyond.
On their way to the 2024 Commencement ceremony, graduates passed through Noah Porter Gate as they exited Cross Campus.
During his final commencement as the university’s president, Peter Salovey was presented with a surprise honorary degree by Provost Scott Strobel. The degree recognized Salovey’s more than four decades of service to Yale, including the past 11 as the university’s 23rd president.
Over the summer, students in the First-Year Scholars at Yale program visited the Yale Peabody Museum. The free six-week summer session gives students from low-income and first-generation families an introduction to Yale courses and campus resources.
Students in the Pathways to Arts and Humanities Summer Scholars Program took part in a workshop on British comic art taught by the Yale Center for British Art’s James Vanderberg. Like the Pathways to Science program, on which it is modelled, Pathways to Arts and Humanities offers high school students from New Haven, West Haven, and Orange access to the university’s vast array of resources, all at no charge over a two-week session.
Despite rainy weather, Yale College first-year and transfer students met move-in day in August with enthusiasm. President McInnis was on hand to help.
A September moon hung over Harkness Tower. Other celestial phenomenon this year included, in October, a rare sighting of the aurora borealis over New England.
The New Haven Road Race, held on Labor Day, passed through the “Chapel Cheer Zone” outside the Yale University Art Gallery, which was sponsored by Yale’s Office of New Haven Affairs. Spectators made signs and rang cowbells to give passing runners a boost.
On Nov. 11, U.S. Air Force Major Nathan Luchini and his son attended the university’s annual Veteran’s Day ceremony at Hewitt Quadrangle. The ceremony honors the many Yale community members who have served in the military, including students enrolled in the university’s ROTC program.
For this year’s Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, Yale architecture students designed and built a single-story house that is part of a growing “village” for local educators. The annual Vlock Building Project, a core element of the curriculum in the school’s professional architecture degree program, offers first-year students the opportunity to design and build a home within the city for residents who might otherwise struggle to afford one.
Yale’s Sam Raskin solved a major portion of a math question long considered the field’s “Rosetta Stone.” Raskin worked with Dennis Gaitsgory of the Max Planck Institute and a team of seven other mathematicians to solve the geometry portion of the Langlands Conjectures, which suggested in the 1960s that deep, unproven connections exist between number theory, harmonic analysis, and geometry — three areas of math long considered distinctly separate.
In October, Yale leaders, along with state and local officials, commemorated the groundbreaking for the new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building, the centerpiece of the new Upper Science Hill Building Complex. The ambitious project will transform Yale’s quantum and engineering programs with new research labs, convening space, and a geothermal plant.
