How do we respond when something terrible happens? For actor Obi Ndefo ’94 B.A., ’97 M.F.A., the answer was: “Grab onto whatever I can.”
Last August, Ndefo, known best for playing Bodie Wells on the TV drama “Dawson’s Creek” and Jaffa rebel Rak'nor on “...
Mina Kimes ’07 B.A. never intended to become a sports commentator, but always considered herself a fan. By default she rooted for her dad’s favorite teams — the Seahawks and Supersonics — and eventually developed into a full-fledged fan, even getting an “...
When Jesse Washington ’92 B.A. was a student at Yale in the late 1980s, he witnessed African-American men ascending to new positions of power in sports.
Among them was John Thompson Jr., coach of Georgetown University’s basketball team, the first African-...
New York Times assistant managing editor Monica Drake ’94 B.A. made history in 2018 when she became the first black woman on the paper’s masthead. She had joined the paper in 1998 as an intern, later becoming a copy editor, Culture Desk writer, and senior...
The Shades of Yale, an a cappella group devoted to songs of the African diaspora, closes every concert with a medley arrangement of the traditional spirituals “Amen” and “We Shall Overcome.” Alumni who are in the audience join in the song, particularly...
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a daily onslaught of unsettling numbers and charts related to infection numbers, hospitalizations, and death rates. But Mark Abraham ’04 B.A., executive director of DataHaven, said sometimes focusing on positive...
For years, bestselling author Gretchen Rubin ’89 B.A., ’94 J.D. has offered guidance on how to live a happier, more fulfilling life.
In her books, she shows readers the four ways people respond to expectations and how to harness those tendencies to...
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck New York, MacArthur-winning performer and artist Okwui Okpokwasili ’96 B.A. was living in Brooklyn, debuting a new project called “Sitting on a Man’s Head,” which was inspired by one of many forms of protest practiced by...
When Janni Lehrer-Stein ’78 B.A. came to Yale in 1975 from Saskatchewan, Canada, she dreamed of becoming a lawyer. And over the next few years her life seemed to unfold just as she had planned.
While at Yale, she interned for a criminal defense attorney...