Students not invited to Yale's exclusive party

Those of you who have read this column before know that I tend to be a little harsh on Yale's Administration. My dad called me trenchant for equating Urban Outfitters with a fiery hell in my last column. Even though I only chide because I care, I resolved to do things differently this week. The Administration does do some nice things. The reseeding of Cross Campus Lawn looks just beautiful.

MARK WILSON/NEWSMAKERS Poppa Clinton, LAW '73, will be there, but you won't

I had intended this week's column to be a love fest. That was before I found out that the Administration had gone and fouled things up yet again. And this time, the error is the most insulting to Yale students yet: the University's biggest tercentennial celebration, which will be held from Thurs., Apr. 19 to Sun., Apr. 22, will be off-limits to all but a handful of current Yalies.

On that weekend, luminaries including former President George H.W. Bush, DC '48, Garry Trudeau, DC '70, Tom Wolfe, GRD '57, and possibly President Bill Clinton, LAW '73, will return to New Haven to partake in Yale's 300th birthday saturnalia. Twelve hundred of Yale's "most active" alumni will attend the weekend, which will include speeches, concerts, and dinners. As for Yale's current students, supposedly the "lifeblood" of the institution? Well, University Secretary Linda Lorimer, LAW '77, has made it clear that there might be a small number of spots at each event for students and that last-minute cancellations may allow a few more to attend.

Yale advertises itself as being the most undergraduate-friendly university in the Ivy League, and yet students will have to fight tooth-and-nail to get the privilege of participating in the University's birthday party. Yale rarely (say, about once in a century) hosts two former presidents as well as several leading cultural figures, and the fact that Yale students will probably only be able to hear or see them should a few alumni miss their connecting flights to New Haven is patently absurd.

Then, of course, there is the question of whether this birthday "celebration" is being conducted in an appropriate manner at all. If Yale really wanted to make its 300th anniversary special, the Administration would have looked back to 1901, a year in which the Yale Daily News proclaimed the central bicentennial weekend to be the "greatest in the history of Yale." That long weekend was all-inclusive for students, faculty, and alumni alike. Among other events, it included speeches by President Theodore Roosevelt, wild student parades through the streets of New Haven, and a special bicentennial football game. Additionally, the bicentennial celebration featured the construction of three of Yale's most notable buildings: Commons, Woolsey Hall, and Woodbridge Hall. Ironically, it was probably from that last building that the ill-advised decisions about the nature of the upcoming tercentennial festivities were made. It looks like the birthday "celebration" will mainly consist of a few lectures, not to mention the 300-pound baked good and exhilarating parade of bulldogs we've already had. Yale is certainly not constructing three campus landmarks this year. At this point, we'd be lucky to get a statue. This will not be Yale's greatest weekend ever; in fact, from the looks of things, it probably will pass Yale students by without so much as a whimper.

When I was a freshman, I took special note that I would be around for the University's tercentennial, which, back then, promised to be a year that no student would forget. The fact that current Yale students are to be excluded from a major portion of the celebration, and that this celebration is going to be so understated and non-momentous when compared to the bicentennial, is indicative of one of the most insidious problems currently faced by Yale students—the leaders of our school are simply less focused on the quality of life and the overall happiness of the students. The current Administration has become financially driven to an excessive degree. Despite Yale's $10 billion endowment, the Administration has turned Yale's 300th birthday celebration—which belongs just as much to the students as to them—into a run-of-the-mill fundraising event. The Administration knows that current students have to pay their tuition bills, birthday party or not, but that Yale's alumni certainly do not have to keep on making donations. The University has decided that it makes the most sense to direct its anniversary celebration towards those whose financial support is more in question, a tactic which is incredibly short-sighted.

Perhaps the most infuriating part of this blatant failure to include students in the tercentennial festivities is that it could readily be ameliorated. The celebration will occur in April. It is warm in April, even in New Haven. Events and parties in the tradition of the bicentennial could be held for students in outdoor spaces large enough to accommodate the entire student body and an even broader group of alumni. Ex-Presidents Bush and Clinton could very easily give speeches on Old Campus or Cross Campus.

But then, of course, the non-donation-contributing feet of current Yale students might end up trampling the grass.

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