Respice: a look back at higher education - Yale University history - Brief Article

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, June, 2001

Yale University has much to be proud of, and now this distinguished university is celebrating it's tercentennial. Throughout the years, many lasting traditions have developed on the Yale campus, which stretches about two miles on 225 acres of land in New Haven, Conn. In honor of its 300th birthday, here are insights on some known and maybe not so well known Yale traditions:

Handsome Dan, the Yale Bulldog

The story goes that Andrew B Graves, a member of the Sheffield Scientific School Class of 1892, came upon a grimy bulldog in a New Haven blacksmith shop during his freshman year. He purchased the irresistible pooch for $65. A thorough washing revealed a beautiful white coat and brown markings, so he named him Handsome Dan. Wherever Graves went, Handsome Dan went, including school football and baseball games. When Graves rooted, Dan followed suit, barking enthusiastically every time Yale scored while growling ferociously at Yale's opponents. His reputation grew until he was adopted as the university mascot.

The planting of ivy by the graduating class began in 1852. The ivy was planted at the foot of the southern tower of the Old Library, now Dwight Hall, according to documents written by Judith Ann Schiff, Yale's chief research archivist. As the procession passed, each graduate tossed a handful of earth upon the roots. The Yale ceremony later added an Ivy Ode. It was published in the senior classbook for the first time in 1927.

Who's Who of Yale Alumni

President George W. Bush is the fifth Yale alumnus to become president of the United States. He graduated in 1968. His father, George Herbert Walker Bush, graduated in 1948 and was captain of the baseball team. William Howard Taft graduated in 1878, Gerald Ford in 1941, and Bill Clinton in 1973. Other alumni have gone on to make notable contributions to society as well, including:

Eli Whitney       1792   inventor of the cotton gin
Samuel Morse      1810   inventor of the telegraph
Sinclair Lewis    1907   author
Cole Porter       1913   composer
Thornton Wilder   1920   playwright
Mark Rothko       1925   artist
Paul Newman       1954   actor

TIME LINE

1843 First collegiate rowing races are held in New Haven Harbor.

1869 The Yale School of Fine Arts, the first collegiate art school and Yale's first coed school, opens through the gift of Augustus and Caroline Street.

1870 Yale College becomes Yale University.

1871 Gifford Pinchot, a Yale graduate and pioneer of U.S. Forestry and conservation, founds the Yale School of Forestry, the oldest continuously operating forestry school in the U.S.

1872 Yale Bowl completed, the largest amphitheater to be constructed since the Roman Colosseum.

1873 Completion of Harkness Tower, at the time the tallest freestanding tower in the U.S.

1974 Opening of Yale Center for British Art, the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom

1975 Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Memorial, creates The Woman's Table sculpture, documenting the history of the enrollment of women at Yale, and it is installed in front of the Yale University Library.