October 26 - 28, 2000

The vagaries of air travel today provided an inauspicious beginning to what turned out to be a most enjoyable weekend in New Haven exploring the richness and depth of the performing arts at Yale. With our plane diverted to Newark, Rick Luis, president of the Yale Alumni Association of the Northwest, and I missed the opening plenary session that placed the arts at Yale in retrospect.

Late Thursday afternoon, self guided tours of various arts venues were offered. I chose to visit the Collection of Musical Instruments on Hillhouse Avenue. Visitors were treated to an informed presentation of the collection, in particular the magnificent assembly of harpsichords. It was during this tour that I also first learned of the extraordinary community open house that Yale had hosted the previous weekend. This daylong affair on Parents’ Weekend kicked off the university’s tercentennial. Crowds of between 15 to 20,000 people congregated on the campus visiting libraries, dining halls, museums, classrooms, laboratories, and college rooms. For many New Haven area residents, this was a first. As President Levin noted in his remarks on Saturday morning, the open house sent a clear message that Yale today is accessible.

Friday evening offered delegates the opportunity to join undergraduates for dinner, followed by various performances in the residential colleges. This proved to be a special treat for me as I was assigned to Pierson College where I had served as College Dean some thirty years ago. The student performances (classical arias, folk songs and modern dance) were exuberant, creative, and very well delivered to an appreciative audience.

Theatre maintains a highly visible presence. Beyond the Yale Dramat and the Dramatic Association (which celebrates its 100 anniversary this year) are numerous college and impromptu theatrical groups that are constantly vying for space to perform. In many of the colleges, what was once a squash court has been transformed into a black box theatre.

Pursuit of the arts carries into the classroom as well at the graduate or professional and undergraduate levels. For example, while there are but 25-30 majors in music, over 1,100 students enroll in courses offered by the Department of Music. Similarly, the Theatre Studies program has grown significantly following a major restructuring. I gathered that tensions still exist for those undergraduate students with professional aspirations. Yale is not a conservatory at the undergraduate level and students are restricted to 4 term course credits in performance towards their major. A challenge of a different sort confronts students attending the Drama School. Many leave New Haven with $40,000 in loans only to face an average starting salary of $14,500 per year.

We had several occasions when we experienced "doing art" and that provided the highlight of the weekend for me. Friday morning I attended a conducting workshop offered by Lawrence Leighton Smith, music director of the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra. He greeted us as Larry Smith and energetically and humorously led us through the last movement of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony while two of his conducting students projected the score and a video Smith conducting the Louisville Symphony. Saturday evening Smith led the orchestra in a program of Brahms, Kodaly and Bruckner in Woolsey Hall. We were ushered into Sprague Hall to witness a world premier by new choral group directed by the venerable Fenno Heath only to learn that we were that group. Fenno led us in a spirited series of renditions of glee club classics and Yale songs. The Glee Club invited alumni to join their European tour next summer and over 500 former Glee Club members signed up. Extraordinary!

On Friday as well, the university dedicated the Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Hall on the site of the Jewish Community Center on Chapel Street and announced a $250 million commitment to renovate and expand the art facilities in the York and Chapel Street area. The Art Gallery, Dramat, and Art and Architecture buildings are among the facilities that will undergo changes over the next decade.

Two other developments are worthy of note. Rick Levin spoke about Yale joining Stanford, Princeton and Oxford to form the Alliance for Lifelong Learning which plans to build on earlier experiments in the uses of today’s technology to bring the campus to alumni scattered throughout the globe. Secondly, the AYA staff plans to implement a number of refinements and changes to the reunion schedule. These modifications will be based on knowledge gained from recently conducted surveys.

Finally, what permeated the weekend for me were the feelings, the attitudes, and the sense of the place. You have read about the ambitious facility renovations that continue apace. Beyond the rejuvenated campus, one gets the distinct sense that many things are going well at Yale today. One senses that gathered there are groups of extraordinarily talented individuals determined the take full advantage of the moment. I liked it.

David H. Griffith

AYA representative

Yale Alumni Association of the Northwest

November 2000