AYA - Assembly

Assembly LVIII: Three Hundred Years of Creativity and Discovery
Friday, April 20 through Sunday, April 22, 2001
Class Sample Report

This may have been Yale's 58th alumni assembly, but the operative number from April 20th to 22nd was the big "300" as the University pulled out all the stops to celebrate its tercentennial. Some 52 lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and performances featuring Yale faculty and alumni provided an overwhelming demonstration of the University's intellectual and artistic strengths, which appear to be at their zenith - nicely timed to coincide with a major anniversary.

The weekend began with an abbreviated Alumni Assembly that focused on the role of alumni in the development of the University. Gaddis Smith, '54, '61 Ph.D., Larned Professor Emeritus of History, provided a fascinating lecture on the impact of alumni on Yale, especially in the 20th century. He noted that Yale was the first American college to organize alumni by graduating class and to appoint Class Secretaries, beginning in 1792. Fresh from the experience of mobilizing for World War I, a group of alumni leaders who were eager to "modernize" the University formed an alumni commission on University planning that set up its own office and staff in New York City. When they grew impatient with President Hadley's unresponsiveness to their demands for reform, they persuaded the Yale Corporation to move Hadley aside and adopt an organizational plan that continues to shape Yale today. Two years later, President Angell took office and guided the development of the campus made possible by the Harkness and Sterling fortunes. The dark side of alumni influence was the commitment to "Keep Yale, Yale," which virtually guaranteed that alumni sons would be admitted and set a quota on Jewish admissions.

After World War II, William F. Buckley, Jr., '50, argued in God and Man at Yale that the alumni owned the University and should not allow the appointment of faculty who didn't believe in God or who did believe in socialism. Perhaps the most important contribution of the book was to force the University to articulate publicly its commitment to academic freedom.

Smith traced the history of alumni involvement in the debate over coeducation, which was first proposed during the Korean War by Professor Thomas Bergin to compensate for the potential loss of male students to military service. Kingman Brewster entered into negotiations with Vassar in 1966 to move to New Haven as a coordinate college. But Princeton's decision to go coed in 1968 forced Yale to follow suit a year later. Alumni complained that they should have "voted" on the matter.

Alumni reaction to campus protests of the late '60s was far more vehement. Indeed, Smith says that in going through the archives he's surprised they don't spontaneously combust! A group of alumni formed Lux et Veritas to combat Yale's "left turn," and Brewster responded by forming another New York-based alumni commission that led to the establishment of the Association of Yale Alumni. In defining the relationship of alumni to alma mater, the Dwyer Commission rejected the two extremes - alumni are neither merely "debtors" nor are they truly stockholders. The AYA structure they created has served as an effective link between Yale and its alumni for more than three decades.

Following Smith's lecture, theater Professor Murray Biggs introduced a talented group of students who read excerpts from three centuries of alumni letters to the University. Then Eustace Theodore '63, former Executive Director of the AYA, provided a look into the future of alumni relations in the digital age and the impact of a wired world on the roles of faculty and students. After voting on candidates for the AYA Board of Governors (including '64's Ken DeMario), we adjourned to the Yale Medal Luncheon, which included recognition of former medallist, Chris Getman. Class Secretary Tony Lee, former Secretary Len Baker (now a member of the Corporation), and former Yale Vice President Terry Holcombe were among those augmenting the 1964 presence.

My own highly selective sampling of the remainder of the Tercentennial program included a review of Yale's involvement in China by Jonathan Spence (it began with Elihu Yale's service as Governor of the East India Company) and a panel on "Democracy in America" that featured Benno Schmidt and Robert Dahl (who despite retiring 15 years ago provided an analysis of current issues ranging from cultural diversity in Europe to globalization that seemed decidedly "cutting edge"). Rick Levin moderated a discussion of the economy with Bob Rubin and Janet Yellin, and joined Paul Kennedy and two students for a chat with George H. W. Bush, underlining Yale's extraordinary impact on national affairs (four of the last six presidents). But the highlight for my wife and me was hearing Willie Ruff describe how his life was changed forever when W. C. Handy visited his little school in Northern Alabama, and then listening to Ruff demonstrate what he knows about the blues while playing the bass and singing "Go Down Moses."

Although institutional hubris is de rigeur on such occasions, the pervasive air of self-congratulation seemed more than appropriate. Yale and its peers, though far from perfect, set a standard of intellectual rigor, artistic creativity, and moral engagement that is barely recognized in most of the other institutions of contemporary society. And the endowment is up 9% in the first quarter! After some difficult times, Yale has its act together for its 300th birthday. Boola, boola.