footnotes: how does a residential college get its name?

The look and location of the two newest residential colleges may have been decided upon, but nothing else about this pair of hypothetical communities—mascots, cheers, coats of arms—is a fait accompli. Most conspicuous among these uncertainties regarding the colleges’ identities is their lack of names.

Unlike the handful of American universities with residential colleges, including Princeton and Rice, Yale’s tradition is such that none may be named after a living donor. (The names of either founding figures or distinguished alumni were applied posthumously to all but two of the residential colleges, Branford and Saybrook, which are named after neighboring towns.) As tempting as it may be, with a recession underway, for the Yale Corporation to entice potential benefactors with naming rights, that possibility has been ruled out.

Unfortunately, at least for any egotistical multimillionaires reading this, there are enough luminaries deserving of the honor who are both deceased and somehow connected to Yale. The current issue of Yale’s Alumni Magazine features a compilation of names that should be in the running, suggested by interested alumni and a few professors as well.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that white men, the sole beneficiaries of a Yale education for most of the University’s existence, take up a disproportionate share of the submissions. But not all of these standouts are alike, in terms of how conventional their contributions to Yale were.

Some, like Nathan Hale and William Howard Taft, made the unofficial cut for their patriotism and scholarship, respectively. Others were nominated on the basis of their artistic accomplishments, whether in music (Cole Porter), literature (Sinclair Lewis), or verse (Emily Dickinson). Since the youngest colleges are intended, in part, to shift Yale’s center of gravity northwards, so as to embrace Science Hill, it arguably befits them to reflect this goal in their names; just imagine an IM match between the infantile inhabitants of Benjamin Spock College and the (freely) energetic ones of Josiah Gibbs College. Finally, there are nominations so abstract or so obscure, straining to be inclusive of women (Dorothy Horstmann?) and minorities (Lafayette Mendel?) that they likely won’t be up for serious consideration.

The debate over which two names are worthiest or complement one another best will surely pick up around 2015, assuming that construction is underway by then. Meanwhile, if nomenclature really gets you going, there’s always Calhoun to pick on.

 By Ben Schenkel

<—Previous                                                                                              Next—>