Report from YAA Assembly and Convocation 2025

Report from YAA Assembly and Convocation 2025

By Bill Crosby

The primary role of a class representative is to attend the annual YAA Assembly and Convocation and report to the class on what is happening at Yale. This is my third and last year in this role.

Below is a photo of the Yale campus taken the first morning of the event during breakfast at the Omni Hotel rooftop restaurant. There are significant new developments on campus, but they are hard to spot in this photo.

NEW DEVELOPMENT AT YALE

One building that was completed in August of this year, after our 60th reunion is the “Living Village” at the Yale Divinity School, which provides student housing. My wife, Connie, and I joined a tour led by the Dean of the Divinity School, Greg Sterling. When the support structures, including a solar roof over the parking lot are complete, the Living Village will produce more power than it uses. There are large batteries to store power when the sun is not shining. Heat in the winter cannot be set higher than 74 degrees, and air conditioning in the summer cannot be set lower than 74 degrees. The windows are all triple pane glass.

The construction materials used in the building are earth friendly. Instead of brick, the exterior of the building consists of terra cotta panels, the production of which produces far less carbon dioxide than brick production. Except for the steel frame, wood is the primary construction material because trees absorb carbon dioxide, which is better for the planet. Rainwater from the roof structures is collected and recycled, so that the building is largely self-sufficient in water consumption. Long showers are discouraged. The U-shaped structure is designed so that the hallways face the courtyard, and all have natural sunlight. Some of the furniture in the building is made from the red oak trees which had to be cut down to make room for the structure. Dean Sterling said that a $27 million gift from a non-alum made the building possible. Below is a photo of the main entrance and one exterior wall of the building.

LUNCH IN A RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE

Connie and I were given the opportunity to have lunch in a residential college. I chose Berkeley since that was where I lived as a student. As we waited in line with the students, the Manager of the Berkeley Dining Hall, Marga Verneris, invited Connie and me to have lunch with her and her assistant. We accepted. I learned a lot about food service at Yale.  Unlike when we were students, all the food options now have a sign listing each of the ingredients and the number of calories per serving, so a student with food allergies is now protected. There is one student with such a severe food allergy that all his meals are prepared individually. No more mystery meat. Students have more flexibility in choosing where to eat each meal. Berkeley, being centrally located, feeds a significant number of students from other colleges at lunch. We were introduced to the current Head of Collège, David Evans. When I mentioned that the Master of Berkeley College in my student days was Charles Walker, David Evans pointed out the large painting of Charles Walker on the wall. Today’s students at Yale appear to be very well fed.

PRESENTATION BY FACULTY COMMITTEE TO STUDY TRUST IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Recent polling data shows that Americans do not have great trust in higher education. For example, seven in ten Americans now say the higher education system in the United States is generally going in the wrong direction – up from 56% who said this in 2020, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.  

Yale President Maurie McInnis formed the Committee on Trust in Higher Education in April 2024 to address declining public trust in universities.  The ten member committee is to report next year. Three members of the committee held a meeting to explain their work to YAA representatives. The three professors were Beverly Gage, Jason Hockenberry and Priyamvada Natarajan. A person in the audience asked how many Republicans were on the Committee. The answer was zero.

Full Disclosure: I am a career Republican who for 27 years (1972-1999) had an office in the US Capitol building working for the House Rules Committee first as the Republican Counsel and then as Chief Counsel when Republicans became the majority. 

Regarding the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, Lauren Noble ’11, a Republican, who addressed our Yale ’65 Zoom group, and who founded the Buckley Institute, a conservative group on the Yale campus which currently has 820 student fellows, asked to be on the committee and was not included.  

On December 1, 2025 the Buckley Institute released the 2025 Faculty Political Diversity Report. Clicking on the name should provide a link to a copy of the report. The report finds a more than 36 to 1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans across all of Yale’s undergraduate departments, the Yale Law School, and the Yale School of Management.

In the introduction to the report, Lauren Noble stated, “For the third year in a row, our research has highlighted the significant political and ideological imbalance among Yale’s faculty. Yale has committed repeatedly over decades to fostering an environment conducive to open debate and discussion but has all but excluded diversity of opinion through its hiring process. With such a dramatic ideological chasm between the Yale campus and the country, it is not hard to see why trust for higher education is so low.”

YALE MEDAL DINNER

The concluding event of the first day was the Yale Medal Dinner. It is held in what we used to call Commons, now the Schwarzman Center.  The Yale Medal is the highest award presented by the Alumni Association honoring outstanding individual service to the University.  The five recipients of the 2025 Yale Medal are: Robert Bildner ’72,  Donna L. Dubinsky ’77, Akosua Barthwell Evans ’90 JD, Jerry W. Henry ’80 MDiv, and William J. Poorvu ’56. Then all of the previous recipients of the Yale Medal who were in attendance were asked to stand and had their names put up on a large screen. One of those was our classmate, Bruce Alexander. Bruce has left his mark on the Yale campus. A block of High Street between Berkeley College and the Rare Book Library has been blocked off to automobile traffic, and is now called Alexander Walk. Here is a photo of the marker.

ADDRESS BY YALE PRESIDENT MAURIE MCINNIS TO THE YAA ASSEMBLY AND CONVOCATION

At 8:30 AM on the second day of the gathering, Yale President Maurie McInnis addressed the group. She also cited the poll showing that 70% of Americans believe that higher education is heading in the wrong direction, and noted that she had appointed a faculty committee to study the situation. She pointed out that under recently enacted legislation Yale expects to pay a $300 million tax on endowment income in 2026.  She noted that the cost of a college education is one reason universities are unpopular. She noted that Yale is trying to offset that problem with increased tuition assistance for students. She reported that the “For Humanity” fundraising campaign has already raised $6.6 billion with 8 months still to go.

She said that the Yale Center for Civic Thought was created on July 1 of this year.  The purpose is to teach students how to discuss difficult topics in a civil manner. The Center works at three levels of community: (1) on Yale’s campus, (2) in New Haven, and (3) nationally. The new Center is the result of discussions at Yale that started after the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. Jewish and Palestinian students started meeting to exchange views in a peaceful manner.

President McInnis explained that she has been spending a lot of time meeting with government officials and elected representatives of both parties in Washington, DC, making the case that the nation’s large research universities like Yale are a major benefit to the nation. Yale is coordinating its efforts with other peer institutions.

She pointed out that Yale is spending $1.5 billion for new facilities on Science Hill. Among other things, Yale has created a Center for Parkinson’s Research. Three members of the Yale Community recently won Nobel Prizes.

After her opening remarks, President McInnis answered a series of questions posed by the YAA Executive Director, Alison Cole ’99.  The questions were selected to be representative of the large number of questions submitted by attendees.  A few are as follows.

Question: What can alumni do to help?  The answer is alumni can spread the word and lobby government officials with the message that Yale and its peer institutions are providing a large benefit to the nation and humanity.

Question: How is Yale dealing with AI?  The answer is that the goal is to teach students to control AI.  The faculty needs to prevent abuse of AI.

Question:  What are the prospects for Yale football team in tomorrow’s game against Harvard.  Answer is that Yale has won the last three Yale-Harvard games, and hopes are high for a victory tomorrow.

VISIT TO TSAI CENTER FOR INNOVATIVE THINKING AT YALE (TSAI CITY)

Tsai City provides an opportunity for Yale students to create their own business ventures and practice entrepreneurship. During the afternoon of the second day approximately 30 students were showcasing their products. One student, Chris Kim, has founded a business named PutterWorks. Using a 3D copying technique, he can design and produce a metal golf putter head of whatever weight and design the customer prefers. The putter can include the customer’s name and any logo the customer wishes. He then adds a handle to the putter, and sells it for $475. Another student has combined natural ingredients which she lists on a sign at her table to produce a product which she claims will grow hair on your head. She was offering free samples to anyone interested. I took a sample, though I have not yet used it to try to grow additional hair on my head. Below is a photo of Yale entrepreneurship in action.

DINNER WITH OTHER CLASS REPS AND OFFICERS

The final event of the Assembly and Convocation was a dinner with other class reps and officers.  I did have a chance to meet the class reps for both the class of 1964 and the class of 1966.  All in all it was an enjoyable two days on the Yale campus.