The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences formally opened the academic year on Aug. 26, with a matriculation ceremony to welcome new students and their families to Yale.
The academic assembly, held in Sprague Hall, opened and closed with fanfares by a brass ensemble from the School of Music and featured welcoming addressed by President Richard C. Levin and Graduate School Dean Jon Butler.
This year, there are 522 new students in the Graduate School, chosen from a pool of 8,626 applicants. The newcomers join 1,966 continuing students. Of the new students, 410 are in doctoral programs and 112 are pursuing terminal master's degrees. They come from 237 different undergraduate institutions, including 21 from Yale College; 12 from Harvard; and 10 from Peking University. Countries of origin number 41, with 29 hailing from the People's Republic of China. This year's youngest matriculant is 19, and the oldest is 46. Both are studying electrical engineering for the Ph.D. degree.
Instead of having a faculty member present a keynote address to the incoming students, as has been the custom for the past five years, Butler arranged for Wen-Yin Chan, a student at the School of Music, to perform piano pieces by Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Born in Taiwan, Chan has won prizes in several international piano competitions and performed as a soloist in major cities around the world. She is currently working towards the Artist Diploma degree at the School of Music.
Explaining this departure from tradition, Butler drew parallels between music and graduate study, noting that both are related through the "peculiar and complex nature of creativity, its engagement with the materials around us -- including past culture and received views, its demands for discipline and often physical mastery -- from arduous research to command of instruments." He spoke of "the necessity of individuality that produces new results and ways of seeing, and the almost ubiquitous demand for performance in speaking, writing and, in this case, playing."
He added that the morning's musical performance modeled some of the qualities most highly prized by the Graduate School: internationalization (in both performer and music), creativity, discipline and discovery, through the pianist's performance and the audience's perception.
Following the academic ceremony, Levin hosted a reception at his official residence on Hillhouse Avenue, where students signed their names in an old fashioned registry, reenacting a 150-year-old practice. After a picnic lunch at the Hall of Graduate Studies, the courtyard was transformed into an Information Fair to introduce newcomers to the organizations and services of Yale and the banks and vendors of New Haven.
Additional orientation events included a Scavenger Hunt, a Student Activities and Community Service Fair, dance party, happy hour, International Mentor barbecue, field trips and receptions at the art galleries and Yale Repertory Theatre.
-- By Gila Reinstein
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