You don't need to be a degree-seeking student to find a tour of 3-century-old Yale University fascinating. In addition to producing a lengthy list of U.S. presidents, Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize-winners, it claims what has been described as one of the most beautiful campuses in America. The venerable New Haven, Connecticut, school holds delightful surprises in its “sequestered nooks” and gladly shares them with visitors. Pay a visit and give it an "A."
Yale on Display
- Yale's 300-plus years of architecture creates a visual feast. Connecticut Hall is the oldest building on campus, and the Gothic Sterling Memorial Library is the most recognizable. Students ring the 54-bell carillon twice a day from the imposing Gothic Harkness Tower and work out in the Gothic "cathedral of sweat," the Payne Whitney Gymnasium. In sharp contrast with much Yale architecture is the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a six-story glass box whose Vermont-marble panel windows filter light, dimming the interior to protect the treasures. Of the more than 20 pieces of Yale public art that can be viewed without prior arrangement, be sure to see the dignified Nathan Hale bronze statue outside Connecticut Hall, where the Yale graduate and proud hero lived as a student. Make your way across the street to Harkness Tower to relish the ironwork delicacy of Samuel Yellin's Memorial Quadrangle Gate.
Not-So-Stuffy Repositories
- While most Yale museums are open to the public, not all libraries are. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale's largest, welcomes the public during the academic year with hour restrictions. Resembling a European Gothic cathedral, its interior includes cloisters, side chapels, a circulation desk altar and 3,300 stained glass windows. The Peabody Museum of Natural History offers free admission on Thursday afternoons from September through June and houses the nation's most historically significant fossil collection. Yale University Art Gallery is free and open to the public. It offers a schedule of rotating exhibits and has a permanent collection of more than 200,000 objects. African, ancient, Islamic, European, American decorative and photographic art are just a few of the sources represented.
- Artistic Sustenance
- Try to wrangle tickets to performances by students from the Yale School of Drama, known for giving us the likes of Meryl Streep and Lupita Nyong'o. Graduate students present experimental, risk-taking works at the Yale Cabaret dinner theater; relish filet mignon before watching one of 18 different productions mounted each academic year. The Tony Award-winning Yale Repertory Theatre is the professional arm of the drama school, presenting new works and daring interpretations of classics. For the quintessential, old-Yale experience, catch the Whiffenpoofs. Founded in 1909, the world's oldest and most prestigious male a cappella group is one of the school's most cherished traditions. The best part? The legendary Mory's Temple Bar, where they appear weekly when in town, has reopened after renovation and is no longer strictly members-only.
Follow the Leader -- or Not
- If you show up for a guided tour of the Yale campus during the last week of the year, on Thanksgiving or on a Harvard-Yale game day, you'll be out of luck. Otherwise, there are morning and afternoon tours Monday through Friday and an afternoon tour on Saturday and Sunday. Tours last about an hour and 20 minutes and leave from the Mead Visitor Center, in New Haven's oldest private residence, the recently restored Pierpont House at 149 Elm Street. If you're the independent type, go it alone following a Blue Trail map you can buy from the center or download a tour to your MP3 player that includes 32 additional stops.
