Schwarzman Center

 

I want to go to a Yale where we have a vibrant, engaging student center that brings all Yalies together in celebration and contemplation. We’re incredibly lucky to have received $150 million to build the student center of our dreams. Now we need to make sure that money is well-spent. While the administration will be making the decisions about what the Schwarzman Center will look and feel like, YCC can make sure that the voices of students--from artists to foodies to cultural groups--are heard throughout the process, and that the end result is a student center that everyone wants to spend time in.

Yale should:

  • Hire an executive director to lead the Schwarzman Center, who is hired at least two years in advance of the Center’s opening, to prepare programming for the first year of operations, as the Committee report recommended.

  • Create a new advisory committee to oversee opening programming for the Center, and make this committee permanent.

  • Hold Master Classes in Schwarzman Center spaces, which students can audit.

  • Display exhibits of student productions, which, for some arts and public humanities courses, could serve as final assessments in lieu of an exam or paper.

  • Add both silent study spaces and lively spaces for the arts.

  • Open the center during the summer for students who remain in New Haven to take courses, engage in service, or do research.

  • Work with the AYA and STAY to maximize interactions with alumni.

  • Encourage university guests who hold Master’s Teas to also hold larger events at the Schwarzman Center, and encourage these events to feature multiple guests at one time, from different fields or from the same field.

  • Create a lecture series on Public Service careers, and specifically recruit Yale alumni who entered public service to speak to students, and hold it at the Center.

  • Preserve the name “Commons” for the dining hall.

  • Establish late-night dining options.

  • Create studio spaces at the Center for students who’d like to paint, sketch, develop photos, sculpt, make pottery, film, or take photos, to provide an arts-centric space closer to the undergraduate campus than the Art School.

  • Showcase New Haven artists, chefs, and entrepreneurs in the center; make it a true community space that is open to New Haveners as well as Yalies.

 

What YCC can do:

  • Survey students on their preferences for spaces and programming in the new center, and communicate those recommendations to the administration.

  • Brainstorm with the Graduate Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Senate about ways to bring undergraduate and graduate students together at the center.

  • Advise the administration on the opening of the Schwarzman Center, helping plan amazing events that will draw a great crowd and start a tradition of student engagement in the Center.