Silliman College
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2007) |
Silliman College | |
---|---|
Dean | Tycie Coppett |
Undergraduates | 456 (2013-2014) |
Mascot | Salamander |
Website | www |
Map | |
Silliman College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, named for scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. It opened in September 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges, and contains buildings constructed as early as 1901.
Silliman is Yale's largest residential college by its footprint, occupying most of a city block.
The College has links to
History
The oldest known settlement at the present-day site of the college was the farm of Robert Newman, whose barn hosted the meeting that incorporated the Colony of New Haven in 1639.
In 1936, the university demolished the block of university buildings and houses that stood at the site, retaining only Van-Sheff, Byers Hall, and the adjacent
The "Quadrangle Plan," primarily funded by
When the college opened in 1940, philosopher F. S. C. Northrop was appointed its master.
Under the Yale College policy that let incoming students express a residential college preference, Silliman developed a reputation for attracting engineers until the policy ended with the class of 1958.[3]
Shield and mascot
Silliman College's shield has a white background, three curving red lines emerging from near the bottom of the shield (representing salamander tails), and a green crossing bar containing three acorns. In heraldic terms, the shield is described as "Arms: Argent, three piles wavy gules, on a fess vert three acorns or." The colors represent the four ancient elements: red for fire, white for air and water, and green for earth. The acorns are an element taken from the family arms of
The college's mascot is the salamander. Students in the college refer to themselves as Sillimanders.
Facilities
The college courtyard, which covers almost an entire city block, is the largest enclosed courtyard at Yale and is one of the glories of the old college. Students can be seen playing various sports or lounging in the sun. Because of the size of the courtyard, sports such as spikeball, wiffle ball, football, and frisbee are often enjoyed.
Special facilities within Silliman include Yale's only undergraduate art gallery, called Maya's Room (named for Maya Tanaka Hanway, '83), a big-screen movie theater (Silliflicks), a dance studio, a half-court basketball facility called the Sillidome, computing facilities, a student kitchen, multiple music practice rooms, and a state-of-the-art[4] sound recording studio. The college's library, located in the third floor of Byers Hall, is commonly referred to as the Sillibrary. The Buttery, a student-run eatery in the basement that serves greasy goodness on weekday nights, is designed in the style of the 1950s and its surrounding area includes games such as ping pong, air hockey, and pool.
Renovations
In August 2007, after three years of on-and-off renovations, students moved back into Silliman College. Students now enjoy a reconfigured dining hall and servery, a stadium-seating movie theater, and a large student activities space that includes a new art gallery, dance studio, gym, basketball court, weight room, buttery, game room, and television entertainment space. The Silliman College courtyard was also restored to its former glory, with new patio spaces, benches, and grass. The renovation cost some $100 million, by far the most spent on any residential college renovation at Yale.[5]
Because of the size of Silliman College, the renovation work on the college was completed in several phases instead of the 15-month renovation completed on other colleges:
- In the summer of 2004, the roof and windows were replaced on the brick section of the college. Extra dormers were also added to the roofs so that student rooms could later be installed in the former attic spaces.
- In the summer of 2005, the Silliman Tower underwent a complete interior renovation.
- The entire college was shut down during the 2006-2007 school year for the rest of the renovation. All students from the college moved into either Swing Space (a new dormitory built especially to house students during college renovations), the Elm Street Annex or into independent off-campus housing until the renovations were completed.
- In 2017, a coffee shop, The Acorn, was added into the fourth floor of Byers Hall.
Activities and traditions
Intramural sports
Silliman College has won the Tyng Cup (awarded for the best intramural record of Yale's 14 residential colleges) eight times, in 1941, 1943, 1968, 1969, 1972, 2006, 2007, and 2008.[6]
Silliman fame
Silliman gained fame when the popular movie Mona Lisa Smile featuring Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst, was partly filmed in the Silliman College courtyard and common room. The Grove Street facade of Silliman was used to represent Harvard University, and the Wall Street Gate and the common room were used to represent Wellesley College.[citation needed]
Notable alumni
- George Roy Hill (‘43) – movie director
- Renée Richards (‘54) – transgender tennis player
- Jim Jeffords (‘56) – Independent U.S. senator from Vermont
- Wendell Mottley (‘64) – Olympic silver medalist, minister of finance of Trinidad and Tobago
- Strobe Talbott (‘68) – Brookings Institution president, former Time correspondent
- Daniel Yergin (‘68) – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and energy consultant
- Texas Supreme Court
- John Guernsey (‘75) – Bishop in the Anglican Church in North America
- Stone Phillips (‘77) – newscaster
- Evan Wolfson (‘78) – activist
- Anthony A. Williams (‘79) – the mayor of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2007
- David Hyde Pierce (‘81) – actor, best known for playing the role of Niles Crane on "Fraiser"
- Neal Wolin(‘83) – Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury
- Julie Otsuka (‘84) – author of "When the Emperor was Divine" and "The Buddha in the Attic"
- Elizabeth Wein (‘86) – author of Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire
- Elizabeth Kostova (‘88) – author
- Nerissa Nields (‘89) – member of the band The Nields
- Ben Greenman (‘90) – author and journalist
- Joshua Foer (‘04) – author of "Moonwalking with Einstein"
References
- ^ ISBN 9781568981673. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
- ^ "Noah Webster House, New Haven, Connecticut" (PDF). Historical American Buildings Survey. Library of Congress. 1936. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
- OCLC 810552.
- ^ "Silliman College - Silliman Pages". Archived from the original on December 30, 2005. Retrieved October 17, 2005.
- ^ Yale Daily News - Expansion Projected at $600 Million Archived January 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Past Tyng Cup Champions by Year". Past Tyng Cup Champions. Retrieved May 5, 2018.