Yale University

creating Collegiate School, which became Yale College, 9 October 1701]]

**Yale University** is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. It is in the Ivy League and considered by many people to be one of the best universities in the world. Yale is the third oldest university in the United States.

Yale was founded in 1701 in a town near New Haven by a group of church ministers. At first it was called "The Collegiate School" and was created to teach male church ministers in Connecticut. When Elihu Yale, a businessman with the East India Company, gave the school money and books in 1718, the school changed its name to Yale College. It moved into the center of New Haven in the same year. About fifty years later, the school began to teach other subjects like science and history. As the school became more liberal, it became one of the first American schools where extracurricular student groups were created, especially singing groups, sports teams, and student publications like the Yale Daily News.

In the beginning, Yale only taught undergraduate students. Over time, it created graduate schools for medicine, nursing, environmental science, law, music, drama, business, and other professions. In 1869, Yale became the first school in the United States to offer a PhD.  Because it had grown to have many types of schools, degrees, and courses, Yale changed its name to Yale University in 1887. The undergraduate college began to accept women as students in 1969.

Yale has one of the largest libraries in the United States, with 19 library buildings and over 15 million books. The school's main library building, Sterling Memorial Library, is built to look like a cathedral. The Beinecke Library has one of the world's largest collections of rare books and old manuscripts.

The school's campus is known for its Gothic Revival architecture, which was built to look like older English universities like Oxford and Cambridge. On its main campus, Yale has two art museums, a natural history museum, and many theaters. The university also has a golf course near campus and owns five forests in New England.

Fifty-two Nobel Prize winners have been students or professors at Yale, and five U.S. presidents have graduated from Yale, including George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Other famous alumni include politicians Hilary Clinton and John Kerry, actors Meryl Streep and Edward Norton, inventors Eli Whitney and Samuel Morse, CNN anchors Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper, FedEx founder Fred Smith and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, and computer scientist Grace Hopper.

Yale's color is blue, and its mascot is a bulldog named "Handsome Dan." Its sports teams are called the Yale Bulldogs, and they play in the Ivy League.

Peter Salovey, a psychologist, is the current president of Yale.

## History 
* Founding: Ten ministers who desired the colony to be prepared to have new leaders founded the school in 1701. Originally it was known as the Collegiate School. 
* Name Change: Elihu Yale, a businessman, donated a huge gift of books and goods to the school in 1718 and this changed its name. To honor him the school was renamed Yale College. 
* Growth: Yale was the first American school to award a Ph.D. (the highest type of degree) in 1861. In 1887, it was formally made a university.
* Co-education: For too long only men were permitted to study at Yale College. In 1969, women were in the first instance permitted to enter the undergraduate college.

## Campus and Life 
The Gothic Revival architectures of Yale are known to be of stone, and resemble ancient castles in Europe.

* Residential Colleges: Yale undergraduates stay in a system referred to as a Residential College. It has 14 colleges (such as Branford, Silliman and Pauli Murray). Each of them has its dining hall, library, as well as social events. 
* Libraries: Yale boasts of one of the biggest library systems in the globe. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has its reputation due to the walls comprising of delicate marble in order to shield old books against direct sunlight. 
* Sports: The athletic teams of Yale are known as Bulldogs. Handsome Dan, a live bulldog is their mascot. Yale has always been competing with Harvard University, particularly in football.

## Schools at Yale 
Yale consists of fourteen schools: 

* Yale College: Undergraduate students (students receiving their first degree). 
* Graduate School of Arts and Sciences: This school is to be used by students pursuing higher degrees such as a PHD. 
* Professional Schools: These are the well known Yale Law School, Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Art.

## Related pages 
*Database of (Macro)Molecular Motions at Yale University

## References