Yale University

Miscellany

Yale students engaged in a game called bladderball, until 1982. A story claims that students from Jonathan Edwards College broke the ball, hence their self-proclaimed motto: "J. E. Sux."

Related Topics:
Bladderball - 1982 - Jonathan Edwards College

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Yale students claim to have invented Frisbee, by tossing around empty pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company.

Related Topics:
Frisbee - Frisbie Pie Company

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Yale's Central Campus in downtown New Haven is 260 acres. An additional 500 acres comprises the Yale golf course and nature preserves in rural Connecticut and Horse Island.http://www.yale.edu/about/YALEFRMW.pdf

Related Topics:
New Haven - Yale golf course - Horse Island

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Yale's Handsome Dan is believed to be the first live college mascot in America.

Related Topics:
Handsome Dan - Mascot

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Crime

The 1970s and 1980s saw poverty and violent crime rise in New Haven, dampening Yale's student and faculty recruiting efforts. After much committee discussion, the university sought to ease these problems; for example, encouraging student volunteerism and, in 1991, beginning to make payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to the city ($2.3 million in 2005; to be boosted in 2006 to $4.18 million). Amid the general economic upturn of the following decade, violent crime near and on campus ebbed. The Yale administration's handling of some high-profile crimes has been criticized as more coverup than constructive engagement.

Related Topics:
Poverty - Violent crime

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Murders involving Yale students include:

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• In 1974, Yale junior Gary Stein was killed in a robbery. Melvin Jones was convicted in the case and spent fifteen years in prison.
• In 1977, Yale student Bonnie Garland was killed by a former boyfriend, Yale graduate Richard Herrin. The support of the Yale Catholic community for the perpetrator resulted in his conviction for manslaughter rather than murder.
• In 1991, the killing of Christian Prince on Hillhouse Avenue in the Yale campus resulted in a brief decline in applications and resulted in a re-examination of Campus security.
• In 1998, student Suzanne Jovin was stabbed to death. Leaked allegations that her thesis advisor was a suspect led to the end of his career at Yale, but a sizable body of public opinion holds that the Yale administration had pressured the New Haven police to avoid the stigma of yet another random slaying of a student. The crime remains unsolved.

Bombings

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Three on-campus bombings have occurred in recent history.

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• On May 1, 1970, an explosive device was detonated in the Ingalls Rink during events related to the trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale.
• On June 24, 1993, computer science professor David Gelernter was seriously injured in his office in Arthur K. Watson Hall by a bomb sent by serial killer Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a the Unabomber.
• On May 21, 2003, an explosive device went off at the Yale Law School, damaging two classrooms.