For God? For Country? For Yale? For Myself?
“What do we owe Yale?” Is the wrong question. There is no “we” here. We each can answer only for himself. Here is my answer.
I don’t take this as a financial deal. My parents paid full freight for me and my two brothers, but even though they spent every penny they had saved for retirement, Yale spent even more on educating me.
No, for me the heart of the question is, “How did Yale change me?” Was I worthy of its effort? Do the person I became and the life I’ve lived represent a fair return for the extraordinary opportunities Yale gave me? Each of us admitted to the Class of 1970 was given an opportunity that an infinitesimal percentage of our generation received. Did I use it well, or was it wasted on me? For me, “using it well” means did I utilize my gifts to make the world a better place? Did I act justly, show compassion, help the weak, set an example for my friends and, most importantly, my children? Did I strive to understand my values and to live them? I hope so. In the end (which is closer now than the beginning was when we matriculated) it will not be up to me to judge. I know I could have done better at times, and I will try to do better in the time I have left. These, for me, are the questions I ask when I consider what I owe Yale. Have I used the gifts it bestowed generously and well?
No, for me the heart of the question is, “How did Yale change me?” Was I worthy of its effort? Do the person I became and the life I’ve lived represent a fair return for the extraordinary opportunities Yale gave me? Each of us admitted to the Class of 1970 was given an opportunity that an infinitesimal percentage of our generation received. Did I use it well, or was it wasted on me? For me, “using it well” means did I utilize my gifts to make the world a better place? Did I act justly, show compassion, help the weak, set an example for my friends and, most importantly, my children? Did I strive to understand my values and to live them? I hope so. In the end (which is closer now than the beginning was when we matriculated) it will not be up to me to judge. I know I could have done better at times, and I will try to do better in the time I have left. These, for me, are the questions I ask when I consider what I owe Yale. Have I used the gifts it bestowed generously and well?
Randy Helm on Debt to Yale
In this year’s survey, we asked each other:
IMPACT OF YALE: Did going to Yale have an impact on aspects of your life?
We answered on a 4 point scale – 1=negative impact, 2=little or none, 3=some positive, 4=large positive
And we used 7 dimensions of life for the ratings.
And here’s how our 195 answers came out:
Quality of Life Dimension Average Rating 1 to 4
How others have regarded me 3.4
Opportunities – education, jobs, advancement 3.3
Happiness 3.2
My own sense of worth 3.1
Wisdom 3.0
Making money, material success 2.9
Mating, romance, marriage 2.6
So: as a group, we think Yale meant the most to us in that others regarded us as somehow worthy or special. Right next to that were opportunities and happiness. Our own sense of worth was in the middle. Wisdom, making money, and mating were at the lower end of the “impact of Yale” as we saw our lives.
(Personal interpretive note from your Survey Geek: Isn’t it surprising that we think Yale had less impact on our careers than in other areas? I would have thought that would be #1.)
We also made open-ended comments on the issue of “Debt To Yale,” and these are a semi-random 10 of the most interesting and illustrative.
(By the way, the most common comment was about friendships made at Yale, which was a dimension not mentioned in the list. It should have been.)
LIFEMATE: * Although my Yale education led to many opportunities, the biggest impact was leaving Yale with the love of my life, who is still my partner in all I do.
CONFIDENCE: * As the Alma Mater notes, a large element involves “the friendships formed at Yale.” Because of the academic research and other opportunities I had at Yale, I came to believe nothing was unachievable. I therefore took chances in life that I might not otherwise have taken and, on balance, these chances have generated fulfilling results.
WISDOM: * Maybe retirement is when you really understand the value of a liberal arts education and its ability to help you comprehend the world.
CONFIDENCE PLUS HUMILITY: * Gave me confidence and humility.
BIG IMPACT ABOVE MY OWN EFFORTS: * I loved my time at Yale, but the “Yale” in my CV did more for my career than anything I did.
CONFIDENCE OF SUPPORT: * If you fall, I will catch you, time after time. Time after time.
TRANSFORMATIVE: * It’s hard to imagine the “me” if an alternative reality who did NOT go to Yale. It shaped my whole life and self-concept. Almost all of it was very good. Massively multiplied my chances to help others who didn’t have so much good luck.
CHANGING OVER TIME: * My appreciation of my four years “institutionalized” at Yale keeps changing over the decades–my unhappiness during those four years has been eroded and far surpassed by my appreciation of the broad education I received which has allowed me to become such a fulfilled human being.
OPENING TO THE WORLD: * My time at Yale was incredibly formative in terms of awareness of politics and U.S. influence in the world order … e.g. the Vietnam war. This started me on the path to a less self-centered world view.
GENDER RELATIONS: * Spending 4 years in a mostly male institution had adverse effects on my early interactions with women. Having married at age 34 and having daughters at age 36 & 39, and interacting with women at work and play since Yale has largely nullified these adverse effects.
HUMILITY: * The revelation that even the world’s greatest minds don’t have all the answers. It’s likely I wouldn’t have learned this if I never had the opportunity to interact with these great minds.
HUGE IMPACT: * Yale changed my life completely for the better. All answers in Q3 are much greater than just Large Impact.
CHANGING OVER TIME: * Yale on the resume opened a lot of doors at the beginning. Further along in my career it mattered less; perhaps things got harder then.
GENERATIONAL OVERCONFIDENCE: * Yale’s promotion of us as saviors to the world was very distorting and ironic considering the damage our generation has done to America.
I found it peculiar when Kingman began his speech to us (as I recall it) in Woolsley Hall that first time, in 1966, when he referred to us as 1,000 of the nation’s finest Freshmen, or something like that. That felt over the top at the time, though I otherwise appreciated his message. Helped me manage my feelings of “why am I here; why am I worthy”.
My “debt to Yale”. I know of no financial debt. To be at Yale, I paid all of my personal expenses and some of my room and board. I worked every Sunday for 4 yrs, as a hired singer for the choirs of two New Haven churches. And, I borrowed and paid back money from every source I could find – From Yale, from a church in my home town, from my town’s wealthiest entrepreneur, a Pell loan. Finally, I received 3 or so grants, again from Yale, and from my Yale “secret society” Book and Snake, etc.
That said, I am grateful to Yale as an institution, and am grateful to my fellow classmates, for it and they have made big differences in my life. I am much the better for all of that.
And I’m aware that even Yale with its $42 billion endowment could use more, so to speak. Yet, being honest, the amount that I could “give” to Yale pales next to the average donation. And, the recent damaging drop in stock prices (15-20%) and the financial uncertainties now arising for stagflation for the next several years makes me skittish and uneasy. I don’t feel flush. And, my first priorities lie with my family. I have given to Yale (as well in honor of the crew team) in the past, though not Yale-sized amounts. Here’s my plan, to be honest – I have a $ number in my brain as a goal, but it’s not for now in 2025. It’s for years from now. TBD.
I also give back in other ways that feel fair, reasonable, and responsible, all at once.
I’m comfortable with all this, and I hope that “Yale” feels the same way about me. Happily, by now in 2025, I know both my value and my valueS.
My assessment of my value is confident, unlike as a newbie in 1966, when I felt not worthy of being considered one of 1,000 of the best. My value is as good as I can be, and that’s good enough. And my valueS remain the same today as in 1966, and I feel good about that too.
I have long felt that I owe Yale a debt so great that it can never be repaid, nor even measured in dollars. While I was a student, I was a taker–learning from my fellow students, from faculty members who were generous with their time, and from others (like William Sloan Coffin) whose humanity and beliefs provided a model for behavior. Since graduation I have tried to give back, but I have come to realize that my debt keeps growing. The value of a liberal education is that learning doesn’t stop when you graduate: the process lasts a lifetime. So does the value of friendships made over 55 years ago. Thus it is entirely appropriate that my payback also continues. If someone asks me to do something for Yale, I do it. In fact, I put donations to Yale in an entirely different category from other charitable donations. In countless ways, going to Yale has made my life better. It has been so important to me that I never discuss it except in forums like this one. What I suspect many outsiders fail to realize is what Yale gives you that matters is not the label, but what you carry in your head and heart.
A reading recommendation for Bruce (and others who have suspected they are unworthy): Dick Brodhead’s book “The Good of this Place” is a little jewel of a book (up there on the shelf next to my copy of Bill Coffin’s “Credo” and other Yale related books). In particular, I recommend his freshman address to the class of 2002 titled “The Way to Worry.” If you can’t get your hands on a copy, here is the punchline. Referring to the “overwhelmingly common experience” of alumni who feel they were unworthy and admitted to Yale by mistake, he remarks: “What low opinion do you have of your university, what level of incompetence do you attribute to us, that we would admit 1,300 students each by a separate act of mistake?” I keep coming back to that whenever I need reassurance (which is quite often).
Thanks Randi for 55 years. I needed to hear that it’s late. I’m tired. I just got off an eight hour shift working in the cold and rain and I’m doing the voice software so I don’t have time for correct grammar and I’m certainly not going to go back and edit. I did copy and paste that because I need to go back for that reassurance like you said many thanks my friend
Like Gerry, I thoroughly enjoyed my four years at Yale. For one thing, it was the first time I got to live away from my parents (apart from summer camp.) That helped me grow up, and I had a lot of growing up to do. But any out-of-town school would have provided that opportunity. Yale provided much more. Many of the professors were excellent. They challenged us and set high standards, and those high standards helped shape my professional life in a positive way. Plus, I learned so much from my fellow students, both in classroom debates and the many BS sessions in someone’s room, the local pizza joint or Rudy’s bar.
Looking back, my one regret is that I didn’t get more involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement. That could have given me a start on a political education that was outside of the pro-capitalist framework that dominated Yale’s academic departments. It’s possible I would have had more opportunity to get involved at some of the big state schools where there was more antiwar activity. Or perhaps I was too focused on getting good grades to join the campus groups at Yale that were protesting the war. In any case, years after I left Yale, I became exposed to serious socialist politics and became a committed Marxist. Maybe I would have had more opportunity to get that kind of exposure at some other schools.
But Yale was Yale. The quote from Calvin Trilling that Rich cites sums up well Yale’s purpose, which at that time was to provide 1,000 male leaders annually to serve the capitalist class. Now it provides female leaders as well, but pointed in the same political direction. My 17-year-old self was thrilled to get that acceptance letter from Yale, and, looking back, I don’t blame him a bit. I would have had to have been far more sophisticated than I was to understand the role of elite schools like Yale in our society.
I loved every minute of my time at Yale, and friends would comment that I started waxing nostalgic about leaving even in my sophomore year. Yale broadened my world view and taught me to think critically in ways that few other colleges could have. Having said that, I think I learned as much in the dining room as I learned in the classroom. Still, I have some mixed feelings. As we all know, we were on the cusp of a tremendous change at Yale, transitioning from the wealthy, well-connected, country club and politically correct lives of our predecessors to a much more diverse student body, which was great in so many ways (and probably facilitated the admission of many of us). That prior legacy, however, still troubles me. I am not sure what can be done about this, but there is still an air of elitism that is a bit off-putting. Whenever I wear my Yale gear, I am generally ignored. When I wear my Michigan gear (my daughter went to law school there), I have been approached with numerous thumbs up or dissed by Ohio State alums, but at least I have been recognized. Furthermore, I cannot forgive Yale for the shameless way it fired David Connell, the director of the Glee Club during my daughter’s tenure as the Glee Club’s president, or for the way it has handled sexual abuse episodes. For those unaware of the David Connell debacle, I can be contacted for details. Overall, I am very grateful for my experience at Yale but am always cognizant of ways the Yale experience could be improved.
I feel fine about “settling the score” with Yale. I’ve contributed financially and been reasonably active in alumni affairs, so … we’re good on that level.
I left Yale inspired and on a mission to convince the world that we’re on a preventable doomsday course with our environment. I’ve worked to popularize the benefits of recycling, organic food, renewable energy, and even electric vehicles. In each case, however, whenever a viable idea gains traction, the corporate world swoops in and turns it into a feeding frenzy, often with an outcome that is in direct opposition to the original concept. (Can you say “Tesla”?)
I don’t know how Mother Yale regards this use of the opportunity it provided.
Calvin Trilling had a good comment on Yale’s role on the typical Yale student of our era:
“The typical Yale student was the bright student council president from a white middle class high school who had been selected by Yale to be buffed up bit and sent out into the world prepared to prove his classmates right in voting him most likely to succeed”. I have no complaints but wish the buffing lasted bit longer…
I have been interviewing undergraduate applicants to Yale for about 35 years. Interviewers are often left with the impression that we would not be admitted from today’s applicant pool. Yale tried to teach me to think, with some success. Both Yale and my natal family prompted me to work toward societal improvement. I have done a lot, but this still feels like little in the grand scheme of things. Still I am happy with what I have accomplished, and intend to continue until I cannot.