Ezra Stiles College
| Ezra Stiles College | |
|---|---|
| Residential college at Yale University | |
Coat of arms of Ezra Stiles College
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| University | Yale University |
| Location | 19 Tower Parkway |
| Coordinates | 41°18′45″N 72°55′50″W / 41.3125°N 72.9306°WCoordinates: 41°18′45″N 72°55′50″W / 41.3125°N 72.9306°W |
| Nickname | Stilesians |
| Established | 1961 |
| Named for | Ezra Stiles |
| Colors | Black, Gold |
| Sister college |
Currier House, Harvard Queens' College, Cambridge |
| Master | Stephen Pitti |
| Dean | Nilakshi Parndigamage |
| Undergraduates | 478 (2013-2014) |
| Mascot | A. Bartlett Giamatti Memorial Moose |
| Website | ezrastiles |
Ezra Stiles College is a residential college at Yale University, built in 1961 by Eero Saarinen. It is often simply called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master Traugott Lawler to preserve the use of the full name in everyday speech. It was named for Ezra Stiles, seventh president of Yale. Architecturally, it is known for its lack of right angles between walls in the living areas. It sits next to Morse College.
In his report on the 1955-56 academic year, Yale President A. Whitney Griswold announced his intention to add at least one residential college to Yale's two-decade-old system. "We have the colleges so full that community life, discipline, education, even sanitation are suffering," he said. Wild rumors flew about four or five new colleges, but nothing substantial was announced until spring 1959, when Eero Saarinen '34 was chosen as the architect, and the Old York Square behind the Graduate School as the site. The Old Dominion Foundation, established by Paul Mellon '29, provided money to build two "radically different" colleges to alleviate the strain on the existing colleges.
The cornerstone of the college was laid on Alumni Day 1961. Students took up residence in September 1962, and the college was dedicated on December 7. The purchase of the land, previously occupied by Hillhouse High School and Commercial High School, from the City of New Haven was made possible by a grant from John Hay Whitney '26.
The college is built of rubble masonry with buildings and a tower in the style of pre-Gothic Tuscan towers such as still exist in the medieval Italian hill town of San Gimignano, and is regarded as one of the "ugly ducklings" of Yale. The college consists almost entirely of single rooms, and in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen eliminated all right angles from the living areas.
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