Berkeley College (Yale)

For the private business college, see Berkeley College.

Berkeley College
Image: 150 pixels
Motto	Esse est percipi - To be is to be perceived
Named For	Reverend George Berkeley
Established	1934
Colors	Red, white
College Master	Marvin Chun
College Dean	Mia Genoni
Undergraduates	417
Called	Berkeleyites
Location	205 Elm Street
Homepage	http://www.yale.edu/berkeley

The south building of Berkeley College on Cross Campus

Berkeley College is a residential college at Yale University, constructed in 1934. The eighth of Yale's 12 residential colleges, it was named in honor of Reverend George Berkeley (1685-1753), dean of Derry and later bishop of Cloyne, in recognition of the assistance in land and books that he gave to Yale in the 18th century. The college was renovated in 1998.

College life

As of fall 2011, Berkeley freshmen are housed in Lanman-Wright Hall. Previously, freshmen were housed in Vanderbilt Hall, erected in memory of William Henry Vanderbilt, a member of the class of 1893, who died in 1892 and was the son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt Hall is home to the Vanderbilt Suite; amongst the Suite's former residents is Anderson Cooper, great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, although Cooper was actually a member of Trumbull College, which housed its freshmen there at the time.

Berkeley is similar to other residential colleges, with its own gym, television room, and other amenities. It also has unique features:

• Bishop Berkeley Bagel and Beverage Bar: A place where students gather to watch movies, engage in fellowship, and eat greasy food. The Bagel Bar was founded in the late 1980s by Richard Y.C. Lee (B.A. 1991), who later died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
• South Court Basement: In addition to the Bagel Bar, the South Court basement contains a pool table, a football table, table tennis, a free NBA Jam video arcade machine, and a large television screen with a Blu-Ray player. Berkeley students can be found studying and socializing here every night of the week.
• North Court Basement: Home to The Thomas Mendenhall, this includes a luxurious sitting area and is equipped with a very large entertainment center.
• The Swiss Room: A private dining room in the dining hall. Transplanted piece by piece from Switzerland, this 16th-century wooden room has been decorated with stained glass by G. Owen Bonawit and is considered priceless.
• The Berkeley Press: A complete, operational letterpress printshop, with a large powered platen press and precision Vandercook flatbed cylinder press, the Berekely Press occupies two rooms on the lower level. Students use it to produce their own books, broadsides, holiday cards and ephemera, and a regular Apprentice Course introduces newcomers into the art.
• The woodshop: A woodworking shop that is well-stocked with power tools and lumber. A professional cabinetmaker comes to Berkeley most weekends to teach students the trade.
• The tunnel: An underground passageway connecting Berkeley's two grand courts, North Court and South Court, which are divided by a grassy area in front of Yale's main library, Sterling Memorial Library. It stands steps away from the Beinecke Library, the Bass Library, the Commons, and the Old Campus. The tunnel features a variety of student murals on the walls and is a convenient pathway on rainy or snowy days.
• On the wall outside the Master's House that faces Sterling Memorial Library, there is a plaque stating that its location marks the house where Josiah Willard Gibbs lived.

Traditions

Annual traditions include the snowball fight (which pits North Court against South Court), GLO (a blacklight party), and the Bishop Bash, which was founded in the spring of 2002 by Ben Reiter and Charles Finch - under the guidance of the Master's Office. Its unofficial rivals are Trumbull and Calhoun Colleges. One college tradition is the "Berkeley Streak." During the annual prospective student visit days, Berkeley students would streak from freshmen housing on old campus to Berkeley's North Court. The streak, which had not happened since 1997, was revived in November 2009 on the night before The Game.

Dining hall

According to the Wall Street Journal [2], Berkeley has the best college dining hall in the country. Until 2006 it was the testing ground for an experimental organic food and sustainable produce dining plan overseen by celebrity chef Alice Waters. Currently, the dining hall has joined the rest of the residential colleges in serving the same menu, thereby rescinding its unique status. It still remains an immensely popular place to eat, largely due to its central location on campus.

Notable alumni

• Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International
• Jordana Brewster, actress
• Steve Charnovitz, law professor
• Dick Cheney, vice president (transferred to University of Wyoming)
• Ellen Oliensis, professor of Classics, UC Berkeley
• David Evans, professor of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University

Trivia

• On the television show Gilmore Girls, Logan Huntzberger is a member of Berkeley College.

External links

• Berkeley College

Residential Colleges of Yale University
Berkeley College | Branford College | Calhoun College | Davenport College | Ezra Stiles College | Jonathan Edwards College Morse College | Pierson College | Saybrook College | Silliman College | Timothy Dwight College | Trumbull College