Two exhibits at the Yale Visitor Center offer a timeline of the university’s history and examine the achievements of some of its graduates and faculty, who are leaders around the world in virtually every field.
The timeline begins in 1701, with Yale’s founding by act of the General Assembly of Connecticut, and continues through the 2001 celebration of the university’s tercentennial. Among the American firsts chronicled: first planned college campus; first modern science course; first college art museum; first collegiate rowing races; first Ph.D. awarded; first daily college newspaper.
The list of notable figures educated at Yale includes architects, ambassadors, athletes, actors, artists, and authors (and those are just the A’s). Four of the last six U.S. presidents hold Yale degrees, and Yale faculty and alumni include six Nobel laureates and more than thirty Pulitzer Prize winners. Among those included in the exhibit are William Boeing, Walter Camp, Marian Wright Edelman, Jodie Foster, Sinclair Lewis, Maya Lin, David McCullough, Samuel F. B. Morse, Eero Saarinen, Richard Serra, Benjamin Spock, Noah Webster, and Eli Whitney.
A book-version of the exhibits, Yale: Landmarks and Leaders, was published in spring 2006.