Yale University

Class News

Ralph Jones ’64 reports on the YAA Assembly

February 8, 2024

Ralph Jones ’64 attended the YAA Assembly on November 16-17, 2023 as the representative of the Class of 1964. He submitted the following report.


I was honored to be asked to be our Class of ‘64 delegate to the Yale Alumni Association (YAA). Uh, but what’s that? Tony Lavely explained my duties as going to the Assembly and reporting back. Come with me as we discover what this is about!


Ralph Jones ’64

The YAA mission includes: “The Yale Alumni Association unites the people and ideas that comprise the lifelong Yale experience. … We strive to inspire new ideas, affiliations, friendships, professional fulfillment, and acts of service around the world.” In short, keep Yalies friendly.

Here’s what the Assembly website has to say: “Attendees get an inside look at Yale today, honor outstanding volunteers and organizations, and engage with each other and professional staff to share best practices and new ideas.”

I’ll skip the details about registration and hotels. The theme this year was “Yale's Creative Economy: Innovations in Culture, Society, and Technology.” Bit of a head scratcher! But a day and a half at Yale, why worry that?

Ten days before the actual gathering, Helle Porsdam '85 MA, '87 PhD, Professor of History and Cultural Rights at the University of Copenhagen and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Rights, offered a Zoom presentation on the global background of the theme. She explored the importance of the creative economy which generates $2,250 billion annually and provides more jobs to workers aged 18-25 than any other fields of employment. As a UNESCO Chair, Porsdam works with UNESCO on cultural human rights, a part of the human rights spectrum that is actively involved in the creative economy. OK, but where does this get real? One issue is the tension between property rights and human rights. For example, does the human right to science, identified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, entitle people in underdeveloped circumstances to the medicines developed as corporate property? Who has a right to the COVID vaccines? This could get interesting.

Thursday, November 16, 2023

My day began with a tour of the Schwarzman Center, the major reworking of what we knew as Commons. In new space created above where we were served cafeteria-style is a corridor of comfortable rooms and spaces for students. Even at eleven in the morning, those spaces were filled with computers and their attached humans. Privacy and quiet seem hard to find on campus.


Touring the Student Corridor

Commons getting set for Assembly dining

The afternoon began with a panel discussion of the “Cultural and Social Implications of Media, Technology, and the Economy.” Prof. Hélène Landemore inquired whether a society could remain a democracy when the media and the technology are controlled by a handful of billionaire owners. She is exploring using an AI-type technology to create a way whereby the vast community of users might have an informed voice, might join corporate shareowners as determiners of how corporations and nations act. I would welcome further conversation with her.


The “City of 7 Billion” exhibition is
curated by Joyce Hsiang and Bimal
Mendis and is organized by
the Yale School of Architecture

The next lecture covered Joyce Hsiang’s efforts to create physical architectural models of the issues of global urbanization, or in her phrase, the city of seven billion.

Tea Time. By now, it was four o’clock and cocktails and dinner weren’t until after six. I was fortunate to drop in on The Elizabethan Club for tea. The conversations were as thoughtful as ever. I got to meet a senior, majoring in marine biology and looking for a research job that includes messing around in boats. Oh, she’s on the women’s rugby team. And a junior in film studies and psychology with the idea that the camera will be, not an observer, but rather the principal participant in her project. And a grad student (bio-something, I think), also women’s rugby. Exciting stuff! This was my personal highlight of the gathering.

At dinner, in what we knew as Commons, Yale Medals were awarded to Tim Collins ’82 MBA, Andrea DaRif ’73, ’74 MFA, Ed Hirs ’79, ’79 MA, ’81 MBA, John Jackson ’67, and David Sanchez ’84 MA. The Yale Food Service, no surprise, did itself proud.

Friday, November 17, 2023

At 8:30am, President Salovey gave his university update and a discussion of the creative economy at Yale. His points were:

  • While it’s been an intense time, the trauma created by the Israel/Palestine war has so far remained manageable. It is a demanding time on campus.
  • Free expression always creates tension.
  • Yale has expanded mental health resources in a number of ways, including thirteen new clinicians.
  • Yale is one of the most accessible schools. We’ve doubled Pell grant and first-generation students in the past ten years to some 22% of the student body.
  • A goal is that all College and Graduate School students will soon graduate debt-free.
  • Four Themes:

President Salovey reported on significant progress in each of these areas, particularly the efforts to regain preeminence in engineering and science.

Two trustees shared about their roles and work. Eight of the sixteen trustees are joined by four faculty and a student advisory committee working on finding a successor to President Salovey. The search began with an ongoing process of listening to any and all in the Yale community.

Two new ventures:

  • There will be a new vice provost on climate.
  • A “planetary solutions” project, perhaps tying in to Prof. Hsiang’s modeling efforts.

No “Universe — City” can be complete. By definition, it is in process. None of us will like everything. I have concerns and questions. But based on the two days of the Assembly, and on living near New Haven, I know that things are well. Yale is in a great place. The students are fantastic. Oh, and the next day, Yale beat Harvard!