Class News

Ralph Jones ’64 reports on the YAA Assembly

December 15, 2025

Ralph Jones ’64 attended the YAA Assembly on November 20-21, 2025 as the representative of the Class of 1964. He submitted the following report.

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All academe has their knickers in an uproar. At least it seemed that way at the 2025 Yale Alumni Assembly (Nov. 20-21). But not to worry. Important as they are, knickers are but part of haberdashery. And while issues of higher education are important, and worry about it seems to be on most people's minds, Yale is still doing Yale and doing it very well. 

I did a tour of the Klein (no longer biology) Tower. It is a beautiful place for teaching and doing math and associated disciplines. Here's an equation I found on one of the boards. It looked like part of a homework assignment, or maybe a flash test. I liked the simple symmetry. If there were any instructions to go with the problem, I didn't see them.

I attended a session on "Trust in Higher Education: A Discussion with Yale's Faculty Committee." Packed auditorium in the Architecture building. Beverly Gage (co-chair), Jason Hockenberry, and Priyamvada Natarajan represented the committee which Pres. McInnis had formed this spring. They aim to have their report by the end of the academic year.

The panelists described their approach to the issue as following usual academic practice. Listen carefully and broadly. Analyze and draft and debate. Write and rewrite. Clearly hard work. They hope to produce something like the Woodward Report for the current situation.

Convinced as I am that the assault on higher ed is the wrong argument at the wrong time, nevertheless several dissenting voices spoke from the midst of this boola boola audience. For example, "Why are there so few (if any) Republicans on the faculty?" Response: "We just met with the Buckley Society." 

We seem to have a problem of communication here. Somehow academic rationality may not be the effective response to a cultural crisis. It can come across as “We're better than you and we know it” or “We're set in our ways.” Much as I agree with the faculty committee's approach, I wonder if it will trend toward trust. I think they understand this. But do you abandon the scientific method? How do we regain our ability to converse?

In other matters, five were honored with the Yale Medal. Check them out here.

President McInnis’s speech to the assembled convocation covered issues of free speech and the need to both change and to protect what must never change, our commitment to Yale's mission of education.

In an online talk prior to the actual assembly in New Haven, Steve Murphy, Yale's Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer, spoke about the new realities. I'll let you know if they release that video. In the meantime, we can "follow the money" here.

The short version... The new tax on endowment income, along with the reductions in federal grants, means reduced possibilities. And medicine (teaching and research) is much the biggest part of the budget. 

The next day Yale beat Harvard 45 - 28 (as you already know).

And just a few more days after the Assembly ended, the Lipstick controversy returned to the pages of the Yale Daily News. Classmate Sam Callaway (’64 ARC ’69) was one of the group who donated the Claes Oldenburg sculpture to Yale back in 1969.

The sculpture was originally placed in Hewitt Quad (Beinecke Plaza) near Woodbridge Hall as a reminder that free speech mattered to students and others even when it might not seem imprudent to speak to racism and military murder. I remember a saying about putting lipstick on a pig.... as you CAN put a lipstick on a tank, but you can't make war pretty. Anyway, Yale's administration reluctantly accepted the gift, only to prefer it in a less conspicuous place. To me, this little tempest is a practical test of our commitment to free speech. Are we up for letting reality trouble our orderly comfort? Might the artist be the one who can speak across our divides?