Building Graduate Community from Isolation at Yale
As a graduate student, your world centers on your laboratory, the library and classes in your department. You may feel isolated from other students and the rest of the University. You may not have a place of your own on campus, or activities or events to let you meet other students who share your interests or background outside your program. In 1996, the McDougal Graduate Student Center was created to address these issues - to build community, provide services and offer a home-away-from-home to Yale's graduate students.
A Graduate Student Center? Student-Focused Services led by Students and Staff
The idea of a graduate student center at Yale began from conversations in the 1990s among prospective donors Alfred McDougal and Nancy Lauter and then Yale President Richard Levin and Graduate School Dean Thomas Appelquist. After seeing a “graduate student center” on a university wish list, all became convinced that they could create a multi-purpose space specifically for graduate students, with programs run by and for graduate student fellows. At the time, there were few models for such a “graduate student center” at US universities, so Yale chose to experiment with formats and structures that could work best here. This innovative spirit continues at the McDougal Center and Graduate Student Life and other McDougal Center offices today, as staff and fellows continually adapt services and activities to meet changing graduate student needs and interests.
Alfred McDougal '53 and Nancy Lauter - Book publishers and generous donors
The McDougal Center is built on books, which is fitting for a graduate student center. In 1995, a generous gift from the McDougal-Lauter family made the idea of a community building space and graduate student-focused services a reality. Mr. Alfred McDougal (Yale College 1953, English) was co-founder and chair at McDougal, Littell & Company, a publisher of elementary and high school textbooks, and his wife Ms. Nancy Lauter was senior vice president of sales and marketing. In 1994 they sold their company to Houghton-Mifflin, prompting the family to make a significant gift to Yale.
A Center Serving Graduate Students at Yale since 1997
After announcing the gift to the Graduate School in 1995, Dean Appelquist appointed a student-faculty-alumni planning committee. They began their work by selecting the Common Room of the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) and nearby first floor and basement administrative space as the best and most central location for a space for all graduate students. The committee, under the leadership of then Yale Psychology faculty member, now President, Peter Salovey (1986 Yale Ph.D.), started planning the proposed programs and facilities, and selected new staff to develop the initial events and services. The renovations installed an enclosed glass entryway, created new multi-purpose meeting rooms, and restored the historic Common Room. With renovations completed, the McDougal Center opened to the graduate student community at an official dedication celebration in October 1997.
The restored McDougal Center Common Room at HGS - “The Graduate Student's Living Room at Yale” (1997-2017)
The heart of the McDougal Center from 1997-2017 was the restored Common Room - with its architectural treasures of a painted plaster ceiling, carved stonework, wooden paneling, and etched glass windows meticulously restored to their original 1932 luster. The Common Room's artwork in the windows and ceiling depicts the traditional arts and sciences fields of study, The room now is equipped with WiFi, power outlets, and USB ports, comfortable furniture for studying, eating, and socializing over an espresso. Graduate students and their guests used the McDougal Common Room for informal socializing throughout the day, in the evening and on weekends. The Common Room space included the Blue Dog Cafe, a coffee bar run by student baristas from 1998-2017. Other Center rooms in HGS offered multipurpose meeting and event spaces, and offices for fellows, staff and the GSA, or graduate student government, also established in 1997.
Innovative Program Offices Serving Graduate Students
Since its beginning, the McDougal Center has supported graduate students by providing space, professional staff, targeted programs and activities, and involved students, including McDougal Graduate Fellows who plan events to build and serve their community. The McDougal endowment gift provides funding for the ongoing programs and over fifty part-time McDougal Student Fellows in five collaborative offices, making the McDougal Center perhaps the only endowed graduate student center in the nation. The McDougal Center continues to provide a comprehensive set of co-curricular and professional development programs for graduate students, and many programs for their spouses/partners and children.
McDougal Center at 135 Prospect Street
Since September 2017, the McDougal Center space and some offices are located in renovated facility at 135 Prospect Street, upper level (corner Sachem). The new McDougal Center has a comfortable air-conditioned Common Room, a Coffee Lounge serving free coffee and tea all day, study, dining and social space, several McDougal Center offices for staff and fellows, and lovely outdoor spaces including a rooftop terrace and Courtyard.
McDougal Center Timeline
1996 - McDougal Center & Graduate Student Life office established, first director appointed; renovations for Center spaces at HGS undertaken.
1997 - McDougal Graduate Student Center at Yale dedicated, first fellows appointed.
1997 - Graduate Career Services established, first director appointed.
1998 - The Graduate Teaching Center created, first director and fellows appointed.
2001 - Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity (ODEO) established as a collaborating partner office of the McDougal Center; first director appointed; first Fellows selected.
2007- Graduate Writing Center established and first director appointed. Fellows appointed to begin serving grad writing needs of students.
2014 - McDougal Center Graduate Student Service Programs reorganized and expanded - Writing and Teaching become part of new Yale Center for Teaching and Learning.
2014 - Graduate Career Services combines with Yale College Career Services to create new Office of Career Strategies (OCS), offering expanded services for non-academic career options.
