Jonathan Edwards Trust Annual Newsletter 2024
December 2024
Dear Jonathan Edwards Alums, Fellows, and Friends,
It’s that time of year again: welcome to the fall 2024 Jonathan Edwards Trust newsletter! In this newest edition, you will find highlights of recent activity in the College and at the Trust, and articles that connect you with the vibrant on-campus JE community.
First, however, a word of thanks from the trustees: the Trust recently received an extraordinarily generous bequest from the estate of long-time trustee David Calleo ’55, PhD ’59, who passed away last year. David was a highly distinguished political scientist, and his gift will help support many Trust programs. We are enormously grateful for David’s thoughtfulness in leaving this bequest and for his enduring love of JE.
Sadly, the Trust also lost a second long-serving, much-esteemed trustee in January with the death of Douglas Crowley ’63, who was another devoted supporter of JE . Both David and Douglas – each a consummate JE citizen – will be greatly missed.
In happier news, three new trustees have been appointed since we last wrote. In January, Timeica Bethel-Macaire ’11, director of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, joined the Trust. And in July, Byron Kim ’83, a celebrated visual artist and co-director of Yale’s Norfolk Summer School of Art, and the incomparable Penelope Laurans, former JE Head of College, were voted as new trustees. We are delighted to have them all on board.
This year, the Trust will again fund a host of initiatives – the College’s “Culture Draw” program, which introduces students to outstanding visual and performing arts experiences in New York City; the Head of College’s “Fireside Chats”; and a special community-building event for sophomores. The Trust has also provided funds for a much-needed upgrade to the sound system in the JE dining hall, which hosts many events beyond daily meals. And for alums, the Trust will again sponsor reunion meet-ups and digital/social-media connections. Looking ahead, a Trust committee, in partnership with the College, is hard at work exploring the possibility of a second JE all-class reunion next fall, for all JE alums plus current students. The JE 2014 all-class reunion was a resounding success and the time seems right to contemplate another. So, stay tuned….
This edition of the newsletter brings much good news from the College: a note from the JE College Council about recent activity; reflections from the Head of College, Paul North; an introduction to JE’s new college dean, Yaser Robles, who steps into Christina Ferando’s “very big shoes”; an interview with the peerless Olympian Nathan Chen ’24, conducted by Penny Laurans; a JE photo story by Courtney Carroll ’79; a JE student profile; and much more. We hope you will enjoy reading all these pieces and encourage you to stay connected to fellow spiders throughout the year via our Facebook page, our Instagram page, and on our website. And finally, if you would like to support the work of the Trust, you can donate here.
With all best wishes,
Eve Rice JE ’73
Chair, the Jonathan Edwards Trust
Note from the JE HOC: Fall 2024
Dear JE Alums,
My third year as Head of College began like a tidal wave. After sitting empty all summer–except for the construction crew fixing the roofs on Weir Hall–the college was suddenly flooded with students, excitedly reconnecting. The new crop of first-years are wonderful and excited to be here too. They are now over their course-selection jitters and have moved on to all the other jitters about joining social organizations and doing well on midterms. The class of 2028 is thriving.
Here’s some good news from JE. Thanks to generous support from the JE Trust, we were able to install an all-new, up-to-date audio system in the Great Hall. The old system was from the 1960s, and no one could hear a thing. Now, you’ll be happy to know, when I give speeches, students actually receive my bad jokes, even if few laugh at them. More importantly, soft music can be heard evenly throughout the hall during meals, with playlists curated by students. More on dining: we have a new Dining Manager, John Hoyt, who is a food genius and has been presenting beautiful spreads daily. For First-Year Dinner in September, I watched him drop a nasturtium on each student’s bowl of soup with care, and flair.
On the adult side, we have two new residents in the college this year, with their families. After saying goodbye to Dean Christina Ferando and her family in the spring—who, after eight years encouraging students and tracking their progress, moved to the Yale Center for British Art, where she is the inaugural Head of Academic Affairs—we said hello to Yaser Robles, the new and amazing college Dean. Yaser was a Dean at Choate-Rosemary Hall for nine years, and comes with all that experience. He also has a PhD in history, works on Central and South American history, and practices jujitsu. His family joining him in JE include his partner, Tamar Robles, and their young children, Luca and Maya, who are already beloved by everyone. We also said goodbye to resident fellow Martha Muňoz, who recently was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work in evolutionary biology. In her stead, we welcomed Royce K. Youngwolf as a new resident fellow. Royce is the first Assistant Curator of Native American Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and also Collection Manager for the Native American collection at the Peabody Museum. Royce comes to JE with two sons–Oh-ha, an eleventh grader at Common Ground High School in New Haven, and Winterhawk, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, Morris. We are delighted to have these new spirits in the college.
One big piece of news that will change life in JE is the plan to convert High Street into a pedestrian path, with trees, benches, environmentally friendly drainage, and art. The planning for the conversion is well underway and construction will start in spring 2025. I don’t expect this to alter anything in the college, except for the better. JE has the best courtyard, no question—sweet, manicured, and comfortable. The pedestrian path will give students a place just outside the college to extend their play. It will also be a lot safer. Cars whip down High Street, and students are always crossing in the middle to get to Old Campus.
Recently, we renamed an emergency reserve fund set aside to help students in need. It will now be called the Ayaska Fernando Fund, after a beloved resident fellow who passed away in 2021 and who was the most vibrant, supportive, and pro-student soul JE has known. The new and improved Ayaska Fernando Fund is open for donations!
This academic year, we are also inaugurating a new graduation prize in honor of Constance Royster, JE ’72, a long-time JE fellow. Royster recently received the prestigious Yale Medal, recognizing her decades of service to Yale and to alums in many capacities. We are naming the prize after Royster’s aunt, Constance Baker Motley, who is known for a long a list of firsts: she was the first African American woman appointed as a federal judge, the first African American woman to argue before the Supreme Court, and the first woman to be Manhattan Borough President, among many other accomplishments. The Constance Baker Motley Prize will be awarded to one senior whose essay shows effective use, analysis, and expansion of legal thinking in areas related to social and civil rights.
Connie at a recent JE Fellows event
This is some of the news, but as you know, JE is a vibrant, multifaceted community. Humans of JE are constantly at work making art, performing music and shows, writing, arguing points, building bonds across the university, and stepping out into the world. We are committed to supporting them all.
Paul North
Head, Jonathan Edwards College
Introducing JE’s Newest Dean, Yaser Robles, in Conversation with Former JE Dean Christina Ferando
Transcribed by Lydia Burleson JE ’21
Former JE Dean Christina Ferando recently chatted with the new JE Dean Yaser Robles about his first few months on the job, his background before JE, and his aspirations for his term as Dean. The two also reminisced about the end of Ferando’s time as dean and her legacy among current students and recent JE alums.
Current and former JE Deans Yaser Robles and Christina Ferando
CF: Dean Robles, you are a few months in now. How’s it going?
YR: All the acronyms are beginning to make sense.
CF: Have you learned the Yale acronyms? We love acronyms at Yale.
YR: I think I’ve gotten most of them, but there are so many. It’s somewhat like texting when you don’t write the full word.
CF: That’s true. So you’re getting used to that. You’re getting used to JE. You and your family moved in. Tell us where you moved from and how you’re finding the move into the college.
YR: First, I love the college. In the apartment, I love the view from the kitchen and the living room to the courtyard. We have a seven-year-old son, Luca, and a three-year-old baby girl, Maya, and they just love the house. They love running around.
I’m coming from a boarding environment. For nine years, I was at Choate Rosemary Hall. It is very different, of course, but there are aspects about Choate that are transferable to the role here. I love the dining hall, for example, because that’s where you meet people. And I always believe that you have to meet students where they are.
Yaser and his family, the newest JE residents!
CF: Yes! You’re making me nostalgic. Our son was two when we moved into the college, and he’s still asking when we could go back.
YR: I pinch myself sometimes. The role is so unique—having that kind of interaction with people on a day to day basis. There’s no other job like it.
CF: Has there been anything that’s really surprised you?
YR: I have been in a good way. I love the diversity of students, and that’s not just backgrounds, but also the interests that they have. In fact, I have yet to find two students who are similar in the courses they take, the projects they’re doing.
CF: What about your academic interests? When you’re not answering academic questions and being dean, what are the kinds of things that occupy your mind?
YR: There are a few things. Family takes center stage. When my son, Luca, was five, we signed up to do Brazilian jiu-jitsu together and we still do it. My daughter, Maya, loves to dance. In addition to family, I still love academia, and so I’m working on a book about Central America and my family—the trajectory that led us to the United States, especially my mother, who came here in the mid-1980s amidst a civil war. I’m hoping to work on it in the mornings before the students are up or maybe the evenings.
CF: What are you enjoying? Are there any JE activities you’ve done so far?
YR: Right now, with the JE Fellows dinners every Thursday, I sit at a different table and meet new people each week. I was also able to host an event for the seniors recently. I had a caipirinha evening for them. A caipirinha is a Brazilian cocktail and my favorite drink. Even though many of them live off campus, they showed up, and it was wonderful. I think that’s what makes this community so awesome. JE students are invested in the community.
CF: I always found that to be true in JE. The students are dedicated, and they are really enthusiastic and excited about the college.
YR: There are traditions that have been happening for many years, but there’s always room to start new ones, and students do that, too. I have my own ideas of things that I would like to do, and I’m already implementing them, like with the caipirinha evening, but right now, I just want to absorb as much as I can. I want to understand: what is it that makes JE special? Obviously the people, but these JE events, they are part of this spider web that makes it unique and cozy, welcoming and embracing.
CF: One of the things you’ll be doing next year is teaching, right? Do you have a sense of what you might want to teach?
YR: I do. For many years, I’ve been teaching Latin American history, courses associated with colonial Latin America, contemporary Latin America, courses specifically on immigration issues, the Latino community here in the United States, issues of policy, but, generally speaking, anything related to Latin America.
CF: That’s exciting. You’ve already shared your background briefly with everyone, but what happened before Choate?
YR: I have no idea.
CF: It’s a blur.
YR: It’s a blur, but just a brief synopsis. I was born and raised in Honduras in a small village. We moved to the Bronx, the South Bronx, in New York City in the early nineties. It was a big culture shock in many ways, but despite the big transition, that became home in many respects. I became a Yankees fan. I went to public schools in the Bronx, and I was very lucky to receive a Posse scholarship to attend college in Boston. It was not easy being a Yankees fan in Boston. I ended up at Brandeis University, and it was the best experience. It changed the direction of my life in many ways. I don’t think I would have gotten to where I am without the teachers that inspired me. I wanted to give back, so that is what led me to be a teacher. I taught in college for some years, and then Choate for nine years, and now I’m here.
CF: Wow! That’s really quite a trajectory. I want to end with some lighter things. What is your favorite food in the JE dining hall?
YR: This is the healthiest I’ve eaten in a while because of the options, but in terms of a favorite, on Wednesday mornings, for example, they have this croissant that is so good.
CF: Again, reminding me of things I miss. I’m overdue for a stop by the college.
YR: Every day, the dining hall workers do everything possible to make sure that we eat well, and not only that, but that it is delicious, too. Some other colleges have pizza, but I don’t think we need pizza. We have good options for food.
CF: Oh, the ice cream, too. When we moved out it was a great tragedy for my son, because he was used to me saying, “Well, if you want a treat, go get one at the dining hall.” But now, I’m like, “Well, there are no treats if I haven’t made something, right?” But the croissants! There are other things you miss, but mostly I miss seeing faces.
You wound up in the best college, and they are very lucky to have you.
Note from current JE Students: JECC
Dear alumni, family, and friends of Jonathan Edwards College,
As the fall foliage bursts to life in New Haven, so too do the activities of the Jonathan Edwards College Council (JECC). This autumn has yielded an especially fruitful harvest for the Council, with six new first-year students elected by their peers to work alongside more than twenty sophomores, juniors, and seniors in nurturing the College’s vibrant community.
Here is a brief summary of some of the events JECC has hosted thus far:
- LABOR DAY PICNIC: To kick off the semester, JECC set up the volleyball net in the courtyard, accompanied by plenty of chilled sodas and sweet treats. We were lucky to have such wonderful weather!
A Labor Day picnic volleyball game in the JE Courtyard
- BIG-LIL SIBS ICE CREAM SOCIAL: Each year, JECC splits the first year class into pairs and matches them with two returning students to form mentorship “families.” We launched this year’s event in the Great Hall with ice cream from Ashley’s!
- TULIP PRINCESS ELECTIONS: Since the Tulip Princess contest was first revived in 2022, it has become one of the favorite traditions among Spiders. In a beautiful ceremony, Allison Lee, JE ’25, was elected to be this year’s Tulip Princess. She was knighted by last year’s Tulip Princess, Kaise Dualeh, JE ’24.
Crowning the new JE Tulip Princess, with other JE celebrants
- JE APPLE PICKING: JECC revived the age-old fall tradition this year. We had a blast frolicking through the fields at Bishop’s Orchard!
JE spiders at the orchard
- HALLOWEEK: Spiders take Halloween very seriously. Among the many events taking place throughout the college, JECC hosts trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving.
Here are several of the events that we’re looking forward to planning in the coming semester:
- JE FORMAL: Johnny Ed’s Jolly Jamboree has returned! We’re excited to host another off-campus formal in early November.
- PIZZA NIGHT: Every month, JECC hosts Food Night–an opportunity for Spiders to experience New Haven’s culinary landscape! This October, Spiders returned from fall break to indulge in pizza from across the city. Our recent favorites have been Sally’s, Pepe’s, Bar, and Modern!
- MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS: As we did last year, JECC is partnering with Yale College Community Care–an initiative geared towards providing extended mental health and counseling support to students–to highlight our Community Wellness Specialist.
- JE DAY OF SERVICE: In order to engage more closely with the New Haven community, JECC will organize a college-wide volunteer event in the spring. We hope this initiative will open the door to a continued relationship with surrounding service organizations and deeper ties with the community!
- READING WEEK STUDY BREAK: When Spiders get bogged down with final exams and papers in December, we’ll arrange for a food truck to drop by the York Street entrance of the College. Delicious snacks always seem to lure studious Yalies out of the library!
As always, we deeply appreciate your support of the college community. If you happen to be nearby on a Sunday morning from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm, please drop by one of our meetings and say hi!
Looking forward to a full and fruitful year in JE,
Maddy Corson JE ’26
President, JECC
A Conversation between 2018 and 2022 Figure Skating Olympian Nathan Chen JE ’22+2 and Former JE HOC Penny Laurans
Transcribed by Lydia Burleson JE ’21
Recently, former JE Head of College Penny Laurans sat down with JE alum and Olympian, ice skater Nathan Chen JE ’22+2 to talk about Nathan’s experience at Yale and in JE, how he juggled his academic and Olympic commitments while a student, and his current preparation to enter the medical profession. Chen, considered one of the best male figure skaters in the world, competed in the 2022 Winter Olympics where he won 2 gold medals (as an individual and part of the U.S. men’s team) while a JE undergrad. Nathan also holds an Olympic bronze medal from his team performance at the 2018 Olympics.
Penny and Nathan together at a College event
PL: Nathan, it is so good to see you again, even virtually! Of course I know the details, but please tell JE alums where you are now and what you are doing.
NC: I am currently near Baltimore, Maryland, at a school called Goucher, pursuing a post-bac certificate. I studied data science in undergrad and now have decided to transition to medicine, so I’m doing a one-year program to complete all my pre-med requirements before applying for medical school.
PL: Let’s go back to the beginning. You were admitted to Yale while competing at an Olympic level. What was the difference between what you expected at Yale and what you found?
NC: I’m so appreciative of you and also of everyone at Yale for giving me the opportunity. I entered Yale primarily as a skater, and I feel like I exited as more than a skater, which was what I was looking for in my college experience—to be able to identify as someone beyond just being the athlete that I was my entire life. I wasn’t really sure what skating would look like while I was at Yale. I also knew that there was a lot of expectation riding on me as I went into this, and I knew that if I went into competitions and I started failing, it would immediately show everyone that it’s not possible to do both skating and college.
Nathan mid-flight
There was a lot of planning and a lot of quick on-the-fly decisions that were made as I was progressing through the competition season. I remember my first competition after starting at Yale was horrible. I went in and was vastly underprepared. In hindsight, there needed to be much more planning, much more of “here’s exactly the time frame,” “here’s exactly what I need to accomplish.” I hadn’t had that experience ever—balancing school and skating. I didn’t go to a boarding school. I didn’t go to a private school. Before Yale, I was doing an online schooling system, so Yale was such a different academic environment than what I was used to. On the flip side of that, finally having in-person classes and finally being able to interact with professors and other students definitely accelerated my learning and my ability to conceptualize information. I’ve talked about this in other interviews but going into competitions after Yale really helped me identify how to be the most efficient even when I didn’t have school, even during the two gap years because of Covid and the 2022 Winter Olympics right afterward.
PL: Obviously you had to be a great jumper to win the Olympics, but you were also very musical and that is a part of all of your routines. You know I take a little bit of pride in suggesting that you take the class Listening to Music, because you found Philip Glass and you used him in one of your routines. You were a pianist, and you knew Mozart, and you did ballet when you were younger. Is that what made you a great ice skater?
NC: Absolutely. My mom emphasized music, and all my sisters did ballet, which is good for your skating, but also it was a bonding experience for me and my sisters to do something together. And everyone in the family, regardless of skating, had to learn a musical instrument. So I picked up piano, which helped me understand music structure and tension. You know: how does tension build? How does tension resolve? Those kinds of things. That definitely translates to how you interpret the music on the ice, and how you interpret movement relative to that.
And yes certainly, the class Listening to Music opened me up to music that I hadn’t really heard before and was never really supposed to. I think skating likes to repeat music: you find the same pieces played over and over and over, which gives you a lot of familiarity with those pieces. But you can lose sight of the fact that there are so many more options out there, a whole breadth of music beyond these conventional skating pieces. Discovering composers like Philip Glass allowed me to experiment with contemporary music in skating, setting my performances apart in a sport often dominated by classical pieces. I find now I am significantly less focused on the jumps and more so just on enjoying the experience of being on the ice, the flow, and that is directly related to the artistic side of skating. It’s such a nice part of skating that, no matter how old I get, no matter how far away I drift from the sport, I’ll always be able to be rooted back to that through the music and through the movement, because jumps will certainly fade over time.
PL: Who were your roommates, and what was your experience entering Yale?
NC: JE was definitely awesome. As a JE first year, I was in Farnam. Second year, I moved over to JE proper. And then I had two gap years with Covid and the 2022 winter Olympics. I came back and I ended up being put into annex housing instead of living in JE again because I was a little bit late with the JE housing emails, which was my fault. But it worked out because while I was in annex housing—in McClellan on Old Campus—I sat down next to this guy, John, in my French class who invited me to lunch one day, and while we were talking, he was like, “Oh, by the way, I’m in. JE.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s awesome. I’m also in JE.” And it came up that I was in annex housing and John was like, “Oh, actually, I’m planning on moving off campus. But I have really amazing suitemates, and my room’s going to be empty. Do you want to take it?” and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, absolutely!” because I really wanted to live in JE. So I ended up taking his room, and he’s now my best friend. We ended up moving off campus together in my fourth year, which was super awesome. And you know he’s definitely been someone who’s very integral to my JE and Yale experience. Props to the residential colleges for making that happen.
PL: How did you manage your demanding schedule at Yale?
NC: I would take classes from roughly 9 am to 2 pm, then afterwards, I would skate. And that’s partly due to the athletic director at Yale—Vicky Chun—just being phenomenal and so supportive. I’ve talked to a lot of my skater friends at other universities who were having issues with getting ice time, and Yale was just so accommodating, and I couldn’t be more thankful. During my time at Yale, I got really close to one of the employees at the Whale [Yale’s ice hockey rink]. And he ended up giving me his direct contact information, and, with the clearance of the other employees at the Whale, would get me so much extra ice time in between classes. At the beginning of each week, we’d sit down and talk about what the hockey schedule looked like, any other events, and what time would potentially be available for me Monday through Friday, and then Saturdays, and then evenings. So I would have this set schedule where right after classes, I’d run straight to the Whale, skate for an hour and a half, and then right after that, I would drive over to the Cromwell rink, which is about 30 minutes away from Yale’s campus, to skate for another hour and a half. For professional skaters, we aim for around three or four hours of skating a day. My skating practice was also contingent on what school looked like. Sometimes, I’d have Psets [problem sets] to do, so I had to finish those before I could get on the ice. Then after training, I’d run back home and finish more of my schoolwork, sometimes attending office hours or test reviews or things that were near the end of the day. It became a structured routine.
Nathan at the Whale with his coach Rafael Arutyunyan
PL: You had the pandemic in the middle of all of this. And in a way that was good for you, because you got to take two years away from Yale for the Olympics. What was the difference between your first and second Olympic experiences [in 2018 and 2022]?
NC: I tend to find that every time around, when I have a second shot at things, the second attempt always goes much better. The second time around, I felt a lot more prepared. The first time around, I felt immense pressure, and I was working from the mentality that was like, if I don’t win this competition, then I don’t have value as a skater, and I felt that the base value of my jumps was the winning score, and that if I could achieve my base value, then I would win. I think that mentality perpetuated this toxic cycle of saying, I’m just a jumper, and if I can’t jump, I’m not a skater. It was this negative cycle of putting pressure on myself in the absolutely wrong areas. I’d dreamed of going to the Olympics since I first started skating, and at my first Olympics, I kept telling myself that this was not regular competition and that if I failed, all these years of work, all the people that have helped me, I’d be letting everyone down. This negative mindset affected my performance.
Heading into 2022, I worked with a mental coach to excise these negative areas of thought and shift my attention to areas I actually needed to focus on. Internally, the Olympics felt very different to me. But physically, it’s almost the same as any other competition. I was watching the Paris Olympics and was thinking how amazing, how standardized and regulated the Olympics are. So as an athlete, you come in. You step on the ice. You realize that this rink is just like any other rink that you’ve been to. But then there’s this little voice in the back of your mind that’s like, “But it’s not the same. This is the Olympics.” My mental coach helped me focus on positive thinking—that one jump I’ve done 200,000 times poorly I’ve also done a million times successfully. The coach helped me switch from thinking hyper critically about how I performed on the ice at the end of the day to instead thinking at the end of the day about what felt the best, which isn’t necessarily the best technical thing: Was it the clothes on your skin? Was it the music? Was it the air in your face? What made it feel good and reflect on that feeling. That was some of the best advice I got as it pertained to making sure that I was confident in my jumps. And that allowed me to go to the 2022 Olympics with a completely different mindset and a completely different appreciation for being there.
Triumph after a gold-medal-earning performance at the 2022 Olympics
PL: At graduation, I was so proud to see that you received the department award for a senior thesis in stats and data science. In its way, I consider that a triumph to your hard work in another arena – as great as an Olympic Medal, since you had to handle so much more than most Yale College students and to overcome so much to achieve it. What was your research about?
NC: That was only possible with the help of a bunch of people in the lab, where our combined work helped me get to a point where I was starting to be able to put some of the data together. We were investigating a particular type of somatic variation called clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential, exploring genetic variants associated with inflammation in cancer patients. My PI [principal investigator] was focused on the interface between cardiology and oncology, and there were a lot of patients who had cardiac inflammation so severe that it was actually more fatal than the cancer itself. So the question was if we could identify particular somatic variants that were more responsible for these particular diseases. We used machine learning to analyze data for significant variants, and it was a really fun project. It was a lot of work, a lot of troubleshooting, and a lot of help from my mentors, but it was a cool project.
Nathan and Penny at Nathan’s graduation
PL: And how’s your experience in the Goucher program so far?
NC: The students are all amazing. We’re a very broad spectrum of individuals all coming together from all over the country.
PL: Are your family members supportive of your current path?
NC: Yes, my family is very supportive. My four siblings and I each have our diverse interests, but I feel like medicine is the right calling for me.
PL: You’re the youngest of five siblings. Where are your parents now?
NC: They’ve moved back to Utah, where we’re originally from, and now that all the kids are out of the house, they get to enjoy their lives.
PL: Thank you, Nathan, for taking the time to share all this with the world-wide community of JE, a community that binds us all together. We think of you with great pride. I highly encourage everyone to read your book, One Jump at a Time: My Story. It provides incredible insight into all you went through and into all the pressures of being an Olympic athlete.
NC: Thank you!
I Chose to Record: a Photo Essay of JE and Yale from the 1970s
Courtney Carroll JE ’79
In the fall of 1975, along with the great class of 1979, I arrived at Yale and the Jonathan Edwards College community. I had my 35mm camera in hand. I was well practiced in the technicalities of film photography, having processed and printed black-and-white film since the age of eleven. I felt I had mastered the little tool that “captures the light.” New Haven, Yale University, JE, and my fellow students would be my new subjects to photograph.
The Elm City was vastly different from my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. Yale was a distant universe from my public high school, where I graduated with many people I had known since grade school. My camera gave me the confidence to interact with new situations, things, and people. I wasn’t going to major in photography at Yale, but I thought taking photographs would be the best way to document my experience.
I chose to record. Not to invade or interfere. Not to appropriate or certify. I just wanted to document that time. Those moments. That place. The people. My classmates.
I carried a camera all the time. When I met another student, I would raise the camera to my eye; they would look directly into my camera lens. At that instant, I would seize the light, and the moment would be forever recorded.
I took impromptu portraits on Old Campus, back when JE first-years still lived in Vanderbilt. I went to sporting events—from the Harvard-Yale football match to the JE intramural hockey games—and walked through crowds to record the scene.
I walked along with the University processions, photographing the dignitaries and the lookers-on. My first year in JE, I worked a student job in the beautiful JE dining hall. Later, during the dining hall workers’ university-wide strike, I took photos of some of the non-student JE workers who were protesting during one University procession.
The “news” dimension of the protest photos inspired me to walk into the offices of the Yale Daily News and offer to take photographs on their assignment. This led to my photograph being on the cover of the issue marking the 275th anniversary of Yale University.
Sophomore year my student job was as a lab technician in the Yale Art and Architecture Building darkroom. I could process and print film there. Also, I could watch the more experienced students work on their prints. I took two photography classes which motivated me to explore the Yale campus and New Haven. I photographed during daylight and late at night.
When I had my on-campus admissions interview in 1974, the interviewer asked me what I thought I would like about attending Yale. I answered that I found the campus architecture to be inspirational. This would hold true—Harkness Tower became an integral part of my visual life, something I could always see from the JE courtyard. Once, I was able to climb the winding stairs to the top of Harkness with a friend who played the carillon. Because I didn’t have my camera with me that day, I had to commit to memory the vision looking down at the criss-cross flagstone walkways on Old Campus and the new birds-eye view of scenes I had mostly photographed at eye level. 2024 was my 45th Yale Reunion. I was happy to be able to share many of the photographs I had made when I was a student at Yale, and I’m happy to share them with the JE alumni community writ large now.
Student Spotlight: Mazie Wong JE ’25
Interview and transcription by Lydia Burleson JE ’21.
This fall, JE’s art gallery was transformed to a vibrant and fractured fresco at the hands of JE senior and student artist, Mazie Wong JE ’25. A meditation on loss and feeling, the installation is titled Growing Apart/Falling to Pieces and was sponsored by the JE Women Class of 1973.
Mazie in front of her mural
Graduation Year: 2025
Major: Art
Where you’re based when not in JE (hometown): Los Angeles
Favorite JE Tradition: I don’t really keep up with JE traditions but I quite like spiders.
Favorite study spot in JE: When I was living in JE before moving off campus senior year, we put a bench in front of the windowsill in my suite’s common room, where heaters kept the wood slightly warm in the winter. I liked to use it as a desk when the light came through the windows in the morning, so that slanting shadows came across my papers.
Describe your art installation. How did it come to be? Growing Apart/Falling to Pieces is a project that came about because I got in trouble. In my sophomore year, I had this idea to build a forest in a lecture hall overnight. I didn’t get to finish that installation (originally slated for a classroom in Osbourne Memorial Laboratories (OML) 202), but I did get to have a nice chat with Head North at my disciplinary hearing. With his help, I planned another kind of forest installation for the JE basement.
Growing Apart/Falling to Pieces, Mazie Wong 2024
What materials did you use? Growing Apart/Falling to Pieces is a fresco mural, which means it’s made of slaked lime, sand, and pigment. I mixed the sand and lime to make a plaster that I’d apply to make the painting surface, and then paint each day while the plaster was drying. The lime reacts with the air to form something like a new limestone, but with the pigment dust sealed into the surface. That’s why fresco is the most long-lasting painting medium. It’s also why you have to paint frescoes in sections. I tried to structure my painting a little bit like a concept album, thinking of each day’s work as a different song that has to follow from the previous while taking you somewhere new.
What were you trying to capture? What does it mean to have had it shown in JE? People often ask me why I make work about nature. I make work by observing natural things, but I don’t think it’s really “about nature.” For a while, I’ve been searching for a visual vocabulary to talk about the kinds of pain and loss that are so common that they can feel almost silly to dwell on—heartbreak, grief, existing between cultures, missing people who are far away. The way I deal with these experiences in my life is by collecting what I think of as metaphors for survival.
The mural and the other works I showed at the JE opening are all ways of visualizing brokenness, what happens when you divide space, when things fall apart, or when you feel that you are made of many disparate pieces. I wanted the mural to be an imaginary place that people can visit to process those feelings. Trees grow up but they also grow down, and that underworld of growth is just as important, even though we can’t see it. I’m interested in all the internal worlds where people grow invisibly. I suspect they are much darker and stranger than the growth you can see. More than anything, I think my painting is an invitation to grow down.
Who were your collaborators, if any? I’d like to acknowledge all the people who helped me make this project. Thank you to Head North, of course, for giving me the space and the resources and the immense trust to make a mural at all. Thank you to the endlessly imaginative and incredibly hard-working Oren Mendieta, who assisted me with the mural. Thank you to all the friends and loved ones who provided labor out of sheer good will: Eleri Phillips, Luke Morad, Bluebelle Carroll, Tigerlily Theo Hopson, Jonah Heiser, Caleb Reske, Edie Lipsey, Ximena Leyva-Peralta, and many others. Thank you to the JE Women of the Class of 1973 for supporting and funding the mural. Thank you to Nicole Wade and Gygi Jennings for their administrative help and encouraging words. Thank you to Oscar Rene Cornejo for introducing me to fresco and giving guidance on materials sourcing. And I owe everything I know about fresco to my beloved teacher in Mexico, Jesús Gonzalez Gutierrez.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading the Trust’s 2024 newsletter. This project would not be possible without the rich and vibrant JE community from the alumni class of 1933 to the most recent class of 2028. Please see below for ways to connect with the Trust and our thanks to this year’s newsletter contributors, behind the scenes and on the page:
- The Trust is always glad to hear from the JE community. If you have feedback about the newsletter or suggestions, you can provide it here.
- If you are interested in obtaining a copy of The Spiders’ Way, a beautifully written and illustrated history of the college, you can find information here.
- The College has long maintained a fund to help JE students with unanticipated or otherwise unfunded expenses such as warm winter coats, new laptops after accidents, and flights home during family emergencies. The College recently renamed that fund in honor of Ayaska Fernando JE ’08, ’18 MS, a beloved member of the JE community who passed away in 2021. An extraordinary Yale citizen, Ayaska was deeply committed to his roles at Yale, first in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and later as director of admissions at the Yale School of Medicine. From 2013 onward, he was a devoted resident fellow of JE. Although the fund is a College initiative, distributed to students at the discretion of the Head of College, the Trust is happy to support this effort. You can donate to the Ayaska Fernando Fund here. A lovely remembrance of Ayaska by Penny Laurans can be found here.
- Although we strive for an inclusive community of alumni readers, we know we are missing quite a few alumni email addresses. We would love to reach more spiders! Please feel free to forward and share this newsletter with fellow JE alums, friends, or family. For new readers who would like to be added to our list for future Trust communications, including the annual newsletter, you can subscribe directly to Trust communications here (our current subscribe link on the website can’t be linked out). We also encourage you to ensure your information is up-to-date in the Yale alumni directory, as this is how we reach out to JE alums.
Our best wishes for a happy holiday, from the Jonathan Edwards Trust!
This project would not have been possible without the diligent support of the JE Trust team–Eve Rice JE ’73, JE Trust Chair; Miko McGinty JE ’93 JE, Trust Vice Chair; Masu Haque Khan JE ’95, JE Trust Alumni Relations Committee Chair; and Lydia Burleson JE ’21, JE Trust Alumni Engagement Coordinator. We would also like to thank our current student JE collaborators JECC President, Maddy Corson JE ’26, and Mazie Wong JE ’25; our alumni contributors Courtney Carroll JE ’79, Nathan Chen JE ’22+2, and Barney Latimer JE ’93, our alumni editor; and our residential college support from former JE HOC Penny Laurans, current JE HOC Paul North, former JE Deans Christina Ferando and Mark Ryan, and current JE Dean Yaser Robles.