Yale

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke exhorted Yale University's class of 1995 to "change conventional wisdom" at the Ivy League school's Class Day exercises yesterday."

This column established Jan. 8, 1979. Two thousand fifty-eight columns without a lost-time accident.*A local Yale alumnus was infuriated at Jesse Jackson's assertion, quoted here April 3, that "last year, not one child from New Haven went to Yale." In a sermon in Baltimore in 1992, Jackson said many poor kids, particularly inner-city minorities, do not have the opportunities accorded children in more affluent communities.Disparity in income, he said, equals disparity in education. He suggested elite schools, such as Yale, were not doing enough to educate children from the cities in which they exist.

Yale University's famed Whiffenpoof singers, perhaps the most renowned singing group of its type from a traditionally strong singing campus, has picked a 21-year-old junior from Baltimore to be its "pitchpipe" or music director.Robert A. Berman, a 1988 graduate of Friends School here, will plan the 14-man senior group's repertory, soloists, rehearsals and arrange some of its music in the next year's program of weekend concerts. The year ends with the annual 10-week world tour after graduation.

Stan Wojewodski Jr., who as artistic director of Center Stage helped bring the theater to national prominence, will become dean of the Yale School of Drama, one of the most prestigious graduate theater programs in the country, it was announced yesterday.He also will be artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, succeeding Lloyd Richards, a Tony Award-winning director who is stepping down to pursue other interests after holding the dual position for 12 years.Mr. Wojewodski (pronounced Voya-vudski)

New York--Denny Hansen had the good looks, the brains, the warm personality -- and the brightest smile you ever saw. Classmates at Yale joked about getting a job in Denny's administration when he became president. His presence was so overpowering that his friends' parents would ask, years after the Class of '57 had graduated, "Whatever happened to that Hansen boy -- you know, the one with that great smile?"Denny Hansen killed himself. In February 1991, more than three decades after he had graduated from Yale magna cum laude and headed to England on a Rhodes scholarship, Roger Dennis Hansen went to a friend's house in Rehoboth Beach, Del. There he closed the garage door, started his car and inhaled enough carbon monoxide to take him away from what had become a miserable life.

Yale University announced yesterday that tuition, fees, and room and board will cost $25,110 in the 1993-1994 academic year, making the Ivy League institution the first major college or university to charge more than $25,000.Other private institutions are struggling to keep annual costs below $25,000, according to campus administrators and higher education analysts, because that figure is seen as daunting to parents.Part of the unease about crossing the $25,000 barrier is that it means the cost of getting a four-year college education will reach $100,000 for the first time.

Yale University has announced that dinner will no longer be served in Commons, the cavernous, white-columned building that has been a gathering place for freshmen since the 1930s.Citing a need to cut the budget by more than $1 million, the university's dining hall director, Alan R. Kenney, informed Yale students of the decision in a letter dated July 26.Commons, officially known as the University Dining Hall, is central to the social life of freshmen. Freshmen dinners in Commons have been most students' main opportunity to meet classmates.

ANNAPOLIS -- The last time Navy experienced such shooting frustration, Bryan Matthews was in his second season as coach.The year was 1984, Penn was the opponent and Navy lost, 5-3.Yesterday -- 104 games later -- Navy was held to three goals for the first time since then, losing to Yale, 9-3, before 2,618 at Turf Field in the first round of the NCAA lacrosse tournament."

Mandy Stephan's layup with five seconds left gave Navy a 67-66 win over Yale yesterday in a women's basketball game at Alumni Hall.With the Midshipmen (7-5) trailing 66-65, Stephan took an inbounds pass and drove for the game-winner."This team likes to live close," Navy coach Joe Sanchez said. "We got the inbounds and isolation we wanted, and Mandy just took it to the hole. We're a young team, so we're going to get into games like this."Navy's Laura Coffey led all scorers with 24 points on 9-for-10 shooting to become the ninth player in school history to record 1,000 career points; she now has 1,001.