In his report on the year 1955-6, Yale President A. Whitney Griswold announced his intention to add at least one more residential college to the system Yale had launched only two decades earlier. "We have the colleges so full that community life, discipline, education, even sanitation are suffering," he stated. This news bred wild rumors about four or five new colleges being added to Yale's system. Nothing substantial was announced until the spring of 1959 when Eero Saarinen was chosen as the architect, and the Old York Square behind the Graduate School became the designated site. The Old Dominion Foundation, established by Paul Mellon '29, provided money to build two "radically different" colleges, which would alleviate the growing strain on the older colleges. Morse College is an eclectic structure built on an odd, angular site. The college consists almost entirely of single rooms, and in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen eliminated all right angles from the living areas.
One of Morse's defining features in the "Lipstick," a pop-art sculpture created by Claes Oldenburg and brought to the college by Master Vincent Scully in the 1970's. The Morse Common Room, once described by Scully as "an architectural disaster," has improved with age. A new stereo, big screen TV, ping-pong table, air hockey table, pool table, and foosball make the Common Room an actively used space. Morse College Council meetings, held each Tuesday at 10:00 p.m., attract crowds with free pizza. Several enterprising Morsels run the college buttery, "The Morsel," open for late night snacks and entertainment thrice a week. On Thursdays, "The Morsel" is open for an informal party.
During the summer of 1996, the College underwent a substantial renovation. The scheduling of this renovation gave Morsels an opportunity to design several new activity areas, and greatly modify existing ones. The basement of entryway A saw the installation of a new music module, improved darkroom, and a new laundry room. The library received a new computer room, and new furniture in its remodeled foyer. Major improvements have brought new vitality to the much expanded weight room and CD Cafe. Several new basement spaces were created, including a fully equipped student kitchen, and a student lounge dedicated to Ericka Bishop-Becker '97. The Common Room has been given new wall coverings and repaired furniture. All of these changes make Morse a better environment for study, relaxation, and enjoyment.
In a 1959 article in the Yale Daily News, Eero Saarinen discussed his design for Morse. "Our primary effort was to create an architecture which would recognize the individual as individual instead of an anonymous integer in a group." Saarinen's efforts certainly achieved their desired ends. Morse's profoundly different architecture has ensured that neither the college nor its students are anonymous integers in a greater whole, but that both are distinctly different from the whole and recognizable as individuals in their own right. Morse is doing great, and the future looks bright.