I.A   History

The institution that became Yale University was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School by ten Congregational ministers in Saybrook, Connecticut. In 1716, the school was moved to New Haven. The School of Medicine was opened in 1813, and a Department of Theology, predecessor to the Divinity School, was created in 1822. In 1824, a private law school conducted in New Haven by three Yale graduates became affiliated with Yale College, and the Bachelor of Laws degree was conferred by Yale for the first time in 1843. The Sheffield Scientific School and the Graduate School followed. The first Ph.D. awarded in America was conferred at Yale in 1861. In 1887, the institution was given the legal title of Yale University. Schools of Music, Forestry & Environmental Studies, Nursing, Engineering, Drama, Art, Architecture, and Management were founded later. The activities of the Sheffield Scientific School were assumed by Yale College and the Graduate School in 1945. The School of Engineering, part of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1861, was established as a separate school in 1932. In 1962, most of its academic responsibilities were transferred to the Department of Engineering and Applied Science, which has since been divided into several departments, called the Faculty of Engineering and headed by a Dean of Engineering. Women were admitted as regularly enrolled students to the Graduate School in 1892 and to Yale College in 1969. Since 2007 the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, which is formally part of the School of Medicine, has been called the Yale School of Public Health. In 2008 the Faculty of Engineering became recognized as the School of Engineering & Applied Science, which is formally a part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the purposes of faculty appointments and governance.