Activities
In addition to lectures, films, and other campus activities, summer students may choose from a rich variety of entertainment in New Haven, long a center of American theater and home of the Yale Repertory, Long Wharf, and Shubert theaters. Since 1996 New Haven has also been the home of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Running from late June to early July, the Festival brings more than 100,000 visitors to the city to enjoy dozens of musical events, symposia, and exhibitions from performers such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Roberta Flack, Hugh Masekela, La India, and Manhattan Transfer.
East Rock State Park, Sleeping Giant State Park, and other nearby parks are easily accessible by car, bus, or bicycle, and provide ample opportunities for hiking, jogging, picnicking, or just a respite from the demands of course work. Yale's proximity to New York, Boston, the Berkshires, and Long Island Sound also serves to enrich the experience of its summer students.
Cultural Opportunities
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in North America, with a collection of more than 80,000 objects dating from ancient Egypt to the present. Highlights include early Italian paintings, masterpieces by van Gogh, Manet, Monet, and Picasso, as well as works by American artists from Copley to Pollock, and the renowned Garvan collection of American decorative arts. The Gallery has recently completed a reinstallation of its major collections. The Gallery is located at 1111 Chapel Street, 203.432.0600.
Peabody Museum of Natural History
The Peabody Museum houses world-famous collections in the fields of paleontology, zoology, and anthropology. Permanent exhibits include dinosaurs, fossilized mammals, dioramas of North American habitat groups, meteors and meteorites, and halls devoted to North American, Mesoamerican, ancient Egyptian, and Pacific Island cultures. Admission is free with a Yale ID card. The museum is located at 170 Whitney Avenue, 203.432.5050.
Yale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art houses the most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. Its foundation is the gift of paintings, drawings, prints, rare books, manuscripts, and sculpture given to Yale University by Paul Mellon (Yale Class of 1929). The collection explores the development of British art, life, and thought from the Elizabethan period onward. The Center offers a year-round schedule of exhibitions and educational programs, including films, concerts, lectures, tours, and special events. Academic resources include the reference library and photo archive, the conservation laboratory, and a study room for examining prints, drawings, rare books, and manuscripts from the permanent collections. The Center is located at 1080 Chapel Street, 203.432.2800.
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
Now in its 66th year, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, sponsored by the Yale Summer School of Music, brings the world's top chamber musicians to perform at the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate in Connecticut's Litchfield Hills.
Athletics
Payne Whitney Gymnasium
Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium is one of the world's largest indoor recreational facilities and features two indoor swimming pools; squash, basketball, and volleyball courts; jogging tracks; a fencing studio; and saunas for men and women. The air-conditioned William K. Lanman Center is a 30,000 square foot space for basketball, volleyball, and other sports activities with a suspended three-lane one-eighth mile Mondo indoor jogging track. The Adrian C. "Ace" Israel Fitness Center features state-of-the-art cardiovascular equipment, Cybex pin selector weight training circuits, and abundant free weights. Yale Summer Session students are entitled to a free gymnasium membership while enrolled in summer classes, with optional locker rental and towel service.
Outdoor Recreation
The Yale Outdoor Education Center, located on Powers Lake in East Lyme, provides opportunities for picnicking, fishing, hiking, camping, canoeing, trap and skeet shooting, and other recreational activities. Seasonal memberships and daily access privileges are available. The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, located at Short Beach in Branford, offers sailing programs, while horseback riding and riding lessons are available in New Haven at the Yale Polo and Equestrian Center.
Golf and Tennis
The Yale University Golf Course offers an eighteen-hole championship course, cart rentals, and a driving range. Tennis is available at the Yale Tennis Center, an outstanding facility featuring both hard and clay courts. Use fees are charged for both golf and tennis facilities.
Community Service
The Dwight Hall Summer Internship Program provides ten to twelve Yale undergraduate students with the opportunity to create their own community service or social justice projects in conjunction with a New Haven–based nonprofit organization. Applications are due in late February. For more information, see the Dwight Hall Web site.
In addition to the Dwight Hall Summer Internship, a number of public service groups and community agencies provide volunteer service opportunities during the summer. Interested students should contact Dwight Hall.
