Master Robert Farris Thompson

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Robert Farris Thompson

No one is more familiar with today's Yale mastership than Robert Farris Thompson, who has overseen the affairs of Timothy Dwight College since 1978, the longest run of any serving master. And perhaps none so clearly embodies the way the job—and Yale—have changed since the storied times of masters like Robert D. French of Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Bergin of Timothy Dwight, and John Hersey of Pierson. Like those masters and most of their predecessors, Thompson was born to a wealthy family and received a traditional education (preparing at Andover, followed by both a BA in 1955 and a PhD in 1965 from Yale). But in a host of ways, his career has been highly unorthodox.

Thompson was an advocate of African art long before multiculturalism became a political issue, and he is now a leading authority on African and Afro-American art and music. (He has recently taught "From West Africa to the Black Americas: The Black Atlantic Visual Tradition," and "New York Mambo: Microcosm of Black Creativity," two of Yale's most original and popular courses.) He is the author of eight scholarly books, but his writing also appears in the Village Voice, New York's durable tabloid of alternative lifestyles. He is a stickler for correct grammar, but is no less passionate about the fortunes of TD's football team. In March 1995, Thompson was named the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art, a post formerly held by his departmental colleague Vincent Scully, who made his academic name studying Greek temples and the country houses of the American leisure class. The mastership of Timothy Dwight often dovetails with Thompson's academic interests. "I take a holistic view of what I do—my teaching and my mastering are all one," he says. The master's house at TD bears witness to this philosophy. It is filled with African and South American paintings, textiles, sculptures, and pottery. "I use my house as a teaching aid," explains Thompson. "I teach off the walls."

Although "Master T," as he's known to his students, listens to rap and hip-hop music and uses expressions like "way mod," he retains some distinctly traditional ideas about mastership. Masters, he says, should exert a moral force in their colleges. "There's a lot of emphasis at Yale on power, on money. We know those two will always be around," he says. "What needs nurturing, and careful cultivating, are our powers of moral decision. Masters have got to find ways to expose Yale students to values, not just brilliance; ethics, not just computer speed."