NEW HAVEN, CT—Yale University was rocked by scandal this week after leaked internal documents suggested that the prestigious university seeks to foster an eclectic and collaborative scholarly environment.
“If these allegations are true, they are deeply troubling,” said New Haven Chief of Police Ronnell A. Higgins. “I never dreamed that the Yale community could be as vibrant and inclusive as these documents suggest it’s always been.”
One document, retrieved and reconstructed from a botched shredding job, suggests that the richness of life at Yale extends “far beyond the classroom walls.” Another, obtained from a laptop delivered by Dean Marvin Chun to a repair shop in Milford, accuses Yale faculty of “always prioritizing the needs of undergraduates.” Perhaps most troubling, a leaked video appears to capture Yale President Peter Salovey combining the resources of a large resource university with the intimacy of a small liberal arts college.
“These allegations are patently false,” said Salovey in a statement. “Life at Yale is confined to the classroom walls. The environment we foster is cold and unrewarding. This ‘scoop’ is a brazen hatchet job of the worst kind.”
These discoveries directly counter statistics offered by Yale Admissions in the past. Though Yale’s website claims that only 45% of its student body identify as “lifelong learners,” new internal data suggests that the number is closer to 95%.
“Many Yale students are forming bonds that will extend through and beyond college, all totally under the radar,” said Harvard President Lawrence Bacow. “At Harvard, we encourage our students to form shallow, fleeting bonds. It’s disappointing, of course, to see Yale fall so low, but not totally unexpected from such a second-rate institution.”
Also indicted in the leak was the Residential College system. Long believed to just be housing groups, the residential colleges were presented in private Yale communications as “close-knit communities” and “microcosms of Yale’s diverse student population.”
“Yale likes to pretend they do housing just like any other university,” said a senior Yale official wearing a high-collared coat and a low-brimmed hat at the New Haven docks in a shadowy boxcar in the dead of night with a disguised voice. “Yeah, right. The RC system was explicitly designed to blend diversity, camaraderie, and scholastic cooperation. It’s a cover-up, plain and simple. And it goes all the way to the top of the food chain.”
Despite internal turmoil, though, Yale Administration is not unduly worried about the weeks ahead.
“The media loves a good scandal, but they’ll move on after a few days,” said a source close to Salovey. “As long as they don’t find out about our commitment to academic excellence, we should be in the clear.”
—J. Wickline
