Dean’s Notes, PreTerm (8-25-2025)

September 2, 2025

TRUMBULL COLLEGE: Pre-Fall term Dean’s Notes

Hello, Trumbullians!! Welcome (again :)) Trumbull Frosh, Transfer, and Eli Whitney students! Welcome back to everyone else! It’s always fun seeing campus come back to life at this time of year. Many of our upper-level Trumbullians have been trickling in over the past few days and I have loved running into you around Trumbull and in the dining hall! Every year, I soak in this “new year” energy. It really keeps me going during the busy first weeks of the fall term, so thank you for that! ;)

For those of you who are *new* to Trumbull, this is our first “Dean’s Notes” issue of the year. Alice and I know how much e-mail you receive. For that reason, we put together ONE e-mail per week that includes a LOT of important information. Please read it and note that it will always be organized into sections (Academics/Deadlines at the beginning à Tutoring, Fellowships, etc à Other announcements). I strongly encourage you to get into the habit of quickly scanning this message each week and reading the sections relevant/interesting to you in more depth. Thank you!

Upper-level Trumbullians:  I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, Tuesday, August 26th for the required check-in meetings for upper-level students (Class of 2028, 9am; Class of 2027, 9:45am; Class of 2026, 10:30am). Bring your Yale ID card and meet us in the Dining Hall. If you have e-mailed me over the last week or so and I haven’t responded, please feel free to linger after your class meeting to get answers to your questions! :)

Here we go, Trumbull!  Wishing you all the very best as you start classes this week! Moorah!

Note:  If you simply click “reply” to e-mails from our office that utilize the Yale Messaging system, Alice and I do not receive the e-mail (if the address is @message.yale.edu, then the e-mails are lost somewhere in cyberspace!), so please %20alice.kustenbauder@yale.edu">email us directly!  Thanks! 

Meeting with me – please take note of my open Zoom hours (below)

To make an appointment, please use the Calendly scheduling tool, https://calendly.com/dean_c, or reach out to Alice with any scheduling issues.  For in-person meetings, please come to the office. We’re right here in Trumbull G104, which you can access across from Entryway A or through Entryway G. Zoom meetings (including open Zoom office hours) will be through my Zoom page: https://yale.zoom.us/my/skchandhoke

My OPEN ZOOM office hours for each week are listed on the top of my Calendly page. When you click on the Zoom link, you will be placed into a waiting room. I will speak to students (one-on-one) in the order they “arrive”.  My upcoming open hours are WED Aug 27th (2:30-4:30pm) and FRI Aug 29th (10am-noon).

Please note that I teach on Wednesday mornings during the fall term.

ACADEMICS
Important Notes on Course Enrollment
The University Registrar’s Office has a helpful website devoted to course registration, at registration.yale.edu. The “Registration FAQs” and “Key Registration Dates” are particularly useful! There are even video tutorials for using your registration worksheet!

The Add/Drop Period begins this morning, Monday, August 25th at 8am. During Add/Drop, you may add courses (if the course is open or you have permission to enroll) and drop courses within Yale Course Search without a fee. Add/Drop ends at 5pm EST on Friday, Sep 5th - the courses listed on your registration worksheet at 5pm on Friday, Sep 5th will constitute your fall course schedule.

Canvas Worksheets and Registration worksheets are different! The Canvas worksheet – while useful for planning purposes – does not enroll you in courses. It only allows you to see the announcements and assignments of those courses during Drop/Add. To enroll in a course, you must include it on your registration worksheet. Read more in the Registration FAQs on distinguishing the two worksheets.

Overloads, Overlaps, Professional School Courses, and Other Petitions
Course Loads Requiring Special Permission:  A schedule of 3.0 course credits or a schedule of 6.0 or 6.5 course credits needs Dean Chandhoke’s permission before the end of Add/Drop (September 5th 5pm). To request an overload or underload, make an appointment with me as soon as possible.  NOTE: Requesting an overload also requires you to complete an online form: Petition for Credit Overload (Yale College).

Course Overlap InformationTo enroll in two overlapping courses, you must petition the Committee on Honors and Academic Standing through my office. Regardless of the course or reasons, it is always the case that:

  •  petitions to my office are due by the end of Add/Drop period;
  •  no more than two courses may overlap;
  •  the express permission of both instructors is necessary, but not itself sufficient, for approval;
  •  the two final exam times, as given in Yale Course Search, may not overlap.

The length of the overlap permitted depends on the course format as described below: 

  1. Two fully synchronous courses may have a small and insignificant overlap in meeting times (i.e., no more than 15 minutes once per week, including travel times), with permission from the instructors of both courses, via petition to the residential college dean, so long as the final exams do not overlap.
  2. One partially synchronous course (e.g., a hybrid course with recorded lectures and in-person discussion sections) may overlap with one fully synchronous course, including for the full class meeting time stated in the course catalog, with the permission of both instructors, via petition to the residential college dean, so long as the final exams do not overlap. Note: all Yale College courses must have weekly, in-person instruction, and so fully asynchronous courses are not permitted.
  3. Two partially synchronous courses, as defined above in (b), may overlap with each other, including for the full class meeting time, with the permission of both instructors, via petition to the residential college dean, so long as the final exams do not overlap.   

To petition, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Confirm that the final exams for the two courses are offered at different times.
  2. Explain how enrollment in the two courses is possible, despite the conflict in published meeting times (refer to the information above).
  3. Secure both instructors’ explicit (written) permission to take the two overlapping courses
  4. Fill out the Petition For Overlap Online Form with all of the relevant information, including the instructors’ permissions. Do not just e-mail me the details.

Professional School Courses:  A schedule with a course in a professional school requires an additional form for each course to finalize enrollment and determine Yale College credit: Request to Enroll in a Professional School Course.

If you’re taking a School of Management course, you must also submit their own SOM form: review the information at https://som.yale.edu/programs/resources-non-som-students.

NOTE:  Only four professional school credits can be offered toward the 36 credit requirement; however, students may enroll in more than four credits understanding that all courses will remain on the academic record and be included in the GPA even if not offered toward the 36 credit requirement. 

NOTE:  Courses at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and at a professional school cannot elect the CR/D/Fail option.

See the YCPS for details:  https://registrar.yale.edu/students/course-selection/enrolling-graduate-and-professional-school-courses-credit.

Credit for these courses on your transcript: When you put a Professional School course on your schedule, zero (0) course credits are recorded for the course until you submit your required form(s) and the Registrar’s Office determines the course credits for that course based on that. Some courses earn 1 course credit in Yale College and some earn 0.5 course credits (most commonly in SOM and EPH).  Some do not earn credit.  See historical determinations at https://registrar.yale.edu/graduate-and-professional-school-courses-for-yale-college-credit.

Independent Studies(Directed Reading, Directed Research, etc. as listed by most departments). There are limits on the number that a student can enroll in during a given year and over four years. Enrolling in an independent study requires the additional permission of a Director of Undergraduate Studies. See the YCPS for details: http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/academic-regulations/course-credits-course-loads. Such courses may not be used to fulfill any distributional requirements. Independent study courses, other than senior projects and certain other courses designated for A-F grading by the department offering the course, are graded Pass/Fail. Students cannot petition for a conversion from P/F to A-F; only the department or program offering the course may do so.

Double credit:  If you are interested in petitioning to earn double credit in a single-credit course, please read the relevant section in the YCPS, and then consult with me. The deadline to submit this petition is Midterm, but I recommend that you do so well before that date.

Yale Degree AuditYale Degree Audit (YDA) is a tool that tracks your progress toward the bachelor’s degree. You can learn about – and access! – Degree Audit at https://registrar.yale.edu/student-records/degree-audit. Degree Audit displays the Yale College degree requirements that you have already completed and those that are still pending. A “Look Ahead” feature shows you how future course enrollment might apply toward your degree. If you believe that academic information in your degree audit is incorrect, contact our office.

UPCOMING DATES AND DEADLINES
August 25            Add/drop period opens, 8am

August 26          Required check-in meetings for upper-level students
(Class of 2028, 9am; Class of 2027, 9:45am; Class of 2026, 10:30am)
Bring your Yale ID card and meet us in the Dining Hall

August 27          Fall classes begin.

August 29          Friday classes do not meet; Monday classes meet instead.

September 1        Labor Day; classes do not meet.

September 5    Add/drop period ends, 5pm

September 10      Withdrawal from Yale College on or before this date entitles a student to a full rebate of fall-term tuition (Undergraduate Regulations).

September 10      Final deadline to apply for fall-term Leave of Absence.

September 15      All students planning to complete degree requirements at the end of the fall term must file a petition by this date.

September 15      Students in their final term of enrollment must petition to complete the requirements of two majors by this date.

September 15      Students in their final term of enrollment planning to change their major, must by this date, declare as such in Yale Hub.

September 15      Students in their final term of enrollment planning to earn a certificate, must by this date, declare as such in Yale Hub.

TUTORING
Advising Resourceshttp://advising.yalecollege.yale.edu

Academic Strategies Program:  https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/academic-strategies-program

Sc/QR Tutoringhttps://poorvucenter.yale.edu/learning/help-with-stem/stem-tutoring

Language Tutoringhttps://cls.yale.edu/programs/language-tutoring

Writing Center/Tutors/Partnershttps://poorvucenter.yale.edu/undergraduates/undergraduate-writing-and-tutoring; https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/undergraduates/writing-center

Trumbull Writing Tutor:  Adam Reid Sexton is the Trumbull College Writing Tutor.  Adam teaches three courses in the English department (The Craft of Fiction, Reading and Writing the Modern Essay, and Writing About Music) and is a Critic in the graduate School of Art.  During summer 2022 he taught Writing About Music for Yale in London.  Adam is also a writer; his next book, Difficult Listening, is due to be published soon.

To meet with Adam, please reserve a half-hour by logging on to https://www.yalewco.com/index.php, and be sure to email him the document you want help with by 7am on the day of your appointment.  Include the instructor’s prompt, your focus for the meeting, and when the paper is due.  Adam looks forward to working with you!

CLASS SPECIFIC NOTES

FIRST-YEARS
First-Year Distributional Requirements: At the end of your first year (after two terms of enrollment) the student’s record must record enrollment in at least one course credit in two of the three skills categories (WR, QR, and foreign language). For a course with two distributional designations, only one or the other designation can be counted toward the distributional requirements; in other words, no double dipping. A course may, however, count toward both the requirements for a major and for a distributional requirement.

SOPHOMORES
Sophomore Year Distributional Requirement: At the end of the sophomore year (after four terms of enrollment) the student’s record must record enrollment in at least one course credit in each disciplinary area (Hu, Sc, and So) and at least one course credit in each skills category (WR, QR, and foreign language). For a course with two distributional designations, only one or the other designation can be counted toward the distributional requirements; in other words, no double dipping. A course may, however, count toward both the requirements for a major and for a distributional requirement.

JUNIORS
Junior Year Distributional Requirement: At the end of the junior year (after 6 terms of enrollment) a student’s record must show successful completion of all skills requirements: two course credits in QR, two course credits in WR, and foreign language). A course completed CR cannot count toward a distribution requirement. For a course with two distributional designations, only one or the other designation can be counted toward the distributional requirements; in other words, no double dipping. A course may, however, count toward both the requirements for a major and for a distributional requirement.

SENIORS
Distributional Requirement for the degree: Successful completion of two course credits each in WR, QR, Hu, So, and Sc and completion of the foreign language requirement. A course completed CR cannot count toward a distribution requirement. For a course with two distributional designations, only one or the other designation can be counted toward the distributional requirements; in other words, no double dipping. A course may, however, count toward both the requirements for a major and for a distributional requirement.

Please also note that, Monday, September 15th, is the deadline to file a petition for students planning to complete their degree requirements by the end of the fall term.