TrumBulletin for Monday, August 30, 2021
Welcome new Trumbullians!! Welcome back established Trumbullians!
First of all, welcome to our new Trumbull Class of 2025! I’m so sorry that the weather was so rotten on the Monday many of you moved in (way too wet; way too hot) as well as rotten last Friday when many of the rest of you moved in (then it was just plain too hot.). I’m happy that the weather is better now.
I also extend a special welcome back to our sophomore class of 2024 who had the strangest move in ever last year and also had to move out for the spring. Beyond that we missed meeting (face to face) our remote students among your class. We’re now happy to have all of you with us. (I’ll never forget all of last year’s restrictions and also your class’ resilience in dealing with all of it. I also appreciated your inventiveness and good humor (including dreaming up a socially-distanced water balloon fight which I’ll never forget).
And, of course, welcome back to our classes of 2022 and 2023 whose lives have also been disrupted by the pandemic.
Some congratulations are in order!
I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to announce (now that you’re all back) that our Dean Chandhoke (the best residential college Dean, of course), was enthusiastically reappointed as our Dean for the coming years. We are so fortunate to have her here. She guides us all. (I don’t know how many times I’ve said to one of you or another of you that I don’t know the answer to an academic question you’ve asked me but I’m sure that Dean Chandhoke knows. She does!)
And, just a few days ago, her husband and our fellow Trumbull resident Dr. Singh became a U.S. citizen!! (He also retains his Canadian citizenship.). We’re really fortunate to have him here in Trumbull; his statistics students are really fortunate to have him in the classroom; our country is fortunate to count him among our citizens. (Good choice U.S.A.!)
Some thanks are in order too.
I thank Deb Bellmore, Debbie Rueb, Dean Chandhoke, Angie Makomenaw, Karen Eisenman, Ellen Habelow, Kory Evasick, our Graduate Affiliates, our FroCo Team, and all our wonderful Trumbullian upperclass people for their help with move-ins. It truly takes a Trum-Village to pull this off.
CoVID is still around. Be careful. Be respectful. Stay healthy.
Many of the restrictions due to CoVID that we all endured last year have been lifted. We have in-person classes. Dining has moved toward its normal operations. We can circulate more freely between residential colleges. But we still must be careful.
Fortunately, we are almost all fully vaccinated (It’s really, really close to all). Yet break-through infections do occur. So, I truly appreciate all the testing in which you’ve participated. I also urge you to carefully follow all the guidelines that have been set forth regarding masking.
Also, and very importantly, please be careful as you engage with our larger community of New Haven (both for your own sake and for the sake of our fellow citizens of New Haven). Keep in mind that most break-through cases occur when people are inside more than briefly and in groups. I urge you to patronize the businesses in New Haven if you care to do so. But when you do eat away from the college, think hard about ordering take-out food or eating in an outside area rather than eating inside a restaurant. (There is no guarantee that all inside have been vaccinated; most likely there will be a person or more who has not been vaccinated.)
Also know that already this semester, there has been a report of a large party, held inside, hosted by Yale students. It’s wise to neither host or attend such parties.
(A piece of my job description is to watch out for my Trumbullians health and safety. I take that seriously. While I’m at it, remember that there is no smoking – of any kind – allowed in the college. If you do get sick and need support, do let me know. It will happen.)
Coming up.
We have our Sophomore Picnic outside (we hope) tonight. I’m looking forward to it but it might rain. We’ll see what happens. Cross your fingers for good weather. (It becomes a grab and go if it does rain. I hope that doesn’t happen. We’ll see!)
Late breaking news: Robert Sullivan (Head of Dining for Yale College and a Trumbull Fellow) will make the inside or outside call about this dinner around noon today. We’ll announce that decision.
And there will be a First-Year welcome dinner tomorrow night, in the dining hall. We’re looking forward to that. Although we typically have many groups introduce themselves during that dinner (our Trumbull College Council members, our PLs, our IM leaders, our staff members) we are still coping with CoVID and we’re not going to do that this year. I will, however, tell you who all those people and groups are and what they do.
Fans.
We have a limited number of fans we can distribute. Send me an email if you want one. I’ll tag it for you and tell you where you can pick it up.
Wishing the best for our students from Louisiana.
We have several current students from Louisiana and many alums from there as well. We’re thinking of you and, for those of you here right now, please ask me for support if you need it.
Suggest a speaker or an activity.
A piece of my job is to promote the intellectual life of the college (and fun and relaxation within the college as well). Suggest a speaker (from inside or outside Yale. Suggest an activity as well. Just write to me at margaret.clark@yale.edu. For now, we’ll need to keep these events relatively small but we can do them.
Trumbull Facts for the Week.
The Trumbull Staff member who has the longest Trumbull tenure is Debbie Rueb. She is my Senior Administrative Assistant and has her office in our main office (room G 103).
The Trumbull staff member who is our newest Trumbull leader is Kory Evasick, our new General Manager of the Trumbull Dining Hall.
Our Trumbull motto is “Fortune favors the brave.” It’s on our banner in our Dining Hall.
It can be taken to mean many things but this week in particular I urge you to: a) take a course that really interests you (but might be a bit intimidating!) knowing that you don’t have to take it for a grade, and b) introduce yourself to some new people beyond your suite mates. You may find good fortune with each of these things – finding a new academic interest in one case and a new friend in the other.