Welcome to YSC—a center for student life and the arts with dining at its core. Here you’ll find ways to connect with people from all over campus, around New Haven, and across the globe—in happy collisions as you travel across campus, over coffee or lunch, in conversation with artists and thinkers—in a place that sparks creativity and self-expression. The vision looks like this…
Spring 2022 Offerings
Arts Programming
Once we’re fully open, no one day at YSC will look the same. To start the week, you might catch a comedy act or an a cappella show on the intimate proscenium stage in The Underground, the same place you went for coffee earlier in the day. Tuesday night, you might see a dance performance in The Dome and come to find out that you observed the artists in rehearsal in the Dance Studio all week on your way to The Bow Wow. On Wednesday, you might attend a formal dinner, reception, or meeting in the Presidents’ Room, or rendezvous with friends for drinks and trivia, spoken word, or live music in The Well. Thursday comes around, perhaps take a stroll through the galleries to see the works of your friend or favorite artist. Then cap off the week in Commons, transformed from Yale’s most-used dining hall in the day to a venue for a gathering or a large-scale production by a renowned composer.
Beyond all we hope you will encounter—on the premises, in person, virtually, or sometimes both—we invite you to make the Center your own through signature YSC offerings like Sessions, Storyboard, and Replay.
Sessions are peer-led gatherings where conversations over meals generate collaborations and move ideas to action. Open to the public, Sessions are valuable opportunities to gather diverse perspectives on a topic that interests you. To encourage wide-ranging collaborations, every proposed Session must meet specific criteria. First, the Session must include at least one participant from three of the following affiliations: undergraduate student, graduate student, community member, Yale faculty, and Yale staff. Second, the Session topic must clearly indicate interdisciplinary inquiry. Third, the Session must be an open-invitation engagement. Whether you’re new to a field or an expert in it, Sessions are a way for you to bring your curiosity to the table and leave with creative possibilities. What are you curious about? Interested in? Hungry for? Learn more and pitch a Session
Storyboard invites students to respond to creative prompts on the YSC website. Responses are uploaded to Storyboard in the form of music, video, imagery, or words, and are curated as exhibitions or reused as building blocks in other student works. As the Storyboard platform continues to develop, Yale creators will gain access to a collective media library and post-production resources to shape raw media into finished content.
Replay is a media gallery where experiences are shared and live on. Events are searchable on the Replay page of our website by recency or by topic, so you never have to worry about missing a YSC event again. Browse content on Replay related to anything from applied arts to cultural celebrations, or from comedy to Yale traditions. Whether the event is standalone or part of a series, you can find it on Replay Play it, share it, play it again.
As a student new to the job community here at Yale, working with Yale Schwarzman Center has been an incredibly welcoming learning experience. I am lucky to say that I have been able to appreciate the many amenities YSC offers to the community and be a part in making the Center’s inner gears function. Whether it be in my weekly meetings with YSC staff, my study sessions in The Underground, or the lunches I spend with my peers in Commons, YSC highlights what I love most about Yale: the thriving community and countless opportunities to explore passions.
New Spaces & Spaces Made New
The Annex: Lounges, Meeting Rooms, and The Good Life Center
Located on the second floor of YSC, you’ll find quiet spaces for studying, meeting, and relaxing mindfully.
At the west end of the corridor, three bays provide comfy lounges filled with soft, movable seating and loads of natural light. Plunk down and stay for a while.
In between are three bookable meeting rooms for student use, each outfitted with a pan-tilt-zoom camera and a large display, so you can jump on a Zoom call using the in-built computer or wirelessly share your screen’s content to get work done. Host a workshop, hold a club meeting, or rendezvous with a study group.
A new extension of The Good Life Center at Silliman College, established by Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology Laurie Santos in 2018, the YSC location offers free wellness-focused programming for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Through evidence-backed research on mindfulness, gratitude, social connection, exercise, sleep, acts of kindness, time in nature, play, and time affluence, The Good Life Center encourages students to slow down and figure out just what wellness means for them, personally. Relax – or learn to relax!
Graduate & Professional Student Lounge
The West Balcony, accessible through the Annex, is a dedicated space for graduate and professional students. Quiet lighting and soft, movable furnishings make it ideal for quiet gatherings, study, and breaks between classes.
Dance Studio
Practice spaces for dance have always been in high demand on campus. The YSC Dance Studio answers the call for dedicated space with Harlequin Standfast vinyl over a sprung floor, a full mirror, dance barre, and changing rooms. The 45’x35’ studio is also equipped with mounted speakers, a projector with drop-down screen, and PTZ camera. Enter the building, perhaps on your way to another space, and stop to admire poetry in motion. And if you’re not on campus, the PTZ camera means you might be able to admire creation in progress from wherever you are. While currently serving the Yale community as a COVID-19 testing site, the space will ultimately be made available for reservations via our website.
Since I started working with YSC, I have met incredible people, participated in great discussions, and learned so much about marketing and communications. I love how my team and my work push me to improve myself and learn more every day. For me YSC is the center of campus, a lovely hub of joy that brings people together. I love dining in Commons and that feeling of "Oh this is Yale" every single time I walk in. I am very excited to sit with my friends and talk for hours over delicious food and spend time in The Good Life Center!
Dining
Fresh, Contemporary Cuisine at the Crossroads
Two of YSC’s premier dining platforms, Elm and Ivy, are stationed in The Underground and offer dimensions of Yale foodie culture that will make you forget, however briefly, that you’re on a university campus. Elm, magnified by its floating chandelier and square-shaped bar setting, offers freshly roasted coffee and espresso brewed from onsite small-batch coffee roasters, plus teas and other specials. For those with a sweet tooth, enjoy baked goods from New Haven’s own Sanctuary Kitchen and Havenly, or dig into a scoop of specialty gelato. Hungry for lunch? Try a delectable sandwich, soup, or salad with global flare. In the evening, order classic pub fare from Ivy, the perfect accompaniment to refreshments served at The Well. With an open kitchen layout, guests can watch fresh sushi being rolled, sliders on the grill, and more.
A great place to enjoy friends and conversation, The Well is a twenty-one-and-over pub with comfortable seating situated beneath the Rotunda and encircled by the building’s original pink granite foundation. Ambient lighting and fun furniture will make it a popular spot to relax after hours over delicious tapas-style bites and draft beverages including beer and wine.
In a rush to your next lecture or meeting but don’t want to be hungry for the rest of the day? The Bow Wow solves this dilemma by providing grab-and-go meal service that’s beaten in speed only by your walk to the next event on your calendar. Swing by to enjoy an assortment of grab-and-go sandwiches, sushi, salads, beverages, snacks, campus essentials, spirit gear, and more.
Commons is a magnificent dining hall and, like many YSC spaces, can be transformed into a multi-use venue. It's a central destination for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students as well as faculty, staff, and hungry passersby. Serving the freshest contemporary cuisines prepared in open kitchens, Commons offers a multiplicity of chef-tested culinary selections. Discover bold and innovative vegetable entrees at Rooted. Find fresh pasta made in-home at Pasta e Basta. At Rostir, order slow-roasted gluten-free proteins and vegetables. And, at Lotus, try wok-fired and steamed dishes with authentic southeastern and southwestern Asian flavors. Break bread (and boundaries!) with every visit.
Helping YSC fulfill its goals through video editing has been incredibly rewarding. I'm continuously learning, and it has been great being a part of the welcoming YSC community. As YSC opens more widely, I look forward to making use of the Annex and seeing what comes out of the performance spaces.
Traditions Old & New
Legacy events long central to the Yale experience are returning to Commons and The Presidents’ Room. Alumni returning to their alma mater will gather in the fondly remembered and now renovated Commons during reunion weekend events. Admitted students will create fond memories in Commons when they get a taste of Yale for the first time during Bulldog Days. The Presidents’ Room will also see the return of the Yale Trustee Reunion dinner, luncheons for honorary degree recipients, and the Yale Medal Dinner, where the Yale Alumni Association presents its highest award to honor outstanding individual service to the university. Alongside events like holiday dinners and formals for first years, seniors are sure to make lasting and last-minute memories in Commons when they dance the night away at the Senior Masquerade Ball and Last Chance Dance. And before they get together on Old Campus for commencement, the Class Day Brunch in Commons will be their bittersweet last meal – until they come back for reunions, that is.
It has been so wonderful to walk through the new Schwarzman Center and see the beautiful connections between past and present in the architecture. Between the history embedded into every surface and all the new spaces for performance and art, there is so much potential to create something really exciting. YSC’s digital programming has also been a great way to foster relationships between the community and artists. As someone working behind the scenes, I am excited to see all these voices being given space, paving the way forward for a stronger community."
Community Collaborations
Don’t be surprised when you see an event across town bearing the Yale Schwarzman Center name. YSC nurtures partnerships with agencies and organizations across New Haven to support and strengthen a robust arts ecosystem. Creating arts experiences with the wider community is foundational to YSC’s mission to build an inclusive, collaborative future.
A few examples include:
2021 International Festival of Arts & Ideas “Everything You Touch, You Change: Visionary Science Fiction and Liberation”, a conversation between musician, composer and curator Toshi Reagon, cultural producer and sacred artivist Hanifa Nayo Washington, and writer, activist, educator and spoken word artist Walidah Imarisha;
Dance Theatre of Harlem’s performance at the Shubert Theater in November 2021; and
The Finding a Line New Haven Initiative’s participation in the installment of Scantlebury Skatepark in the Dixwell neighborhood and the moveable skate bowl at 25 George Street in October 2021.
