February 4, 2016

The Honorable Margaret Hillary Marshal
Senior Fellow
The Yale Corporation
c/o Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP
Two International Place
Boston, MA 02110

Peter Salovey
President
Yale University
PO Box 208229
New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8229

America is Grace Hopper…
President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address
January 13, 2016

Dear Chief Justice Marshall and President Salovey,

Soon, the Yale Corporation will choose to perpetually honor two individuals with the name of a residential college. The Yale Science and Engineering Association, the Yale Veterans Association, and YaleWomen recommend the creation of Grace Hopper College.
In 1934, Grace Murray Hopper was the eleventh woman to receive a doctorate in Math from Yale. In the years that followed, she would become both a naval officer and a promethean innovator in computing. Recently, Professor Joan Feigenbaum, chair of the Yale Department of Computer Science and Grace Murray Hopper Professor of Computer Science, noted “much of the essence of computer programing as we know it, from subroutines to machine-independent languages, was conceived by Grace Murray Hopper. She was a true pioneer.”

This year, Hopper would have been 110 years old, and every passing year, her accolades increase. There is a street, a bridge, a school, a park, and a naval ship named in her honor. She is an exemplar of American service, independence, ingenuity, and intellect. All students and alumni should be inspired by her example. However, her life has special meaning all students at Yale who seek to both innovate and serve, especially those students who would live and study in Grace Hopper College.

If you would like to learn more about Hopper, we recommend Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators or a recent article from YaleNews. We also recommend two student published editorials on the potential creation of a Grace Hopper College from 2014, or a biography via the Yale Department of Computer Science.

Thank you and the Corporation for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, on behalf of the Yale Science and Engineering Association, Yale Veterans Association Fiduciary Board, and YaleWomen,

/s/
Laura Grondin ’85
Chair, YaleWomen

/s/
James Lockman ’89
President, Yale Science and Engineering Association

/s/
Thomas J. Opladen ’66
President, Yale Veterans Association

CC:

Joshua Bekenstein
Jeffrey Lawrence Bewkes
Maureen Cathy Chiquet
Francisco Gonzalez Cigarroa
Peter Brendan Dervan
Donna Lee Dubinsky
Charles Waterhouse Goodyear IV
Catharine Bond Hill
Paul Lewis Joskow
William Earl Kennard
The Honorable Gina Marie Raimondo
Emmett John Rice, Jr.
Eve Hart Rice
Kevin Patrick Ryan
Douglas Alexander Warner III