YWAA Highlights, 2017

In Ardsley in November, the Westchester debate competition featured a Yale-Princeton square-off and six high schools competing in later rounds. (YWAA photos)

YWAA Highlights, 2017

The year 2017 at YWAA included the traditional, the historical, the usual, something theatrical, something academic, and even something for Westchester alumni who want to know about eclectic, game-changing American restaurants. 

Alumni contributed, served, organized, worked, interviewed, and were honored. Some ventured back to campus for alumni activities, meetings, and assemblies. They slipped back to tailgate at a football game, witness the recent success of Yale basketball, or sample yet again "world's best" New Haven pizza all across town. 

Students returned to Westchester to debate, recruit, or simply rest from the non-stop flurry of college activity, Yale style.  A quartet of baseball teammates from Westchester helped lead the Yale squad to an Ivy championship. And Westchester students won prestigious awards.

From the arts to community service, from the sciences to athletic feats, shall we dare acknowledge it was just another eventful year among Yale students and alumni, including those with ties to Westchester?

In February, the Yale a cappella group Red Hot & Blue joined a group from Princeton to perform a concert at the Osborne in Rye.  The Yale singers celebrated a 40th anniversary and toured France and Puerto Rico in 2017.  YWAA board member Bill Nightingale '53 organized the event.

Also in February, the unique Yale tradition of celebrating the doldrums of mid-winter with Yale-organized dinners and drink-ups, Feb Club Emeritus, continued with Yale gatherings around the world. There is no purpose behind Feb Club except to convene Yale alumni at any site on the globe and celebrate Yale ties--on any day in February. The tradition endures.  Krista Madsen '95 organized the Westchester Feb Club in Sleepy Hollow.

In March, Yale-Greenwich invited Westchester alumni to hear Yale president Peter Salovey '86 Ph.D. speak about current Yale topics. With the planned opening of two new residential colleges and new facilities at the School of Music and the renaming of Calhoun College to Hopper College, Salovey and Connecticut-Westchester alumni had much to discuss during the evening.

The two new colleges, Franklin and Pauli Murray, opened in the fall and helped push the center of gravity on campus from Bass Library to the edge of Science Hill. 

In 2016, Yale's men's basketball ignited March Madness in the NCAA tourney with a shocking win over Baylor and a near earth-shaking upset of Duke. In March, 2017, the team earned a spot in the inaugural Ivy League tournament in Philadelphia. In front of a crowd of Yale supporters who drove down from the Tri-State area, it lost to Princeton in the finals and didn't get an invite to the tournament. Regarded a success, the Ivy tourney returns to Penn's campus in Mar., 2018.

May highlights another Yale-alumni tradition, a time where Yale alumni galvanize each other to  champion community service:  Yale Day of Service.  YWAA and Yale alumni sponsored three volunteer events in the Westchester region. Yale-Westchester Day of Service, for the past several years, has revolved around the eager leadership of Maggie Favretti '85 and Susan Kaminsky '86.  Favretti once again coordinated the activities at the Scarsdale community garden.  Kaminsky organized volunteers at the Briarcliff Manor SCPA. 

Yale history professor Paul Friedman was the featured speaker at the YWAA speaker series, where a Yale faculty member is invited to speak to alumni and guests about a current social or political topic or about recent academic research and interests. Friedman spoke at the Scarsdale Library in March, but he didn't lecture about his specialty in medieval history.  

He had just published a well-received book about the 10 restaurants that have the greatest impact on American dining.  Not the 10 best, he reminded his Scarsdale audience, but the 10 most influential.  The book, Ten Restaurants That Changed America, included such restaurants as Howard Johnson's, Sylvia's in Harlem, The Four Seasons, and Delmonico's in Manhattan.  YWAA board treasurer Rich Fabbro '76 organized the event.

In April, YWAA, along with the Westchester Alumni Schools Committee, hosted the annual reception for newly admitted Yale-Westchester students in Bronxville.  This year was unusual, because in the Class of 2021, Yale admitted its largest first-year class ever. The traditional 1,350 newcomers to New Haven has risen to a count of 1,600-plus.

At the reception, the new admits meet current Yale students and an admissions director, share stories about the hectic process to gain admission, and discuss why they might choose Yale over, say, that other school near Boston. Westchester ASC director William Primps '71 led the event.

Under the guidance of Peter Santhanam '85 Ph.D., YWAA again sponsored the Yale Book Awards, which highlights the achievements of Westchester high school students.  Winners of the award receive the book The Yale Book of Quotations (Fred Shapiro, Law Faculty, editor). They were selected by their respective high schools, typically for accomplishments in academics and community service. In 2017, YWAA presented 51 awards.

On athletic fields, Westchester's greatest presence is in baseball. Four Westchester players were significant contributors to the Yale team's blazing success in 2017.  The Bulldogs, thanks in part to pitching, hitting, fielding and captaining from the Westchester quartet, won the Ivy League championship and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament. 

Pound Ridge's Richard Slenker '17 captained the team and pounded out doubles and singles routinely for four years (accumulating over 185 total hits and hitting .330.). Tim DeGraw '19, a speedy wide receiver during his football days at Rye High School, was swift on the base paths at Yale and just as fleet in roaming the outfield. He batted over .300 and stole more than a dozen bases.  Kumar Nambiar '19 of Mamaroneck and Griffen Dey '19, also of Pound Ridge, were stalwarts on the mound.

Maggie Favretti '85, who spearheads efforts at the Scarsdale community garden, was honored this summer for other activities she helps lead at Scarsdale High School.  The Sousa Mendes Foundation, based in New York, cited Favretti for encouraging students at the school to start an organization, Students for Refugees, a group that supports refugee efforts around the world and informs Westchester students and residents about the plight of refugees, particularly those from Syria.  The group started in 2015 and has launched chapters at other area high schools.

YWAA returned to Boscobel in August. On the docket was a play not written by Shakespeare, but still performed by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Yale alumni, family, guests and friends saw Richard Nelson's The General from America, an account of Benedict Arnold's defection to the British army--which occurred in historyi not far from the Boscobel tent setting.

YWAA's Sunday outing at Boscobel traditionally includes the pre-performance lecture from Yale professor Murray Biggs, who rallies Yale alumni and guests with bits of history, lots of insight, and bundles of energy about the performance they will see.  Biggs specializes in Shakespeare drama  and still stirred the Yale group on the history of Benedict Arnold on the Hudson. Rich Fabbro '76 coordinated the outing this year.

When the first days of November arrive, when the leaves are whisking in the wind, and when darkness arrives too early, it's debate time at YWAA. Yale and selected Ivy teams compete and are followed by the annual contest among six high schools. The YWAA Debate Competition in Nov., about to enter its third decade, featured a showdown this Nov., 2017, between Yale and Princeton.

Ardsley High School, proving it could attract a crowd of students, parents, and alumni on a fall Friday evening, hosted the event again.  The Yale debate duo bounced back from a Princeton defeat in 2016 to win this year.  High school teams followed and tackled topics such as free speech, immigration laws, and voting requirements.  Blind Brook, which hosted the competition in 2013, was the high school winner this year.

Dana Sands '83 and Bill Nightingale '53 were instrumental in organizing the event--along with Princeton's Westchester group. Prizes and scholarships are funded in part from YWAA's William Nightingale Debate Fund.

The Game was back in New Haven in 2017.  Two years ago, The Game--Harvard vs. Yale in football--turned into a Harvard rout, although annals will record it as the first game where the Yale Bowl had to turn temporary lights on (in the second half).  Last year in Boston, thousands of Yale fans swarmed the artificial turf at Harvard Stadium to celebrate Yale's first win over the Cantabs in 10 years. In 2017, it was Yale's Game, not much in doubt after the first quarter.  This year, with rain threatening and the sun never bothering to show up, thousands of Yale fans swarmed the Yale Bowl's torn-up, ragged turf to celebrate a 24-3 win.

Off the fields and in Yale labs and classrooms, Westchester students shined and earned nationally and international acclaim. David Shimer '18, a Yale Daily News editor in chief and Chappaqua native, was one of three Yale seniors to earn a Marshall scholarship. He will study history at Oxford.  Scarsdale's Lauren Singer '21 was honored by WebMD, the medical information website, for her years of work in autism. 

The lineup in 2018 will include the familiar (Yale Day of Service, a speaker invited from Yale, Boscobel, and debate), and it might yield a variation of a familiar theme or something new and different--more honors, new community-service sites, new events, and a new class of Westchester students bound for Yale.

Happy holidays!

(Click Highlights to review summaries from 2013-16.)

Yale baseball won an Ivy League championship--thanks in part to invaluable contributions from a quartet of Westchester teammates (Yale Athletics photos)

In Scarsdale, Yale professor Paul Friedman shared insights for how he picked the 10 restaurants that changed America (YWAA photos)