Yale Westchester Alumni Association: February 2019

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Save the Day: Day of Service, May 11

Yale Day of Service, 2019, will be held May 11 at over 250 sites in 20 countries, including in Westchester. (YWAA photo)

Save the date: Saturday, May 11, around the world and in the Westchester area.

Celebrating a 10th anniversary, Yale Day of Service returns for another year. Yale alumni and guest volunteers have an opportunity to serve their communities by spending a day doing community work. In recent years, over 3,000 alumni at over 250 sites in about 20 countries have participated.

Service sites will be announced soon. Yale Westchester alumni have regularly hosted sites at animal shelters, community gardens, local schools, and state parks.

Click YDoS for more about the 2019 program. Click YWAA-Day of Service for more about Westchester and YWAA activities over the past few years.

Friday, February 22, 2019

Santos Lecture in Chappaqua, Mar. 7

Yale professor Laurie Santos will deliver the "happiness" lecture to Yale alumni and guests in Chappaqua Thursday, Mar. 7 (Yale photos)

Laurie Santos, the Yale professor of psychology, who teaches the most popular course on campus, the course that describes and analyzes states of happiness and humans' quest to achieve them, will deliver a lecture on the topic to Yale alumni and guests in Chappaqua at the Performing Arts Center Thursday, Mar. 7 pm. The public is invited to attend the free event (at 480 Bedford Rd.).

YWAA is co-sponsoring the event with the Chappaqua Library and the town of New Castle. Rich Fabbro '76 , YWAA board member, leads the lecture series.

The event is part of the YWAA lecture series that brings prominent Yale professors to Westchester to address topics within their disciplines or to speak about other pressing issues of the moment. In recent years, YWAA has invited Yale professors of astronomy, history, law, English, political science and drama.

Last year screenwriting professor Marc Lapadula explained his list of the 10 most important films in American history. In 2017, history professor Paul Freedman had just written a favorably reviewed book Ten Restaurants That Changed America and spoke in Scarsdale about how he came up with his list.

At Yale, Santos teaches "Psychology and the Good Life," the course that last year drew 1,200 students--not online, but in person on campus. (She has taught the same, however, as an online offering to the public.) The course (also called "The Science of Well-Being") has drawn wide attention, including last year in the New York Times.

Santos, who also acts as head of Silliman College at Yale, is not teaching the course this semester, but will present highlights of the course at the Chappaqua lecture.

"With one in Yale students taking it," Santos told the Times, "if we see good habits, things like students showing more gratitude, procrastinating less, increasing social connections, we're actually seeding change in the school's culture."

Santos received undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology from Harvard and has taught at Yale since 2003.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Sunday Songfest in Chappaqua

The Spizzwinks of Yale greeted Yale alumni at the concert by singing the traditional Yale football medley at the a cappella concert in Chappaqua, Feb. 3. They were joined in concert by Yale's New Blue and by Horace Greeley's Enchords and Quaker Notes (YWAA photos)

Yale singing groups, the Spizzwinks and the New Blue, made a Westchester stopover and joined groups from Horace Greeley High School for a Sunday afternoon a cappella songfest in Chappaqua, Feb. 3.

The concert, held at the performing arts center at Seven Bridges Middle School, was jointly sponsored by YWAA and Horace Greeley. Proceeds from ticket sales will support the high school's clubs and other extracurricular events. Horace Greeley's Enchords and the Quaker Notes took the stage before the Yale groups sang after intermission.

All groups performed familiar repertoire tunes, as well as their interpretations of popular songs. The Spizzwinks of Yale even sang the Yale football medley. And alumnae at the concert joined the New Blue for the final song.

The program was part of the YWAA music series of inviting Yale groups to perform in Westchester. The Spizzwinks sang in Westchester for the third time since 2013. The Alley Cats, Red Hot & Blue and the Whiffenpoofs have also visited Westchester in recent years.

At Horace Greeley, Enchords feature male and female voices singing in original arrangements. The Quaker Notes is an all-female group on campus. At the concert, they both sang before an enthusiastic crowd of parents, classmates, and Yale alumni and friends.

The Spizzwinks, who claim to be America's oldest a cappella group on campus (since 1914), sang renditions of "Once in My Life" and "No Regrets" (its traditional final song), as well as other popular songs and the football medley. The group is headed to Iceland, Seattle and China later this year.

The New Blue turns 50 years old this year and is Yale's oldest women's organization. While members of the Spizzwinks and the New Blue hail from different parts of the country (from the Bay Area to Boston), the New Blue includes four from the Westchester area: Laura Clapp '21 of Scarsdale, Anna-Sophia Boguraev '20 of Bedford, Alice Tao '20 of Tappan, and Allie Larocco '21 of Cold Spring. They had opportunities to sing solos before their own families and friends.

Yale a cappella tradition calls for Yale a cappella alumni to join the groups for the final song. In Chappaqua, Yale alumnae B.K. Munguia '75 and Sara Levine sang with the New Blue to conclude the concert.

Horace Greeley, during the intermission, recognized Julia Rellou for her service to clubs and extracurricular activities at the school. YWAA board members Munguia, Levine, Regina Possavino-Serai '01, and Dan Leonard '76 helped organize the event. Stacy Jacobs, Tom Witmer, and Priya Ma coordinated at Horace Greeley.

See below photos of all four groups in performance: