We are delighted to welcome you to Pauli Murray College! You are now officially a PauliMur, and we cannot wait to celebrate the arrival of new transfer students, Eli Whitney students, and the incoming Class of 2029.
The newest of Yale’s residential colleges (our neighbor Benjamin Franklin College was completed a few days before us), Pauli Murray College was designed by Robert A.M. Stern, one of America’s most preeminent architects and former dean of Yale’s architecture school. We look forward to sharing with you our lovely courtyards and the prettiest dining hall at Yale. Also, don’t gloat, but do get ready to enjoy the most spacious accommodations on campus!
The Pauli Murray family is lucky to live in such beautiful surroundings, but the things that make Pauli Murray College the best involve much more than the space. Pauli Murray College is a thriving, welcoming, and diverse community, whose mascot is the ring-tailed lemur—spelled LiMur around these parts. Just like lemurs, LiMurs form close-knit families, and we look forward to involving you in our community. If you are Class of 2029, our first-year counselors (a.k.a., FroCos) cannot wait to help guide you through the year. Very soon, our FroCo team will be getting in touch with you.
All incoming LiMurs will have opportunity to be assigned a big sib or two from our sophomore, junior, and senior classes. When you show up, you can join the college council and choose some of the great events we throw. And I hope you’ll also participate in intramural sports, where our college has already won the championship Tyng Cup multiple times!
Our college is named after Pauli Murray, a groundbreaking civil-rights activist, poet, and jurist, and the first African-American female priest in the Episcopal church. Pauli was ahead of the curve on so many matters, waging lifelong battles against racism, homophobia, and sexism. We throw a birthday party every year in Pauli’s honor, complete with cupcakes and a poetry reading, and often sponsor other Pauli-related events (over the years we have invited many folks who were close to Pauli, including a close family friend last year, who offered hugs so that folks could be just one hug away from Pauli). As soon as you get here you will see a magnificent mosaic portrait of Pauli in the dining hall by the artist Mickalene Thomas. The portrait—which extends the full length of the dining hall—articulates visually the enduring, challenging nature of Pauli’s legacy. But Pauli’s words do the same: “True Community is based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.” As we work together to help all of us thrive, we always aim to live up to that ideal.
Camp Yale will be an introduction not just to Yale, but to Pauli Murray. I know that by the time classes start, the sight of Bass Tower over the horizon will give you the sense of warmth it does to us, knowing that you’re almost back to where you belong.
Welcome home, LiMur.
With our very warmest wishes,
Tina Lu Aaron King
Head of College Dean