Yale Puts Us to Shame

While The Crimson's home page is covered head to toe in doom and gloom-- the Yale Daily News has had merrier news to report. Over their front page? Their web site has gone all-out to report that planning for their two new Residential Colleges (the equivalent to Harvard's Houses) is going forward, and they even have architectural designs now. The sketches look like they're straight out of the Middle Ages, and FlyBy cannot tell a lie: they look pretty cool.

Harvard's taken the more conservative route in planning to gut out current Houses from the inside rather than build entirely new ones--which is convenient in retrospect, they wouldn't have been able to pay for shuttle service to and from those new Houses anyway. But when this "House renewal" project will emerge is unclear. First the plan was to launch the renewal as early as 2011. Then the promise changed to "as early as 2012." In an interview on Monday, Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith emphasized the uncertainty embedded in that promise:

So...by 2012, students may not even know when House renewal is supposed to start. Those Gothic spires are standing out more clearly in the distance.