Monday, April 27, 2009

Div Dictionary: Dale Mail


Ed. Note: Here at YDS, we throw an awful lot of jargon around. Acronyms, colloquialisms, you name it. "Div Dictionary" is a recurring feature which will seek to clarify some things. You can search for other posts like this by clicking "Div Dictionary" in the "labels" menu at right.

Dale Mail (n): Email communications sent to all of YDS; our primary method of information distribution. (At right: The eponymous Dale Peterson, YDS Dean of Students, proprietor of the candy bowl, all around great guy.)

When I was going through BTFO, I kept asking what this "Dale Mail" everyone kept talking about was and how I could sign up for it. This was before I was getting 45 emails a day from Dean of Students Dale Peterson. Basically, if you've got anything to announce to the YDS community - financial aid deadline, upcoming lunch program, lost and found notice - you send it to dalemail@yale.edu. Emails are forwarded to the entire YDS community. You are automatically going to receive these emails. So don't worry, you'll be ankle deep in them soon enough.

Dale Mail can be somewhat overwhelming. I for one have set up a filter on my GMail* so that all of my Dale Mail skips my inbox. (I use my inbox as a to-do list, so seeing 50 unread emails in there whenever I opened it up gave me mild panic attacks all the time.) With all the relatively unimportant stuff (typical emails include "LOST BAG!" and two hours later "BAG FOUND!"), it's easy to write Dale Mail off. But please don't! All kinds of interesting and important information goes out - scholarships, lectures, worship services, etc. all get announced via Dale Mail. Stop reading it entirely and you might miss when to turn in the FAFSA or where to find the free food.

-Kate

* We can talk about how to forward all your @yale.edu email to another account if you want. It was very easy, and enables me to do a lot more with my inbox.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Phew!

So that resolution to update the blog every week? Already fallen back on. Dang!

In this season of insane busy-ness (only six more days of classes! ... and three papers, two exams, and one quiz), maybe it's just best to update any readers we've acquired on what exactly keeps us so busy. For me at least, it's rarely my classes that keep me running laps around SDQ like I think it's burning calories.

Two of the most fun features of my days here are chapel and lunch hour. YDS has a million and seven ways to get involved, and a thousand and six ways to worship. From 10:30am - 11:30am, and again from 12:30pm - 1:30pm every day, there are no classes scheduled on Holy Hill. Instead, we worship and eat together.

The 10:30am Marquand service is ecumenical, and takes a very different form each and every day. The only constants are that Wednesdays are always sun morning prayer, and Fridays always feature a Eucharistic celebration of some kind. Lets take a gander at what's going on this week (direct from the Q Source, our weekly e-newsletter):

Monday: "The Healing Balm of God's Word through Song and Dance" Liturgical Dance led by Kathleen Turner with the YDS Liturgical Dance Workshop and the CT Chapter of National Liturgical Dance Network
Tuesday: Quaker Meeting led by YDS fellow Sarah Ruden
Wednesday: Sung Morning Prayer: Songs of the Americas led by Patrick Evans
Thursday: A Bright Week Service in the Byzantine Tradition
Friday: Community Eucharist for the End of Term with Emilie Townes, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, preaching, and Dale Peterson, Dean of Students, presiding.

I'm particularly pumped for Tuesday and Thursday this week, since they're probably the farthest from own faith traditions. You'll get an introduction to worship ethos and etiquette in Marquand during BTFO from the chapel team. Bonus: free food afterwards at coffee hour!

At 12:30pm we have "lunch hour," but since everyone realizes this is often the best chance to get people together, this period is better termed "working lunch hour." Here's a very small sampling of what's going on in my life (direct from my Google calendar):

Monday: St. Luke's Committee meeting (Berkeley's student council-type body)
Tuesday: State of the School Address (our chance to hear Harry Attridge and Emilie Townes's take on how this year went and what's on tap for next year)
Wednesday: LBGTQA prayer vigil for the SoulForce protest at the Vatican UN Offices (I won't really go into details here, so have a link)
Thursday: CORE (Committee on Racial Equality) meeting to talk about next year
Friday (still tentative): Reunion lunch with El Salvador group or BTFO planning with Nichole and Sandra

Annnnnnd that's why I haven't been updating. Sorry. Seriously, though, that's only a random sampling of what's available here on campus. It makes my calendar a little nuts, but I enjoy each and every one of these things. And I look forward to having lunch with you all in August!

-Kate

Thursday, April 9, 2009

... And We're Off!

Spring has sprung in the Elm City (it's finally above 50 degrees today!) and the BTFO planning games have begun. Sandra and I had the pleasure of meeting many of you at admitted students open houses on Monday an Tuesday, and we just had our first meeting with Dean Peterson, his lovely assistant Mike, and last year's BTFO folks at Archie Moore's. There are two more weeks of classes left, during which we'll be soliciting support from current students, faculty, and staff to help make BTFO 2009 the best orientation program this side of awesome.

An important bit of information: BTFO is currently scheduled to begin the afternoon of Monday, August 24, and conclude on Friday, August 28th. We will also likely have activities available through the weekend so that you can make the most out of your free time in New Haven before classes start on Monday. Remember, this is all up the in air - things will change as the summer progresses, but for now, please block off August 24th - 28th. That's so important I bolded it... and I think I'll add those dates to the header or something.

We'll attempt to update this blog at least once a week for the rest of the summer. In the meantime, I continue to dork out on the many features of Google Mail. If you're ever on GChat, look for "BTFO2009" to answer your questions. You can also add our calendar to yours by searching for "BTFO 2009" in public calendars. If you don't have GMail, you can still check out the Yale Divinity School public events calendar to get a sense of what's going on around SDQ (click the Google Calendar icon at the bottom to add it to yours if you do have GMail). We're not on Twitter yet, because I don't really understand what Twitter *is* - but make an argument for it and I just might make an account.

-Kate