ALUMS ASKED TO GIVE TO CAMPAIGN

Labor activists to hold street rally

NEW HAVEN — Yale University will launch its first major capital campaign since 2011 on Saturday, online, but the unions calling for Yale to invest more in the city will hold a rally live and in person.

Details of the campaign won’t be released until the 2 p.m. online presentation “What is Yale for?” livestream from the Commons in the new Yale Schwarzman Center, said spokeswoman Karen Peart.

Nearby, at Grove and Prospect streets, outside President Peter Salovey’s temporary office, New Haven Rising, Unite Here Locals 33, 34 and 35 and the Fair Share Coalition will hold a rally, calling on the university to help desegregate the city’s housing. “The New Haven neighborhoods with the highest homeforeclosure rates after the Great Recession are today facing the highest COVID-19 infection rates and shortest life expectancies,” the labor groups said in a release.

Union members and activists will be touching up and adding to the “Yale: Respect New Haven” street mural that was painted May 1 on Prospect Street. Speakers will announce progress in talks with the university, organizers said. Locals 34 and 35, representing clerical, service and technical workers, recently agreed on a five-year agreement with the university. The unions must ratify the proposal.

Local 33 represents graduate and professional school students and is not

The public launch of Yale University’s capital campaign will be held online Saturday, while activists rally on Prospect Street.

recognized by the administration.

Most of the money raised in Yale’s capital campaigns come from alumni. Associate Vice President for Development and campaign director Eugénie Gentry told the Yale Daily News in October 2020 the goal had been set at $6 billion, with much coming in the “silent phase” before Saturday’s launch.

Its last campaign, “Yale Tomorrow,” raised $4.67 billion from 2006 to 2011, according to the Yale Alumni

Magazine. The previous fundraising effort, “And for Yale,” raised $2.88 billion between 1992 and 1997.

The money would go into Yale’s endowments, which totaled $31.2 billion on June 30, 2020. In fiscal 2021, spending from the endowment totaled $1.5 billion, providing 35 percent of the university’s budget, according to the Yale Investments Office.

Saturday’s launch will feature a concert by Pentatonix, an a cappella vocal group that includes Kevin Olusola, Yale class of 2010.

Salovey’s office has been temporarily moved to Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall during the construction of the Schwarzman Center on Hewitt Quadrangle.

Hearst Connecticut Media file photos People gather on Prospect Street next to the Yale University campus on May 1 to paint a sign that says “YALE: RESPECT NEW HAVEN” and includes a a visual representation of Yale’s $31 billion endowment compared to its voluntary contribution to the city of New Haven, encouraging Yale to “pay its far share” of the burden of operating the city.

Davarian L. Baldwin, the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford and the author of “In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities,” speaks during a protest on May 1 in front of Yale President Salovey's office in New Haven.