Dear Dartmouth: If you want us to write about you, pass along crazy emails like this one. Mary Miller, Dean of Yale College, responds to “class disruptions” with threats, demands, and allusions to campus tragedy. The threats:

Faculty members have the right to teach in their own classrooms without interference, and students enrolled in these courses have the right to be able to listen to lectures and participate appropriately without disruption.  Any infringement of the right of an audience, such as a classroom of students, to listen to a lecture is a violation of the Undergraduate Regulations and will be subject to disciplinary action.

The demands — can’t you just see Mary Miller banging her shoe on a table while saying this?:

I call upon the leaders of these groups to cease immediately these disruptive and disrespectful actions and on the members of student organizations to refuse to participate in such demeaning activities.

Aaaand the tastelessness:

All of us — students, faculty, staff — have come together as one community several times this year in times of crisis.  As the year draws to a close, I call upon you to continue to demonstrate that support and mutual respect and to maintain our commitment to the educational mission of Yale College.

Hm, we disagree that students comforting one another after the death of their classmates matches, in gravity, avoiding silly pranks! But we’re not Yale administrators! [Yet!]

Full text of Miller’s email after the jump.

As many of you have read in The Yale Daily News and some of you have experienced directly in your own classes, a number of staged disruptions have taken place in lecture courses this year, increasing in frequency and rudeness in the past weeks.  In a university dedicated first and foremost to teaching and learning, such intrusions cannot — and will not — be tolerated.  Faculty members have the right to teach in their own classrooms without interference, and students enrolled in these courses have the right to be able to listen to lectures and participate appropriately without disruption.  Any infringement of the right of an audience, such as a classroom of students, to listen to a lecture is a violation of the Undergraduate Regulations and will be subject to disciplinary action.

Alongside its curriculum, Yale has a long and lively tradition of supporting and encouraging extracurricular activities. But such activities are meant to complement academic work, not to interfere with it.  No Yale student should be ever be placed by the leaders of an extracurricular organization in a position that compromises the rights of fellow students to their education.  I call upon the leaders of these groups to cease immediately these disruptive and disrespectful actions and on the members of student organizations to refuse to participate in such demeaning activities.

All of us — students, faculty, staff — have come together as one community several times this year in times of crisis.  As the year draws to a close, I call upon you to continue to demonstrate that support and mutual respect and to maintain our commitment to the educational mission of Yale College.

Mary Miller
Dean of Yale College
Sterling Professor of History of Art

12 Comments To "Yale Dean Not Amused By Your Pranks"

#1 Comment By ptn tgr On April 20, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

#2 Comment By ptn tgr On April 20, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

#3 Comment By ptn tgr On April 20, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

#4 Comment By ptn tgr On April 20, 2010 @ 4:46 pm

#5 Comment By y On April 21, 2010 @ 12:03 am

#6 Comment By y On April 21, 2010 @ 12:03 am

#7 Comment By y On April 21, 2010 @ 12:03 am

#8 Comment By y On April 20, 2010 @ 7:03 pm

#9 Comment By air jordan 9 On June 3, 2010 @ 2:55 am

#10 Comment By prada outlet On June 8, 2010 @ 1:38 am

#11 Comment By mbt On June 8, 2010 @ 3:00 am

#12 Comment By prada On June 10, 2010 @ 2:01 am

---