Since 2016 when CTW first opened its doors, one of its most important features has been the tight knit social and intellectual community that naturally develops when students live together in the Yale dorms, think together in and outside of seminar, share meals together in the dining hall, and have new and distinct experiences together. Making this possible, in part, is the small number of students in each cohort – and yet, CTW has long wanted to expand the number of students it can serve. The challenge then, is how to maintain the intimate community that makes CTW so special, while also increasing its numbers.
After much careful planning, CTW is thrilled to have increased the 2023-’24 cohort to 30 students. While in previous years the program was only offered to rising seniors, this year the application was also made available to rising juniors. This year’s cohort includes 23 seniors and seven juniors hailing from ten different New Haven public high schools. CTW has always been a tuition-free program that provides room and board at no cost to students and is committed to reducing material and financial barriers to access. This year, for the first time, CTW is proud to have introduced individual stipends for each program participant in order to offset potential financial strain caused by students’ inability to work during the two weeks of the summer intensive.
To keep the seminar size small enough for lively discussion and broad participation, CTW brought on two new faculty, Clifton Granby, Associate Professor of Ethics, Philosophy, and Africana Studies at the Yale Divinity School, and Chris Chambers, a Senior Fellow in the Political Science department at the University of Pennsylvania, and soon to be Assistant Professor of Political Science at Penn starting in Fall 2024. This addition allowed for multiple seminars to be offered at one time. Students still read the same texts, but instead of participating in one single classroom discussion, they were divided into two groups of 15. Far from detracting from the richness of the intellectual community, this diversity of discussion and opportunity to experience different teaching styles provided valuable subject matter for the small discussion sections led by CTW’s six Yale undergraduate Residential Teaching Assistants (RTAs).
The program’s expansion was met with enthusiasm and positive feedback from the students involved. Aki Hussain, a senior at Wilbur Cross, commented that CTW enabled him to “meet a bunch of kids with interests like mine from all around New Haven. I liked being able to engage with so many different perspectives and hear everyone’s opinions.” Jacob Smith, a senior at Sound School, echoed this view, adding that it was exciting to “learn why people think what they do.” He also added that karaoke night was a lot of fun.
“This summer was an awakening,” commented Alanna Herbert, a junior at Common Ground High School. “I had independence I didn’t have before. We were a tight knit group, and I’m not usually around so many kids my age in this way during the summer.” This feeling of independence was fostered through the combination of social and intellectual bonds that were developed over the course of the summer. Magda Lena Griffel, a senior at Wilbur Cross, reflected that at CTW “I was exposed to materials I had not been exposed to in high school. It seems unfair that we’re not exposed to texts like these in school, because it implies that we don’t have the capacity to read and understand them. CTW shows that we can read these texts, and we can have intelligent conversations about them.” Like Aki, Magda agreed that there is something special about being in community with students who share a desire to read and think together. Even as somewhat of an introvert, “I never got tired of people,” she mused, “And the RTAs really nurtured our community.” Jayla Anderson, a senior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, commented that she thinks the expansion of CTW is a success, and that Yale would be wise to sustain and increase funding for opportunities like this for students from the city of New Haven.
As of this year, 105 students have participated in CTW.