Welcome

Welcome image

Welcome to Davenport!

Dear Class of 2028,

Yes!! You made it!!

You are officially a GNOME (our mascot) and there is no one better!!  Welcome to Davenport College, your home away from home for the next 4 years!  We are truly happy to have you as part of our family and look forward to getting you acquainted with all the nuances of this special community.

We especially look forward to your arrival for Move-in day in August and meeting your families.  It is such an exhilarating time of the year!  On the business end, please remember to check out the  Move-In page and the resource page Welcome to Yale College | Yale College for incoming students.  Again, a huge welcome, congratulations to all and see you soon!

In the meantime, you can check out Davenport in this video we made!

Have a great summer; we’ll be together before you know it!

From our Head of College!

Dear Fellow Gnomes,

Davenport is one of fourteen residential colleges, which function as communities within the big University. There around 450 undergraduates in Davenport, where we typically have slightly more than 100 students in each of the four undergraduate class years. The College offers a setting that allows you to get to know people with different interests and backgrounds, many of whom (if experience is any guide) may soon become lasting friends.

Davenport students live in the college, take meals in our dining hall, study in our library, attend events in our common room, and generally make the college’s spaces home. We have a spacious upper courtyard that functions like a small park—a perfect space for outdoor studying, relaxing with friends, and playing ultimate frisbee or Spike Ball. A smaller lower courtyard offers a quieter spot with a picnic table, a hammock, and sometimes even a vegetable garden. The courtyards offer easy access to our dining hall, library, and common room.

In the basement labyrinth underneath the college we have a wonderful gym, a pottery studio, a printing press, student kitchen, buttery (aka the Dive), and an auditorium. Most recently, we’ve added the Davenport Innovation Studio, a maker space with 3D printers, sewing machines, electronics, and woodworking tools. The college even features its own room for yoga and other de-stressing strategies.

More important than the facilities are the people who make up this community.  Davenport students are amazing, they come from an extraordinary diversity of backgrounds and they have a stunning set of talents. Even better, they mix their brilliance with generous camaraderie and kindness.

In addition to the students, there is a dedicated staff in the college’s administrative offices, in its dining hall, and on its beautiful grounds. Also, there are resident faculty living here in the college, as well as faculty with offices in the college, not to mention several dozen graduate affiliates in a variety of fields ranging from STEM disciplines to the arts.

All of Yale’s residential colleges have a Head of College and a Dean. The head of college is the chief executive officer in the college and is responsible for fostering its intellectual, cultural, and social life. The Head of Davenport College is Anjelica Gonzalez, who is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Faculty Director of Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking. Professor Gonzalez’s work is centered on the development of artificial human tissues but spans a range of applications from drug discovery to medical device development. Professor Gonzalez spends a lot of her time writing scientific articles, opinion pieces on topics of diversity in STEM and creating ways in which Yale students can launch their own start-ups and explore their own innovative pathways. These are all related to the classes Professor Gonzalez teaches that focus on the development of biotechnology with ethics, culture, politics and affordability as the central tenants of appropriate design. Beyond her academic work, Professor Gonzalez has engaged the Davenport community through intellectual and cultural events in the college’s common room. She lives in the college with her twin boys, Alex and Jackson, who will try to trick you by switching names to make sure you never learn their true identities!

The Davenport College Dean is Adam Ployd who resides in Davenport with his wife Diane and their son Isaac. The residential college dean is the principal academic and personal adviser. The job of the dean is to look after the undergraduate experience. You can visit the dean’s offices with questions big and small.