OUR PLATFORM

Overarching Goals

Policy Focus.

1. Student Engagement

2. Funding Student Orgs + Cultural Centers

3. FGLI Support

Reach out. Listen. Advocate.

Make YCC a true student advocacy group again.
Increase engagement from students across all sectors of Yale by creating new avenues for input and by proactively seeking ideas from students and their communities.
Be a team that is approachable, communicative, transparent, and deeply caring.
Advocate for equitable solutions to community concerns and needs that uplift and empower every member of the community.

Work Together.

Increase collaboration & build relationships with student groups so that we can all work together and build off each other’s progress to drive meaningful change.
Collaborate with Yale to institutionalize and adopt YCC programs, ensuring their continuity and impact in future years.
Bringing together the events and policy branches.

4. Health & Accessibility

5. NHV Engagement

6. Sustainability

Student Engagement

Goal: Make sure the YCC represents everyone by creating avenues for student input and forging strong bonds with student organizations.

1. Student Engagement Branch

Develop a new policy branch – the Student Engagement Branch – to increase student engagement, collaboration across student orgs, and amplify your voice.
Led by two Co-Directors who will act as liaisons between students and their communities and YCC. Responsible for:
- Monitoring student outreach completed by the President, Vice-President, and Senators.
- Meeting monthly with presidents and leaders of various student groups that are often overlooked (including first-generation and low-income students, students from minority backgrounds, Eli Whitney students, ROTC students, international students, transfer students, student-athletes, rural students).

2. Town Halls & Office Hours

Host a minimum of one town hall per semester to get student input (additional as necessary)
Host monthly office hours & coffee chats with Mimi and Esha
Require Senators to host office hours within their residential colleges once a month
Require Policy Directors to host office hours once a semester to listen to student input. Anonymous student input form within every newsletter so that students can submit questions, concerns, or ideas they have.
- We will commit to reviewing this form every week and presenting the updates to both the Senate and E-Board.
- Open an Ed Discussion for YCC, which can act as an anonymous platform in which students can share ideas and feedback and engage in a dialogue with us. In the fall survey, many students take the time to share personal negative experiences they have had at Yale and there is never any follow up. It would be helpful to have a platform in which students can still share anonymously but there can be back-and-forth to come up with a solution and keep them updated.

3. Changes to Annual Events & University Advisory Groups

Continue the annual Fall Survey so all policy teams can gain valuable knowledge of student concerns.
Unlike previous years, we will have a larger giveaway pool rather than a singular grand prize so that more students can benefit from filling out the survey.
Host an annual Community Dinner to physically bring the community together and engage all students.
Revise the University Advisory Groups to ensure the Policy Director and Deputy Policy Director of that policy area are serving on the committee and can serve as liaisons between students and administration.

4. Student-Athletes

Yale College has over 800 student-athletes, and we want to ensure that we are engaging student-athletes in YCC discussions and activities.
Our Co-Directors of Student Engagement will meet monthly with at least one representative of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Highlight one “game of the week,” as recommended by SAAC in our weekly newsletterto encourage student engagement at athletic events and support student-athletes, increasing school spirit.
Collaborate with SAAC to host an Olympic Trials Event, where students can join student-athletes at PWG to learn more about different sports and learn some of the ropes from our experts.

Academics

Goal: Enhance academic flexibility, accessibility, and support for students at Yale, by advocating for changes in credit/D/Fail policies, add/drop procedures, language courses and majors, academic advising, ROTC credits, academic breaks, and academic fees.

1. Reform Credit/D/Fail

Continue to push for Cr/D/Fail classes to count towards distributional requirements, such as Science and Writing. Since both Cr/D/Fail and distributionals are meant to broaden student knowledge (as described in the Yale Catalog), we believe that Cr/D/Fail classes should count towards distributional requirements. We will meet with leaders in the Faculty Senate and Deans to discuss and implement this change.
Work to extend the Cr/D/Fail Deadline, especially past the finals period.
Standardize the Cr/D/Fail policies across all majors, recommending that all majors allow students to Cr/D/Fail at least one class so that students have more flexibility within their major.

2. Extend and Improve Add/Drop Period

Extend the add/drop from the current one week period to a ten day period. We want to ensure that students will be able to attend all of their classes at least once before the add/drop period, which is not currently the case with Friday classes. We will meet with the Faculty Senate, Deans, and other leaders to ensure open communication so that this change can be implemented successfully.
Work to increase the maximum number of credits to 8 in Course Search during the add/drop period.
Remove unnecessary add/drop fees so that students have more flexibility in determining schedules. .

3. Language Courses, Certificates, and Majors

Advocate for the addition of Native American Studies and South Asian Studies as primary majors.
Ensure that the ability to earn a certificate in a language is a standardized process across all languages.
Analyze the work-to-credit ratio for the intensive language courses to ensure equity.

4. Majors, Certificates, and Tracks

Create formal pre-professional tracks, such as pre-med, pre-law, and more so that students can find mentorship and internship opportunities more easily. We will work with the Office of Career Strategy to make this happen.
Work to expand certificate programs to allow for more students to earn certificates.
Advocate for students who double-major to be able to list both majors on their diploma or receive two diplomas for the work they have completed.

5. ROTC Deans Extension and Credits

Continue work to add ROTC commitments as an excuse for Deans Extensions.
Advocate for accreditation of ROTC courses within the required 36-credits to graduate from Yale College.

6. Academic Advising, Breaks, and Fees

Academic Advising
- We will work to reform and overhaul the academic advising system at Yale. All first-years are paired with advisors, but these advisors often do not know much about Add/Drop, Course Search, Cred/D/Fail, and more. We will work to ensure that advisors are able to truly understand and advise students and that advisors are held accountable for meeting with their advisees.
- We will work to ensure that training programs exist for all advisors and materials are better shared with first-years to make the transition to Yale easier.
- We will advocate for requiring advisors to meet with their advisees at least once per semester.
Academic Breaks
- We will advocate for restricting assignment deadlines or exams during the three days immediately following breaks to ensure that students are allowed to rest over breaks.
- We will work with Administrators and Faculty members to ensure that this is enacted.
Academic & Transcript Fees
- We will work to eliminate the fees associated with academics, such as the add/drop fee and the transcript request fee.

Financial

Goal: Alleviate financial burdens, provide essential resources, and promote equity and inclusion within the Yale community.

Free Laundry

We will push administrators to break the CSC contract and then subsidize the cost of laundry for all students at Yale, especially high-need students.
If the contract is not able to be broken, we will ensure that the 2025 contract with CSC functions in a manner that promises all students free laundry.
For First-Year FGLI students, we will create a stipend program at the beginning of the year to help support the cost of laundry.

Summer Storage

We will work with administrators to ensure that storage costs for high-need students (less than $10,000 parent share) is continued in future years and is raised to cover 100% of storage costs.

Stipend and Grants

We want to institutionalize financial aid grant programs, including those for Printing, Extracurricular Activities, Food Reimbursements, and Health Transportation. We believe that these should be covered by financial aid, and we will continue to advocate for these grants.
Students who are financially burdened should be given stipends by the school, not YCC. We will ensure that all of our stipend-based pilot programs collect data, and we will advocate for these programs to be permanently provided by Yale.
We will continue the extracurricular grant.
We will work to institutionalize a school supply program, similar to the current YFAM calculator program.

Earlier SEA/ISA Disbursement for Summer Funding

The late disbursement of SEA and ISA funds can create difficult financial situations for FGLI students. Several popular study abroad programs with Yale students, including London School of Economics, require upfront housing and tuition payments. Given that students may not receive ISA funds until June, this may limit the accessibility of such programs for FGLI students. Similarly, students may need to pay for transportation or housing costs for summer opportunities several months in advance, but the SEA is not disbursed until May. Disbursing the SEA/ISA even just a month earlier would eliminate barriers for FGLI students.

Dining Halls Over Break

We will advocate for a selection of dining halls to remain open over spring break as a significant portion of our student body opts to stay on campus over the break due to various reasons. These reasons encompass financial constraints associated with travel, finding it hard to return home (particularly for international and low-income students), and mandatory athletic commitments. For many students, the closure of dining halls presents a significant challenge, as they may not have the means to afford alternative dining options or the ability to prepare meals independently.
If dining halls are closed, we will work to create voucher or stipend programs that effectively subsidize the cost of meals for the duration of the break.

Professional Support

We will host professional clothing drives for FGLI students.
We will host opportunities for free headshots.

Rural Student Support

To support rural students, we will work with financial aid to ensure farms that households rely upon as income are not considered/weighed as assets. Families cannot sell the farms so that their children can go to school but often cannot afford the cost of attendance when farms are considered to be assets.
We will advocate for better travel considerations for rural students as they often spend more on travel due to living farther away from large airports

Receiving Refunds for Off Campus Housing for Students on Aid Earlier

Delays in receiving refunds from Yale financial aid can impose financial strain on FGLI students who must make down payments and rent payments for off-campus housing. Ensuring that refunds are disbursed as early as possible can make this process less stressful and less financially burdensome for FGLI students.

Financial Aid Calculations

We will encourage Yale to have more comprehensive views of financial situations – not just based on a spreadsheet/calculator.
We will push for Yale to use the same generous calculation methods for all class years.
We will work to waive the requirement to re-submit the CSS profile each year after a student’s initial enrollment, which is currently in place for only QuestBridge students.

FGLI Collaborations

We will assist First-Generation and/or Low-Income organizations and student groups at Yale with publicizing FGLI events, including Yale First-Generation and/or Low-Income Advocacy Movement and First-Gen Yale.
We will assist with recruiting professors to serve as mentors for YFAM’s Faculty Mentorship Circles program.

FGLI Peer Liaison program

Student Employee Compensation

We will advocate for fair compensation of student employees, as we believe that students should be justly compensated for their work.
We want to institutionalize buttery staff compensation across all colleges. Currently, some colleges do not pay all of their buttery staff, including TD and Trumbull.
We will advocate for fair payment of all student jobs associated with academics, including peer tutors, ULAs, and writing tutors.

Student Organization Fees

Student organizations should not need to pay to have events in Woolsey Hall and Schwarzman Center. This will allow for registration and ticketing fees to be lower for all students, as oftentimes, event coordinators will make tickets more expensive due to these unnecessary fees.

We will implement a one-on-one style of mentorship, as well as opportunities for group activities, for first-year FGLI students. This program would supplement the FGLI Mentorship Circles that currently exists for first-years and sophomores.

LSAT and MCAT Costs

We will subsidize the cost of training programs/materials for students taking the LSAT and MCAT as well as covering the costs to sit in and take each test.

Internship and Networking Opportunities

Compile a list of internship opportunities, including positions intended for diverse applicants, and disseminate this to FGLI students.
Organize networking events with Yale alumni for FGLI students to attend.

Increase Stipend for FSY Participants

Increase Accessibility of Information About Financial Aid Re-Application

In 2022, the stipend for FSY participants was $250. This does not cover the losses that many students, who otherwise would have taken summer employment, would have made had they not participated in the program. We will work to increase the stipend to allow for more FGLI students to feel comfortable and financially secure participating in the program.

We will work with FroCos to ensure that they are equipped with training that covers information about financial aid re-application and financial resources at Yale.
YCC will send out reminders to students about financial aid application deadlines and the necessary forms and documents in a timely manner.

Health & Accessibility

Goal: Support student wellbeing in terms of mental, sexual, and physical health, accessibility services, and public safety support.

1. Improve Mental Health Services

Continue to meet frequently with Yale Mental Health & Counseling to understand where wait times can be minimized and services expanded to ensure all students are getting timely, quality care.
Host Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Training Sessions for students every semester. We also want to prioritize working with the College Dean’s Office to ensure Heads and Deans of Residential Colleges are also getting Mental Health First Aid Training.
Create a mental health orientation for first-year students so that they can understand the mental health resources available at Yale, especially within their insurance plans. This health orientation would also include general information about what the different insurance plans include and how to waive the specialty insurance if applicable.
Create a Transparency & Accountability Campaign to share statistics about numbers of students seen by health services, accidents/incidents on campus, police interventions, wait times, and updates from facilities.
Work with the student government at UPenn to help bring the Grief Project to Yale where programs and support groups are provided to students going through grief.

2. Commit to Menstrual Equity

Ensure the work accomplished this year is continued and menstrual product dispensers are being consistently restocked so they can be a dependable option for people who menstruate.
- Collaborate with YaleBleeds to expand the Live Safe app to include these locations of product dispensers.
Install menstrual product dispensers in all gender bathrooms.
Advocate for the installation of menstrual product waste bins in all individual stalls.
Make menstrual cups available in bathrooms and Wellness Cabinets in each residential college.
Expand the initiative to host educational workshops around menstrual equity, open to Yale & the New Haven Community, in collaboration with YaleBleeds.

3. Expand Naloxone & Other Trainings

Continue to obtain funding from the YCDO to purchase naloxone (NARCAN) and collaborate with YEMS and SSDP to host Narcan and Fentanyl Test Strip Workshops.
Encourage FroCos to be NARCAN trained and provide them with NARCAN.
Ensure Social Clubs/Greek Life at Yale have consistent supplies of harm reduction supplies (including Naloxone and Fentanyl Test Strips) as well as members who are trained in how to use them in emergency cases.
Reinstate the bartender training for Yale College students.
Collaborate with the Office of Gender and Campus Culture and Yale CCEs to incorporate information about other drugs in addition to workshops for first-years.

4. Improve and Expand Accessible Transit and Shuttle System

Reform Accessible Transit and Yale Shuttle system to fix delays, accurately display wait times, and expand boundaries.
Ensure transportation services are consistently available whenever classes are held.
Continue to work with Yale Administration to expand the Yale Shuttle Program so that students can receive transport to/from Yale Health and New Haven Hospital.

5. Advocate for Yale to hire staff interpreters

Currently, Yale outsources its ASL interpreters for events. This system is expensive and takes more time to organize so interpreters need to be requested at least two weeks in advance by students. We will advocate for Yale to hire its own staff interpreters so that interpreters can be present at more events which is crucial for inclusivity.

6. Pushing for a Disability Affinity Center

Push administration to establish a space – outside of SAS – for students with disabilities. It is crucial for students with disabilities to have a common space where they can have private conversations and relate to one another.

Cultural & Religious

Goal: Ensure that all Yale students receive equitable support and resources to feel empowered to access and thrive within their communities.

1. Increased, Equitable Funding for Cultural Centers

Funding for cultural centers has not increased in years even though the number of students enrolled at Yale has increased and the number of affiliate organizations within cultural centers has increased. We will fight for increased funding across the board. Where certain Cultural Centers have endowment-specific funding, we will push the University to compensate other Cultural Centers from a centralized endowment for Cultural Centers to mitigate this imbalance in the student experience.

2. MENA Student Advisory Committee

Ensure that real student representation is included in the design process for the new MENA space on 305 Crown St. This includes advocating for the establishment of a student advisory committee composed of MENA undergraduate and graduate student leaders for the space’s architectural design.

3. Extend Opening Hours of Cultural Centers

Explore how we can work to maximize their opening hours. Specifically, this means advocating for funding for more student employment to enable centers to stay open until dinner on the weekends and later opening hours during the week.

4. Facilitate Student Engagement, Outreach, & Connection

Create a customized cultural/religious recommendation application for students participating in the Extracurricular Bazaar. The application will help them locate the cultural/religious tables of the cultural/religious organizations that matter most to them.
Revitalize cultural Peer Liaison programs, extending the First-Year PL program to sophomores and creating a new PL program that pairs Juniors with graduate-student PLs.
Hold the Admissions Office accountable for admitting diverse and representative classes following the end of Affirmative Action by pushing for Town Halls with students for the Office to take questions, feedback, and communicate its outreach strategy
Establish a Cultural Connections tour highlighting the historical involvement of the University in slavery and land theft for all students during first-year orientation.

5. Extensions on Cultural and Religious Holidays

Advocate for blanket extensions for academic work and exams assigned on cultural and religious holidays.

6. Hold Yale Administration Accountable

Hold Yale accountable for promises made in this past administration – such as the promise to move the Chaplain’s Office above ground.

Sustainability

Goal: Enhance sustainability by maintaining a Policy Team & fostering partnerships with the Office of Sustainability.

1. Collaborations with the Sustainability Policy Team

The policy team was created for the first time this year. We will keep this Policy Team in our administration and work hard to create an ongoing relationship with the Office of Sustainability so that we can build on the progress made:
- Continue installing water bottle fillers in every entryway.
- Improve and standardize the composting systems across dining halls.
- Implement reusable take-out containers in all dining halls.
- Work to add drying racks in all laundry rooms.
- Work a sustainability orientation workshop/section to fireside chats for first-years so expectations are set.
- Throughout the year, we will also host educational workshops and events on sustainable living practices, including energy conservation and waste reduction.

2. Expand the Bike Share Program to Every College

We will work with YSEC to continue expanding the bike share program to all colleges at Yale. Currently, it is only in Berkeley, Franklin/Murray, Morse, Pierson, and TD.

Dining

Goal: Ensuring student input exists and is heard and accommodations are met.

1. Dining Hall Operations

Extend dining hall hours, especially in central locations.
Advocate for at least one dining hall to remain open for the entirety of semester breaks.
Bring back breakfast pastries and advocate for more protein-rich options for continental/cold breakfast.
Advocate for opening the Elm on weekends between 1:30pm to 5pm.

2. Meal Plans

Advocate for meal swipe transparency and standardization.
Lower the price of the Flex Meal Plan and increase the number of dining points.
Create a lower-priced meal plan option for upper-class students living on campus.

3. Cultural and Dietary Considerations

Ensure Black History Month meals are expanded to more days of the month.
Ensure culturally accurate meals with input from cultural clubs.
Provide appropriate meals during religious holidays and celebrations.
Improve labeling of dietary restrictions and allergens, including halal, gluten-free, and vegan/vegetarian options.

4. Support for Students During Breaks

Provide support to students during breaks from the YCC budget if dining halls are closed.
Create stipends for groceries for students on campus during breaks, especially for low-income, international, rural, and athlete students.

5. External Dining Options

Advocate for allowing students to use their meal swipes at New Haven restaurants.

Laundry

Goal: Ensuring that Yale has Clean and Free Laundry.

We will maintain the Clean and Free Laundry Task Force.
We will continue to collect data on broken and dysfunctional machines in the laundry rooms so that we can try to break the CSC contract before 2025.
We will continue and expand on the amazing efforts this year to provide laundry detergent and drying sheets to students to help curb the cost of doing laundry at Yale.

New Haven Engagement and Community Service

Goal: Support New Haven and create more awareness of public service and social justice on our campus.

1. Expand the role of New Haven Engagement Director in YCC

Appoint a New Haven Engagement Director and Deputy Director within our executive board in charge of communicating closely with Dwight Hall leaders, particularly on initiatives like the day of service and a weekly newsletter highlight.

2. Introduce a Monthly YCC x Dwight Hall Service Project

Host monthly a YCC x Dwight Hall service project in collaboration with one of 70+ New Haven partner organizations.
The New Haven Engagement Director, and Deputy Director, will be responsible for organizing a month-long charitable event, raising money to be donated at the end of the month.
This charitable event will culminate in a “Day of Action” providing and encouraging students the opportunity to get out and work with the New Haven member group.
Will make our Days of Action as accessible as possible – ensuring there is transportation and food for stud

3. Advocate for Yale to invest in New Haven

As Yale's 6-year commitment to increase Yale’s financial contribution to the city is set to end in 2027, we will push for Yale to renew increased funding and invest in New Haven long-term.
Work with the new president and leverage our preexisting relationships and trust with deans to make it very clear that this issue needs to be addressed.

4. Improve weekly communications about what is happening in NH

Highlight Dwight Hall member groups in our YCC weekly newsletters, promoting public service and social justice on campus. By better advertising these member groups, we believe that students will be able to better engage with the community.

5. Establish an Orientation Program around New Haven:

Not all Yale students get exposed to the eye-opening teachings of Focus, so we envision setting the path for a mandatory first-year orientation program set around New Haven and Community Engagement.

YCC Reform

Goal: Enhance the effectiveness of YCC through our past and comprehensive experiences!

Funding
- We want more funds to go back to students.
- We will increase the allocation of funds that is dedicated to UOFC.
Communication
- We will continue to send out weekly newsletters.
- We will post what has been passed in the Senate for the week on our Instagram, and all meeting notes will be public and within the newsletter.
- We will continue to have a policy tracker, keeping the community up-to-date on what we are working on.
- In collaboration with SAAC, we will add a “game of the week” to our newsletter.
- We will publish a mid-year and end-of-year report.
Transition
- We will create transition slideshows and provide them to any senators who newly join.
- We will also make sure that there are mentorship programs to ensure that every new YCC member has a better transition and has the resources they need.
- Improve YCC institutional memory by having each Policy Team create a handbook throughout the year of specific policies they are working on, the administration they recommend reaching out to, and next steps for the following year to hand down to the next Policy Directors.
- Each policy director should be connected with the previous administrators that lead their policy branch. We will ensure that policy directors are meeting with their respective administrators at least twice a month.
Accountability
- Senators will be required to write at least two policies per semester.
Forward votes (as opposed to backward ones) on all policies to ensure all senator voices are heard and empowered.
We will have class presidents present at Executive Board meetings to create better communication between class councils and the senate.
We will work with Dean Lewis and Dean Peck to have them present at two YCC meetings per semester.
We will have a mid-year and end-of-year report to ensure transparency. We will also require all committees within the YCC to have a mid-year and end-of-year report.

Events

Goal: Bring all community members together

Through our experiences in both the policy branch and the events branch, we will bring these branches together in order to bring all students together!
Yale Olympic Trials
- We will collaborate with SAAC to host an Olympic Trials Event, where students can join student-athletes at PWG to learn more about different sports and learn some of the ropes from our experts. We will have student-athletes representatives for each sport available to teach other students how to play their sports. We hope to bring together all community members at Yale through this gap, bridging the gap between student-athletes and all other students at Yale.
Accessibility at Events
- We will ensure that all events are accessible to all community members.
- We will have Yale hire their own interpreters so they can be present at more events, on shorter notice.
We will work closely with the Events Director and give support.
We will have class presidents present at Executive Board meetings to create better communication between class councils and the senate.