Ironically, it was during the much maligned presidency of Benno C. Schmidt Jr. that Yale belatedly took the first steps to stop the decline of downtown New Haven.
Money went to city coffers for the rights to reconfigure a city street in the middle of the campus and funds were pledged to three downtown development projects.
The economic impact of Yale on New Haven is, and has always been, undoubtedly positive. If Yale ever left New Haven, the city's economy would collapse. New Haven would resembled the now bankrupt city of Bridgeport, Conn.
But this does not let Yale off the hook. The university must commit itself to active participation in insuring the future economic stability and vitality of New Haven. Instead of making taller fences, it must do something to stop New Haven's bleeding.
Since Schmidt's somewhat untimely departure, planning has begun to fix up the area immediately adjacent to the Yale Co-Op, the second largest department store in the city. This plan would improve several important commercial streets and esthetically enhance significant parts of downtown New Haven.
But the decision is still part of the old separatist philosophy. It seeks to repair the damage, but doesn't address the root cause of the problem--the economic malaise of all of New Haven, not just areas surrounding the Yale campus.
Yale is now paying a heavy price for its traditional isolationist policy. Frightened students and taller fences are only the most visible signs of Yale's reaction to New Haven's crime problem.
The Yale University Police Department now numbers 70 officers, more than many of the police forces of New Haven's suburbs. According to Lt. William Hollohan, the police department will add 10 more officers by the end of this semester. Harvard, by contrast, has fewer than 65 police officers.
The added expense of hiring and training more officers has forced substantive cuts in academic programs. Money which now provides salaries, training, benefits and pensions for police officers could now fund three mid-sized academic departments.
Perhaps more ominously, the reputation of New Haven as being a dangerous place has made it more difficult to attract quality faculty and the brightest students.
It is likely no accident that the number of students applying to Yale and the "yield" among those accepted have declined since the much publicized Prince killing. Yale, Harvard and Princeton each used to admit only about 19 percent of applicants, but Yale must now admit 22 percent to fill Old Campus.
As violence increases outside the Yard, in the Square and along the route to 29 Garden St., the lessons of New Haven should be taken to heart, and the implications of operating a university within an urban environment fully understood.
To assure the long-term intellectual vitality of any institution, administration and faculty should keep an eye as much outside the ivy-covered walls as inside.
Andrew L. Wright '96, a Crimson editor, grew up in New Haven, Conn.