Rosenkranz Hall, the newest academic building to grace Yale’s campus, was officially dedicated on Friday, October 23, at a ceremony that brought together some 125 faculty, administrators, students, and guests to recognize Yale benefactors Robert Rosenkranz ’62 and his wife, Alexandra Munroe, for whom the building is named. Rosenkranz Hall provides a spacious home for the Political Science Department, the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and programs of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.
In his dedicatory remarks, Yale University Provost Peter Salovey hailed Rosenkranz and Munroe as “two of Yale’s wisest and most discerning leaders” and thanked them for their extraordinary generosity. In his own remarks to the assembled guests, Rosenkranz expressed his appreciation for the honor and shared his views on the connections between the U.S. Constitution, Yale’s global standing, and philanthropy. A reception and tours of the building followed the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Rosenkranz Hall, conceived by architects Koetter Kim & Associates, is a 70,000-square-foot, modern-style building located on Prospect Street next to Luce Hall. With faculty offices, seminar rooms, activity areas, and classrooms, the facility supports collaboration among departments in the social sciences. It will also serve as a link between the planned residential colleges and Science Hill. The organizing feature of the structure is a central, four-story atrium, designed to encourage interaction among faculty and students on a daily basis.
Political Science department chair Susan Stokes praised the building as a physical environment that facilitates teaching and said that it has already made a difference in the work of her department. Ian Shapiro, Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center, cited its “openness and light” and “multiple points of access” as an expression of “how we function as an intellectual community.”Robert Rosenkranz graduated summa cum laude from Yale College at the age of nineteen. He is chair and CEO of Delphi Financial Group and the founder of a group of investment and private equity partnerships. His volunteer contributions to Yale include service on the University Council, the Yale School of Architecture Dean’s Council, and the Yale Tomorrow Campaign Executive Committee.
Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D., is senior curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of modern and contemporary Asian Art through exhibitions, publications, and lecture events across Asia, the U.S., and Europe. Among them is The Art of Mu Xin, an exhibition presented by the Yale University Art Gallery and also the title of a book published by Yale University Press.
