In early 2024, Alexandra Daum arrived on the Yale campus as the new associate vice president for New Haven Affairs and University Properties. She was already familiar with the office’s work across New Haven from the perspective of a city resident — and once on campus she soon found many willing tutors in the ways of Yale.
“People are genuinely happy to share their love of Yale,” she said. “People really want to get you on board with the thing that they love about Yale. ‘Have you seen this one little room in the library?’ Or, ‘Did you know that we have a farm?’”
Over more than three centuries, Yale and New Haven have worked in partnership as each one has grown and evolved. Today, that partnership is stronger than ever, enriched by the multi-faceted work of the Office of New Haven Affairs (ONHA), which strengthens Yale’s impact on New Haven’s economy, public schools and youth, neighborhoods, local businesses, and community. University Properties manages Yale’s commercial properties in the city.
That partnership was reconfirmed in 2021 with a historic agreement that made a six-year commitment to increasing Yale’s voluntary financial contribution and laid the groundwork for the Center for Inclusive Growth, which helps develop and implement strategies to grow the city economically in a way that benefits all of New Haven’s residents.
Daum succeeded Lauren Zucker, whose 13-year tenure saw the emergence of New Haven as a biotech hub, an increasingly vibrant and diverse shopping district downtown, and the expansion of Yale’s initiatives for public school students. Among these are the Pathways to Science and Pathways to Arts and Humanities programs, which offer a variety of workshops, internship opportunities, academic enrichment, and access to the vast resources on Yale’s campus in both STEM and the humanities, all free of charge. Other academic programming includes the Citizens, Thinkers, Writers program, an immersive summer program focused on literature and civics, and the Ulysses S. Grant Program, an on-campus academic summer program for middle school students. Now added this list is the newly created Yale Teachers Fellowship, which will help train and support highly qualified teachers in New Haven’s public schools.
One byproduct of Yale outreach has been a steady increase in the number of city students enrolling at Yale each year; most recently, 21 New Haven students joined the Class of 2028.
ONHA also helps forge strong partnerships with city leaders, local nonprofit organizations, and retail and development partners to foster both civic engagement and economic opportunity.
For Daum — whose most recent role before joining Yale was as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic Development (DECD) — the position at ONHA and University Properties felt like a natural fit for her background in entrepreneurship, real estate development, and, at DECD, work boosting tourism, finding opportunities for development, and engaging with small businesses.
These are all aspects of her work at ONHA, she said. But the most important experience she brings, she said, is her love of her adopted hometown. “I have lived in New Haven for almost seven years now, and it is an amazing place,” she said. “It’s great that I now basically get paid to be obsessed with New Haven, because for the first seven years I lived here, I was doing it as a hobby.”
In an interview with Yale News, Daum spoke about the symbiotic relationship between Yale and New Haven, the investments the university is making in the city’s next generation, and why she’s always looking to bring New Haven more cowbell. This interview has been edited and condensed.
What makes the Yale-New Haven partnership unique, and what strengths do you see each partner bringing to this relationship?
Alexandra Daum: When I think about the partnership — physically, the campus and the city — they’re inextricably linked, and each one makes the other one even greater than it would be without the other.
You could take Yale and put it in the middle of a field somewhere, and it would still be a beautiful campus, but you get to the edge of the beauty of Yale where we are now and you’re looking at this amazing, historic, walkable, livable city. If you think about Chapel Street — it seamlessly flows into our campus, but it’s not campus. Chapel Street was here before Yale was here. New Haven’s grid of nine squares was here before Yale. We can’t forget that Yale couldn’t plop down somewhere else and be as wonderful, as a physical place, as it is.
On Yale’s side, the university brings New Haven both employment opportunities and rich cultural offerings. On any given weeknight, I could go watch a former president speak. Or I could go to a free symphony concert.
Our relationship also brings together great cultural diversity. Part of what’s wonderful about the physical integration of the campus and the city is that it allows Yale community members and New Haven community members to have meaningful interactions on a daily basis. These interactions are what living in a city is all about. They bring both sides new perspectives and experiences and enrich their professional lives and their social lives.
Yale and New Haven are physically interwoven, which makes life for both much, much richer.
What are some ways in which that interdependence influences their partnership?
Daum: I often talk about how, when it comes to the university and the city, you can make two plus two equal five. That premise holds both for the physical relationship between the city and the campus, but also in our relationship as two entities in negotiation. I have an asset. You have an asset. When they’re together, it’s actually a bigger benefit to the community.
The historic agreement between Yale and New Haven, in 2021, was partly a recognition on both sides of that interwoven interdependency. Yale has the highest voluntary payment of a university to a city in the whole country. But what makes that agreement so valuable is not just the financial amount, but also the fact that it’s a multi-year deal. It enables the city to plan. We want to be partners that help make New Haven better, not with one-time infusions but with long-term, sustained investment.
Are there any recent milestones that you are particularly excited about?
Daum: One major highlight has been the completion of 101 College Street, which is a private project but one in which Yale had a catalyzing role. Yale took early leases in the space, which enabled the developer to get confident enough to break ground. And that building, in addition to adding to the cityscape, holds a lot of benefits — it’s a great example of the creative, public-private partnerships that Yale can participate in for the benefit of both the university and New Haven.
For instance, 101 College Street is the home of BioLabs, which is an incubator space for startups, so that these young companies can stay in New Haven and grow flexibly. And the developer — in partnership with the city, BioLabs, and the public school system — just launched BioCity, which is a bioscience program for New Haven public school students. These students have a classroom space in the 101 College building, where they can get hands-on experience in science and math.
Partnering with New Haven public schools and supporting their students in achieving academic goals is an important part of ONHA’s work. What are some of other ways that Yale has and continues to do this?
Daum: Our newest initiative is the Yale Teaching Fellowship, which grew out of the Yale & Slavery Research Project and was developed in partnership with New Haven Public Schools, New Haven Promise, and Southern Connecticut State University [SCSU]. Yale is investing $10 million into training new teachers who will then go on to work in the New Haven public schools, with a commitment of three years to the school system. Yale provides fellows with full tuition at SCSU to pursue teacher certification in Connecticut and a Master of Arts in teaching and provides them with a $46,000 living stipend. Over the next four years we expect to be able to train about 100 new teachers — and this will not only help address shortages and encourage teacher retention, but also help train a cohort of excellent teachers from diverse backgrounds.
Yale is also a founding and primary sponsor of New Haven Promise, which offers college scholarships and career development to New Haven students. The university provides $5 million each year for New Haven public school kids to go to college in-state. This can be life-changing for these students. They’re going to graduate without the heaps of debt that we all know are bogging down so many kids when they graduate. And since they are going to school in Connecticut, they are more likely to stay in Connecticut and help the state, and New Haven, thrive. We think this one of the best investments you could possibly make.
And we run the Pathways to Science program, which gives students from Greater New Haven the opportunity to come to campus as early as 6th grade and learn from Yale students, researchers, and faculty. Pathways provides exposure to different areas of STEM and incrementally deepening experiences in these fields over time. At any given time, there are 2,000 kids participating in the 200 or so free programs we offer each year — some of these programs are multi-week or semester-long experiences, and some are one-day enrichment programs.
Yale’s Partnership with New Haven Schools
The one I love to talk about is Ophthalmology Day. Yale ophthalmologists, medical students, and undergraduates introduce Pathways students to the eye through specimen dissection, slit lamp training, and more. What an outrageously awesome concept, that you’re going to take kids and teach them about something as specific and technical as ophthalmology!
Then there’s the Pathways to Arts and Humanities program, which is a newer initiative but allows students to access amazing resources on campus, free of charge.
These programs play a huge part in an increase in New Haven students enrolling at Yale — a record number in the class of 2028. And that’s in part because these students are getting on campus on a regular basis; as you become familiar with campus, it becomes somewhere that you can picture yourself in the future. And then, of course, there’s an academic aspect of it — the enrichment of having spent a whole lot of time in a Yale lab.
Helping support a vibrant downtown is another of ONHA’s pillars. How do you and your team approach this work?
Daum: One of our major efforts is in our retail storefronts, to keep them as full as possible. To do that, we don’t just wait for businesses to reach out to us when we have an empty storefront. It’s very, very hands on. We may take a chance on a first-time entrepreneur. We’ve done that just recently with an Ethiopian restaurant that’s opening on Whitney Avenue. The owner is a relatively new operator, but he’s really excited about New Haven, and we’re really excited about him.
We are also very proactive about researching new trends or successful businesses elsewhere, physically going to other cities and communities and looking online. And then we reach out, both to independent owners and particularly attractive national brands that we know will bring in folks from all over the region.
We also work to make our properties as physically appealing as possible — for instance, there’s a property on 172 York that has been vacant for six years. We decided to put in a significant investment to redo the entire storefront of the building. We don’t have a tenant yet, so we’re not doing this with the expectation that we will get the money back imminently. But we’re going to beautify that space so that hopefully we can get a good tenant in there, and to make walking down York Street a better experience for everyone.
Once we attract tenants, we are very proactive about bringing customers to them and to New Haven in general. University Properties makes significant investments in marketing to attract a steady stream of visitors to New Haven who, in turn, fuel our local economy and contribute to the vibrancy of downtown. To reach these audiences, we develop targeted social and traditional media campaigns, schedule promotions and giveaways, and host wildly popular events. Events such as the Chalk Art Festival, dessert and appetizer crawls, and College Night bring thousands of people downtown on a regular basis.
We’re not your traditional landlord who is thinking only about the bottom line. We are trying to run a great operation that would compete with any typical for-profit operator. But we also keep in mind that we just really want everyone to have an awesome experience when they’re downtown.
Downtown New Haven is always evolving — is there anything in particular that you are excited about seeing there?
Daum: This is not necessarily a Yale initiative, but I’m excited to see all the new housing being built downtown — making this a dense, walkable, livable community.
Another example is the New Haven Night Market. It’s not a Yale event, but very much Yale supported. At the last one, on Chapel Street, I sat on a curb with my kids, right outside Atticus, and the number of people on the street was out of this world. I would love for there to be even more feet on the street. And I think housing is a big piece of that, and shopping patterns are a big piece of that.
Have you had any special moments with the community since you’ve started in your role?
Daum: One would be the New Haven Road Race, a half marathon that my husband has run every year since we’ve lived here. (He says it’s like Christmas for him, the best day of the year!) The route has changed over the years, but its current one starts on Elm Street and goes past the Yale campus, and then back past campus again on Chapel Street, just before the halfway point. So Yale has a significant visual presence in the race.
As far as I know, Yale historically hasn’t really engaged much with the race. And it occurred to me that we were missing a real opportunity to provide something positive for the community. So this year, President [Maurie] McInnis welcomed runners at the start line and our office put together a cheer section on Chapel, right outside the Yale University Art Gallery. We had a DJ, we had signs — we had cowbells.
And I think that’s a great example of the kind of thing we should be looking out for. How do we tell New Haven that we get what it’s like to be here? If there’s a major civic event happening, let’s acknowledge it and try to contribute to it. And say, we’re lucky to have you running by our buildings and we’re welcoming you and we’re saying, “Thank you for coming.”
