Inaugural faculty members return to Yale-NUS for its final semester

Since its establishment in 2021, Yale-NUS College has maintained strong ties with Yale University, with numerous exchanges of faculty, students and programmes strengthening this unique partnership. For this final semester, the College welcomes back two inaugural Yale-NUS faculty, visiting faculty from Yale, who played significant roles during its formative years: Professor Charles Bailyn and Senior Lecturer Dr Rebecca Tannenbaum.

This husband-and-wife duo were members of the College’s inaugural faculty in 2011. Professor Bailyn served as the first Dean of Faculty from 2011 to 2016. As the first official member of the Yale-NUS faculty, he led the hiring of the College’s initial batch of faculty and helped design the Common Curriculum. Likewise, Dr Tannenbaum, then a Senior Lecturer of History, played a key role in developing the Common Curriculum’s Comparative Social Inquiry module and the College’s History major.

Both fondly remember the excitement of the College’s early days. For Professor Bailyn, a core memory was the inaugural Yale-NUS faculty meeting held in New Haven, where the team came together to create the curriculum. Meanwhile, Dr Tannenbaum cherishes the moment they welcomed the first batch of Yale-NUS students onto campus – a culmination of all the work the inaugural faculty had done up to that point.

This semester, Professor Bailyn is teaching a Scientific Inquiry course called Einstein, Gravity and the Discovery of Black Holes, focused on the dramatic ways science has changed since Einstein’s time more than a century ago. Dr Tannenbaum, on the other hand, is offering a Historical Immersion course called The Witchcraft Trials of Colonial New England. As huge fans of science fiction, they are also co-teaching a new interdisciplinary course titled Science Fiction: Literature, Science, and Society. This module combines Professor Bailyn’s scientific expertise with Dr Tannenbaum’s perspective as a cultural historian, and explores the relationship between humanity, science, and technology through the lens of science fiction.

Reflecting upon what they were most looking forward to about their return, both highlighted the College’s students as the key draw. “I always enjoyed the international perspective they bring to my classes, as well as the deep intellectual engagement they bring to their academic work,” shared Dr Tannenbaum.

Nevertheless, returning to Yale-NUS is a bittersweet experience. For Dr Tannenbaum, it is a full-circle moment. “When I left in 2016 I had always intended to come back for a semester,” she said. “The timing is somewhat coincidental – but having been here for the opening of the College, it seems right to be here for the close as well.”

Professor Bailyn echoed these sentiments, emphasising his enduring connection to the College: “I had always intended to return at some point – Yale-NUS is not easy to give up!”

As Yale-NUS enters its last semester, Professor Bailyn and Dr Tannenbaum hope the students’ experiences in the College will resonate well beyond their undergraduate years. Dr Tannenbaum encourages the final cohort to “stay open to new experiences and opportunities as they arise”. Emphasising the importance of lifelong learning, Professor Bailyn adds, “Keep learning! The end of undergraduate years – and the end of Yale-NUS as a whole – cannot mean that learning, both liberal arts learning and other kinds, needs to come to an end.  ‘Lifelong learning’ is more than a slogan; I know this from my own life, and I hope it’s true for every Yale-NUS student throughout their lives.”