Grace Hopper College is a residential college of Yale University. It was opened in 1933 as one of the original eight undergraduate residential colleges endowed by Edward Harkness. The building was designed by John Russell Pope. The college was originally named Calhoun College after John C. Calhoun, but was renamed in 2017 to honor of computer scientist Grace Hopper.Calhoun, a US Vice President and 1804 graduate of Yale College, was an advocate of slaveholding and states' rights. Since the 1960s, Calhoun's white supremacist beliefs and pro-slavery leadership have prompted calls to rename the college or remove its tributes to Calhoun. In 2016, the Yale Corporation chose to retain Calhoun as the college's namesake, but reversed its decision in 2017 and renamed the college after Hopper.HistoryIn 1641, John Brockston established a farm on the plot of land that is now Grace Hopper College. After the Revolutionary War an inn was constructed that would later become the meeting place of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. From 1863 until 1931 the land was home to the Yale Divinity School, which was housed in three buildings known as West Divinity Hall, Marquand Chapel, and East Divinity Hall. After Yale President James Rowland Angell announced the residential college plan in 1930, the Divinity School campus was demolished and a new campus built at the top of Prospect Hill, where it currently stands.
