This is a short walking tour of the historic campus of Yale University, founded in 1701, and the vibrant Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology, founded in 2011. Participants will walk less than a mile, returning to Gateway Community College from ConnCAT via bus at about 3:30 pm. The tour will also include a quick stop at the headquarters of Higher One, which sits on the edge of Yale’s campus in Science Park.

Yale University

The long roots of Yale University can be traced back to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. That effort led to the 1701 establishment of the Collegiate School, which would take the name Yale in 1718 and the school’s history includes five U.S. Presidents, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 13 living billionaires and 230 Rhodes Scholars.

Yale’s central campus is located downtown across from the New Haven Green. Largely known for its collegiate gothic campus, Yale covers 260 acres filled with buildings steeped in architectural history. Just three years ago, Travel+Leisure picked the campus as one of the most beautiful in the United States. Admission to Yale is highly competitive as only six percent of applicants to the Ivy League school are accepted. With an endowment of nearly $24 billion, the University has need-based financial aid. About one-in-six Yale undergraduates are expected to have no parental contribution.

There is no definitive list of notable alumni. While so many leading U.S. officials — from Bill and Hillary Clinton to the Bushes to John Kerry and Sonia Sotomayor — were educated at Yale, so were actors and actresses like Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Angela Bassett, Sam Waterston, Jodie Foster, Vincent Price and Lupito Nyong’o.

Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology

ConnCAT’s mission is to inspire, motivate, and prepare youth and adults for educational and career advancement, through after-school arts and job training programming. In the heart of one of New Haven’s economic distressed neighborhoods, ConnCAT’s vision is to create a learning environment that inspires hope, innovation, creativity and excellence while providing a path for individuals to revitalize the landscape of the urban community.

ConnCAT provides interactive educational programs tailored to the developmental needs and interests of middle and high school students. Using a unique combination of head and heart to help students locate purpose in their lives and succeed in the classroom and beyond, ConnCAT participants enroll in a popular creative arts elective of their choice, participate in collaborative arts sessions across different artistic media and receive targeted academic coaching.

ConnCAT draws its inspiration from the workforce development philosophy of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, a nationally accredited and state licensed adult career training institution with roots in Pittsburgh. Lifelong community leader and MacArthur Fellow Bill Strickland founded the Corporation in 1972 with the conviction that environments shapes lives. His simple yet effective approach has been successfully replicated in under-served urban geographies nationwide; including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Boston and San Francisco.

Higher One

Higher One was founded on a college campus in 2000 by three students who wanted to revolutionize an archaic paper check-based system for financial aid refunds. The approach to servicing campuses — more than 1,600 overall — is built on the key ideals of providing students with a choice of how they would like to receive their refunds, educating students on their options and empowering them with knowledge and creating optional, good-value banking services that are accessible to college students.

Just two years ago, Higher One celebrated its move into two vacant former Winchester Repeating Arms Co. buildings in Science Park. The $46-million project now houses Higher One headquarters as well as 250 of its 600 workers.