Yale College was transformed, beginning in the early 1930 s by the establishment of residential colleges. Taking medieval English universities such as Oxford and Cambridge as its model, this distinctive system divides the undergraduate population into twelve separate communities of approximately 450 members each, thereby enabling Yale to offer its students both the intimacy of a small college environment and the vast resources of a major research university. Each college surrounds a courtyard and occupies up to a full city block. providing a congenial community where residents live, eat, socialize, and pursue a variety of academic and extracurricular activities. Each college has a master and dean, as well as a number of resident faculty members known as fellows, and each has its own dining hall, library, seminar rooms, recreation lounges, and other facilities.
Today, Yale has matured into one of the world’s great universities. Its 11,000 students come from all fifty American states and from 108 countries. The 3,200-member faculty is a richly diverse group of men and women who are leaders in their respective fields. The central campus now covers 310 acres (125 hectares) stretching from the School of Nursing in downtown New Haven to tree-shaded residential neighborhoods around the Divinity School. Yale’s 260 buildings include contributions from distinguished architects of every period in its history. Styles range from New England Colonial to High Victorian Gothic from Moorish Revival to contemporary. Yale’s buildings, towers, lawns, courtyards, walkways, gates, and arches comprise what one architecture critic has called “the most beautiful urban campus in America Yale's West Campus, located 7 miles west of downtown New Haven on 136 acres, was acquired in 2007 and includes 1.6 million square feet of research, office, and warehouse space that provides opportunities to enhance the University’s medical and scientific research and other academic programs. The University also maintains over 600 acres (243 hectares) of athletic fields and natural preserves just a short bus ride from the center of town.