Some college students may wish they could major in partying, but at Yale University, the kids are actually clubbing for class credit.
Madison Moore — a doctoral candidate in the Ivy League school’s American Studies Program — is teaching a course that includes DJ lecturers, a field trip to Meatpacking hot spots Le Bain and the Boom Boom Room, and a discussion titled “Looks, Doors and Guest Lists: Getting Past the Velvet Rope.”
The cover charge at Yale is steep — tuition is $40,500. “I worry about whether people will think this is serious,” Moore told us. “But it’s not just about getting drunk. It’s about the history of it, the Harlem cabarets, understanding race, gender, sex, Prohibition and the law.”
Ivy League schools seem to be taking party studies seriously: Nightlife kingpins Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss were speakers at Harvard Business School. But some parents might have mixed feelings about the Yale syllabus which includes headings like “Studio 54 and Limelight: The Birth of the Mega Club.”
Moore’s “Dance Music and Nightlife Culture in New York City” seminar at the 310-year-old institution of higher learning also features texts by venerable scholars of the open bar Michael Musto (whose recent piece, “‘Why I Hate Nightlife,” is a tortured love letter to the scene) and Anthony Haden-Guest, who won top prize in Spy magazine’s 1988 Ironman Nightlife Decathlon.
Speakers include Madame Wong’s and Red Egg pop-up club mastermind Simonez Wolf, Santos Party House’s Andrew W.K
. and Vibe magazine co-founder Scott Poulson-Bryant. Wolf will even create a one-off party at Yale to show the preppies how it’s done. But students shouldn’t stay out late. Moore’s class allows just “one excused absence,” otherwise, they’ll need a note from the dean.
“I always describe Yale as being . . . pretty traditional on one hand, but pretty progressive on the other,” Moore said, adding, “The iPad generation wants to know about pop culture.”