In 2008, Yale University president Rick Levin announced that the college had the resources to educate more students and thus would expand its enrollment by opening two new residential colleges for a total of fourteen.[4] Architectural models were unveiled by Robert A.M. Stern Architects in May 2009, featuring "a sampling of Gothic styles from across Yale’s campus," notably inspired by the early 20th-century buildings of James Gamble Rogers.[5] Construction began in the fall of 2014,[6] with an official groundbreaking ceremony in April 2015.[7] In April 2016, the university announced that the colleges would be named after Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin.[8]
Pauli Murray College is the northern of the two new colleges,[9] referred to as "North College" in some earlier documents.[10] When the colleges opened to students for the 2017–2018 academic year, they increased Yale's undergraduate capacity by 15 percent from 5,400 to 6,200 seats.[11]
Tina Lu, Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature, is the first head of Pauli Murray College,[1] and Alexander Rosas, the former associate director of Graduate Programs at Yale Law School, is its first dean.[12][13]