The Historian’s Notebook: Honoring the Memory of Donald H. Ogilvie YC ’68, SOM ’78
This week, the Yale SOM community will convene for an annual colloquium honoring Donald H. Ogilvie ’78, a civil rights pioneer who made a lasting impact on the fabric of the university.
The Historian’s Notebook: 50 Years of Business & Society is a blog series created in preparation for the 50th anniversary of Yale SOM in September 2026. The series is written by Yale SOM’s resident historian, Michelle Spinelli. Reach out if you have an idea for a blog post, memories or photos to share, or an inquiry about SOM history.
Launched in 2022 by the Council on Anti-Racism and Equity (CARE), the Donald H. Ogilvie ’78 Colloquium pays tribute to Ogilvie for his decades-long work to promote equity and diversity both at Yale SOM and across the university. As an undergraduate at Yale College, Ogilvie successfully led efforts—alongside classmates Armstead Robinson and Glenn De Chabert—to establish Yale’s Black Student Alliance (BSAY), Black Studies Department, and Afro-American Cultural Center. He later became a trailblazer student at SOM in the 1970s and a faculty member at the school in the 1980s.
For more on Ogilvie, read an oral history published in 2022 that compiles remembrances from Ogilvie’s classmates and other friends about the impact he had on the Yale community.
