Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles also says that entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important.

"I don't doubt that Dean Venky's idea of TECH will improve the opportunities for our undergraduates in what (despite the recent fall in the Nasdaq index!) is an important area, of entrepreneurship," he writes in an e-mail message.

According to Narayanamurti, TECH is expected to begin activities this fall.

Only a day after TECH was announced, university officials at two schools confirmed that Yale, Princeton and Stanford had formed an alliance to explore online distance education. The three schools plan to jointly offer courses for alumni. (Harvard, although invited to participate, declined to join.)

The alliance was only the surface of a larger trend: Yale and Stanford collaborating and exchanging information to better round out their curricula.

Yale has long been considered one of the nation's leading schools in the humanities. Stanford has long been considered one of the nation's leading schools in the sciences. Outgoing Stanford President Gerhard Casper and Yale President Richard D. Levin are friends--and Levin is a Stanford alumnus.

Some of Yale's highest administrators even paid a visit to the lush Palo Alto, Calif. campus this fall. In October, the Yale Corporation took its annual retreat to the Stanford campus, where they spent time talking to Casper. Those familiar with the field of university governance acknowledge that the trip was unusual.