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The Yale Alumni Magazine welcomes readers' letters, which should be sent to: Letters Editor, Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905; via fax to (203) 432-0651; or via e-mail to: YAM@yale.edu. Due to the volume of correspondence, we are unable to respond to or publish all mail received. Letters accepted for publication are subject to editing. Unless correspondents request otherwise, e-mail addresses will be published for letters received electronically. |
Letters Workers' Rights I was glad to read in the December issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine ("Light & Verity") that teaching assistants are one step closer to victory in their battle for the right to organize as workers. Hang in there TAs! Yale has a long history of poor relations with its workers -- a fact that calls into question whether the motto Lux et Veritas holds real meaning for President Levin, the present members of the Yale Corporation, or their predecessors. Is it too much to ask that a university that so highly values its students and alumni should also demonstrate in concrete terms that it values its workers as well? Or is that too much enlightenment for the dusty-headed folks who manage and direct the Corporation? Felice
Pace '69
Admitting Inequality It is unusual that I find myself in agreement with any member of the Clinton administration, but I think Robert Reich is right on target in his article, "The Selectivity Squeeze" (Dec.), when he questions the tendency of institutions of learning (such as Yale) to rely on ever-higher admissions standards. However, we disagree totally on the reasons why these higher standards are questionable. Reich writes, "If we are serious about reversing the larger trend toward widening inequality of income and wealth in the United States . we need to make it easier, not harder, for children from relatively poor families to gain access to postsecondary education." In the quote, I am not sure to whom the "we" refers. I assume the "we" could be (and probably is) Yale. Reich is still acting as a social engineer rather than as an educator, and the notion that Yale should be concerned about unequal incomes is patent nonsense. Yale relies heavily on unequal incomes. As an educational institution, Yale should not engage in political and social adventures. Both Yale and the country might be better served by admissions criteria that focused on something other than SAT scores. Exactly what these criteria might be is awfully hard to say. Perhaps if Yale decided that its mission was to develop extraordinary graduates from more average applicants, Yale might attract a different student body -- but one more representative of society in general. I don't know if you could retain a superb faculty under these circumstances, although I am all for paying a good faculty extremely well. Yale wouldn't have to have such super dormitories and landscaping if it weren't trying to attract only the highest SAT achievers. Is it not possible to provide an outstanding education with more modest facilities to a more average student body at a lower cost? I don't see why not, and who knows or really cares how rich the graduates become? Charles
M. Ruprecht '40
I was sorry to see the December issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine disfigured by the inclusion of Robert Reich's article, "The Selectivity Squeeze." I think the article, which questions admissions competition based on scholastic merit, was Reich's politically correct bid to be included in a Gore administration. In support of his assertions, Reich alludes to increasing income disparities as census bureau facts. This may be disingenuous on his part. In the November 6, 2000, issue of the National Review, it is stated, "Nearly everything you read and hear about the 'inequitable' U.S. income distribution involves artful statistical chicanery." This article furthermore claims redistributionist policy fails to significantly affect usual measures of inequality, while discouraging "personal effort, learning, marital stability and frugality." In punishment for having allowed Reich's piece in the Yale Alumni Magazine, I think you should be required to re-read it and to count the author's logical contradictions and inconsistencies every night for a week -- or only half a week, as you'll otherwise accuse me of cruel and unusual punishment. Alphonse
I. Johnson '53E
I share Professor Reich's concern about "The Selectivity Squeeze" -- only to the extent that by today's admission criteria, I would not be considered for admission to Yale. However, Reich's premise that this situation contributes to the growing inequality between the haves and the have-nots is specious. The competition for admission to elite colleges and universities involves a very small percentage of the star high school students. What goes on in this battlefield has little to do with the vast majority of high school graduates, who go on to obtain useful and good educations at other colleges and universities spread throughout the land. Professor Reich seems to think that the need-based scholarship offers, which are given to the outstanding students, take away from the search for the "diamond in the rough" among the poor -- and actually deprive the poor student from attending elite colleges. Everything I have read about the admissions policies of the top colleges indicates that these institutions are making the best effort to provide financial aid based on need. It is not to the advantage of these colleges to "buy" the stars; in such a scenario, only Harvard (with its deep pockets) would prevail. I believe Professor Reich is sincerely concerned about equal access to higher education, but he should not casually dismiss the middle and upper-middle classes, which make great sacrifices for their children to be the best that they can be. I do not pretend to understand the sociological factors that make up the class structure, but they must surely be multiple and complex. To ascribe class inequality, at least in part, to the "selectivity squeeze" is like saying the competition for players in major league sports is detrimental to the development of the millions of kids who play in the junior leagues. Oscar
Wand '60, '64MD
Courting Fate The Yale Alumni Magazine's November "Old Yale" feature on Benjamin Silliman Sr. reminded us of letters we found in the Beinecke Library while doing research on our distant relation, Reverend Naphtali Daggett, Class of 1748 and President pro tem of Yale from 1766 to 1777. The widower Reverend Daggett wrote the letters in early 1773 to the Reverend Joseph Fish, pressing his suit for the hand of the Reverend Fish's widowed daughter, Mary Noyes. Instead, she married General Gold Selleck Silliman, Yale Class of 1752. In 1779, she became the mother of Benjamin Silliman Sr. Had President Daggett been successful in his pursuit of Mrs. Noyes, the history of science at Yale and in America might have been quite different, and the aluminum silicate mineral "sillimanite" would almost certainly bear a different name. Warren
McCullough '71
Financial Aid Fix? Your article on the admissions process at Yale ("Deciphering the Admissions Map," Nov.) misstated the goal and extent of the exchange of financial aid information among the Ivies and many other colleges. This was a price-fixing cartel, pure and simple, and the Bush administration was right to bust it up. The goals of this collusion were to reduce financial aid costs for member schools and to restrict choice for applicants. Yale would have taken the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to the mat to continue this practice, but its partner colleges threw in the towel and signed a consent decree agreeing to stop the practice. I recall my own surprise in 1971, when the financial aid offers I received from George Washington University and Yale resulted in identical student contributions. What a coincidence, I thought. Of course, by 1971, Yale had already "frozen" the financial aid budget at 1970 costs. Annual increases in room and board were to be covered in financial aid packages by the now infamous Tuition Postponement Option (TPO). Without the price-fixing cartel, Yale would never have been able to foist TPO on its unsuspecting victims. Frank
Patten '75
Affront to Catholics Like William F. Buckley Jr., I am proud to be a Roman Catholic. I strongly feel that you should not have given any space at all in your October "Letters" column to James S. Gratton, composer of the miserable anti-Catholic letter in which he describes our church (the largest in the world) as "poisonous." This is an affront, not only to Buckley, but also to the many Catholic graduates of Yale. Henri
V. Bouscaren '36S
So William F. Buckley Jr.'s conservative politics and "repressive" Roman Catholic beliefs should have disqualified him from an honorary degree from Yale? So much for tolerance and respect for diversity -- qualities that supposedly nonjudgmental liberals like James Gratton demand from everyone but themselves. I am reminded of something Buckley wrote many years ago, to the effect that although liberals boast of their openness to other points of view, they're often shocked to learn that there are other points of view. Gratton's letter is unfortunate proof that this insight remains as true now as it was then. Having benefited from Buckley's kindness and generosity when I turned to him in the early 1970s, during my own experience with Yale's "broadminded" left, I commend our alma mater for at last recognizing one of her worthiest sons. Vicki
Marani '75
Subtitle Subtlety The subtitle of the Yale Alumni Magazine's article, "What's In a Name" (Apr.), contained the words: "But now two Yale researchers think they've found a way to catalogue creation." G. Carleton Ray ("Letters," Oct.) responded critically to this sentence, writing, "Creation? Hardly! They seek to describe the history and process of Darwinian evolution, as the article itself infers." Well, of course they do. But why couldn't this be referred to as "cataloguing creation," especially when it is used simply as a catchy phrase in the subtitle of a nonscientific article? It seems to me that much of America is still caught in a "creation versus evolution" rut. There is no reason why anyone must view "creation" and "evolution" as mutually exclusive perspectives on the natural world. The concept of creation deals with questions of ultimate causality and divine governance of the world, whereas the concept of evolution deals with questions of formational history and physical mechanics of the world. I am not suggesting that this is a simple issue, but I would argue that it is logically consistent to say that life has been created and has evolved. If anyone would like a short bibliography of good contemporary literature on this topic, feel free to request one by contacting me by e-mail. Furthermore, I suspect the author of "What's In a Name" did not intend to make any kind of theological or scientific statement in the subtitle. I believe he simply took advantage of the opportunity to use alliteration ("catalogue creation") and thus add some journalistic color to the article. Albert
E. Mayfield III '95
Science Roots Unearthed In "Learning by Doing" ("Old Yale," Nov.), Yale science is traced to the appointment of Benjamin Silliman Sr. in 1800. This important event followed from a century of science instruction going back to the now lost textbook on physics by Abraham Pierson, the first rector of the Collegiate School of Connecticut. In 1947, Louis W. McKeehan, Yale professor of physics, authored Yale Science: The First Hundred Years 1701-1801. Issued in connection with the centennial of the Sheffield Scientific School, McKeehan's monograph outlines the earliest days of Yale science and carries the Silliman story back to its roots. Harold
Morowitz '47
Addenda In
our column, "Who's Blue: The Environment" (Dec.), we overlooked:
David T. Schiff '58E, chairman, the Wildlife Conservation Society;
and Dave Hawkins '65, director, Air & Energy Program, Natural
Resources Defense Council.
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Yale
Alumni Magazine, PO Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905. USA.
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