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Letters
March
2001 -- Special Tercentennial Edition
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
Etna, CA
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
St. Louis, MO
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
Newark, IL
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
oscarwand@aol.com
Portola Valley, CA
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
Sarah McCullough '99
Helena, MT
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
Seattle, WA
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
Cincinnati, OH
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
Arlington, VA
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
aemayfie@mailbox.syr.edu
Syracuse, NY
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
morowitz@osf1.gmu.edu
Woodbridge, CT
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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