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Light & Verity
Summer
2002
Lin
Elected to Corporation By Decisive Margin
Returning
ballots in record numbers, Yale alumni selected artist Maya Lin
'81, '86MArch over minister W. David Lee '93MDiv in an unusually
high-profile election for Alumni
Fellow of the Yale
Corporation. The University announced the results of the election
on May 30, after the ballots were counted by an outside firm, Mellon
Investor Services.
Lin,
an artist who specializes in public art and architectural projects,
is best known as the designer of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., a commission she won
by competition while she was a Yale undergraduate. She is the first
Asian-American woman and the first artist to sit on the Corporation.
Lin,
who was nominated by a committee of the Association
of Yale Alumni, received 41,575 votes, or 83.3 percent of the
total, while Lee, who won a place on the ballot by gathering 4,870
alumni signatures, received 8,324 votes (16.7 percent). Some 44
percent of eligible alumni returned valid ballots, a figure the
University says is two and a half times the average turnout over
the last 20 years. The vote count had not been released in previous
years, but President Levin explained that because there was unprecedented
interest in this election, "we decided to favor transparency and
openness."
The
unusual attention given to the campaign had much to do with Lee's
unorthodox approach. Although candidates had been nominated and elected by petition before, Lee introduced direct mail, high-profile endorsements, and fund-raising -- most controversially from Yale
unions --
to what typically has been an uneventful process. The University,
the AYA, and an independent
alumni group responded with unprecedented mailings drawing attention
to Lee's union ties.
Lee,
who is the pastor of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church in New Haven,
campaigned on a promise to work for a "true partnership between
Yale and New Haven." Lin, who for the most part declined to speak
publicly about the campaign, said in a statement following the election
that relations between Yale and New Haven are important to her,
too. "Needless to say, I am very concerned about Yale's relationship
to its community," said Lin, "and if we learn anything from this election process it is that this town-gown relationship is a critical
issue that must continue to be addressed."
After
the results were announced, Lee met with supporters in front of
Woodbridge Hall and read a statement congratulating Lin and thanking
his supporters. "I want to be clear," said Lee. "This is only the
beginning of our shared efforts to build a new partnership between
Yale and New Haven."
Taking
a Stand on Drugs and Aid
Responding
to more aggressive enforcement of a law that denies federal aid
to college students who have been convicted of drug crimes, the
University announced in April that it will replace any aid lost
by a Yale student convicted of drug possession -- provided the student enrolls in a rehabilitation program. Yale is the fourth university
-- and the first in the Ivy League -- to enact such a policy.
In
1998, Congress passed an amendment
to the Higher Education Act denying federal grants and loans to
any student who answers "yes" when asked on federal forms if he
or she has been convicted of a drug offense. The law also says that
students may become eligible for aid again after going through rehabilitation.
During the Clinton administration, students who did not answer the
question were not denied aid. Not so in the Bush administration,
where an incomplete application is grounds for denial.
Director
of financial aid Myra Smith says no Yale students have been affected
by the law so far. But last winter, the Yale College Council and
the campus chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union began urging
the University to adopt a policy that would make up for any student's
lost aid. "We all were surprised at how receptive the administration
was," says Andrew Allison '04, who lobbied on behalf of the YCC.
"And we were impressed with the speed with which they responded."
While
students mostly applauded the move, there have been complaints in
the national press that the University is condoning drug use. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial held that "Yale implies
that the elite should be judged by a more lenient standard." But
Smith says the policy simply ensures that a student's education
will not be interrupted by the long wait to get into a public rehabilitation
program or the prohibitive expense of a private one. "This reinforces
the University's commitment to award aid to students based on need,"
says Smith. "We have a commitment to meet that need."
Divinity
Welcomes Another New Dean
Just
one year after becoming dean of the Yale
Divinity School, Rebecca Chopp is leaving Prospect Hill. Chopp,
who was provost of Emory University before coming to Yale, will
become the 15th president of Colgate University on July 1. She will
be succeeded at Yale by Harold
Attridge, a theology professor at the Divinity School since
1997.
"When
Colgate contacted me, leaving Yale at this time was the furthest
thing from my mind," said Chopp. "Colgate is so impressive and dynamic,
however, that I am compelled to accept the invitation to become
president."
President
Levin praised Chopp for accomplishing much during her deanship,
including the reorganization of the School's administrative functions,
the establishment of a planning committee for curriculum and community
life, and the renewal of the School's affiliation with the Berkeley
Divinity School.
Attridge,
the new dean, is the Lillian Claus Professor of the New Testament.
He came to Yale in 1997 from Notre Dame, where he was a professor
of theology and dean of the College of Arts and Letters. Perhaps
most remarkably for a school born of a severe Puritan orthodoxy,
Attridge is a Roman Catholic, the first of his faith to lead the
School. "We've gotten a tad more ecumenical in 300 years," says
Attridge.
$200
Million for Genome Research
As part
of a $1 billion commitment to science, engineering, and medicine,
the University announced in April that it was investing $200 million
to create the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics. YCGP director
Michael Snyder,
who also chairs the department of molecular, cellular, and developmental
biology, explains that the Center is designed to enable scientists to build
on the successes of such landmark studies as the Human
Genome Project.
"In
the old days, a single lab would be working on one gene," says Snyder.
"But now we have the ability to analyze literally thousands of genes
and the proteins they encode."
The equipment to conduct these investigations, which will address cross-disciplinary
questions in both medicine and fundamental biology, is expensive.
So rather than being under the purview of a single department in
a central place, the YCGP will feature advanced research facilities
at the Medical School and on Science Hill. In addition, its laboratories
and equipment, which complement the existing Keck Foundation Biotechnology
Resource Laboratory, will be made available to all University scientists.
"Our
aim is to create a 'center without walls' that provides access to
state-of-the-art technology to scientists all over our campus and encourages collaboration in research and teaching," says Susan
Hockfield, dean of the graduate school and the William Edward
Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology.
YCGP
director Snyder adds that both undergraduates and graduate students
can use the Center, which will provide research and educational
opportunities such as symposia, advanced classes, and a special
training program in genomics for minority students.
From
a scientific perspective, determining how genes and proteins work
together in organisms as different as bacteria, yeasts, fruit flies,
and humans is expected to yield new insights into the diversity
of life and the fundamentals of development. In addition, such research,
though seemingly arcane, can result in medical breakthroughs.
"An
increased knowledge of how basic processes work could lead to new
cures," says Snyder. "We now know most of the players. The next
challenge is to understand the play."
New
Program's First Fellows
At the
age of 30, Alonso Perez-Kakabadse of Ecuador has already been credited
with helping stabilize the troubled economy of his nation. At 43,
Chetna Gala-Sinha of India has founded a micro-enterprise bank to
help women in rural areas prosper as farmers. And at 60, former
government official Henrique Pinto da Costa of tiny Sao Tome and
Principe has embarked on a new career as a promoter of sustainable
development. These and 14 others identified as "early-to-mid-career
leaders" will come to campus in September as Yale's first World
Fellows. The ten men and seven women were chosen from among
500 applicants to the new program, which was first announced as
part of a suite of new international initiatives in 2000.
With
the help of an adviser, each fellow is currently planning a course
of study for his or her term at Yale. The fellows will meet at the
renovated Davies
Mansion (recently renamed Betts House) for weekly events, including
a seminar taught by Yale faculty, a dinner with a guest speaker,
and a luncheon where they will take turns presenting their work.
The fellows will live in apartments in the Chapel Street area and
on Prospect Street, and they will have office space in Betts House.
Each
fellow is from a different country, and all continents but Australia
are represented. The fellows' occupations are varied, but most come
from business, the political realm, or non-governmental organizations
(NGOs). "It's essential for governmental leaders to know how to
deal with NGO leaders and businesspeople and vice versa," says program
director Dan Esty.
Engineering
Marks 150th with Forum
As part
of a year-long celebration of the field's 150 years at the University,
the Faculty of Engineering
convened a conference
called "Challenges to Innovation in the 21st Century" on May 2 and
3. The sesquicentennial forum brought to campus more than 200 engineering
alumni, along with current students and faculty.
Speakers
included Henry Schacht '56, chairman of Lucent Technologies; U.S.
representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), a physicist active in science
policy and education; John Marburger, science adviser to president
George W. Bush '68; and William Wulf, president of the National
Academy of Engineering. In addition, the forum featured a panel
discussion with academic leaders from four universities, remarks
by Yale provost Alison Richard,
and a keynote address by President
Levin.
Levin,
who is an economist, set the tone for the forum by discussing how
university-based basic research, funded by the federal government,
has become "an essential source of economic competitiveness and,
ultimately, a wellspring of worldwide growth and prosperity." Noting
that "basic research is the source from which all commercially-oriented
applied research and development ultimately flows," the President
praised the ability of the present setup to generate innovation.
"It is unlikely that this success could be duplicated by industry."
Lucent
CEO Schacht, whose company encompasses AT&T Bell Labs, the industrial
laboratory once renowned for its work in basic science, confirmed
Levin's contention. "We're not going to have the next fundamental
breakthrough at Bell Labs," said Schacht, explaining that economic
pressures had pushed Lucent scientists and engineers in a more applied
direction. "We're increasingly dependent on universities like Yale."
Congressman
Ehlers talked about the importance of government funding for education,
and science adviser Marburger stressed the Bush administration's
commitment to "implement policies that preserve our leadership role"
in technological innovation. And behind all of the discussion was
the specter of September 11 and the role engineering could play
in creating a safer and more equitable world. "Terrorism doesn't
occur in a social and political vacuum," said NAE president Wulf.
"A research and design program that makes developing countries better
places to live is a crucial part of our counter-terrorism efforts."
Local
Elis Set for Congressional Run
Six-term
New Haven-area congresswoman Rosa
DeLauro is considered a shoo-in for re-election every two years
in a heavily Democratic district. But that's not stopping two Yale
alumni from mounting challenges from both right and left this year.
Richter Elser
'81, a local restaurateur, is the only announced candidate for the
Republican nomination, and Charles
Pillsbury '70, '90MDiv, who runs a mediation service in the
city, is seeking the Green
Party's endorsement.
Elser,
who rowed at Yale and coached the freshman crew from 1981 to 1989,
describes himself as "fiscally conservative with a social conscience."
He has founded and operated businesses in New Haven since he graduated,
including Richter's,
a Chapel Street bar he recently sold, the Tibwin Grill on College
Street, and the now-defunct Elm City Brewing Company. He says he
has considered running for some time, but chose this year because
Connecticut's congressional districts were recently redrawn. "This
year, 20 percent of the voters in this district will have to vote
for someone new," says Elser. "That creates a natural chink in [DeLauro's]
armor."
Pillsbury
spent 34 years in Democratic politics before aligning himself with
the Greens
this year out of frustration with "the way we are waging this so-called
war on terrorism." He opposes increases in military spending and
advocates publicly financed election campaigns and universal health
care. Pillsbury believes the newly configured district and the three-way
race could help him, particularly since a plurality of district
voters is unaffiliated with a party.
A friend
of cartoonist Garry Trudeau '70, '73MFA since their days at
St. Paul's School and Yale, Pillsbury is one of the models for
Trudeau's character Mike Doonesbury. Trudeau has said he borrowed Pillsbury's "good heart,
his occasional cluelessness, and the last two syllables of his name"
for the strip's title character. The first syllable, Pillsbury explains,
came from a piece of St. Paul's slang. "A doone is someone who's
not afraid of making a fool of himself," Pillsbury says. "Which
is what makes it possible to do what I'm doing."
Shorter
Hours for Surgical Residents
Yale-New
Haven Hospital must reduce the working hours of its surgical residents,
says the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or
the Council will
withdraw its accreditation of the surgical residency program. The
Council found recently that residents were routinely working more
than 100 hours a week. They also said that the program's record-keeping
must be improved.
The
charge came a month before the Council announced new nationwide
limits on the hours medical residents can work. Beginning in July
2003, residents may not be on duty more than 80 hours a week, must
have at least 10 hours off between shifts, and can work no more
than 24 hours at a time.
Dr.
Peter Herbert, Yale-New Haven's chief of staff, says that the hospital
will spend a million dollars to hire physician's associates (PAs)
in order to reduce the residents' hours. Finding enough PAs will
not be easy, he says, even though the Council's action gave Yale-New
Haven "a bit of a head start" over other hospitals that now must
increase staff. The Council will review the hospital's planned remedies
in July and make a decision about accreditation in October.
A
Celebration That Got Away
by Carl Bialik '01
The
150th
Harvard-Yale Regatta brought back some of the festive air of
races past, but when the races were over, only Harvard was celebrating:
The Crimson's crews swept Yale for the 12th time in the last 17
years, the Yale varsity finishing 41.8 seconds behind Harvard.
The
results were much like the first race in 1852, when the regatta
was conceived as a tourist attraction for New Hampshire's Lake
Winnipesaukee. At the urging of a railroad superintendent, Yale
invited Harvard "to test the superiority of the oarsmen of the two
colleges." Harvard won by two lengths.
New
London, Connecticut, which first hosted the race in 1878, marked
the anniversary with a series of events that boosted attendance
from a few hundred in recent years to about 1,500. The festivities
included a chowderfest, a lecture by Olympic gold medal-winning
rower Brad Lewis, and an exhibit of photos of observation trains
from bygone races that moved along with the boats.
Just
steps away from the exhibit, hundreds of people boarded conventional
passenger cars as part of a two-year-old revival of the observation
train. What the crowd saw were three upstream races in choppy conditions
where nothing went right for the Bulldogs. The freshmen succumbed
to a boat-stopping overhead crab,
a junior varsity oarsman suffered an injury, and the varsity blue
was simply overpowered as the Harvard rowers finished in the eighth-best
time in race history.
The
disappointment was tempered, though, by much happier endings for
Yale's other crews. The lightweights completed an undefeated season
by winning
the national championship at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association
regatta in Camden, New Jersey, on June 1, finishing 0.41 seconds
ahead of Navy. And the women's crew took fifth place at the NCAA
Championships in Indianapolis May 30-June 1.  |
