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Faces
December
2002
Former Israeli
prime minister Ehud
Barak urged an end to terrorism and dictatorship
in the Middle East in an October 10 address at Battell Chapel.
Arguing for the same "moral and strategic clarity" the U.S.
showed in Afghanistan a year ago, he warned that "the greatest
risk now lies in inaction." The hope that Barak expressed
for a peaceful future was tempered by his experience with
daily acts of violence. "We live in a tough neighborhood.
It's not the Midwest, it's the Middle East." |
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The Berkeley Divinity
School welcomed the Most Rev. Frank
Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal
Church, to its annual convocation on October 16. Griswold,
who is the head administrator and "chief pastor" of the American
church, preached a sermon on the "Oxford Martyrs," a trio
of 16th-century scholars who were killed for their defense
of Anglicanism during the reign of Queen Mary. "The struggle
for truth requires wits and courage, courage that comes from
Another," said Griswold. |
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On October 17,
the Yale Dramat made actor Barry
Humphries an honorary member. The Australian
comic is better known as his pink-haired alter ego, "Dame
Edna," who played New Haven's Shubert Theater as part
of her U.S. tour. Although Dame Edna has had several TV shows,
Humphries said at a master's tea that "the theater for me
will always be more interesting than film and television.
When you watch an audience laugh, it changes color. That doesn't
happen when you watch television, in boxer shorts, with a
six-pack, on a bean bag." |
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Coming
off a five-year term as United Nations Commissioner for Human
Rights, former president of Ireland Mary
Robinson came to the Law School Auditorium on
October 8 to give the annual Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale Lecture.
Robinson talked about the progress being made in human rights
and wondered aloud about the challenges and opportunities posed
by globalization. "How do we build an ethical globalization
that bridges the gap between north and south, rich and poor,
secular and religious?" she asked. |
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At the end of
the month, John
Ryden will retire after 23 years as director of
Yale University
Press. Some 4,000 books have been released by the Press
during Ryden's tenure, among them the acclaimed Annals of
Communism series, the multimedia French in Action course,
Camille Paglia's breakout hit Sexual Personae, and
Ahmed Rashid's Taliban. Ryden plans to stay in New
Haven and work as a consultant; President Richard Levin has
appointed a search
committee to find his successor. |
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"If I had a real
radio voice, I'd be doing butter commercials," said National
Public Radio's Scott
Simon at an October 22 master's tea in Calhoun
College. The reporter, writer, and host of Weekend Edition
Saturday said that radio journalism retains a "sense of
personality" that has disappeared from most newspapers. Simon
said he tries to deliver the news with a "light touch," explaining
that he had a guest read a children's story on the Saturday
after September 11 "because emotionally, it fit." |
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Close-Up
by Darrell
Hartman '03
Within two weeks of
winning a Nobel
Prize for chemistry in October, John
Fenn '40PhD was back at Yale, telling his story to students
and faculty who gathered for a master's tea in Jonathan Edwards
College.
"I should say in true
Yale tradition that life didn't begin until I got here," announced
Fenn before sharing a biography rich in variation and charming anecdotes.
Fenn graduated from
Berea College,
a tuition-free liberal arts college in the Appalachians of his native
Kentucky. Though he had planned to continue his studies at Northwestern
University, Fenn changed his mind when the father of a Yale-bound
friend offered to drive him northeast. And so, said Fenn, "I came
to Yale because I got a free ride to New Haven."
By the time he returned
to Yale to teach in 1967, Fenn had worked in the private sector,
taught at Princeton, and overseen a Navy-funded research project
on jet propulsion. After 20 years at Yale, he faced mandatory retirement
in 1987. Seven years later, he was named a research professor at
Virginia Commonwealth University, where he still
works.
Fenn's award-winning
research, conducted during his tenure at Yale, refined mass spectrometry,
a method of identifying chemical compounds based on the weights
of individual atoms and molecules. 
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