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Previous
Columns
May
2003 Adieu, Georges May; White House honors for
two profs.
April
2003 A mayor remembered; Amiri Baraka stirs controversy.
March
2003 Meryl Streep; presiding at the Press; half an odd
couple.
February
2003 Eugene Rostow remembered; spilling society secrets.
December
2002 Yale Nobelist; Ehud Barak; Dame Edna's alter ego.
November
2002 Kofi Annan at Yale; birthday honors for Edward Bouchet.
October
2002 R.W.B. Lewis recalled; new crew coach; jazz great.
Summer
2002 New Peabody head; Garrison Keillor; Ben Carson inspires.
May
2002 James Tobin remembered; an Eli on the Segway team.
April
2002 Art collectors memorialized; new BAC chief; Rushdie.
March
2002 Cyrus Vance recalled; Sopranos shrink; a contrarian
on gender.
February
2002 The Times's literary gatekeeper; James Jeffords,
the Shah's heir.
December
2002 Donald Cohen remembered; Judy Blume visits; a "hero"
is honored.
November
2001 New Drama dean; Hart and Coffin discuss 9/11.
October
2001 A royal shutterbug; Venus shines; Bobby Seale finally
sees Yale; rhythm and blues on the Green.
Summer
2001 Beltway veteran, Survivor champ; new master.
May
2001 New dean for Divinity; plus-size model; lone bowlers;
a psychologist for Morse.
April
2001 Sandra Boynton '74 on chickens, pigs, and Yale.
February
2001 A pianist's guide to life; candidate Schiavone; farewell
to a hero on and off the field.
December
2000
November
2000
October
2000
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Faces
Summer
2003
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The wait list
to see Carole
King in Davenport College on April 24 was 50 people
long, but those lucky enough to make the cut had an unforgettable
afternoon of spirited conversation with a legend in the music
industry. King's visit was sponsored by the Yale Undergraduates'
Distinguished Speakers Series. The author of more than 400
songs, including 40 Top 40 hits, King discussed her musical
past and her present endeavors -- which include running her
own record label, Rockingale Records, and working to preserve
the Northern Rockies, which she calls "our Sistine Chapel,
our Louvre." But the highlight was when she sat down at the
piano and invited the crowd to gather round, and a chorus
of both sexes helped her belt out "Natural Woman."
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"A press conference
with the Secretary of Defense shouldn't be a joyous banter
with his friends," said journalist Roger
Cohn '73, engaging in just that at a Calhoun College
master's tea on April 15. The editor-in-chief of the independent
news journal Mother Jones cited other troubling trends
of mainstream reporting, among them television's "rah-rah
coverage" of the war in Iraq. Cohn advocated "asking tough
questions and pointing out inconsistencies and raising issues,"
citing his magazine's recent story on private military companies
playing an increasing role in the war on terrorism.
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On
April 21, the world's most successful writer showed up in
jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt for a Berkeley College master's
tea. Stephen
King talked about the origins of books like Running
Man, which he wrote over February vacation while working
as a high school teacher in Maine, and The Shining,
which he conceived during an off-season stay at a hotel in
Colorado. King said the obsessive writing he did in his 20s
and 30s was like "lancing a boil," and compared the stuff
of his horror fiction to "infected matter that has to be let
out to ensure the health of the organism." Later in the evening,
he read from his forthcoming book Wolves of the Calla.
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In
Memoriam
Two professors who touched
the lives of Yale College students -- as teachers and as college
masters -- died within days of each other in April.
English professor
Richard Sewall, who died on April 16 at the age of 95,
was the embodiment of Yale's commitment to its undergraduates. Sewall
earned his PhD at Yale in 1933 and returned as a
professor in 1934. He soon gained a reputation
as a sensitive and involved teacher, winning tenure despite his
lack of publications. The eminent Yale professor Chauncey Brewster
Tinker is said to have opined that "Sewall's someday going to write
a great book, if only he can get rid of his undergraduates."
As it happened, Sewall
kept the undergraduates and wrote the great book -- a biography
of Emily Dickinson that won the National Book Award in 1974 -- although
it took him 20 years to do it. In the meantime, he also spent the
years 1959 to 1970 as the founding master of Ezra Stiles, helping
to shape the new college's character.
"He had tremendous
respect for students and cared for each of them," says former Stiles
master Traugott Lawler, "and he created a community where people
are kind to each other."
Robin
Winks, the Randolph W. Townsend Jr. Professor of History,
died on April 7. His primary scholarly work was in the history of
the British Empire, but he was known for his remarkably varied interests.
He was an authority on detective and espionage novels, writing his
own under an as-yet unrevealed pseudonym. His 1987 book Cloak
and Gown detailed the links between real American spies and
Ivy League universities. Winks was also an advocate of America's
national park system,
and in 1998, he reached his goal of visiting every site in the system
(376 at the time).
"What did he not write
about?" wonders his history colleague Paul Kennedy. "He was a great
scholar and a great mensch."
Winks, too, was an
enthusiastic teacher and master (of Berkeley College from 1977 to
1991), and at Commencement he was honored posthumously with a Yale
College teaching prize named for Richard Sewall. The citation reads,
in part: "We remember Robin Winks today for his dedication to undergraduate
teaching, his championing of the preservation of the natural environment,
and his gifts as a writer and orator . . . In all that he accomplished,
Robin Winks was truly a master."
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