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Faces
December 1999
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Children's
advocate Marian Wright
Edelman '63LLB accepted the Yale Law School Association Award
of Merit on October 9 and spoke the next day at Sunday morning worship in
Battell Chapel. Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, criticized
America's record in caring for its children, citing the dangers of firearms
and widespread child poverty. Noting the billions spent on national defense,
she said, "What's the sense in protecting [children] from the enemy without
when they are being killed every day from the guns within?" |
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as a Chubb Fellow on October 7, George
Pataki '67, the Republican governor of New York, used his address
to explain his party's concept of "compassionate conservatism." Pataki argued
that despite the popular perception that liberal policies are more compassionate,
New York's poor suffered during what he called "a 20-year unfettered experiment
in liberal government" before he was elected in 1994. |
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He's
best known to Yale students as Will Smith's Uncle Phil on the situation
comedy Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but James
Avery is also a noted Shakespearean actor. Avery, who talked
about his life and work at a Branford College master's tea on October 19,
was at the Long Wharf Theatre to star in an all-African American production
of Much Ado About Nothing, set during the Harlem Renaissance. |
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Former provost Judith Rodin, who is now president of the University of Pennsylvania, returned as a
Chubb Fellow on October 12 to advocate a role for universities as "exemplars
of a new kind of civic engagement." She said universities should incorporate
public service into academic programs and promote dialogue with the community
beyond the campus. "We can only create real, solid community by debating -- even arguing -- with each other over important matters," said Rodin,
"not by ignoring or suppressing them, especially when we disagree." |
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Jonathan
E. Soderstrom has
been named the third director of Yale's Office of Cooperative Research,
which oversees the commercial development of research discoveries made at
Yale. Soderstrom, who has been the office's associate director since 1996,
succeeds Gregory Gardiner. Soderstrom was with Lockheed Martin Energy Systems
and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory before coming to Yale. He says the
office can improve on its record of converting research breakthroughs into
revenue-producing licensing agreements. "We are nowhere near our potential,"
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Close-Up: Joyce Maynard '75
While
answering questions at an Ezra Stiles College master's tea on November
3, Joyce Maynard '75 paused and reached for a loose-leaf binder
beside her. "I've never done this before, and I will never do it
again," she said, "but at Yale, I'll do it." She went on to read
to about 100 listeners the first letter she received from author
J.D. Salinger, beginning a correspondence that would lead her to
quit Yale after her freshman year and move in with Salinger, who
was then 53 years old, in New Hampshire.
Maynard,
the author of several books, is best known for her latest memoir, At Home In the World, in which she wrote for the first time
of her year with Salinger. The book was savaged by critics and op-ed
writers who felt she had violated Salinger's famously guarded privacy.
The
product of an alcoholic family, Maynard was precocious intellectually
but sheltered socially. While a freshman at Yale, she wrote a cover
story for the New York Times Magazine about her generation.
It was that article that prompted Salinger's letter, which praised
her talent and urged her to be wary of those who would exploit it.
"It was as if Holden Caulfield was speaking just to me," said Maynard.
After
her year with Salinger and a subsequent time alone in New Hampshire,
Maynard returned to Yale briefly in 1974 to act in a play and live
in Ezra Stiles (though she never enrolled again as a student). She
went on to get married and divorced, raise three children, and write
prolifically. Unlike Salinger, she has lived a decidedly public
life, writing frequently about herself and hosting a Web site (www.joycemaynard.com)
with a devoted following. As Salinger told her, bitterly, when she
saw him for the first time in 20 years, "The problem with you, Joyce,
is you love the world." 
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