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Yalies of the Week
Every Friday, the Yale Alumni Magazine chooses a newsworthy Yale alum as its latest YOW. Send us your nomination.
May 9, 2008
It's hard to find a woman higher on the ladder of success than Yale trustee Indra Nooyi '80MPPM, chair and CEO of Pepsico since 2006. Fortune magazine calls her the most powerful woman in business. Last year, Forbes ranked her as the fifth most powerful woman in the world.
OK, OK, we're impressed. But we bet this is the one she's really been waiting for: Nooyi was recently selected as one of the inaugural inductees to the Chief Mommy Officer Hall of Fame. As the mother of two daughters (24 and 15), she is one of ten women being recognized because they have "achieved greatness in their respective careers while simultaneously maintaining their roles as exemplary mothers." We should add that the hall of fame is pretty much a publicity gimmick for a company that sells "chief mommy officer" and "chief daddy officer" T-shirts online. But, as millions of mothers have been known to say at this time of year, it's the thought that counts.
May 2, 2008
W. Bing Gordon '72 is a 58-year-old executive who sees an empty nest on his horizon and, as he told the San Jose Mercury News, wants to "go do something new and cool." Fair enough. But what if your job for the last 26 years has been to create, market, and play video games? What's cooler than the apex of cool?
To Gordon, it's . . . venture capital. He was one of the founders of Electronic Arts, the video-game behemoth responsible for The Sims, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL, and lots of other successful games. He shepherded those games to market as the company's chief creative officer -- otherwise known as the "resident genius." Now he's leaving to become a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm. "I'd like to take the thinking behind video game design and help a new generation of entrepreneurs make cool new stuff," Gordon told the Los Angeles Times.
April 25, 2008
The Yale Alumni Magazine is emphatically not in the business of endorsing presidential candidates, but for newsworthiness this week, it's hard to top the victory of Senator Hillary Clinton '73JD in the Pennsylvania primary. If we were the alumni magazine of about 50 years ago, we'd have to declare that Clinton had “shown the grit and tenacity of the bulldog” in her against-the-odds quest. But this is 2008, so we'll just note that she's trying to become the nation's first female president, and its fourth consecutive Eli president.
April 18, 2008
We don't know who gave the Library of Congress the authority to decide who is and who isn't a "living legend," but David McCullough '55 was one of seven people to be honored with that distinction at an event at the library on April 12. True, he has a lot to recommend him. With two Pulitzer Prizes (for his presidential biographies Truman and John Adams), a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and 40 honorary degrees (including one from Yale), he hasn't got a lot of accolades left to aspire to. The “living legend” award event, by the way, took place during the run of the critically acclaimed HBO mini-series adaptation of John Adams (starring Paul Giamatti '89, '94MFA).
April 11, 2008
Photo ©Peter Serling
Never thought Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Match Girl" and Bach's St. Matthew Passion were a natural combination? That's why you didn't win the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for music, as David Lang '83MAM did on Monday for The Little Match Girl Passion. Lang, who studied composition at the School of Music under Martin Bresnick, has made noise in the contemporary-music world for two decades as one of the founders and directors of the collective known as Bang on a Can. His winning work, scored for four voices and percussion instruments (played by the singers), explores the Christian aspects of Andersen's bleak story of a street urchin's death by telling it in a structure lifted from Bach's treatment of the death of Christ.
Listen for yourself: Carnegie Hall, which commissioned the piece, has a recording of it available online.
April 4, 2008
Almost unnoticed in the scandal surrounding Shin Jeong-ah -- the South Korean art history professor who falsely claimed to have a Yale PhD (see our story here) -- is the fact that her alleged lover and accomplice really does have a Yale degree. Byeon Yang-kyoon '87MA, who was until recently a top aide to Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, received his master's as a student in Yale's International and Development Economics program. On March 31, a South Korean court sentenced Shin to 18 months in jail for faking credentials and embezzling funds. Byeon, 59, who was convicted of improperly using his influence to help Shin gain favor with Dongguk University, was given a one-year suspended sentence and ordered to perform community service. He has resigned his government post.
So watch out, Scooter Libby '72 and Bill Clinton '73JD. You've got competition. As Yale becomes more international in its outlook, even our roster of scandal-ridden alumni is going global.
March 28, 2008
No one's going to walk all over Angela Bassett '80, '83MFA, the Academy Award-nominated actress best known for portraying Tina Turner in the film What's Love Got to Do With It. But her name is another matter: Bassett is now officially part of Tinseltown's terra firma, having been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 20. Bassett's is the 2,358th star on the storied walk, and by our count the 13th claimed by a Yale alum. (For a list of all 13, click here.)
March 21, 2008
At 37, the Rev. Otis Moss III '95MDiv is a rising star: a minister with a degree from Yale Divinity, a noted youth pastor named one of "God's foot soldiers" by Newsweek, and one of Beliefnet's "most influential black spiritual leaders." So after two years as associate pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Moss was ready to step into the shoes of the church's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, on March 9.
But thanks to an unusually prominent parishioner -- one Barack Obama -- and the controversy over Wright's statements from the pulpit, Moss's first weeks as pastor have been "a baptism by fire," as he told All Things Considered on March 19. He feels, Moss said quite cheerfully, like "Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego thrown into the fiery furnace."
March 14, 2008
Seth Hawkins '93 did not actually have to leap tall buildings or jump off cliffs in order to be officially declared a hero. But he does help oversee the EMS team whose territory includes the "deepest gorge east of the Rockies." He also founded the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine. Hawkins, who practices in Morganton, North Carolina -- in the foothills of the Smokies -- was honored this week as a Hero of Emergency Medicine by the American College of Emergency Physicians. The college called him a "true pioneer" of the medical specialty of caring for the sick and injured in places no ambulance can reach. Hawkins says it was Yale's Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trips (FOOT) that helped set him on his career trail.
March 7, 2008
When Richard Lalli '80MM, '86DMA, received the 2007 Yale College prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities, eight of his students came onstage to sing one minute's worth of Handel's Messiah -- from the "Alleluja" chorus, naturally. Lalli, an adjunct School of Music professor for two decades, has won raves from undergraduates for his course in vocal performance and his leadership of the college Opera Theatre and Baroque Opera Project. On March 5, Lalli became master-elect of Jonathan Edwards College. (His term will begin next January.) His partner, Michael Rigsby '88MD, medical director of University Health Services, will be associate master.
February 29, 2008
It's not easy being the arbiter of sports in a league that's still hanging on to the idea of the "scholar-athlete." But as executive director of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, Jeff Orleans '67, '71JD, has managed to maintain high standards for more than 23 years. Orleans, a former civil rights lawyer known for his trademark bow tie, just announced that he will retire in June 2009. Penn president Amy Gutmann, chair of the presidents' group, called him "an exceptional leader of an exceptional athletic conference." Our only complaint is that he seems never to have abused his position in order to help out the Bulldogs.
February 22, 2008
He's smart, he's an Emmy-winning reporter, and he's a co-anchor on Good Morning America. But the reason Chris Cuomo '92 is Yalie of the Week is that, on February 19, he jumped off the Taj Mahal. OK, it was the Taj Mahal Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, NJ, and he had been trained by a stuntwoman and was harnessed to a cable. Once safely down, Cuomo, who is afraid of heights, knelt and kissed the pavement.
February 15, 2008
For designing the first computerized switching system for telephone calls, Bell Labs researcher Erna Schneider Hoover '52PhD was awarded one of the first patents ever issued for computer software. On Thursday, it was announced that her achievement had earned her a spot in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Like most women who combine career and family, Hoover knows how to juggle. She first sketched out the system while she was in the hospital recovering from the birth of one of her three daughters.
February 8, 2008
In Congress, she's the Doyenne of DC and the Voice without a Vote. For 17 years, Georgetown U. law prof Eleanor Holmes Norton '63MA, '64LLB, has served as DC delegate to the House. She can't vote because the District, as she tells everyone, has taxation but no representation. But trust us: she can hold her own. Even on The Colbert Report, where she once asked the host, "Why would you think that I find you attractive at all?"
February 1, 2008
Yalies? Liberal? So they say. But consider Glenn Reynolds '85JD, whose blog Instapundit is one of the most influential on the Web. (It's also one of the oldest -- Wired called him The Blogfather.) He's living proof that some Blues bleed red.
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