Comment on this article Peabody Addition Spurs Study of the Sphere
December 2001 The university’s newest building—the $42 million Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center—was formally dedicated by President Levin on October 26 on Science Hill. The three-story, 98,000-square-foot ESC, which represents the first part of the President’s $500 million upgrade of Yale’s science infrastructure, fronts Sachem Street and occupies the footprint of the Bingham Laboratory, which was demolished to make way for the facility. Designed by the firm of David M. Schwarz ’74MArch to reflect the architecture of the Peabody Museum of Natural History to which it is connected, the ESC will serve several roles. The first is to better preserve the Peabody’s vast collections and make them more accessible to scholars and students. The facility will also provide office, laboratory, and classroom space for the departments of ecology and evolutionary biology, geology and geophysics, and anthropology, as well as the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Yale Center
for Biospheric Studies. Bringing all those scientists under one roof should foster an interchange of ideas among scientists. “The best work in these areas is inevitably and increasingly collaborative,” says Levin, who praised forester John Gordon, biologist Leo Buss, environmentalist Ed Bass ’67, and provost (then Peabody director) Alison Richard as “visionaries”
for conceiving the project ten years ago. Major funding for the ESC came from the Class of 1954, which designated $25 million for the building from the historic $70 million Tercentennial gift it made to Yale last year (see “Giving and Getting,” Feb. 2001); the Class has also earmarked $25 million for a chemistry research building that is expected to open in four years. Three additional facilities—one for FES, one for engineering, and one for molecular,
cellular, and developmental biology—are planned. “The ESC builds on Yale’s historic concern for education and research about the natural world,” says Richard. “It will enable us to fulfill
our deep moral responsibility to train leaders who can take up the environmental gauntlet.” 
What’s for Lunch? Dinosaurs! The north African country of Niger straddles the Sahara desert, but 110 million years ago, it was a vastly different landscape, filled with lakes and rivers and teeming with fish and dinosaurs. A recent scientific expedition to the region determined that Niger was then also home to one of the most fearsome creatures that ever inhabited the planet: a 40-foot-long, 8-ton, flesh-eating reptile that its discoverers
have dubbed “supercroc.” “This animal had a massive six-foot-long skull, and jaws bearing about 100 teeth, each the size of a railroad spike,” says Hans Larsson, a Yale postdoctoral research fellow who found supercroc fossils in 1997 and 2000 as a member of a team led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno and sponsored by the National Geographic Society. (The NGS profiles the creature in a television special
that airs on December 9.) Larsson, an expert in crocodile evolution currently working with ecology and evolutionary biology professor Gunter Wagner, explains that by the time the reptile reached adult size, its prey included 12-foot-long fish and 35-foot-long dinosaurs. “Based on an examination of fossil anatomy, we can say that supercroc is one of the closest cousins of modern crocodiles,” says Larsson, one of the coauthors of a paper on the find published in Science on October 25. “We assume
it behaved in a similar manner.” This includes lying in wait for its prey, with only its eyes and snout visible, and then striking with rapid and lethal results. “Over a short distance, the supercroc probably could easily outrun a person
on land,” says Larsson. Fortunately, the ruling reptile had disappeared from the earth long before the advent of our species. Says the researcher: “It would have been
a big mistake to have met one.”
Personal Touch Works in Politics Political science professor Donald Green has advice for politicians who put all their money into expensive television and direct-mail campaigns: Pick up the phone. Green, who is the director of Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies, recently completed a study evaluating the effect of youth-oriented “get out the vote” campaigns in which 18-to-29-year-olds get non-partisan telephone calls from volunteers urging them to vote. Such calls increased turnout by an average of 5 percent over a control group
that did not receive the calls. The study, which was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, also showed an even stronger effect (an 8 percent increase) when potential voters are visited in their homes. Green says these findings counter conventional wisdom about how to run a campaign in the information age. “It’s clear that this kind of contact does matter,” says Green. “And it costs $12 to $15 per vote to do these kinds of get-out-the-vote campaigns, compared to $40 to $60 per vote for direct mail or up to $100 per vote for commercial phone banks.” But campaign consultants prefer these more expensive methods because they allow them to run several campaigns simultaneously, says Green. “I believe that an important reason turnout has declined in recent years is the professionalization
of political campaigns.” Green and his colleague Alan Gerber will continue investigating youth voter turnout with the support of a recent $570,000 grant from the Pew Trusts. The new research will focus on the efficacy of youth mobilization and civic education programs in increasing voter turnout.
Battling West Nile Fever Until terrorists released anthrax into the U.S. in early fall, one of the primary fears of public health officials was the recent appearance of a potentially fatal, mosquito-borne disease called West Nile fever. Since the first outbreak of the virus-caused illness in New York in 1999, at least ten people in the Northeast have died from the encephalitis-like ailment. There is no cure, but Erol Fikrig, an associate professor at the School of Medicine, and his colleagues at Yale, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, and the New York State Department of Health have developed what they are terming a “candidate vaccine” against the West Nile virus. The substance has so far only been tested in mice, and in a paper published last month in the Journal of Immunology, the research team described both its efficacy in protecting the animals against the West Nile infection and the genetic engineering techniques the scientists used to turn part of the virus protein into a vaccine. Fikrig hopes that a similar strategy will enable biologists to develop a protective measure for humans. “The seriousness of West Nile as a public health threat is not yet fully known,” says Fikrig, one of the creators of LYMErix, a vaccine now on the market to protect
against Lyme disease. West Nile, first described in Uganda in 1937, is transmitted to people by mosquitoes which feed on infected birds, and this so-called “emerging disease” is now found in about two dozen eastern states, as well as in Canada and as far west as Louisiana. So far, public health workers have been able to control outbreaks by spraying programs, but officials are uncertain that the tactic will be enough in the future. “If the vaccine proves necessary, its development will be
valuable,” says Fikrig.
Old Saybrook Gets Its Celebration Last March, halfway through the University’s yearlong Tercentennial celebration, Old Saybrook resident Louise Tietjen realized that the town had been all but forgotten. Old Saybrook, the University’s first home, had once harbored hard feelings about losing Yale to New Haven in 1716. But those old feelings have changed into pride. “We felt a little left out of the party,” Tietjen says, “so we decided to do
something.” Tietjen, along with First Selectman Mike Pace, former First Selectwoman Barbara Maynard, and Stanley Greimann ’53BArch, ’57MCP, pulled together a program that was put into action on the bright autumn morning of October 13. Area alumni, residents, and University and state officials visited Old Saybrook for a special ceremony at the Yale Boulder. The monument, located in Cypress Cemetery at the spot where the Collegiate School once stood, was dedicated in 1901, on the
occasion of Yale’s bicentennial. The highlight of the proceedings was the symbolic returning of the books that were taken from Old Saybrook by force when the College moved to New Haven. Judith Schiff, chief research archivist at Yale (and Yale Alumni Magazine columnist), gave a basket of Yale-themed books to Janet Crozier, director of the town’s library. The ten selections, from Bright Pages to Yale: A Portrait, were warmly accepted by Crozier, even though Schiff admitted the
number “doesn’t quite make up for the 1,000 that were taken.” Guests were then treated to a walking tour led by retired local teacher Larry Reney, who was dressed in 18th-century attire. At Saybrook Point, where salty breezes drifted in off the Sound, the assembled sang “America the Beautiful,” and were led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Old Saybrook resident and current Yale student Dan Santovasi ’05. Several historical figures, including Elihu Yale (not looking a day over 13), made special appearances. Bruce Alexander, vice president for New Haven and state affairs, delivered the official greetings from the University. He said, “An acorn was placed here in 1701. It grew to where it could be transplanted to New Haven in 1716. To perhaps overuse a metaphor, it became the
oak the University is today.”
A&A Show Recalls Moore’s Sixties In his annual report to the Corporation in 1970, dean Charles Moore described the School of Architecture as “an extraordinarily turned-on school.” An exhibit currently on display at the School recaptures the spirit of those turned-on years, when the architectural and the political were densely interwoven, and when students and teachers alike rebelled against the strictures of corporate modernism. It also revisits the career of Moore, who ran Yale’s architecture program from 1965
to 1970. The exhibit, “Architecture or Revolution: Charles Moore and Yale in the Late 1960s,” combines models, drawings, and photographs of Moore’s architectural work with artifacts of the campus tumult of the times. In a 1968 handwritten “manifesto,” for example, a number of architecture students resolve that “we will only use our skills as tools for liberating
oppressed peoples.” Designed by Dean Sakamoto ’98MEnvD, the School’s director of exhibitions, the show features small pavilions within the gallery similar to those Moore used in his work to create discrete places within an open plan. The largest such construction is inspired by “Project Argus,” a mylar-sheathed multimedia environment installed in the gallery
in 1968. Current dean Robert A. M. Stern says that Moore, who died in 1993, has much to teach a new generation of architects through his work. “Moore had a tremendous sense of energy and wit,” says Stern, “and a great
sense of how to work with the past to invent new solutions.”
Visa Woes for Foreign Students Through more aggressive international recruiting and more generous financial aid, Yale is trying to make its undergraduate student body more international. But one obstacle to getting international students here is getting them into the country, as a dozen or more Chinese students learned this fall when the state department denied their requests for student visas. All but one of the students were granted visas after trying again, but colleges say that denials were more frequent this year, even before the terrorist attacks of September 11. Students being turned down for visas is “an old problem,” according to Ann Kuhlman, who directs the University’s Office of International Students and Scholars, “but it’s been happening in bigger numbers recently.” U.S. Consulate officials in other countries, particularly China, are reluctant to grant visas to students who cannot prove their intention to return to their home country when they finish their education. The state department says there has been no change in the denial rate, but that the number of denials is up because more
people are seeking to attend American universities. In the wake of the attacks, President Bush has ordered a “thorough review” of the student-visa process, and California senator Dianne Feinstein is drafting legislation that would require background checks of visa applicants and forbid the granting of visas to students from countries considered to be sponsors
of terrorism. Kuhlman says she expects that the approval process will become more stringent. “Even if the procedures don’t change, we’re going to see it take longer, and there’ll be more scrutiny,” she says. “But I think everyone here would agree that international exchange and education is just
what we need right now, and to cut that off would be a big mistake.”
Claim Settled on Nazi Painting Last year, the Art Gallery made international news when a Washington, D.C. man claimed that a painting on display at the Gallery had been stolen from his family by the Nazis. In October, the Gallery announced that the claim had been settled—and that the painting had been donated to Yale. The painting, Gustave Courbet’s Le Grand Pont, had been lent to Yale in 1981 by Herbert Schaefer, a collector who was an attorney and Nazi party member in wartime Germany. Schaefer maintained he had bought the painting legitimately, but Eric Weinmann said his mother had been forced to leave it behind when she fled Germany in 1938. As part of the settlement, Schaefer donated the painting to Yale, and the Gallery agreed to lend it to Weinmann for ten years if he would drop his claim. The picture is now hanging in Weinmann’s dining
room.
On the Sidelines, Still a Star In 1998, Amanda Walton arrived as a freshman at Yale and shook up both the field hockey and women’s lacrosse teams, winning Ivy League rookie-of-the-year honors in both sports. “She is probably one of the best female athletes ever to come to Yale,” says field hockey coach Ainslee Lamb. “She
was breaking career records in her sophomore year.” But Walton’s career as an athlete came to an abrupt halt in Meriden, Connecticut, on May 28, 2000, when her car was struck by another that was engaged in a high-speed chase with police. Walton lay in a coma for weeks before beginning the long, arduous process of recovery from head trauma. Today, she uses a wheelchair, and her speech is slow and deliberate. She has yet to return to Yale as a student, but this fall, at Lamb’s invitation, she rejoined the field hockey team as a volunteer assistant coach during what would have been her senior
season. Each week this fall, after four days of therapy near her family’s Massachusetts home, Walton came to New Haven for Friday afternoon practices and weekend games, offering support to players and coaches. “I was determined to come down,” says Walton. “My parents weren’t that sure, but it’s something I didn’t think I could pass up.” On those Fridays, she took assisted walks with her coaching colleagues. “Just to be standing beside her and walking with her is an unbelievable experience,” says Lamb, who coached Walton in her freshman and sophomore years
as an assistant before being named head coach last year. If this were the movies, Walton’s inspiration would have led the team to a championship season, but real life was less kind: The team lost six games in overtime this fall, ending the season with a 7-10 record (1-6 in the Ivy League). The team has struggled since they began scheduling tougher opponents after winning the ECAC title in 1998. Lamb says the losses were disappointing, but that playing higher-caliber teams has been good for the players. “They all say they learned
the most from the games where they were challenged,” says Lamb. Asked about her own goals, Walton responds without hesitation: “I want to walk by myself, then to run, then to play a sport again.” Says
her coach: “If anyone can do it, Amanda can.”  |
