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Lin Elected to Corporation by Decisive Margin
Summer 2002
Returning ballots in record numbers, Yale alumni selected artist Maya Lin '81, ‘86MArch over minister W. David Lee '93MDiv in an unusually high-profile election for Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation. The University announced the results of the election on May 30, after the ballots were counted by an outside firm, Mellon Investor Services.
Lin, an artist who specializes in public art and architectural projects, is best known as the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., a commission she won by competition while she was a Yale undergraduate. She is the first Asian-American woman and the first artist to sit on the Corporation.
Lin, who was nominated by a committee of the Association of Yale Alumni, received 41,575 votes, or 83.3 percent of the total, while Lee, who won a place on the ballot by gathering 4,870 alumni signatures, received 8,324 votes (16.7 percent). Some 44 percent of eligible alumni returned valid ballots, a figure the University says is two and a half times the average turnout over the last 20 years. The vote count had not been released in previous years, but President Levin explained that because there was unprecedented interest in this election, “we decided to favor transparency and openness.”
The unusual attention given to the campaign had much to do with Lee’s unorthodox approach. Although candidates had been nominated and elected by petition before, Lee introduced direct mail, high-profile endorsements, and fund-raising—most controversially from Yale unions—to what typically has been an uneventful process. The University, the AYA, and an independent alumni group responded with unprecedented mailings drawing attention to Lee’s union ties.
Lee, who is the pastor of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church in New Haven, campaigned on a promise to work for a “true partnership between Yale and New Haven.” Lin, who for the most part declined to speak publicly about the campaign, said in a statement following the election that relations between Yale and New Haven are important to her, too. “Needless to say, I am very concerned about Yale’s relationship to its community,” said Lin, “and if we learn anything from this election process it is that this town-gown relationship is a critical issue that must continue to be addressed.”
After the results were announced, Lee met with supporters in front of Woodbridge Hall and read a statement congratulating Lin and thanking his supporters. “I want to be clear,” said Lee. “This is only the beginning of our shared efforts to build a new partnership between Yale and New Haven.”
Taking a Stand on Drugs and Aid
Responding to more aggressive enforcement of a law that denies federal aid to college students who have been convicted of drug crimes, the University announced in April that it will replace any aid lost by a Yale student convicted of drug possession—provided the student enrolls in a rehabilitation program. Yale is the fourth university—and the first in the Ivy League—to enact such a policy.
In 1998, Congress passed an amendment to the Higher Education Act denying federal grants and loans to any student who answers “yes” when asked on federal forms if he or she has been convicted of a drug offense. The law also says that students may become eligible for aid again after going through rehabilitation. During the Clinton administration, students who did not answer the question were not denied aid. Not so in the Bush administration, where an incomplete application is grounds for denial.
Director of financial aid Myra Smith says no Yale students have been affected by the law so far. But last winter, the Yale College Council and the campus chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union began urging the University to adopt a policy that would make up for any student’s lost aid. “We all were surprised at how receptive the administration was,” says Andrew Allison '04, who lobbied on behalf of the YCC. “And we were impressed with the speed with which they responded.”
While students mostly applauded the move, there have been complaints in the national press that the University is condoning drug use. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial held that “Yale implies that the elite should be judged by a more lenient standard.” But Smith says the policy simply ensures that a student’s education will not be interrupted by the long wait to get into a public rehabilitation program or the prohibitive expense of a private one. “This reinforces the University’s commitment to award aid to students based on need,” says Smith. “We have a commitment to meet that need.”
Divinity Welcomes Another New Dean
Just one year after becoming dean of the Yale Divinity School, Rebecca Chopp is leaving Prospect Hill. Chopp, who was provost of Emory University before coming to Yale, will become the 15th president of Colgate University on July 1. She will be succeeded at Yale by Harold Attridge, a theology professor at the Divinity School since 1997.
“When Colgate contacted me, leaving Yale at this time was the furthest thing from my mind,” said Chopp. “Colgate is so impressive and dynamic, however, that I am compelled to accept the invitation to become president.”
President Levin praised Chopp for accomplishing much during her deanship, including the reorganization of the School’s administrative functions, the establishment of a planning committee for curriculum and community life, and the renewal of the School’s affiliation with the Berkeley Divinity School.
Attridge, the new dean, is the Lillian Claus Professor of the New Testament. He came to Yale in 1997 from Notre Dame, where he was a professor of theology and dean of the College of Arts and Letters. Perhaps most remarkably for a school born of a severe Puritan orthodoxy, Attridge is a Roman Catholic, the first of his faith to lead the School. “We’ve gotten a tad more ecumenical in 300 years,” says Attridge.
$200 Million for Genome Research
As part of a $1 billion commitment to science, engineering, and medicine, the University announced in April that it was investing $200 million to create the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics. YCGP director Michael Snyder, who also chairs the department of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, explains that the Center is designed to enable scientists to build on the successes of such landmark studies as the Human Genome Project.
“In the old days, a single lab would be working on one gene,” says Snyder. “But now we have the ability to analyze literally thousands of genes and the proteins they encode.”
The equipment to conduct these investigations, which will address cross-disciplinary questions in both medicine and fundamental biology, is expensive. So rather than being under the purview of a single department in a central place, the YCGP will feature advanced research facilities at the Medical School and on Science Hill. In addition, its laboratories and equipment, which complement the existing Keck Foundation Biotechnology Resource Laboratory, will be made available to all University scientists.
“Our aim is to create a 'center without walls' that provides access to state-of-the-art technology to scientists all over our campus and encourages collaboration in research and teaching,” says Susan Hockfield, dean of the graduate school and the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology.
YCGP director Snyder adds that both undergraduates and graduate students can use the Center, which will provide research and educational opportunities such as symposia, advanced classes, and a special training program in genomics for minority students.
From a scientific perspective, determining how genes and proteins work together in organisms as different as bacteria, yeasts, fruit flies, and humans is expected to yield new insights into the diversity of life and the fundamentals of development. In addition, such research, though seemingly arcane, can result in medical breakthroughs.
“An increased knowledge of how basic processes work could lead to new cures,” says Snyder. “We now know most of the players. The next challenge is to understand the play.”
New Program’s First Fellows
At the age of 30, Alonso Perez-Kakabadse of Ecuador has already been credited with helping stabilize the troubled economy of his nation. At 43, Chetna Gala-Sinha of India has founded a micro-enterprise bank to help women in rural areas prosper as farmers. And at 60, former government official Henrique Pinto da Costa of tiny Sao Tome and Principe has embarked on a new career as a promoter of sustainable development. These and 14 others identified as “early-to-mid-career leaders” will come to campus in September as Yale’s first World Fellows. The ten men and seven women were chosen from among 500 applicants to the new program, which was first announced as part of a suite of new international initiatives in 2000.
With the help of an adviser, each fellow is currently planning a course of study for his or her term at Yale. The fellows will meet at the renovated Davies Mansion (recently renamed Betts House) for weekly events, including a seminar taught by Yale faculty, a dinner with a guest speaker, and a luncheon where they will take turns presenting their work. The fellows will live in apartments in the Chapel Street area and on Prospect Street, and they will have office space in Betts House.
Each fellow is from a different country, and all continents but Australia are represented. The fellows' occupations are varied, but most come from business, the political realm, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). “It’s essential for governmental leaders to know how to deal with NGO leaders and businesspeople and vice versa,” says program director Dan Esty.
Engineering Marks 150th with Forum
As part of a year-long celebration of the field’s 150 years at the University, the Faculty of Engineering convened a conference called “Challenges to Innovation in the 21st Century” on May 2 and 3. The sesquicentennial forum brought to campus more than 200 engineering alumni, along with current students and faculty.
Speakers included Henry Schacht '56, chairman of Lucent Technologies; U.S. representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), a physicist active in science policy and education; John Marburger, science adviser to president George W. Bush '68; and William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering. In addition, the forum featured a panel discussion with academic leaders from four universities, remarks by Yale provost Alison Richard, and a keynote address by President Levin.
Levin, who is an economist, set the tone for the forum by discussing how university-based basic research, funded by the federal government, has become “an essential source of economic competitiveness and, ultimately, a wellspring of worldwide growth and prosperity.” Noting that “basic research is the source from which all commercially-oriented applied research and development ultimately flows,” the President praised the ability of the present setup to generate innovation. “It is unlikely that this success could be duplicated by industry.”
Lucent CEO Schacht, whose company encompasses AT&T Bell Labs, the industrial laboratory once renowned for its work in basic science, confirmed Levin’s contention. “We’re not going to have the next fundamental breakthrough at Bell Labs,” said Schacht, explaining that economic pressures had pushed Lucent scientists and engineers in a more applied direction. “We’re increasingly dependent on universities like Yale.”
Congressman Ehlers talked about the importance of government funding for education, and science adviser Marburger stressed the Bush administration’s commitment to “implement policies that preserve our leadership role” in technological innovation. And behind all of the discussion was the specter of September 11 and the role engineering could play in creating a safer and more equitable world. “Terrorism doesn’t occur in a social and political vacuum,” said NAE president Wulf. “A research and design program that makes developing countries better places to live is a crucial part of our counter-terrorism efforts.”
Local Elis Set for Congressional Run
Six-term New Haven-area congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is considered a shoo-in for re-election every two years in a heavily Democratic district. But that’s not stopping two Yale alumni from mounting challenges from both right and left this year. Richter Elser '81, a local restaurateur, is the only announced candidate for the Republican nomination, and Charles Pillsbury '70, ‘90MDiv, who runs a mediation service in the city, is seeking the Green Party’s endorsement.
Elser, who rowed at Yale and coached the freshman crew from 1981 to 1989, describes himself as “fiscally conservative with a social conscience.” He has founded and operated businesses in New Haven since he graduated, including Richter's, a Chapel Street bar he recently sold, the Tibwin Grill on College Street, and the now-defunct Elm City Brewing Company. He says he has considered running for some time, but chose this year because Connecticut’s congressional districts were recently redrawn. “This year, 20 percent of the voters in this district will have to vote for someone new,” says Elser. “That creates a natural chink in [DeLauro's] armor.”
Pillsbury spent 34 years in Democratic politics before aligning himself with the Greens this year out of frustration with “the way we are waging this so-called war on terrorism.” He opposes increases in military spending and advocates publicly financed election campaigns and universal health care. Pillsbury believes the newly configured district and the three-way race could help him, particularly since a plurality of district voters is unaffiliated with a party.
A friend of cartoonist Garry Trudeau '70, ’73MFA since their days at St. Paul’s School and Yale, Pillsbury is one of the models for Trudeau’s character Mike Doonesbury. Trudeau has said he borrowed Pillsbury’s “good heart, his occasional cluelessness, and the last two syllables of his name” for the strip’s title character. The first syllable, Pillsbury explains, came from a piece of St. Paul’s slang. “A doone is someone who’s not afraid of making a fool of himself,” Pillsbury says. “Which is what makes it possible to do what I’m doing.”
Shorter Hours for Surgical Residents
Yale–New Haven Hospital must reduce the working hours of its surgical residents, says the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or the Council will withdraw its accreditation of the surgical residency program. The Council found recently that residents were routinely working more than 100 hours a week. They also said that the program’s record-keeping must be improved.
The charge came a month before the Council announced new nationwide limits on the hours medical residents can work. Beginning in July 2003, residents may not be on duty more than 80 hours a week, must have at least 10 hours off between shifts, and can work no more than 24 hours at a time.
Dr. Peter Herbert, Yale–New Haven’s chief of staff, says that the hospital will spend a million dollars to hire physician’s associates (PAs) in order to reduce the residents' hours. Finding enough PAs will not be easy, he says, even though the Council’s action gave Yale–New Haven “a bit of a head start” over other hospitals that now must increase staff. The Council will review the hospital’s planned remedies in July and make a decision about accreditation in October.
Sporting Life
A Celebration That Got Away
by Carl Bialik '01
The 150th Harvard-Yale Regatta brought back some of the festive air of races past, but when the races were over, only Harvard was celebrating: The Crimson’s crews swept Yale for the 12th time in the last 17 years, the Yale varsity finishing 41.8 seconds behind Harvard.
The results were much like the first race in 1852, when the regatta was conceived as a tourist attraction for New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. At the urging of a railroad superintendent, Yale invited Harvard “to test the superiority of the oarsmen of the two colleges.” Harvard won by two lengths.
New London, Connecticut, which first hosted the race in 1878, marked the anniversary with a series of events that boosted attendance from a few hundred in recent years to about 1,500. The festivities included a chowderfest, a lecture by Olympic gold medal–winning rower Brad Lewis, and an exhibit of photos of observation trains
from bygone races that moved along with the boats.
Just steps away from the exhibit, hundreds of people boarded conventional passenger cars as part of a two-year-old revival of the observation train. What the crowd saw were three upstream races in choppy conditions where nothing went right for the Bulldogs. The freshmen succumbed to a boat-stopping overhead crab, a junior varsity oarsman suffered an injury, and the varsity blue was simply overpowered as the Harvard rowers finished in the eighth-best time in race history.
The disappointment was tempered, though, by much happier endings for Yale’s other crews. The lightweights completed an undefeated season by winning the national championship at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association regatta in Camden, New Jersey, on June 1, finishing 0.41 seconds ahead of Navy. And the women’s crew took fifth place at the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis May 30–June 1.  |
