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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Now that Yale has, appropriately, hosted both Presidents Bush to speak at commencement exercises, it would seem equally fitting, and valuable, to invite another alumnus distinguished for his public service to America (“For Country,” May/June) to address graduates and their families. Senator John Kerry '66 has plenty to say to a Yale audience, because of his commitment to public life and because of his dignity in defeat following the presidential election in November. Our university, like our peer institutions, likes to celebrate leadership, success, and triumph; but along with those accomplishments, coping with disappointment and adversity, and then soldiering on, are every bit as important as life lessons. Inviting Senator Kerry to speak at graduation this spring would take nothing away from previous speakers; would broaden the ideals for which Yale stands; and might well, over time, come to be seen as an especially honorable moment in the university’s history. I have conveyed this thought to President Levin, who has referred it to the university’s honorary-degrees committee. With sufficient reflection and alumni support, perhaps the idea can be exhumed from that burying ground.
The legacy of legacy admissions The most logical and persuasive argument for Yale’s favoring applicants whose parents attended the school is that so-called “legacy” families usually give more money to Yale, helping to finance the educations of non-legacy students (Q&A: Rick Levin, November/December). If that is indeed the primary motivation, let’s remove all pretense and simply create different categories for applicants. A certain number of spots in the incoming class could be set aside for students willing to pay, say, four times the standard tuition. Accordingly, those applicants would be given a better chance of acceptance than if they applied for a standard-tuition spot. Presently, legacy applicants have a better chance of admission than they would otherwise, largely on the unspoken promise that their families will donate more money. But it’s a promise upon which their families don’t actually have to deliver. I say, put it in writing. I read with interest Kathrin Lassila’s interview with President Rick Levin regarding the treatment of legacies in the admissions process at Yale. In his response to the last question, Levin said that he would like to hear from any families who represented six or more generations at Yale. With this in mind, I believe I was in the sixth generation of Footes to attend directly through my father (Alfred S. '28) and grandfather (Arthur E. '96) and so on—at least that’s what my father told me. I have a son who’s eight—believe it or not—who’s my only hope to keep the succession alive. In response to Rick Levin’s request in the last issue, I can report that two of my children have the good fortune of being sixth-generation legacies—Class of 1997 and Class of 2007. My great-great-grandfather was Class of 1806. And to our great delight, the first member of the next generation was just delivered at Yale–New Haven Children’s Hospital. On your search for ancestors at Yale: I will win the prize for the earliest one. My ancestor was one of the ten original trustees at the beginning: Israel Chauncy. (We added an e later.) He was invited to be the first rector, but declined because of his age—he was 45 or so. So Abraham Pierson, an ancestor of the Yale historian George Pierson '26, took the job. My great (many times) grandfather Nathaniel Chauncy received the first Yale degree in 1702. I found the diploma many years ago and had it donated to the Beinecke. From all I can gather he got the degree as a result of a fund-raising attempt! Nathaniel couldn’t have done much work (but then lots of students don’t). They wanted the library of 200 books owned by his uncle, Charles Chauncy, the second rector of Harvard—so the degree was the bait. But as so often happens, the books never made it, though they are still intact as a library. Then for many years my ancestors went to Harvard, down through my father and elder brother. So there are undoubtedly many more with longer unbroken strings. Henry (“Sam”) Chauncey Jr. was secretary of the university from 1970 to 1981.—Eds. I was stunned by the attitude expressed by former Class of '73 secretary Charlie Cuneo in his decision to resign from that position (Alumni Notes, September/October) because his “extraordinary and very qualified son” was denied admission to Yale College. As the father of an extraordinary son who likely will be applying to Yale next year, I found Mr. Cuneo’s action petulant. Had he been acting as class secretary simply in the (vain) hopes of greasing the skids for his child? Yale had more than 19,000 applicants last year. I am sure 18,000 of them could have handled Yale work. Yale could probably fill a class with all 1600-SATs or all string instrument players. Or it could choose to replicate its DNA by having all Yale legacies. That sameness would negatively affect one of the best parts of being a Yale student—interacting with people of diverse interests and backgrounds. Although Yale parents are obviously a diverse group, their “Yale-ness” clearly creates similarities. I have been an Alumni Schools Comm-ittee member. Many candidates I recommended highly did not get in. Others did. That didn’t make the non-admits any less qualified or talented. If he applies, I hope my son is admitted to Yale. If not, I will, of course, be disappointed but not dismayed, given the reality of the admissions process at elite schools like Yale. And I will remain as proud and grateful as ever for the education Yale gave me, which laid a foundation for the rest of my thinking life.
Back to the metropolis Many thanks for the generous space you allotted for review of my book (Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, November/December) and to Glenn Fleishman '90 for the kind things he said about it, especially toward the end of the review. My heart sank, however, when I realized that he was construing Better Off as fare for “neo-back-to-the-landers.” Clearly the book, as the story of an MIT student’s quest, was, first and foremost, about technology and the wise selection of it. Fleishman’s misreading would help account for certain reservations he enumerated—for instance, that I sometimes paused to reflect about technological choice (surprise, surprise) and that I didn’t mention (gasp) the Nearings' Living the Good Life. I wonder if Fleishman’s own familiarity with technological issues, too, led him simply to assume implications that may have not been that obvious to the general reader. Yes, the action of the book took place mostly in the country. But this had to do with the anomalous circumstance that the most successful technological discriminators around—Old Order Anabaptists—live there. By and large, however, the narrative points to lessons which, in their broadest terms, can be applied anywhere. As Fleishman himself notes, my wife and I have been putting them into practice in St. Louis for some time. In many ways a city—with compact and walkable urban neighborhoods like Lafayette Square or Soulard in St. Louis—lends itself even better to technological minimalism than the country.
A star of the cosmos Thank you for renewing my acquaintance with Benoit Mandelbrot, one of the stars of my cosmos (“The Genius of the Unpredictable,” November/December). When John Briggs’s book Fractals first came out in 1992, my eyes—optical and intellectual—were opened, and I had the splendid experience of fathering a poem as Zeus did Athena, full-blown. (The poem, about Handel’s Water-Music, begins, “After reading Mandelbrot, digesting all those fractals, / It’s coming clear how Handel wrote in such cascading dactyls.”) A longtime chorister, illustrator, and architect, I’ve known and instinctively used fractality in singing, drawing, and designing throughout my life. What a joy to rediscover the codifier at Yale.
Stairway to the past As an enthusiastic amateur photographer, I was naturally attracted to the article featuring architectural photos by Arnold Gold (“Yale in Light and Shadow,” November/December). Flipping through the pages of the article, I was appreciating Mr. Gold’s eye for pattern when, reaching page 51, I gasped. That photograph of the spiral staircase looked very familiar! Opening my 1974 Yale Banner and turning to page 159, I verified that I had photographed the same staircase from exactly the same spot when I was a Yale student and yearbook photographer. Of course, Mr. Gold captured the shot with a $20 Holga plastic camera, while I had the advantage of using a fancy Nikkormat. Real photographers don’t need fancy equipment.
To the moon—and maybe Mars The Yale Alumni Magazine does not often discuss the space program. As an engineer involved for more than 40 years with spacesuits and spacecraft life support, I appreciate the discussion in “Is Mars Worth the Trip?” (Forum, November/December). Both points of view are well reasoned and thoughtfully presented. I share Ms. Kevles’s concerns that we are not yet ready to send humans on three-year round trips to Mars. Coping with her short list of concerns (radiation, bone decalcification, and social/psychological problems) would be easier if missions were shortened to several months. However, doing this requires developing a successor to our current chemical propulsion technology. Shortening round trips to Mars would also enhance our ability to develop these missions adequately. Yet even if President Bush’s recent goal for America’s space program does not materialize, I do not despair for the near-term future of human space travel. The recently won Ansari X Prize points toward space tourism financed by the private sector. The moon may well become a popular destination. Antarctica is already a precedent. Once the domain only of researchers staffing scientific outposts, Antarctica is now an ecotourism destination for paying passengers aboard cruise ships. Despite Professor Bailyn’s misgivings about sending humans to Mars, humans on the moon (delivered commercially?) may also assist our robotic exploration of the universe. In 1968 I first read about placing radio telescopes on the far side of the moon. Despite the advent of space telescopes and advances made to terrestrial telescopes in the last 40 years, telescopes installed and maintained on the stable and airless surface of the moon, even if operated remotely from Earth, may contribute to our understanding of the universe.
Remonstrance I have always defended the independence and objectivity of the Yale Alumni Magazine to my skeptical friends, so I was severely disappointed to read Kate Moran’s brief article on the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (Light and Verity, September/October). While the article paraphrased GESO chair Mary Reynolds, it contained no quote from a union representative. In contrast, it quoted three anti-GESO spokespeople, all with varying criticisms of the union. I expect better from the magazine.
More on hate In “Why We Hate” (September/October), Professor Robert Sternberg doesn’t consider that hatred is sometimes justified. Fannie Lou Hamer would be justified in hating those who sadistically beat her because she was a Southern black woman who wanted to vote. The relatives of the victims of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing would be justified in hating Timothy McVeigh. In short, Sternberg doesn’t seem to believe that it’s appropriate to hate evil. Sternberg’s solution to the problem of hate is to “reach a common good for all stakeholders that is respectful of and takes into account the interests and values they hold.” But compromise is not always possible or desirable. The Nazis' values included a racial theory of human worth, with Aryans exalted and the Jews to be exterminated. The Jews disagreed (but, unfortunately, were not as well armed). No accord could be reached between Nazis and Jews that took into account the interests and values of both. The proper solution was the utter destruction of Hitler’s regime—which, contra Sternberg, was a very constructive solution to the problem of Nazism, even if it was “acting with hate.” I was stunned to read that Yale’s Professor Sternberg advocates “listening to” Islamic terrorists and “trying to understand” their stories, so we can reach a “common good” that “takes into account” their interests. Sternberg’s exceedingly non-judgmental approach is not just harmless utopianism. It actually reflects the core of modern liberalism: the reluctance to confront evil, condemn it, and fight it. History teaches that we pay for that reluctance with rivers of blood. For all that it is an established academic discipline, psychology yet faces vast realms of unfathomable murk. Those experiments cited in the article—in which a small group of subjects drawn primarily from a pool of students, given an opportunity to shock and abuse other participants, went ahead and did so—only demonstrated “the bleedin' obvious.” Experiments based on small numbers of informed participants demand extreme circumspection in the drawing of inferences. They tell us nothing we did not already know. Author Weed acknowledged the political aspect of Professor Sternberg’s judgment on President Bush’s language (“either for us or against us”), which he characterized as contributing to the spread of hate not its abatement. Would it have been reasonable or useful to say of Churchill or FDR that their adamant, black-and-white opposition to Hitler spread hate? Certainly greater understanding of German resentment of the Treaty of Versailles could have mitigated German re-armament. But by the time Hitler was in charge, only military confrontation would constrain his ambitions. We must look at the world and see it as it is, without the distortion of wishful thinking. Hundreds of millions of civil and generous Muslims are as outraged at their coreligionist terrorists as anyone else. Indeed they are being slaughtered by the terrorists with equal relentlessness. A tiny group within Islam is fixated upon the goal of dominating and enlarging “Dar al-Islam”—the house of Islam—by waging jihad upon “Dar al-Harb”—the house of the infidel. If rabid cats are about, nothing is served by hating all cats. What is essential is resolute readiness to dispatch the rabid ones by any means necessary.
A major objection Book reviewer Carlo Rotella '94PhD (Arts & Culture, September/October) calls baseball’s introduction of the designated hitter “a comparatively minor change.” Minor in the minor leagues, maybe, but major in the majors. Your item about Anne Coffin Hanson (Milestones, November/December) states that she was the first female professor at Yale with full tenure. It has long been my understanding that this distinction belongs to Mary Clabaugh Wright, who taught on China in the history department. Professor Wright died in 1970. As I remember, her Yale appointment dated to circa 1960. Mary Clabaugh Wright, who was promoted to tenure in 1962, was indeed the first tenured woman professor at Yale, followed in the same year by English professor Marie Borroff. Anne Coffin Hanson’s distinction was as the first woman to join the Yale faculty as a full professor. While technically true, our statement that Hanson was “the first woman to be hired as a full professor at Yale” was confusing.—Eds.
Athletics and life I read with interest the article about coach John Pescatore and his new drive for the crew (Sporting Life, September/October). It does make one think about whatever happened to the gentleman athlete-scholar with the balanced life. My nephew crewed in high school and was courted by several schools with rowing teams, including Yale’s. However, it was the conversations with the Yale coaching team that convinced him not to apply to Yale. There was an obsession that the only thing he would do besides go to class was row. It was all about national competitions. Not about the total Yale experience, not about academic excellence, not about life exploration—it was about rowing. That is sad. My father and uncle were All-Americans at Yale but managed to enjoy what Yale offered, because back then football was only part of the deal. I was not in athletics but music performance. It too was consuming, but never to the obsession level one reads about Mr. Pescatore. I hope that Yale will live up to its traditions of developing the total person.
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