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“The Innovator,” (January/February) justly praises Erin Lavik for her success in repairing the spinal cords of rats. It fails to clarify, however, whether the experiment used adult or embryonic neural progenitor cells. This omission is puzzling, for any potential application to human injuries would raise ethical questions if it involved human embryonic stem cells: namely, whether there is any difference between destroying rat embryos in order to harvest their stem cells and performing the same procedure on human embryos. This is the sort of question that a liberal education should prepare Yale graduates to confront. Lavik used neural progenitor cells descended from a line harvested years before from the cerebellum of a day-old mouse. For similar experiments in humans, Lavik says it’s too early to predict the source for cells that can survive, integrate, and differentiate appropriately to aid spinal cord repair. Cell types that might be used include human embryonic cells, adult progenitor cells, or fetal tissue. Lavik says she agrees that the work raises ethical questions.—Eds. The profile of biomedical researcher Erin Lavik illustrates some of the tensions and contradictions inherent to the work of scientists who experiment on animals. They often inflict pain, distress, injury, or debilitation on animals in laboratories, yet keep beloved companion animals in their homes. They hope their research yields effective treatments for humans, yet they understand that what works in laboratory animals does not always pan out when scaled up to people. Like society at large, they want the benefits of biomedical research but are largely reticent (if still uncomfortable) concerning its costs in terms of animal suffering and death. To her credit, Lavik seems to have struggled with these issues. But there is a lot more that she and her colleagues can do, especially when it comes to the exploration of non-invasive alternatives. As an alumnus who now heads the Humane Society of the United States, I encourage Lavik and other scientists to devote some of their considerable talents to devising research methods that can reduce the suffering and use of animals in laboratories while pursuing their larger goal of helping humans. Lavik’s field of tissue engineering, in particular, has enormous potential to reduce animal use through the development of usable organs and tissues that might spare animals from being killed for their organs or being used in skin and eye-irritation studies, for example.
Sunken stones In “From the Editor” (September/October), you discussed rumors about the origin of the paving stones that once covered Hewitt Quadrangle. I remember hearing that the stones were given to Yale by a town in France as a contribution to the World War I Memorial, though I’m not sure where I heard it. I am sure, however, that the stones met a sad end. When the Beinecke was being built, and I was an assistant dean, there was discussion about where the stones would go, and President A. Whitney Griswold instructed someone in the Ashmun Street business offices to store them carefully, as Whit also believed they had been a donation from a French town. Later, when the garden behind the President’s House was being redone, we decided to use some of the stones to pave that area. When we asked for the stones, it was reported back that they had been dumped in Long Island Sound! Although the rumor about the stones' origins reached all the way to the president’s office, it was apparently only a rumor. University archivist Judith Schiff recently found letters dating from November 1927 in which the architect of the memorial, Yale’s associate treasurer, and the Sperry & Treat Company of New Haven discussed procuring “old paving blocks here in town” that would “add a certain atmosphere to the quadrangle.”—Eds.
The case for legacy admission The letters in the January/February 2005 issue on legacies and legacy admission enthused me. First, I live in a region of the world in which university education has not yet taken root. In fact, the young plants which have emerged from the seedlings are still being watered, and there is a lot of anxiety as to whether these plants will flourish into flowering In his interview with Kathrin Lassila (Q&A: Rick Levin, November/December), President Levin tells us that the “positive weight” given to legacy applicants is in addition to about seven other factors, plus racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity considerations. Legacy applicants, we are told, are—as a class—already better qualified than the competition before legacy consideration. Unless the applicant first qualifies in the other areas, legacy status is irrelevant. But why does legacy count at all? Levin answers: because Yale values the “loyalty and involvement of alumni"; because legacy students outperform non-legacy with comparable high school records; and because legacy graduates are “on average significantly more generous donors.” Sounds reasonable. So: since legacy applicants are better qualified, make better students, and are more loyal, and since legacy admissions have not impeded the growth of diversity, why must the president be put on the defensive? What makes legacy considerations “manifestly unfair” or “indefensible"? Can legacy be “politically incorrect"? Obviously, that’s the answer. What then is Yale to do? Even if it eliminated the already highly diluted positive weight given legacies, a disproportionately high percentage of the entering class will still be legacies since, as a group, they are more qualified. Must Yale set the bar higher for them? (If so, would an applicant be wise to conceal legacy status?) Should legacy become a stigma? Yale tried that once. It’s a better place now. Does anyone really want to go there again?
Too young I was struck by the mention, in your article on the Afro American Cultural Center (“House Proud,” January/February) of the three Black Student Alliance at Yale founders who “died young” of cancer, heart disease, and aneurysm. Racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes remain disappointingly constant: African American men, especially, die from common killers like cancer and heart disease significantly more often than their white counterparts. Furthermore, African Americans have higher rates of low birthweight and infant mortality, and lower use of many preventive health services, even after accounting for economic and medical factors. Working to explain and eliminate these disparities is another important way to honor the memory and accomplishments of these leaders who died too soon.
What happened to Hinkey? During our recent Christmas visit with our daughter’s family in Austin, I discovered your article (“When Men Were Men and Football Was Brutal,” November/December) featuring the story of Frank Hinkey, the four-time All-American football player of the 1890s. (Our son-in law, David Cansler ’74, is the subscriber.) I was familiar with the bigger-than-life figure of Frank Hinkey, his story having been pretty much drilled into me by my parents, who knew Hinkey personally in his last years. They came to know him in Belhaven, North Carolina, during the period of about 1917-1921. I don’t know what brought Hinkey to that remote corner of the country, but from my parent’s stories I concluded that he was “down and out,” perhaps suffering from tuberculosis, from which he succumbed several years later. I believe he was alone. Mother recounted for me many times that Mr. Hinkey would always manage to pass our porch when she had just prepared her special formulation of soup, and he would be invited in. Your article about 1890s Yale football was fascinating but left unanswered a number of things: e.g., how long did Frank Hinkey and his weak lungs survive, and who were the other four-time All-Americans? The other four-time All-Americans were Marshall Newell (Harvard, 1890-93), T. Truxton Hare (Penn, 1897-1900), Gordon Brown (Yale, 1897-1900), and Charles Daly (Harvard, 1898-1900, Army, 1901). As for Frank Hinkey, his recklessness on and off the field took a while to catch up with him. His life after college included marriage, stockbroking, and a stint as head coach of the Bulldogs in 1914 and 1915, the team’s first two seasons in the Yale Bowl. He died of tuberculosis in North Carolina in 1925.—Eds. For Yale football legend Frank Hinkey
On stealing speech I was distressed to read the comments of Sterling Professor Donald Kagan, my senior thesis advisor, regarding the apparent theft of the November issue of the conservative Yale Free Press (From the Editor, January/February). I strongly endorse Kagan’s statement: “We should be intolerant of this kind of intolerance.” However, the article went on to paraphrase his charge that the theft of a liberal publication would have provoked “an outcry and demonstrations on campus.” The right wing now dominates the national political dialogue, and has for nearly 25 years. Yet conservatives still portray themselves as victims of the “liberal” media, “liberal” academia, and other imagined oppressors. Professor Kagan and fellow conservatives, please: nobody likes a sore winner. Your editorial shows that diversity covers more than ethnicity. In a university it must also include political thought. If diverse political thought were honored by Yale, then there would be tolerance for the R.O.T.C. having classes on campus, for military recruiters having the same access as other recruiters, more conservative speakers without boycotts, more conservative professors, and a genuine exchange of ideas so necessary for a well-rounded education where students can make choices based on full discussions of subjects. Students must not be afraid for their grades based on biased professors and other students mocking their ideas with impunity.
Mandelbrot’s Yale past Benoit Mandelbrot’s current tour at Yale (“The Genius of the Unpredictable,” November/December) is actually his second. A few years back my father (Felix Zweig '38S, '41PhD) and I took his grandson to a science museum that happened to feature an exhibit on Mandelbrot sets. I was surprised when my father said, “I hired Benoit Mandelbrot once.” As Yale’s dean of electrical engineering and applied science in the 1960s, he had extended a visiting professorship to Mandelbrot. My father recalled, “Mandelbrot was a brilliant man. But no one could figure out exactly where he belonged: engineering, computer science, mathematics. He just seemed to wander around.” It is wonderful to see that an institution that honors Linnaeus, the god of all classifiers, should have invited back Mandelbrot, and that his contributions leave him still unclassifiable. Had the mandatory retirement law not cashiered my father from Prospect Street after 52 years of service to Yale, he might have given yet more. The relaxation of this law, a prescient sign for our generation, enabled you to write this fine article.
Yale and the military A year ago, there was considerable discussion in these columns about a faculty lawsuit seeking to keep JAG corps recruiters out of the Law School. (See “Law faculty wins suit over military recruiting.”) This last November, a Federal appellate court agreed with those faculty plaintiffs in a 2-1 decision. The Law School’s success in fending off the military follows 35 years in which the Yale administration has kept ROTC programs from the campus. There are numerous reasons for Yale’s antipathy towards our armed forces, including opposition to our nation’s foreign policy and disapproval of the laws governing sexual conduct in the military. I don’t want to argue those issues here. What concerns me is that, at a time when American volunteer soldiers from other universities and colleges are protecting this nation and dying in its defense, our university continues to discourage military recruitment of its graduates. Especially now, when international terrorism threatens our nation so directly, Yale’s policy is a scandal. Like many others in the 1960s, I served in the Vietnam War while harboring doubts about that conflict. Others honorably refused to serve and took the consequences. As an institution, though, Yale accommodated on-campus ROTC programs and military recruitment for those who wished to serve. Yale now seems quite willing to leave the nation’s defense to graduates of other universities and colleges. As a result, only a tiny number of current Yale students will ever join their generation in military service. Yale students continue to rally to the motto “For God, For Country, and For Yale.” As the years roll on, though, the “country” segment of that motto rings just a bit hollow.
Dating differently For a number of years now, your managing editor Bruce Fellman has been using BCE to refer to the years before the birth of Christ and CE to refer to the years after the birth of Christ, instead of the traditional BC (before Christ) and AD (year of the Lord). Why? Just curious! It’s not just Bruce Fellman—it’s magazine policy. We use the terms CE (“common era” or “Christian era”) and BCE (“before the common/Christian era”) as a matter of courtesy, because we serve an increasingly international and multifaith alumni body.—Eds.
Delivering a tribute As a Yale alumna and as a midwife, I was particularly interested in your article “Present at the Creation” (September/October). Cathy Shufro captured the spirit of Helen Varney Burst, who has touched the lives of so many patients, students, colleagues, and policy makers. What’s more, she is Yale’s very own and it will be quite a coup for Yale to be the first university to establish an endowed chair in midwifery, named to honor Helen’s life’s work and achievements in improving the health of mothers and babies. Since the School of Nursing is raising money to fund the Helen Varney Chair in Midwifery, I thought readers might like to know how to make a donation. Send contributions to Lisa Hottin, director of development at the Yale School of Nursing, P.O. Box 9740, New Haven, CT 06536-9740. Raising $2.5 million is no easy feat, but it is not impossible if we remember that this chair will have tremendous impact on Yale, women, babies, and families all around the world. Again, kudos to Cathy Shufro for shining the light of visibility on Helen, her work, and Yale’s continuing commitment to midwifery.
More on sports as metaphor A friend and Yale alumnus passed me a copy of the review of Michael Mandelbaum’s book, The Meaning of Sports (Arts and Culture, September/October), as he knew of my interest in the analogous properties of sport. Although the reviewer acknowledges Mandelbaum’s debt to “cultural theorist George Carlin,” he fails to record that the pre-industrial/industrial/post-industrial metaphor has been used by Robert Keidel in his 1985 book, Game Plans. Admittedly, Mandelbaum extends Keidel’s metaphor (sport to business) but I found no acknowledgement to Keidel in Mandelbaum’s book. Anybody who finds The Meaning of Sports interesting should also take the time to read Game Plans, which would be an excellent complement.
A governor no longer In “Election 2004 by the Numbers” (Light and Verity, January/February), you include Pedro Rossello '70MD among the Yale alumni governors. Dr. Rossello governed the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from 1992 to 2000. His administration was one of the most corrupt in the history of Puerto Rico, and at least 31 top government officials of his administration have been convicted and are currently serving prison sentences for corruption. In the recent 2004 elections, Dr. Rossello was soundly rejected by the Puerto Rican electorate. As a Yale alumna, I am ashamed that someone like Dr. Pedro Rossello graduated from our university. The list was supposed to include only governors currently in office. We regret the error.—Eds.
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