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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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Positive and Less Positive Reinforcement Thank you for publishing Carlo Rotella’s article about Professor Alan Kazdin (“Breaking the Tantrum Cycle,” September/October) In the last hour, I have both finished reading the article and purchased a copy of Professor Kazdin’s book, Parent Management Training. My 16-month-old son is just beginning to understand that he can refuse to cooperate, and this article appeared just as I was beginning to understand how easy I had had it up to now! I hope that Professor Kazdin does choose to follow the way of popularity, at least to the extent of writing a book aimed at parents rather than therapists. The article made me think back to a shorter piece in the same issue about a study finding that both humans and monkeys avoid loss more aggressively than they seek gain. Professor Kazdin’s system of bubbles avoids this trait—which would seem to work against his tactic of positive reinforcement—by removing the negative from the possible outcomes, and replacing it with a neutral outcome. In the controlled economy of bubbles, a child who misbehaves neither gains nor loses; a child who behaves, gains. Where’s the beef? The September/October cover story proclaims that “Science has help for the problem child.” Yet no science is presented in the long-winded piece inside. The author’s description of the process borders on psychobabble: “The power of PMT lies in the systematic arrangement into a resonant whole of largely unexceptional details and the principles that animate them.” To the contrary, personal, anecdotal, as well as other vagaries are presented. Either this is social science aspiring to be real science or the author has short-changed Dr. Kazdin by promising science yet presenting none. Neither is acceptable. The timing is unfortunate. As the evangelical right is attempting to insinuate intelligent design into mainstream education as alternative science, the Yale Alumni Magazine has muddied the waters by presenting something as science that it fails to deliver on. To its students, educators, and alumni, Yale needs to reinforce that the intellectual world is divided into two major categories. Scientific thought moves forward via the scientific method (hypothesis, experimentation, conclusion) to establish verifiable facts, while the world of philosophy (theology, logic, rhetoric, psychology, etc.) encompasses everything else. Fewer and fewer students enter pure science. Yale is better known for its humanities than for its science. If it wants to correct this problem, it needs to clarify what real science is. As a former neurochemical research scientist, as a physician, and as the frustrated father of a son with attention deficit disorder, I have a vested professional and personal interest that this subject be covered properly. The editors disappointed me. Carlo Rotella’s fine article about Dr. Alan E. Kazdin’s inspiring work contains one generalization which compels me to respond. Rotella writes, “Some children with conduct disorders also have other disorders that respond better to different treatments, like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, for which medication is the treatment of choice.” This comment reinforces the notions that there are no alternatives, no side effects, and no long-term risks. Untold numbers of families are quietly achieving success with nutritional and alternative approaches. For the children who are truly incapable of self-control, merely removing specific food additives can work wonders. Enzymes and homeopathy can also be amazingly effective. Then, of course, good parenting skills have a sporting chance.
Image control
What is a poor photo editor to do? She has a pleasant image of Yale’s university chaplains for a series about the range of religious experience at the college (“Gods and Man at Yale,” May/June). Her problem: The chaplains are men. She knows that this will cause a furor and, as evidenced by letters from Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio '03, '06MDiv, and Rev. Clare Robert '01STM in the July/August issue, it certainly did. But what is the proper ratio of male to female that will prevent a feminist wound? If fifty-fifty is always required, does she keep the four chaplains and add four female associate chaplains? If, on the other hand, she starts jettisoning a chaplain here and a chaplain there in order to reduce the male population, who goes first? The easiest solution, as I noted in my column in the October 17 Weekly Standard, is to get rid of the university chaplains entirely and find an all-female photo. And if this picture runs, the editor will receive not one letter from an incensed male reader complaining that he did not see himself “represented” on the cover. Until the feminists can develop a similar degree of immunity to the terrible traumas that daily life inflicts, they should nurse their fragile egos at home and not even think of engagement in anything as bruising as, say, Supreme Court politics. “Gods & Man at Yale” did not mention religious studies, yet classes in that department influenced my life profoundly. Anthropology, sociology, and psychology of religion, and an introduction to world faiths opened horizons far beyond the Congregational tradition that ran in my family. Study of Gnostic documents revealed new aspects of early Christian thinking. I shall always be grateful in particular for the skill of Wayne Meeks in interpreting the social world of the New Testament, and for Jamie Ferreira’s disentangling of philosophers of religion. The only thing the department lacked was an avenue for students to explore the effect of that learning on our own lives. Chaplain John Vannorsdall and Associate Chaplain Donna Schaper gave generously of their time to help me do that. My early working life as a United Reformed Church minister and an interfaith project worker in the UK owed a great deal to the example of pastors I met at Yale—including Bill Coffin’s question to the Class of 1978: “Who tells you who you are?” My present life as a spiritual agnostic working in a Christian organization owes even more to the sound teaching and the honesty of the religious studies department. I wonder if these days the department has direct links with faith organizations on campus. In the 1970s there seemed to be a sharp division between the “objectivity” required for religious studies and the “subjectivity” of faith. Yet neither objectivity nor subjectivity is so absolute! I’d be interested to hear from other religious studies graduates about the benefits and challenges they are experiencing.
Shakespeare from a Swede Your editorial comment in the July/August edition (From the Editor, on The Yale Shakespeare) brought back some of my fondest memories of my Yale experience. Ten years out of high school, most of it spent in the Marine Corps, I still remembered the terrors of calculus and trigonometry as I looked at Yale’s eight divisional requirements: Logical Thinking burned my eyes. But wait: what’s this? History of the English Language. With relief I made the acquaintance of a merry Swede, Helge Kokeritz. With his love of Shakespeare, he enlivened his lectures with somewhat extraneous comments, such as (to him) laughable efforts on the part of Harvard’s Kittredge to expunge the carnal aspects of Shakespeare’s deliberately sexual remarks. In 1954 the Yale University Press published a facsimile edition of Shakespeare’s works. I’m sure you’ll relish the work, and you’ll find Charles Tyler Prouty’s introduction most informative.
No scandal in profit It is interesting to note that there has been little change in the past 17 years at the School of Management. In the March 1987 Yale Alumni Magazine, there was a feature article called “Ethics in the Boesky Era—How SOM Sees the Scandal Boom.” I was provoked then to send a long, impatient response. In the July/August issue, a short article entitled “When Yale Means Business” (Light & Verity) quotes SOM alumni as saying, “You don’t have to be competitive to succeed,” and “cooperation … is more important than being competitive and aggressive.” I submit (again) that “cooperation and competition are not at all mutually exclusive. The prime objective of a business is to make a profit—intelligently and honestly.” Advanced business training should provide students with, to quote again from my 1987 remarks, “an understanding and appreciation of the highly moral and infinitely beneficial elements of competition that are so essential to providing the best products and services to all of the people at the lowest possible cost.” Teach students that “profit” and “competition” are honorable, useful words. Social awareness by corporations is nice, but survival to be successful with the above goals is primary.
Fare critique I consider the Ian Ayres study referenced in “Why Cabbies Might Discriminate” (Findings, July/August) a case of faulty attribution (or denial of white privilege cum blame-the-victim). Further, the idea of a “teach black people to tip” campaign is condescending and outrageous. Anecdotally speaking, I’d say cab drivers (in the Northeast) don’t pick up African Americans because there is an assumption that African Americans live in neighborhoods that are high-crime and farther from the city center (e.g., Brooklyn, Harlem, the Bronx) and, chances are, after traveling a long distance to drop a customer off, there won’t be a return fare. New Yorkers of all races have learned the “trick” of not telling a cab driver that they’re going to Brooklyn or Queens until they get into the cab; otherwise, the cab driver will come up with an excuse not to drive there. However you slice it, not picking someone up because you assume they are going to rob you or assume they live in a particular neighborhood or assume they won’t tip well is a matter of discrimination. I’m surprised that a lawyer from a top law school would try to skirt around and simplify such a nuanced justice issue. A study of cab driver behavior should also take into consideration perceptions of class and gender and variations from city to city. For example, are African Americans in professional attire more likely to be picked up? Do African American women find it easier to get a taxi than African American men? Do cab drivers in cities like Atlanta (where there is a large and visible African American middle class) exhibit these same behaviors? What are they teaching up there? The power of the almighty dollar? Tipping isn’t required. It’s a courtesy. I thank God that I’m pursuing a PhD and will soon be able to publish studies that require a little more thought and social observation.
Plato, Click, and Clack Warren Goldstein’s article “What Would Plato Do?” (July/August) rightly defends the value of a liberal arts education. However, despite brief nods to the intrinsic and social value of such an education—it makes a more total person, it creates a critically thinking voting public—the vast majority of the piece focuses on the bottom line. That is, Yale’s humanities graduates have gone on to head major companies, and such business executives value a liberal arts education for its cultivation of analytical thinking, verbal and writing skills, and an ability to manage people. The professional utility of the liberal arts is, of course, important justification, but it strikes me that a full defense of the liberal arts should emphasize its value as a thing-in-itself. The liberal arts are valuable to our own development as thinking people, to our society, and to humanity. This value cannot always be measured, but it is equally important in its defense. Mr. Goldstein refers to Click and Clack, the Tappit brothers, as a part of his thesis that art history majors and other liberal arts graduates would make perfectly fine corporate leaders. Possibly. I only point out that the right word is tappet, which is (or was) an important part of an internal combustion engine (and which often went “click” and “clack” if not adjusted properly). I don’t have a clue about tappit, but it sounds to me like a Charles Dickens derivative. It’s okay if Mr. Goldstein and his followers want to work in boardrooms, but don’t let them do manufacturing or even write manuals where some technical understanding is useful and where accuracy and precision with language are important.
Black after Yale In response to Llewellyn Miller’s thoughtful reflection on the experiences of blacks at Yale (News from Alumni House, July/August), I’d encourage African American alums to participate in the Yale Black Alumni Network, which, although not sponsored by Yale University, is an organization committed to serving the interests of current students and alums, as well as the university in its goal of pursuing meaningful and productive diversity.
Happy birthday, SML I very much enjoyed “The Heart of the University Turns 75” by Judith Schiff (Old Yale, September/October). As an undergraduate at Yale in the early 1980s, my adventurous girlfriends and I enjoyed exploring every rooftop of every Yale building we could get to. On the roof of the Sterling Library sits a little structure that tops the elevator shafts. It was built in a strikingly different architectural style than the rest of the building. The story I heard was that the architect was at a cocktail party when the library was partly built. A woman beamed at him, going on and on about the magnificence of the project, and how beautiful it would be, and then asked, “But tell me, how did you ever calculate for the weight of the books?” The architect said some fumbling words of pseudo-explanation while he panicked internally—thinking that the huge mass would have to be factored in as a considerable mass to support. Supposedly, they had to chop off a few stories from the original plans in order to make up for the book weight, and thus had to cap off the elevator shaft with the grim little leaded glass house. I don’t know if this is true, but it makes a great tale. This is a classic Yale legend, its charm hardly diminished by the fact that it is mostly untrue. The library tower was in fact intended to be much taller, but it was cost, not an engineering mistake, that led to the reduction. (The university and the Sterling estate chose to sacrifice book storage space in order to preserve the elaborate decorative program.) Shortening the tower meant that the mechanical equipment on top would be visible from the ground, so the rooftop village was designed to conceal it.—Eds. The article on the library’s 75th anniversary dredged up some memories. When I entered Yale I was just 16, only ten years older than the Sterling Memorial Library. Linonia and Brothers drew me in and I spent major time in one of those leather divans or, weather permitting, in the tranquil courtyard nearby, reading five to six randomly selected books each week. A lifelong addiction ensued. The rest of my time that first year, unfortunately, was spent exploring the underbelly of New Haven. Class attendance and work were not priorities and I ended the year on probation and general warning. At midterm my sophomore year, however, Dean Loomis Havemeyer informed me that the faculty—very reluctantly—had put me on the Dean’s List. I was the first student in the history of the Sheffield Scientific School to go from one extreme to the other in such a short span. He asked how I did it, and I replied that I now went to all my classes, did my work, and went to every open lecture I could. One of those classes was with Chauncey Brewster Tinker. Ms. Schiff called him “commanding.” Indeed, he was Olympian. Each lecture was a gem. The words were part of an integrated work of art. I recall Tinker, his watery blue eyes flashing, as he held an ancient document, shaking in his somewhat palsied hand, admonishing us each to go the Rare Book Room and see and touch the documents that underlay our culture. Such lectures and the hours in L&B let me see what the world could be (and, still, is not). They started my education. Yes, the Sterling Memorial Library is the “heart of the university,” and after reading Judith Schiff’s story, I cannot resist recounting an “encounter” there when a graduate student back in 1964, doing research on my thesis, “French Policy towards the Chinese in Madagascar.” In the course of doing extensive readings on Madagascar, I discovered, in the main library, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, by Estienne de Flacourt. Borrowing it, I found I had in my hands an original edition, published in 1658. Realizing what I had, I took it to a local copy shop, had a copy made for me, and returned the original to the library, telling the librarians it belonged to the rare book collection. I never have had the time to confirm that it did indeed make it there, but I sure hope it did so others might treat this priceless book with respect. The original, which no longer circulates, now resides safely in the Beinecke.—Eds.
No bravas for Bryant How typical of Yale to fawn over Louise Bryant (“The Bohemian, the Bolsheviks, and the Old Blues,” September/October), a Bohemian intellectual who, like so many intellectuals of the 1920s, failed to see the barbarism of Communism—even though she was right there while mobs beat people to death. Not only did Louise Bryant admire Communism, she typically ridiculed anyone who expressed the least skepticism about it. And as if her political life were not sufficiently wrong-headed, her personal life was a calamitous mess: she was a bad wife and a bad mother. What is it about Yale that currently puts it so frequently on the wrong side of tyranny and moral sloppiness?
And the living is academic I read in the September/October issue that “the sleepy summer campus is a thing of the past”—part of the caption for a picture of students identified as those here during the summer from the Exploration program for high school students. I’d like to inform you and your readers that Yale Summer Session (formerly Summer Programs) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and that the summers at Yale since 1975 have been anything but sleepy. Ours is a Yale program, separate from Explo, and this past summer we had about 1,100 students here taking Yale College courses for credit. Half of them were regular Yalies. It’s a good way to get pre-med requirements out of the way or just to take that Shakespeare course that never fits into a busy schedule otherwise. We also invite students who are not currently at Yale, including Yale alumni, to spend five weeks on campus to study and enjoy one or two of over 130 courses that we offer. The summer here at Yale is relaxed, but it’s certainly not sleepy.
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