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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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In his quest for knowledge and doctrine, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan strove further than most. A Sterling Professor of History, Pelikan spent his life studying the history of Christian belief—even as his own beliefs evolved from the Lutheran tradition of his family to those of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which he joined in 1998. Pelikan, a historian of religion and author of many books on Christian dogma, died of lung cancer on May 13 at his home in Hamden, Connecticut. He was 82. The son of a Lutheran pastor from Slovakia and a Serbian mother, Pelikan grew up in Ohio learning three languages; he eventually mastered ten. He came to Yale in 1962 from the University of Chicago, where he had earned his PhD. During his 34-year tenure at Yale, he ventured to become an expert on the spectrum of Christian history, rather than focusing on a specific period or aspect of it, as did most of his colleagues. Pelikan “took an intellectual-history approach to religion,” says George Lindbeck, professor emeritus of historical theology. His writings dealt with topics as diverse as Reformation and Medieval philosophy, Saint Augustine, and Kierkegaard. Among general readers, he was known for bestselling books such as Jesus through the Centuries (1985) and Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (1996). He received numerous prizes for his work, most notably the Library of Congress’s Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences, sometimes described as a Nobel Prize for the humanities. With interests ranging from philosophy to legal theory to music, Pelikan “loved to discuss every aspect of everything he studied,” says Jon Butler, dean of the Graduate School. “He was not shy.”
Remembered Native New Yorker Alexander Capelluto '08 wrote that he hoped to “get a better sense of what America was like” on a cross-country bicycle trip for Habitat for Humanity this summer. But Capelluto didn’t make the trip: he was killed on May 18 in a bicycle accident in West Haven while returning from the Gilder Boathouse in Derby. Police say Capelluto’s bike collided with a truck, but the cause of the accident was unclear. Capelluto had rowed on the lightweight crew and helped organize relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. His sister Katherine was in the Class of 2004.
Honored The 2006 Pulitzer Prize board honored historian Edmund S. Morgan with a special citation in the 90th annual Pulitzer Prizes. Morgan, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, was cited for “a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century.” A popular teacher and prominent scholar of Puritan and colonial history, Morgan has also chaired the Papers of Benjamin Franklin project at Yale. President Bush, Pope Benedict, Yale professor Kelly Brownell, and the Dixie Chicks may not have too much in common, but they’re all on Time’s 2006 list of the world’s most influential people, which appeared in the magazine’s May 8 issue. Time calls Brownell, who chairs the psychology department and directs the new Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, “one of the leaders in the fight against childhood obesity,” a problem that could “cripple our country for generations to come unless significant changes are made.”
Elected Margaret Warner '71 has been elected by Yale alumni to a six-year term on the Yale Corporation, the university’s governing body. Warner, a member of the first class at Yale to include women, was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers before joining Newsweek in 1983. There she covered the White House and later was chief diplomatic correspondent. In 1993, she joined PBS’s NewsHour, where she is a senior correspondent. Eight Yale professors are among those elected this year to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Dudley Andrew, film studies and comparative literature; Donald W. K. Andrews, economics; Ian Ayres '81, '86JD, law; Judith A. Chevalier '89, finance and economics; Peter J. Novick, cell biology; John Roemer, political science and economics; Gordon Shepherd, neuroscience; and Nicholas Wolterstorff, philosophical theology. The new members will be inducted in October. Yale physicist Steven M. Girvin has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, studies the quantum mechanics of large collections of atoms, molecules, and electrons found in superconductors, magnets, and transistors. He is part of a team of Yale scientists investigating the feasibility of quantum computing. |
Student Prizes Joanna Mattis '06 was one of 11 graduating seniors nationwide to receive the prestigious Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship. The Churchill supports outstanding students in the sciences, mathematics, or engineering for one year of postgraduate study at Cambridge University. Mattis is the first Churchill Scholar from Yale since Margaret Ebert '03. Members of the Class of 2006 received a wide range of Yale prizes in the closing days of their senior year. Five students were honored for academic and artistic achievement: Sarah Scott Stillman—The James Andrew Haas Prize, for broad intellectual achievements, strength of character, and fundamental humanity. Jessica Ellen Leight—The Alpheus Henry Snow Prize for intellectual achievement, character, and personality; and the Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize, for the highest-ranking senior in the humanities. Anthony Zijian Xu—The Arthur Twining Hadley Prize for the highest-ranking senior in the social sciences; and the Russell Henry Chittenden Prize, for the highest-ranking senior in the natural sciences or mathematics. Satya Sorab Bhabha and Carl D'Apolito-Dworkin—The Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts. Four students received the Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize for outstanding dedication to public service: James Austin Broussard, Sarah Cannon, Sarah Scott Stillman, and Aaron Simcha Zelinsky. Five students won athletic awards: Michelle Quibell and Joslyn Woodard—The 2006 Nellie Pratt Elliot Award for the senior woman who, in athletics and in campus life, represents ideals of sportsmanship and Yale tradition. Julian Illingworth—The William Neely Mallory Award, for the senior man who, on the field and in life at Yale, best represents ideals of sportsmanship and Yale tradition. Matthew Boshart and Zac Bradley—The Amanda D. Walton Award for an outstanding athlete who has excelled in play and who has shown courage in transcending challenges. |
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