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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.

 

School Notes
A supplement to the Yale Alumni Magazine from the twelve schools of Yale.

School of Architecture
Robert A. M. Stern, Dean

www.architecture.yale.edu

The Yale School of Architecture is reaching out with both new and well-established programs.

Beyond architecture

Pairing an architect with a developer to teach an advanced studio, in a first-time collaboration at a school of architecture, the Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Architecture Fellowship gives architecture students the opportunity to learn the developer’s perspective and exposes the developer to contemporary directions in design. Initiated in spring 2005, the first studio teamed German architect Stefan Behnisch with Gerald Hines, of Houston and London, in a project to design a museum of fashion on a neglected site at the Piazza Repubblica Garibaldi in Milan. Students traveled with their teachers to Milan where they met with city officials and fashion leaders. The results of their semester-long studies were exhibited at the Milan Triennale gallery with the parallel work of University of Milan students. The second year’s fellowship, in spring 2006, brought together a team of London-based architects and engineers, including Lord Richard Rogers '62MArch, Malcolm Smith '97MArch of Arup, Chris Wise of Expedition Engineering, and developer Sir Stuart Lipton of Stanhope, LPC, to develop a master plan for Stratford, England, adjacent to the 2012 Olympics site. The Bass gift enables the publication of a book documenting each studio. The first in this series, Poetry, Property, and Place (2006), is distributed by W. W. Norton.

Community outreach

The Yale Building Project, begun in 1967, has involved students in the design and construction of a community-based structure. While the first project was for community facilities located in Appalachia, over the past 11 years the students have been working with Neighborhood Housing Services on affordable houses in New Haven. In honor of the project’s 40th anniversary, the school has embarked on a comprehensive archive of the projects and the publication of a book to be distributed by Yale University Press.

Environmental outreach

Recognizing the need of the architecture community to more innovatively engage sustainable design, the school has created a joint degree program with the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, beginning this fall. The two schools will offer individual and jointly organized courses, in design, technology, and policy, to provide students a strong knowledge base for transforming architecture with an eye towards environmentally sustainable goals. Students electing to take the joint four-year program will receive master’s degrees in both architecture and environmental management.

Traveling the world

Each semester students and faculty in advanced studios travel to various project sites in Europe, South America, and India, thanks to the Henry Hart Rice Fund in Architecture, which endows term-time teacher-directed student travel. The program has dramatically enhanced exposure of our students and faculty to international sites and cultures.

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School of Art
Robert Storr, Dean

www.yale.edu/art

Outgoing dean honored

Richard (Chip) Benson’s step-down from his decade as dean has been recognized by a number of contributions to the Yale School of Art, including an endowed prize, the Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography, as well as by a major collection of contemporary photographs contributed to the Yale University Art Gallery by such renowned photographers as Lee Friedlander, Philip Lorca-DiCorcia, and William Christenberry; and by substantial and historic scholarships, which will be announced later this year. Benson’s spirited leadership at Yale was hailed in an essay by Walker Evans Professor of Photography Tod Papageorge, given in November 2005 on the occasion of a surprise dinner for the dean. It was reprinted in the Commencement 2006 program and will be available shortly by mail to art alumni, and on the School of Art website this summer. Professor Benson will, after a short sabbatical, return to teach one day a week and head the Digital Media Center for the Arts, a laboratory for experimental work in digital sound, video, and printing which he helped to create seven years ago with free access for graduate and undergraduate students in the performing and fine arts.

Arrival of new dean

Robert Storr’s appointment as dean has been covered by this magazine, as well as other vehicles of the press. Storr comes to Yale from the University of Pennsylvania where he was Solow Professor of Modern Art, but he is best known for his dynamic tenure at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1990-2002). His arrival at Yale was described by the New York Post with the headline: “MOMA’s Boy New Yale Art Boss”—giving levity to this moment in our 143-year history. Subsequent issues of this column will offer details of the actions of this new dean and professor of painting.

School of Art website and bulletin

The current School of Art Bulletin of Yale University describes the academic programs of this corner of Yale, including faculty biographies, images of work, course descriptions, and demographic information on the student body; it is available online at www.yale.edu/art. The website is being revised this summer, and this column, as well as the site, will be trolling for information about alumni, current and former faculty, and students. You are invited to submit information by pen: Dean’s Office, P.O. Box 208339, New Haven CT 06520-8339; or by e-mail: sherisse.alvarez@yale.edu. Please indicate “attention” or “subject” for both as “School Notes.” Directions for connecting to the website will be available in the fall or by contacting dmichaelson@24sixth.net. Beyond our cloistered walls and pages, there has been substantial publicity on the significance, as well as market desirability, of contemporary work by Yale art graduates and faculty—and formal economics studies on the subject, such as conducted by Prof. David Galenson of the University of Chicago. In future issues this column will note important articles about the work of our alumni and faculty from major publications or institutions dealing with American contemporary art.

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Yale College
Peter Salovey, Dean

www.yale.edu/yalecollege

New program at Peking University

September 2006 will see the inaugural term of the Peking University-Yale University Joint Undergraduate Program. Each semester approximately 24 Yale sophomores, juniors, and first-semester seniors, and 24 Peking students from the Yuanpei Honors Program, will live together in a regular residence hall and study together in courses offered by Yale and Peking faculty. This is the first undergraduate program at Peking University in which American and Chinese students actually will live and study together. In order to appeal to a wide variety of Yuanpei and Yale students, course offerings will represent many fields and a broad cross-section of subject matter, including directed research in one of two joint laboratories located on the Peking campus that are managed by a Yale faculty member.

Curricular report implementation forges ahead

Yale College faculty and deans are moving forward the implementation of the Committee on Yale College Education (CYCE) report. Science and quantitative-reasoning offerings without prerequisites, designed for students with more limited backgrounds in those fields, included ten new courses for 2005-06, such as “Geometry of Nature,” “Math, Music and Mind,” and “Stem Cells: Science and Politics.” Courses with intensive writing components in philosophy, biomedical engineering, and political science have received high praise. These initiatives, in combination with international initiatives, a freshman seminar program that is expanding to 35 courses, new arts offerings, a new journalism program, and increasingly active writing, language, and science centers, show that the new curriculum has robust support.

Yale students study abroad

Opportunities for summer study, work, research, and internship opportunities abroad have expanded at a tremendous rate, and a projected 750 Yale students are studying abroad this summer. Yale Summer Sessions is offering courses this summer in Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Prague, Mombassa, Amelia (Italy), Sardinia, Croatia, Panama, Vienna, Paraty (Brazil), Bilbao (Spain), and Singapore. With new funding available, and financial help in place for those who receive term-time financial aid, more than 300 students have won fellowships for summer study all over the world. Internship programs are providing more than 160 placements in 21 countries, in high-profile financial and business organizations, technology, journalism, teaching programs, art museums, and advocacy groups.

Yale wins unprecedented 11th NCAA silver anniversary award

Susan D. Wellington '81 was one of six athletes honored by the NCAA during its annual convention in Indianapolis last January. She received the Silver Anniversary Award, which recognizes former student-athletes who have distinguished themselves since completing their college careers 25 years ago. Wellington competed in softball at Yale, and served as a captain and all-American in swimming. She is a former president of Gatorade and currently a director of the CDW Corporation, and has been named to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal’s Top 10 Most Powerful Women in Sports, Brandweek’s Power 50, and Crain’s Business “Top 40 under 40.”

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Divinity School
Harold W. Attridge, Dean

www.yale.edu/divinity

Divinity School selects first William Sloane Coffin Jr. Scholar

On the very day that former Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. died, Rahiel Tesfamariam put a letter in the mail accepting the Divinity School’s offer to name her as the first recipient of the William Sloane Coffin Jr. Scholarship—a newly created scholarship for students who exhibit Coffin’s “prophetic leadership, his passion for justice, and his critical theological interpretations of the contemporary social and political scene.” Tesfamariam, raised in the South Bronx and Washington, D.C., after a childhood in war-torn Eritrea, served until July 2005 as editor-in-chief of the Washington Informer, an African American-owned newspaper circulating in the District of Columbia region, and describes herself as dedicated to “movements pushing for social change.” In January 2005 she was a member of a 12-person African American Leadership Delegation on a fact-finding mission to Sudan, where she visited the Zam Zam Camp in North Darfur. Coffin, who preached a social justice and anti-war message from the Battell Chapel pulpit during the 1960s and 1970s, died at his home in Strafford, Vermont, on April 12. Details about the Coffin Scholarship can be found on the Divinity School website at www.yale.edu/divinity/coffin/.

Boards of Divinity School, Forestry & Environmental Studies press religion and environment agenda

Heaven and earth nudged a little closer April 20-21 when the advisory boards of Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies met in a joint session to take up the topic “Faith and the Environment.” The first-ever joint meeting of the YDS Board of Advisors and the FES Leadership Council sounded a clarion call for stronger collaboration between environmentalists and the faith community. “I do think that there is cause for hope,” said Mary Evelyn Tucker, the main speaker and a leading academic in the realm of religion and ecology, “and a significant amount of it lies in this room.”

Emilie M. Townes in line to serve as president of American Academy of Religion

Emilie M. Townes, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School, will serve as president-elect of the 10,000-member American Academy of Religion in 2007, putting her in line to assume the presidency the following year. As president, Townes will become the first African American woman to head the academy, the world’s largest association of scholars who teach or research topics related to religion. Her studies involve “womanist theology,” in which the insights of African American women are engaged with the traditions of Christian theology.

Yale Divinity School group visits Israel and Palestine

Despite potential dangers, a group of 23 Yale Divinity students, faculty, and staff traveled to Israel and Palestine December 27-January 8 as part of a Holy Land travel seminar. Since then, members of the group have shared impressions of their trip with the wider YDS community, both in public presentations and private conversation. Jenny Ott '06MDiv said she and her fellow travelers returned “with a better understanding of how to think theologically about conflict, how to hold a position in conflict, how to practice mediation, and how to address oppression here [at home].” The concept of the Yale Divinity travel seminar dates to 1988, when Letty Russell, then a professor of theology and now professor emerita, took a student group to Kenya. Alumni and friends interested in supporting the Ecumenical Travel Seminar fund may contact the YDS Office of Development at 203-432-5358.

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School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean

www.yale.edu/drama

The Carlotta Festival of New Plays

Carlotta Monterey, the widow of Eugene O'Neill, dedicated proceeds of Long Day’s Journey into Night to playwriting at Yale University. In honor of her generosity, the School of Drama has established the annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays, which presents work by current playwriting students at the school in fully mounted productions. The inaugural festival (May 5-14) included new plays by Nastaran Ahmadi '06, Tarell Alvin McCraney '07, and Alena Smith '06. See page 46 for more.

80th anniversary alumni weekend

Rocco Landesman '65Dra, producer of The Producers and Angels in America, among others, delivered the keynote address at the School of Drama Alumni Weekend May 12-14, setting the stage for provocative panel discussions about the future of theater. Former dean of the school and founder of Yale Repertory Theatre Robert Brustein led the panels, along with David Chambers, an international director and faculty member at the school; Joan Channick '89MFA, managing director of Theatre Communications Group, a theater advocacy organization; and Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Shubert Organization. Returning alumni also enjoyed the Yale Rep production of All’s Well That Ends Well directed by Dean James Bundy '95MFA and Mark Rucker '92MFA, as well as the Carlotta Festival of New Plays.

Yale playwrights at Yale Rep

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones '04MFA was one of three finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The play, written while Jones was a student at the School of Drama, had its East Coast premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2004. Earlier this year, Yale Rep produced the world premiere of dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory by Marcus Gardley '04MFA, which also began its life at the school. Starring Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper, it is the first play from Yale Rep’s new commissioning program to reach full production. This fall, Yale Rep will present The Mistakes Madeline Made, a new comedy by Elizabeth Meriwether '04BA.

Leading nonprofit arts administrator returns to Yale

Edward Martenson, a vice president at National Arts Strategies, a group providing leadership and education to arts and cultural organizations, became chair of the theater management department on July 1. Previously, Martenson held senior-level management positions at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; National Endowment for the Arts; and Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre, where from 1979 to 1982 he served as co-chair of theater administration and managing director. “Yale School of Drama was one of my first professional homes, nearly 30 years ago. … I am delighted to work alongside its talented students, faculty, and staff full-time,” says Martenson. “It is my hope to elevate the ability of management students to think in sophisticated ways about the most complex problems that challenge any leader, and thereby raise the bar for management practice in the theater field.”

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School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
James Gustave Speth, Dean

www.yale.edu/forestry

Yale F&ES galvanizing national action on climate change

Last October, the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies convened 110 leaders and thinkers, including former vice president Al Gore and NRDC executive director Frances Beinecke '71, '74MFS, in Aspen, Colorado, to address one of the greatest practical and intellectual challenges of our time: climate change. Thirty-nine recommendations for action came out of the event—ranging from creating a new institution for delivering independent scientific information, to improving K-12 students' understanding by promoting climate change study within science curricula—which the school is now implementing through the Yale F&ES Project on Climate Change. A newly published report, Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action, provides a synthesis of insights and the recommendations. You can download a copy at http://environment.yale.edu/climate.

Promoting biodiversity conservation in tropical forests

An environmental leadership and training program will educate conservation field workers, park managers, environmental policymakers, and community leaders and officials in tropical forests in Asia and Central and South America, thanks to a $4.8 million gift from the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund. The Tropical Resources Institute at F&ES, in partnership with the Smithsonian, will help build the environmental conservation and management capacity of individuals, communities, and institutions in regions of high biological diversity in tropical forests.

Identifying new conservation methods

Student interns will be researching new ways to protect open space, as part of the Yale Program on Strategies for the Future of Conservation. It is the result of a $1 million gift to the Environment School by Forrest Berkley '76BA, an inveterate hiker and naturalist who retired from GMO, a money management firm, in January. Berkley’s gift provides $700,000 for a permanent endowment for environment school internships in land conservation. The remaining $300,000 will fund an annual national conservation leadership seminar for three years.

Green building design program

A new advanced-degree program that puts a green spin on architectural design will be offered at Yale in the fall. The program focuses on sustainable, restorative environmental design, which seeks to minimize adverse effects on the natural environment and human health and enhance the beneficial contact between people and nature in buildings. Students in the four-year 126-credit program will take 90 course credits at the School of Architecture and 36 credits at F&ES, and upon graduation will receive master’s degrees in architecture and environmental management.

Book offers solutions to managing global environmental threats

Global Environmental Governance (Island Press), by F&ES dean Gus Speth and political scientist Peter Haas, examines ten major environmental threats and explores how they can be addressed through treaties, governance regimes, and new forms of international cooperation. The book also cites the serious shortcomings of existing laws, treaties, and institutions that were intended to help solve large-scale environmental problems. It is part of an F&ES series entitled “Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies.” Dean Speth’s previous book, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, won the 2005 Connecticut Book Award for nonfiction.

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Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Jon Butler, Dean

www.yale.edu/graduateschool

Increased financial aid

Dean Jon Butler recently announced significant improvements in financial aid for students in all PhD programs. The standard nine-month stipend for entering and continuing students in the humanities and social sciences will increase 5.5 percent to $19,000 for the 2006-2007 academic year. University Dissertation Fellowships will also increase to $19,000. Stipends for entering and continuing students in the sciences, which depend on field of study, will increase by similar amounts. These stipends are awarded for five years and are in addition to full tuition waivers, which are given for all years that tuition is charged.

All students in years one through five in the humanities and social sciences are now eligible for three summers of stipend support at $3,500 each summer. Teaching fellowships will increase by six percent ($130) per TF unit.

The Graduate School, which already subsidizes half the cost of spousal/partner/family health care, will now cover the full cost of insuring children through the Yale Health Plan.

These enhancements are intended to “advance Yale’s commitment to its graduate students and strengthen the programs that make Yale among the world’s preeminent graduate and research institutions,” said Dean Butler.

Honoring advisers

Every year since 2000, the Graduate School has given the Graduate Mentor Award to three faculty members, one from each division, to recognize teachers and advisers who have been exceptional in their support of the professional, scholarly, and personal development of students. This year’s honorees, selected by a faculty-student committee from well over 100 nominations, are professors Michael Della Rocca, philosophy; Teresa Treat, psychology; and Peter Parker, physics. The awards were presented at the Commencement Convocation on May 21, when student prizes were also distributed.

Meeting of (great) minds

J. Robert Roscioli, a graduate student in chemistry, attended the 56th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, in June, with support from the Department of Energy Office of Science. He joined an elite delegation of American students who were invited to attend this annual gathering. Since 1951, Nobel Prize winners and young researchers from around the world have come together for a week to futher Alfred Nobel’s vision of international harmony through knowledge. Roscioli’s dissertation research explores the fundamental physics underlying the way in which water interacts with charged species such as electrons and ions. His adviser is Mark A. Johnson.

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Law School
Harold Hongju Koh, Dean

www.law.yale.edu

Yale Law Journal symposium on executive power

From the response to Hurricane Katrina to the controversies over NSA wiretapping, theories of executive power have moved over the past year from the academy to the headlines. The Yale Law Journal’s March symposium, “The Most Dangerous Branch: Mayors, Governors, Presidents, and the Rule of Law,” brought together leading legal scholars to discuss these issues and to question new and existing theories of executive power. “We hope that the papers and discussions generated by this event will push theories of executive power beyond the traditional paradigms,” said the Law Journal’s editor, C. J. Mahoney '06JD.

Three Join Yale Law School faculty

Heather K. Gerken, Michael J. Wishnie '87BA, '93JD, and Yair Listokin '05JD have been appointed to the Yale Law School faculty, commencing July 1, 2006. Gerken previously taught election law and constitutional law at Harvard Law School; Wishnie, who taught at NYU, is a nationally known expert in immigration law; and Listokin, who has a PhD in economics, specializes in law and economics.

Hurricane Relief Law Project

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Yale Law School students founded the Hurricane Relief Law Project to help citizens in the Gulf Coast region. The students directly represent clients and provide support to existing groups in the area. They are working to defend the rights of the incarcerated, repair the public defender system, and ensure that juries represent a fair and accurate cross-section of affected communities. Other students have helped to support new charter schools and explained housing rights to citizens.

Hamdan briefs by YLS faculty and students

Several Yale Law School faculty filed amicus, or friend-of-the-court, briefs in the Guantánamo Bay detainee case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Supreme Court recently heard in a challenge to the Bush administration’s use of military tribunals for foreign terror suspects. In addition, ten YLS students assisted Hamdan’s lawyer, Neal Katyal '95JD, in preparing his Supreme Court brief. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had held that Guantánamo Bay detainees may be tried by military commissions. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since May 2002, was once Osama bin Laden’s driver. Dean Koh was counsel of record on one brief. Professors Judith Resnik, Bruce Ackerman '67JD, and William Eskridge also filed briefs.

Two Yale Law alumni on Supreme Court

In January 2006, Samuel A. Alito '75JD became the 110th justice and the sixth graduate of Yale Law School to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, joining Associate Justice Clarence Thomas '74JD. The previous four YLS graduates on the Supreme Court were: Sherman Minton '16LLB, who served on the court from 1949 to 1956; Abe Fortas '33LLB, who served on the court from 1965 to 1969; Potter Stewart '37, '41LLB, who served on the court from 1958 to 1981; and Byron White '46LLB, who served on the court from 1962 to 1993.

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School of Management
Joel Podolny, Dean

www.mba.yale.edu

New MBA curriculum

The SOM faculty unanimously approved a sweeping MBA curriculum reform plan in March. A new core curriculum for first-year students will be implemented in the 2006-2007 academic year. While the management profession has changed profoundly in recent decades, management education has not. This interdisciplinary curriculum will provide Yale MBAs with the skills to work effectively and lead in today’s private, public, and nonprofit organizations.

The new core will be divided into three segments: Orientation to Management, Organizational Perspectives, and Integrated Leadership Perspective. Organizational Perspectives will replace traditional functional courses (Marketing and Finance, for example) with multidisciplinary courses structured around the constituencies a manager must engage and work with in order to solve problems—or make progress—within an organization.

As news of the reform has spread, SOM has seen a substantial increase in the percentage of admitted applicants who choose Yale over other schools. The school is providing regular updates about the new curriculum online at mba.yale.edu/curriculumreform.

Senior organizational-behavior professor joins SOM faculty

James N. Baron, a preeminent scholar of organizational behavior, joined the SOM faculty July 1. He was previously the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Baron has published in leading sociology, economics, and organization journals, and his wide-ranging research interests have included human resources, organizational design and behavior, and social stratification and inequality. He was co-director of the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, a large-scale longitudinal study of entrepreneurial firms in Silicon Valley. Read more at mba.yale.edu/newfaculty.

A year full of conferences

Recent conferences sponsored by Yale SOM explored the interrelationship of business, management, and society. Healthcare 2006 featured discussions about the ethical and political questions that emerge from innovation in the health sector. The China Industry Conference at Yale examined the core industries that are shaping China’s future. Partici-pants at the Future of Philanthropy conference shared ideas on how to put capital to use for positive societal impact.

Representatives of industry and academia met at the fifth annual Private Equity Conference, organized by the school’s Private Equity student club. The Yale Center for Customer Insights sponsored its second annual conference, on the topic of Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Research. And the first Yale Global Governance Forum, sponsored by the Yale Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, brought together 60 influential voices in governance reform from around the world.

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School of Medicine
Robert J. Alpern, Dean

www.med.yale.edu/ysm

Options for the uninsured

Students in the health professions at Yale have launched a free weekly clinic in the city’s Fair Haven section for residents who lack health insurance. Each patient is seen by a team of students and an attending clinician from the Fair Haven Community Health Center or a faculty member from the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, or the physician associate program. For students, the clinic is a way to make a difference. Rachel Solomon, the clinic’s phlebotomist and a second-year medical student this fall, says that although many students talk about traveling abroad to do humanitarian work, “there’s a real need in our own community.”

From protein studies to patients

In 1991, pharmacology department chair Joseph Schlessinger and a German colleague, Axel Ullrich, founded Sugen, a biotech company focused on translating basic discoveries about cell signaling into potential cancer therapies. In January, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug created by Sugen, which was acquired by Pfizer Inc. in 2003. The drug, a multi-kinase inhibitor known as sunitinib (trade name: Sutent), is approved for metastatic kidney cancer and a rare stomach cancer known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor, or GIST. Since coming to Yale five years ago from New York University, Schlessinger has recruited six new faculty members and overseen the construction of new quarters for pharmacology in a wing of Sterling Hall of Medicine.

The art of observation

Sherlock Holmes had nothing on these master detectives. Police from New York City to London are looking at art to become better cops, thanks to a program developed in 1997 when Irwin M. Braverman '55MD, professor of dermatology, teamed up with Linda K. Friedlaender, curator of education at the Yale Center for British Art. Worried that the basic observational skills of physical examination might be waning in this high-tech era, Braverman wondered if looking closely at art might help young physicians be better observers in the clinic. Now, each spring, Yale medical students visit the museum for three hours to study and describe paintings, then apply their enriched observational vocabulary to images of clinical conditions they are likely to encounter during their careers. The Frick Collection in New York invited members of the New York City Police Department to take similar training, and 500 city officers attended sessions. The resulting publicity brought an invitation to the Frick’s Amy Herman to deliver a presentation on the method at Scotland Yard.

An MD, a PhD, and a promising path

In 1964, the federal government decided the training of physician-scientists was so important that it created a network of sites around the country to fund and integrate studies for MD students who would also earn a PhD. Yale was one of the first institutions to host the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and remains one of the premier locations, graduating about ten students each year. Federal funding for the program has lagged in recent years, leaving universities to find alternate sources to cover expenses for students, who spend eight years in the program on average. An anonymous $2 million gift announced in March will help cover costs not paid by the MSTP and will also make it possible to recruit top international candidates, who are not eligible for U.S. aid.

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School of Music
Robert Blocker, Dean

http://music.yale.edu

Decanal news

President Levin announced on May 1 that Robert Blocker returns to Yale as dean of the School of Music in July. (See Light & Verity, page 13, for more.)

World premiere in Steinway Hall

Yale composer and former music dean Ezra Laderman saw his Interior Landscapes for two pianos premiered in New York City’s Steinway Hall. The April 18 recital was the second concert in that venue and one of four this year designed by acting dean Thomas Duffy to increase the Yale music school’s presence in New York. Laderman was elected president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters on January 24, the sixth composer to be so honored.

Carnegie Hall times three

For the Philharmonia’s April 30 concert in Carnegie, Chinese cellist Jian Wang '88CertPF was flown in from Pori, Finland, to play the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1. At age ten Wang appeared with violinist Isaac Stern in the celebrated documentary From Mao to Mozart, and later came to study at Yale with Aldo Parisot. Music director Shinik Hahm also conducted New Era Dance—the wild roller coaster of a piece by Yale composer and Pulitzer prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis. On October 15 Yale piano professor Peter Frankl will perform at Carnegie with the Philharmonia to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising. And on December 9, in Carnegie’s state-of-the-art Zankel Hall, a program of Martin Bresnick’s music will celebrate his 25 years at the school (30 at Yale) and his turning 60. Bresnick was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters on March 1.

Following the line

In May, professor Willie Ruff '53MusB, '54MusM, visited Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a film crew to interview and record the singing of members of the Muskogee Creeks, a Native American tribe whose church traditions include a variant of the a cappella “line singing” that Ruff had realized also connects churches in the Scottish Hebrides, Appalachia, and the Deep South (www.willieruff.com).

Returning the favor: the Moscow exchange

Professors Boris Berman, piano, and Ransom Wilson, flute, with Ryosuke Yanagitani '04MusM, '05ArtA, performed at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in late May. Thomas Duffy accompanied them to complete a Yale-Moscow exchange coordinated by Mr. Berman: conservatory rector Tigran Alikhanov and a student had performed at Yale last December, also participating in a public panel on music education. The school has established other partnerships with conservatories in Beijing, China; Mannheim, Germany, Budapest, Hungary; and two in Seoul, Korea.

Making music in the public schools

The School of Music can broaden its programs for music education in public elementary and secondary schools, thanks to a $2.5 million gift from Donald Roberts '57, whose Yale College class has launched a $5 million campaign with that purpose. Acting dean Duffy observed, “Part of our mission is to contribute to the advancement of music education by training musicians who can succeed as performers and composers and pass along their knowledge of and love for musical expression to the next generation. This gift will help us fulfill that mission.”

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School of Nursing
Margaret Grey, Dean

www.nursing.yale.edu

Dean Grey elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies has elected Dean Margaret Grey to membership. Of a total active membership of 1,461, only 60 nurses have been elected. Other members include YSN professor Ruth McCorkle and former dean Donna Diers, as well as several YSN alumni. Election to IOM recognizes those who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. It is considered one of the highest honors in these fields. Dean Grey is an expert in behavioral aspects of diabetes care in children and in childhood obesity prevention.

Nursing conference addresses chronic conditions

YSN, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Mahidol University in Thailand recently hosted an international nursing conference in Bangkok that addressed prevention and management of chronic conditions. “Prevention and Management of Chronic Conditions: International Perspectives” was the first conference to bring together top scholars from throughout Asia, Europe, and North America to discuss the role of nursing research and practice in helping families and communities around the world manage chronic conditions. The three-day event focused on such topics as the influence of globalization on health, chronic illness across the lifespan, complementary and alternative therapies for chronic illness, family caregiving, and access to and delivery of care in chronic illness. More than 550 delegates from 16 countries attended.

New online specialty prepares RNs for healthcare leadership

A new master’s specialty in nursing management, policy, and leadership will prepare nurses for leadership positions in health care delivery and health policy, areas that are essential for transforming health care systems and improving population health. “The program is based on the belief that management and policy are the important determinants of the operations of health care systems, and that change in such operations has become a national priority for the improvement of quality and patient safety,” said Dr. Sally Cohen, program director. The specialty features innovative web-based methods combined with intensive monthly campus sessions, designed to be responsive to students' busy personal and professional lives.

 
 

 

 

 

Note to Readers

The Yale Alumni Magazine carries this supplement in every issue for news from Yale’s graduate and professional schools and Yale College.

This supplement is underwritten by the university and is not produced by the magazine staff but provided by the schools.

 
 
 
 
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