More news of Yale people

Appointed

 James Levinsohn, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, has been named the first director of Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Levinsohn, who will also teach in the School of Management, focuses his research in international economics, industrial organization, economic development, and applied econometrics. The Jackson Institute will offer courses and other programs as part of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.

Honored

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences conferred the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal on four alumni on October 6: Michael S. Levine '81PhD, a genetics researcher at UC-Berkeley; Richard J. Powell '88PhD, a scholar of African American art at Duke; William J. Willis '54, '58PhD, a particle physicist at Columbia; and Laura L. Kiessling '89PhD, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Association of Yale Alumni has chosen five alumni to receive the 2009 Yale Medal for outstanding service to the university. The honorees are Stephen Adams '59, who donated $100 million to make the School of Music tuition-free; former Yale Corporation trustees Frances Beinecke '71, '74MFS, and Charles D. Ellis '59; Southern California alumni leader Carlos Moreno '70; and volunteer fund-raiser Eve Hart Rice '73. They will be honored at the AYA Assembly in November.

Remembered

Gaylord Brewster Noyce '52BD, who taught practical theology at the Divinity School from 1960 to 1994, died of Parkinson's disease on August 10 at his home in Hamden, Connecticut. He was 83 years old. Noyce, a Congregational minister who was arrested in Alabama in 1961 while taking part in a Freedom Ride, concentrated on the pastoral aspects of ministry. He also served as the Divinity School's first dean of students.

James E. Dittes '54BD, '58PhD, a professor at the Divinity School whose teaching and scholarship addressed the intersection of psychology and religion, died at his home in Hamden on August 24 at the age of 82. Dittes, the Roger J. Squire Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology, was a Baptist minister who taught aspiring clergymen and -women about interaction with their parishioners. He began teaching at Yale in 1955.