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School NotesSchool NotesA supplement to the Yale Alumni Magazine from the fourteen schools of Yale.
School of Architecture Celebrating an architect’s legacy A retrospective exhibition celebrating Stanley Tigerman ’60BArch, ’61MArch, opens the 2011–12 season at the School of Architecture Gallery. Titled ‘Ceci n’est pas une reverie’ [This isn’t a dream]: The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman, the show takes a thematic approach, grouping Tigerman’s projects according to motifs that resonate throughout his work: “utopia,” “allegory,” “death,” “humor,” and “division.” Featured are original paintings, sketches, and cartoons; household objects designed by Tigerman; and models of projects that exemplify his evolving style, along with videotaped interviews, lectures, and archival material dating to his student days at Yale. Tigerman, a principal of the Chicago-based firm Tigerman McCurry Architects, has designed buildings and installations throughout North America, western Europe, and Asia. He has been a visiting professor at Yale and Harvard and was director of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago for eight years. In 1994 he and Eva Maddox founded Archeworks, an alternative design school in Chicago. The complete archive of Tigerman’s drawings will be housed in the Yale University Library’s manuscripts & archives department beginning in 2012. Lectures highlight fall events A series of events at the school is bringing prominent speakers to campus this fall, including Joel Kotkin, an authority on global, political, eonomic, and social trends, and author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. Kotkin will present the Brendan Gill lecture, “The American Landscape in 2050,” on October 20. Visit the website for the complete list of the semester’s lectures, films, and symposia.
School of Art Faculty happenings New faculty at the School of Art include three departmental directors and a professor in painting. Jim Hodges has been named director of sculpture for academic year 2011–12, taking over from Jessica Stockholder ’85MFA, who left for the University of Chicago. An installation artist, Hodges holds an MFA from the Pratt Institute and a BFA from Fort Wright College. Gregory Crewdson ’88MFA is the director of photography for 2011–12 while Tod Papageorge is on leave and phasing in his retirement. Crewdson came to the faculty in 1993 and most recently was professor (adjunct) of photography. Searches will commence during the coming year for permanent appointments to these positions. Meanwhile, Professor Rochelle Feinstein, who first joined the faculty in 1994, begins a three-year term as director of painting, and Anoka Faruqee ’94 is named associate professor in painting. Alumnus represents Iraq at Biennale The country of Iraq has not taken part in the Venice Biennale since 1976, but this year it sent six artists to represent their home country at the prestigious festival’s 54th international art exhibition. One of those artists is painter Ahmed Alsoudani ’08MFA, who came to the United States in the 1990s to study art. Alsoudani and the five other artists are creating and showing their work in the Pavilion of Iraq in an exhibition entitled Wounded Water: Six Iraqi Artists Interpret the Theme of Water, which is on view through November 27. As explained on the Biennale website, the theme is timely since “the lack of water is a primary source of emergency in Iraq, more than civil war and terrorism.” Alsoudani told the New York Times how great it feels to represent his country: “It shows people that there is more to Iraq than just war.”
Yale College New director of Career Services As she begins her first full academic year as associate dean and director of the office of Undergraduate Career Services (UCS), Allyson Moore is eager to better serve students by integrating her office more fully into the campus community. Since her arrival last spring, Dean Moore has assembled a team of 12 peer advisers who will bring a UCS presence into the residential colleges. She also has been working to expand and strengthen UCS relationships with alumni. Moore comes to the dean’s office with 20 years of career development and recruitment experience in academia and business, including previous work at the School of Management. Sampling “Directed Studies for Life” Over the summer, 15 Yale alumni and parents took part in the inaugural Directed Studies for Life program, inspired by the intensive first-year undergraduate curriculum of the same name. Led by eminent Directed Studies instructors, students explored texts central to the Western tradition—works from classical antiquity through the twentieth century—in daily lectures and small seminars on literature, philosophy, history, and politics. The group also took part in special outings—including a private session to view Yale University Art Gallery’s collection of ancient coins—and receptions hosted by Dean Mary Miller and President and Mrs. Levin. Engineers Without Borders For the past five years, the Yale student chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has made numerous trips to the village of Kikoo, Cameroon, to plan and construct a gravity-fed water distribution system. This past May five Yale students built a model latrine in Kikoo and prepared foundations for two additional latrine sites in the village. While there, the students also celebrated the Kikoo group’s recent honor as recipients of the Premier Project Award at the international EWB conference, which their partners in the village were unable to attend.
Divinity School New faces in administration Two new administrators bring extensive experience with them to their roles at the Divinity School. Maggi Dawn, an accomplished author, musician, and theologian from the University of Cambridge, is the new associate dean for Marquand Chapel and associate professor (adjunct) of theology and literature. She previously served at Cambridge’s Robinson College and Kings College, where she oversaw the well-known Christmas programs Carols from Kings on BBC TV and theFestival of Nine Lessons and Carols on BBC Radio. Lucinda A. Huffaker, executive secretary of the Religious Education Association, will direct YDS’s supervised ministries program. She served for more than a decade as associate director and then director of the Indiana-based Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Faculty appointments Jennifer Herdt has been appointed the Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, succeeding Margaret Farley, who retired from the faculty in 2007. Herdt joined YDS in 2010 after 11 years on the faculty of theology at the University of Notre Dame. Her primary interests are in early modern and modern moral thought, classical and contemporary virtue ethics, and contemporary theological ethics and political theology. Meanwhile, Christopher Beeley ’94MDiv, the Walter H. Gray Associate Professor of Anglican Studies and Patristics, has been granted tenure. Beeley joined YDS and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in 2003 after one year as an assistant visiting professor at YDS and one year as a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Washington and Lee University. He teaches early Christian theology and history and modern Anglican tradition. YDS students travel in China A group of 14 students visited China in May on a YDS travel seminar, accompanied by assistant professor of Asian theology Chloë Starr and associate dean of admissions and financial aid Anna Ramirez. Included on the trip were visits to seminaries, rural and urban churches, Confucian temples, and mosques, in addition to famous sites such as the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Tomb of Genghis Khan. The trip, said Jesse Zink ’12MDiv, allowed the group to “meet people in their own context, listen, and learn what they had to say. It’s these kinds of trips that build the unity of the worldwide body of Christ one relationship at a time.”
School of Drama At the Tony Awards School of Drama alumni were represented with two wins and an additional six nominations at the 2011 Tony Awards, which were handed out on June 12. Lynne Meadow ’71MFA, artistic director of Manhattan Theatre Club, was nominated as producer of Best Play nominee Good People starring Frances McDormand ’82MFA, who received the award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress. Director Anna D. Shapiro ’93MFA and scenic designer Todd Rosenthal ’93MFA were both nominated for their work on The Motherf**ker with the Hat.Scott Pask ’97MFA received the award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for The Book of Mormon; Derek McLane ’84MFA was also nominated in the same category for Anything Goes. In the Best Costume Design of a Play category, Jess Goldstein ’78MFA, who teaches at the School of Drama, and Catherine Zuber ’84CDR were nominated for their work on The Merchant of Venice and Born Yesterday, respectively. Premieres and classics at Yale Rep Yale Rep’s 2011–12 season opens in September with two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl’s new version of The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. A coproduction with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it played earlier this year, the play is directed by Les Waters, who also staged Ruhl’s Eurydice at the Rep in 2006. The season also includes the world premieres ofBelleville by Amy Herzog ’06MFA, directed by Anne Kauffman, who staged last season’s world premiere musical, We Have Always Lived in the Castle; and Pulitzer Prize finalist Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses, directed by Sam Gold. Both plays were commissioned by Yale Rep through the Yale Center for New Theatre. Christina Anderson ’11, who just received her MFA in playwriting, will make her Yale Rep debut with the world premiere of Good Goods. Liz Diamond, chair of the directing department, will stage Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, and Christopher Bayes, head of physical acting at the school, returns to the Rep to direct a new production of Moliere’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself.
School of Engineering & Applied Science Providing hands-on design experience A new Center for Engineering Innovation & Design at SEAS aims to expose Yale students in all majors to principles of innovation and the practice of interdisciplinary collaboration. The center, directed by design industry veteran John Morrell ’86, will house an inventory of state-of-the-art machine tools, instruments, and equipment to support biomedical, chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering projects, including design, modeling, manufacturing, and testing activities. Innovative in form and function, the center will be an open and accessible space in a high-profile facility featuring areas for instruction, team meetings, computer-aided design, fabrication, and assembly. Spanning graduate and undergraduate education, the center’s offerings will include introductory design courses open to all Yale students and multidisciplinary capstone design courses for engineering majors. While a new 8,500-square-foot facility is being designed and built, the center’s activities will commence this fall in existing space at SEAS. First honorary engineering degree Yale presented its first honorary doctor of engineering and technology degree to inventor and computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart during the 310th commencement ceremonies in May. A trailblazer in the field of computing, Engelbart is credited with many technological firsts, including the invention of the computer mouse. The first mouse, unveiled in 1963, featured two wheels attached to an analog device set in a wooden box and wired to an early computer workstation. Five years later, Engelbart and colleagues demonstrated a computer with a keyboard, screen, mouse, and head-mounted microphone—the basis for the world’s first personal computer, the Altair, and the precursor of the technology necessary for Internet-based computing. The honorary degree citation reads, in part, “As the inventor of the mouse, you put computing into our hands, creating a user interface that the world now takes for granted. … By making science useful to all, you have been the quintessential engineer.”
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Center will study climate in China The environment school is collaborating with the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) to conduct joint research on atmospheric and climate sciences. Researchers with the Yale-NUIST Center on Atmospheric Environment in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, will investigate land-use change in China and its impact on the climate system, teach methods of conducting environmental research, measure the transfer of water and energy between the atmosphere and polluted Lake Taihu, and analyze the various sources of carbon dioxide and water in the air. “The emphasis will be on examining science and policy questions relevant to local and regional economic development that, at the same time, have the potential for fundamental theoretical advances,” said Xuhui Lee, professor of meteorology at F&ES. Jiangsu Province has the second-largest economy in China. Air and water pollution and natural-resource depletion are rampant there as a result of rapid urbanization, road expansion, and industrial growth. Americans’ views on climate change When it comes to climate change, Americans fall into one of six categories of differing attitudes and behaviors, according to a recent study by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. Nearly 40 percent of American adults fall into the two groups most concerned about climate change: the ‘Alarmed’ and the ‘Concerned.’ By contrast, 25 percent are in the two groups on the other end of the spectrum, the ‘Dismissive’ and the ‘Doubtful.’ The researchers found that more than 75 percent of the ‘Alarmed’ and ‘Concerned’ groups say that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, while over half of the ‘Doubtful’ and ‘Dismissive’ say it’s natural, and an additional 43 percent of the ‘Dismissive’ say it’s not happening at all. According to the report, many Americans remain uncertain about the issue and say they could easily change their minds about global warming, with the ‘Disengaged’ and ‘Cautious’ being the most uncertain of the six groups. Many want more information before making up their minds.
Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Snapshot of the incoming class Nearly 600 future scholars and scientists enrolled at the Graduate School this fall, chosen from a pool of 10,778 applicants. Ranging in age from 20 years to 62 and coming from dozens of countries, the new students include 437 who are pursuing PhDs and 162 in master’s degree programs. The most populous PhD programs are engineering & applied science, with 45 matriculants, followed by molecular cell biology, genetics, and development, with 35. Physics and political science each has 23 new students, and chemistry and history have 21 apiece. International relations is the largest master’s degree program, with 37 new students enrolled. Alumna is dean at Simmons College Renée T. White ’95PhD (sociology) has been appointed dean of the Simmons College School of Arts and Sciences, effective September 1. At Simmons, she will lead both undergraduate and graduate programs, and oversee educational leadership, financial management, faculty and curricular review and development, tenure and promotion, campus-wide strategic initiatives, community outreach, and resource development. A prolific writer, White is the coauthor of three books, including the acclaimed Spoils of War: Women of Color, Cultures, & Evolutions, and author of Putting Risk in Perspective: Black Teenage Lives in the Era of AIDS. Prior to her current position, White was a professor of sociology and black studies at Fairfield University, where she served as the university’s first academic coordinator for diversity and global citizenship. Exploring galaxies Yale astronomers have looked into the distant universe and discovered that galaxies display one of two distinct behaviors: they are either “awake” or “asleep,” actively forming stars or not forming any new stars at all. Graduate student Kate Whitaker is lead author of a paper published in the June 20 online edition of the Astrophysical Journal that describes the research. Her team’s survey of the distant universe shows that even very young galaxies 12 billion light years away are either awake or asleep, meaning that galaxies have behaved this way for more than 85 percent of the history of the universe. The researchers spent 75 nights peering into the distant universe and collecting light from 40,000 galaxies, creating the deepest and most complete survey of its kind ever made.
Law School New faculty at YLS Three alumni recently joined the faculty at the Law School. Anne Alstott ’87JD, who taught at YLS from 1997 to 2008 and served as deputy dean in 2002 and 2004, returns as a professor of law specializing in taxation and social policy. She previously taught law at Harvard and Columbia and twice won the Yale Law Women teaching award. James Forman Jr. ’92JD comes to YLS as a clinical professor of law. He teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and education law. He previously worked for the Public Defender Service in Washington, DC. And David Singh Grewal ’02JD joins as an associate professor of law, focusing on international trade law, intellectual property law and biotechnology, and law and economics. He was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and received his PhD from Harvard in 2010. Two receive endowed professorships Roberta Romano ’80JD has been named a Sterling Professor of Law, one of the university’s highest faculty honors. She is the first woman at the Law School to receive this honor. Romano joined the YLS faculty in 1985 and since 2005 has been director of the school’s Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Henry Hansmann ’74JD, ’78PhD, has been named the Oscar M. Ruebhausen Professor of Law. Hansmann joined the YLS faculty in 1983. He left in 2003 to teach at NYU and returned to Yale in 2004. His scholarship has focused principally on the law and economics of organizational ownership and design. Law School mourns professor emeritus Professor Emeritus Charles Elias (“Eli”) Clark ’43, ’47LLB, a beloved member of both the university and Law School communities, died on June 11 at age 89. A specialist in the field of law pertaining to the transfer of family wealth, Clark was the Lafayette S. Foster Professor Emeritus of Law, a longtime master of Silliman College, and a World War II veteran. A member of the YLS faculty since 1949, he was known for his storytelling, lecturing style, and wry sense of humor, and his estates course remained immensely popular for more than 40 years. He retired in 2004 after more than 55 years of service.
School of Management New dean begins term On July 1, Edward A. Snyder assumed the role of dean and William S. Beinecke Professor of Economics and Management at SOM. Snyder succeeds Sharon Oster, who will return to the SOM faculty and resume her role as a teacher and scholar. Snyder is an accomplished business school dean, having previously served in that role at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and antitrust economics. Program samples MBA experience The Pre-MBA Leadership Program, now in its third year, brings more than 40 college students to the SOM campus each June for a taste of the first-year MBA curriculum. The initiative is aimed at developing the leadership potential of underrepresented minority students and helping them to gain a better understanding of the benefits of a management education. For two weeks the students experienced what it’s like to be an MBA student. This year, with support from Goldman Sachs Gives—a donor-advised fund available to partners and former partners of Goldman Sachs—the program included a one-day trip to Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City, where students got an inside look at one of the world’s leading financial companies and met with the firm’s executives. Goldman Sachs personnel also hosted a résumé review session for the program’s participants. Measuring financial risk In a recent working paper, Gary B. Gorton, Frederick Frank Class of 1954 Professor of Management and Finance, and two collaborators propose a system for gathering and disseminating measures of risk in the economy. In “Risk Topography,” Gorton and his colleagues say that the financial crisis of 2007–08 made it clear that the current systems of national income reporting, developed in response to the Great Depression, are insufficient for understanding a financial system that includes derivatives and off–balance-sheet vehicles. They propose that the new Office of Financial Research, created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, collect information from financial institutions about the effects on their stability of various extreme scenarios.
School of Medicine Advancing stem cell science A recent gift to the Yale Stem Cell Center from the Li Ka Shing Foundation will fund improvements in two of the center’s four core laboratories. In the human embryonic stem cell facility, the donation will support the introduction of induced pluripotent stem cell technology, which will bring scientists closer to tailoring patient-specific cells for the treatment of disease. The gift will also fund the replacement of the genomics core’s Illumina sequencer with a newer model, as well as the hiring of a new research associate and the enhancement of analytical software. Microbiologist honored Jorge Galán, Lucille P. Markey Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, professor of cell biology, and chair of the section of microbial pathogenesis, has won the 2011 Robert Koch Award, one of the highest honors in microbiology, for his work on the mechanisms of infection by food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella and Campylobacter. These bacteria cause millions of cases of infectious gastroenteritis worldwide each year. “With his fundamental research on mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis [Galán] contributed substantially to the foundation of cellular microbiology as a scientific field,” stated the award citation from the Robert Koch Foundation, based in Berlin, Germany. He and members of his lab study the molecular “cross-talk” that occurs between pathogens and their hosts during infection. Leader in vascular biology appointed as Gilman Professor William C. Sessa, a leading researcher on blood vessel function and vascular disease, has been designated as Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology. Sessa’s research focuses on the vascular endothelium, cells that line all blood vessels and form the largest endocrine organ in the human body. His laboratory is investigating the factors, including genes, that can cause dysregulation of the endothelium and contribute to cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis and other diseases. He is also using proteomics techniques to discover novel proteins that may regulate blood vessel function. Sessa joined the Yale faculty in 1993 as an assistant professor of pharmacology and has been a full professor at the School of Medicine since 1999. He serves as director of the interdepartmental vascular biology and therapeutics program and as vice chair of the Department of Pharmacology. Sessa has authored or coauthored more than 200 research articles or papers.
School of Music Norfolk Festival The Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival celebrated another summer of education and performance. The season opened June 12 with a gala appearance by the renowned King’s Singers. The pianist Jeremy Denk, who has earned exceptional acclaim for his recent recording Jeremy Denk Plays Ives, performed Ives’s “Concord” Sonata. (Ives, a lifelong Connecticut resident, was a member of the Yale College Class of 1898.) For the first time, dancers took the stage in the historic Music Shed: Full Force Dance Theater performed original choreography to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, conducted by faculty member Ransom Wilson. The 2011 season closed with another stellar guest ensemble, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with music director Nicholas McGegan. The festival also continued its decades-long tradition of providing professional, intensive training to gifted young musicians in three programs: the New Music Workshop, the Chamber Music Session, and the Chamber Choir and Choral Conducting Workshop. New York Series features Walton Opera A highlight of the upcoming Yale in New York concert series will be a performance of William Walton’s The Bear, a one-act opera based on a Chekhov short story. William Boughton, a Walton expert and music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, will conduct the performances, which will also feature singers from Yale Opera and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale. The autograph sketches of The Bear, along with nearly all of Walton’s original manuscripts, reside in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library as part of the Frederick R. Koch Collection. San Francisco Opera oremieres work by YSM faculty San Francisco Opera will present the premiere of Heart of a Soldier, a new opera by faculty composer Chris Theofanidis ’94MusAM, ’97MusAD, with libretto by Donna DiNovelli. The premiere takes place on September 10; the work was commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Heart of a Soldier, based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize–winning author James B. Stewart, tells the story of Rick Rescorla, who successfully evacuated Morgan Stanley’s 2,700 employees from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Wanting to look for others in the building, he went back in and was killed when the tower collapsed. Baritone Thomas Hampson will sing the role of Rick Rescorla, and Patrick Summers will conduct the performances at War Memorial Opera House.
School of Nursing YSN professor recognized by Nursing Academy Associate professor Jacquelyn Taylor has been selected as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN). Fellowship in AAN is awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions and achievements in the nursing profession. Taylor focuses her research on addressing health disparities in hypertension among African Americans, and has studied both genetic and environmental influences on blood pressure. She will be inducted as a fellow during the AAN’s annual meeting and conference in Washington, DC, in October. Nightingale awards for two professors The Visiting Nurse Association of South Central Connecticut honored two Yale School of Nursing professors in May with its Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing. Laura Andrews, an assistant professor of nursing, is also a senior acute care nurse practitioner in the critical care medicine department; at the same time she manages the medical rapid response team at New Britain’s Hospital of Central Connecticut. Deborah Fahs, a lecturer at the school, has been at Yale since 2007 and is highly regarded as an educator. First textbook on sleep disorders Nancy Redeker, professor and associate dean for scholarly affairs, recently edited the textbook Sleep Disorders and Sleep Promotion in Nursing Practice with Geoffry Phillips McEnany. This is the first comprehensive, evidence-based resource for nurses on the prevention and treatment of sleep disorders, along with the promotion of healthy sleep habits. Focused on individuals and families across the lifespan and in multiple health-care settings, the volume presents core knowledge, latest scientific findings, and clinical guidance for assessment and intervention.
School of Public Health Dean reappointed for second term Paul D. Cleary has been appointed to a second term as dean of the School of Public Health, effective July 1. In his announcement, President Richard C. Levin ’74PhD praised the school’s “steadily upward trend” during the dean’s first term. He noted that Dean Cleary has made impressive progress in developing and expanding the school’s public health service and practice activities, and that a sustainable model for community service activities has been created through the new Office of Community Health, which focuses on regional programs aimed at improving the health of New Haven area residents. In addition, the school has established the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE), a transdisciplinary “bench to bedside to community” collaboration with the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation and the City of New Haven’s municipal offices, school system, and community organizations. Bioethics program created in China The School of Public Health will lead a five-year effort at Central South University, Xiangya School of Medicine in Changsha, to train Chinese scientists and health-care professionals in the ethical challenges of health-related research. The Yale-China partnership will allow for the development of graduate-level curricula in international research ethics and the development of a cohort of Chinese scholars who can teach bioethics to future students. The program was launched with a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center. “The goal is for Central South University and its affiliated health professional schools to become a center for excellence for bioethics,” said Kaveh Khoshnood ’89MPH, ’95PhD, an assistant professor at YSPH and the project’s principal investigator. Retired blue-collar workers have higher BMI Laborers and other workers in traditionally blue-collar jobs have a “significantly” higher body mass index after retirement than their peers who worked in management and other executive positions, a study by the School of Public Health has found. Researchers led by Ralitza Gueorguieva, a research scientist in biostatistics, compared body mass index (BMI) patterns for workers in four broad occupational groups: professional, sales and clerical, the service industry, and laborers. They found that retired white-collar workers have no significant change in their BMI after retirement, while the BMI of their blue-collar peers increased significantly post retirement. The findings, says Gueorguieva, may help medical professionals inform individuals about the risks of weight gain in retirement. The study appeared in the International Journal of Public Health.
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