Yale Bulletin
and Calendar

October 26-November 2, 1998Volume 27, Number 10


























French novelist to present talk about exile

Leïla Sebbar, author of numerous novels, essays and collections of photographs, will present a lecture in French, titled "L'Exil, mémoire de l'oubli" on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 4 p.m. at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St. Refreshments will be available following her talk, which is free and open to the public.

Sebbar, who lives in Paris, has devoted her writing to the subjects of love and violence on the North and South shores of the Mediterranean. Her eight novels and numerous novellas are concerned primarily with the topic of North Africans living in exile or growing up as "Beurs," second-generation offspring of Algerian immigrants. Sebbar's "Shérazade" trilogy rewrites the Western tradition of Orientalism through the eyes of a young woman who refuses to be made into an "other."

Sebbar's lecture is sponsored by the French department's Center for Interdisciplinary French Studies and by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Former state legislator will discuss U.S. and U.N.

Irving Stolberg, who served more than two decades in the Connecticut House of Representatives and is currently president of the Connecticut division of the United Nations Association, will be the guest at a tea on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 189 Elm St. His talk, titled "The U.S. and the U.N.: On the Brink of Disaster," is free open to the public.

As principal of International Solutions for the past five years, Stolberg has served as a democracy adviser to numerous goverments around the world, principally in Central and Eastern Europe. During his 22 years in the Connecticut House of Representatives, he served two terms as Speaker of the House and one as House Minority Leader. He also was president of the National Conference of State Legislatures. More recently, he has helped expand the number of chapters in the state's United Nations Association from four to seven.

NBA basketball player to be guest at tea

Professional basketball player Joe Wolf will be the guest at a tea on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 189 Elm St. The public is invited to attend, free of charge.

Wolf, who played college baseketball at the University of North Carolina (he was a freshman when Michael Jordan was a senior player on the same team) began his professional career in 1987, when he was picked by the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. He has since played with a number of teams, including the Boston Celtics, the Portland Trailblazers, Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic, the Milwaukee Bucks and, most recently, for the Denver Nuggets.

CEO of J.P. Morgan to deliver Gordon Grand Lecture

Douglas A. Warner III '68, chair of the board, president and chief executive officer of the global banking firm J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, will visit the campus on Thursday, Oct. 29, as a Gordon Grand Fellow. At 11:45 a.m., he will deliver the Gordon Grand Lecture on the topic "Managing a Global Financial Firm in an Era of Crisis and Opportunity" in the General Motors Room of Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave. Later that day, at 4:30 p.m., he will be the guest at a tea in the Morse College master's house, 99 Tower Pkwy. Both events are open to members of the Yale community. Seating is limited to 200 people at the lecture and 100 people at the tea.

Warner became head of J.P. Morgan in 1995. He served as president and chief operating officer, as well as a director of the company, 1990-94. He began his career at Morgan after graduating from Yale by completing the firm's management training program. During the next 15 years he held positions of growing responsibility in a variety of banking areas, including serving as assistant general manager and head of banking in the London office. He became general manager of the London office and Morgan's senior officer in the United Kingdom in 1986. He returned to New York in 1987 to take charge of Corporate Finance in the Americas and, later in the year, of the worldwide Corporate Finance group, one of Morgan's major business divisions.

Outside magazine editor to give slide lecture about predators

"The Improbable Lion, and the Ultimate Fate of Ultimate Predators" is the title of a talk being presented on Thursday, Oct. 29, by David Quammen '70, editor at large for Outside magazine. His talk, which is free and open to the public, will begin at
4:30 p.m. in Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St.

Quammen's slide lecture will draw on work from his forthcoming book about large, solitary predators and will examine, in particular, the Asiatic lion's long-term prospects for survival in the Indian forest sanctuary known as Gir, the only place on Earth where that subspecies of lion survives.

Quammen began his career as a columnist for Outside in 1981, and his nature essays and other work won two National Magazine Awards. Among his eight books are "Natural Acts," "The Song of the Dodo" and "Wild Thoughts from Wild Places," which have won numerous awards, including the Academy Award (Literature) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Great Britain's BP Natural World Book Prize.

Microsoft executive to deliver Sheffield lecture in engineering

Nathan Myhrvold, chief technology officer and member of the Executive Committee at Microsoft Corp., will present the next Sheffield Fellowship address. His talk, titled "The Future of Software," will be presented Thursday, Oct. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in Sudler Auditorium of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be followed by a reception in the Presidents Room, Woolsey Hall, corner of College and Grove streets. D. Allan Bromley, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, is the sponsor of the fellowship program.

Myhrvold reports directly to Microsoft chief executive officer Bill Gates, and is responsible for the broad strategic and business planning for the entire company. He leads the Advanced Technology and Research Group, providing technical leadership for the more than $2-billion-a-year investment made in research and development across the company. He founded and continues to manage Microsoft Research, a research lab dedicated to creating new technology for personal computing. Myhrvold joined Microsoft as director of special projects in 1986. He has also conducted research with renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, and currently works during periods of time off as an assistant chef at one of Seattle's leading French restaurants.

Quality in child care is subject of Bush Center talk

Deborah Lowe Vandell, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, will give a talk titled "Child Care Quality: Does It Really Matter?" on Friday, Oct. 30, at noon in the weekly lecture series sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Rm. 119 of the Hall of Graduate Studies,
320 York St.

Vandell has concentrated her research on child care for more than 10 years. She is a principal investigator on the national study of early child care funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and is a member of the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. She has also conducted two multi-year studies of the effect of after-school care on children's development. She is particularly interested in child care quality and the needs of low-income children. Vandell began her career as a kindergarten teacher in Walpole, Massachusetts. She has taught in the department of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin since 1989 and was formerly an associate professor in psychology and human development at the University of Texas at Dallas.

For further information, call 432-9935.