Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 20, 2001

Volume 29, Number 27

"If a large, sophisticated Chinese spy plane were flying regularly between Seattle and Los Angeles, 13 miles off the coast, I think the U.S. would be furious. One of our pilots would 'buzz' that plane like hell."

-- Sterling Professor of History Jonathan Spence, "Chinese Students Chide U.S.," New Haven Register, April 12, 2001.

"The danger now is that, under the guise of enhancing liberal-arts education for undergraduates -- in universities feeling the pressure of corporate quarterly bottom lining here and abroad -- a new kind of managerialism will train and seduce the most talented undergraduates into ways of knowing the world that render whole populations invisible and whole dimensions of ourselves inaccessible while providing gloomily complacent characterizations of human nature that aren't half as realistic as modelers insist."

-- Lecturer in political science Jim Sleeper in his article,"Harvard's New Leader, Global Capitalism and the Liberal Arts," The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 13, 2001.

"There's already a huge wage differential between skilled and unskilled workers in this economy. A lot of people forget that 75 percent of American adults do not have a college degree. That wage differential will continue to grow, and it's going to force many of those people back into school to get training. These people already have jobs and can't afford to take four years and go off to a university. Distance learning and e-learning will be a great way to deliver it to them."

-- Visiting associate professor of economics David Collis, "Motto of New Century: A Student for Life; Getting Education Will Be An Ongoing Adult Pursuit," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 8, 2001.

"The problem with a lot of the information out there is that the authors are ideologically straightjacketed. They're writing from the point of view that the market is either good or it's bad. It's not that simple -- nothing about economics is simple."

-- Sterling Professor Emeritus of Economics & Political Science Charles Lindblom, "Business by the Books," New Haven Register, April 8, 2001.

"In some ways we're reinventing what nature might have produced three billion years ago and seeing if it's useful in biotechnology."

-- Assistant professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology Ronald Breaker, "Yale Creates RNA 'Biochip,'" New Haven Register, April 12, 2001.

"As children go from elementary to middle to high school, their interest in learning goes downhill."

-- Professor Emeritus of Psychology Seymour B. Sarason, "Topic of the Day: The Making of a Great Teacher," The New York Times, April 4, 2001.

"I don't want to save bits of paper any more, nor computer disks nor videotapes, nor do I wish to care about whether my home computer is compatible with my office computer, or about any other such boring and preposterous compatibility questions. I want my life to be perfectly organized, and I want to spend no time whatsoever organizing it."

-- Professor of computer science David Gelernter, "New Software Aims to Render Obsolete Tired Old File Folder Model," The Associated Press, April 8, 2001.

"Ginsberg talking is like Charlie Parker taking his saxophone out for a spin at the far reaches of harmony and rhythm; reading him is the mental equivalent of being driven at top speed down a winding mountain road. Long lines of thought unspool in image after startling image, gradually weaving themselves into argumentative structures of stunning density, originality and depth."

-- Assistant professor of English William Deresiewicz in his review of Allen Ginsberg's 'Spontaneous Mind,' "First Thought, Best Thought; These Interviews With Allen Ginsberg Remind Us That He Was A Master of Improvisation," The New York Times, April 8, 2001.

"[If the chicken pox vaccine's] use is fairly widespread, the potential is there to totally eradicate the disease."

-- Postdoctoral fellow in infectious diseases Marietta Vazquez, "Chicken Pox Vaccine 85% Effective," Chattanooga Times/Chattanooga Free Press, March 29, 2001.

"Over the last hundred years stocks have gone up fairly reliably. But the United States was the most successful country for the 20th century. It probably won't be the most successful country the next time. If you look at stock markets around the world, the U.S. market has been a stand-out. So I think it's excessively optimistic to think that we'll do as well again."

-- Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics Robert J. Shiller, "Expert Bull, Bear Argue Future of the Dow," The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo), April 6, 2001.

"There are a lot of reasons why we have to keep a very close eye on China. China is proliferating with weapons of mass destruction selling to countries like Iran and Iraq. China is threatening Taiwan. To not surveil to China in a legal way would be irresponsible. So China, if it worries about having its privacy snooped upon, has to understand why that's occurring."

-- Professor of law Ruth Wedgwood, "Spy Plane Standoff: Should the United States Apologize to China?" CNN Talkback Live, April 4, 2001.

"Unless you know what's going on inside the department, it all looks perfectly reasonable. If a woman is a star there aren't that many problems. If she is as good as the rest of the men, it's really pretty awful. A woman is expected to be twice as good for half as much."

-- Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Joan A. Steitz, "The Reluctant Feminist," The New York Times, April 8, 2001.

"[Poet Seamus] Heaney sees and celebrates nature as a sort of language. This may be the turn of mind of a Roman Catholic trained to read the world as God's book."

-- Associate professor of English Langdon Hammer in his review of Heaney's 'Electric Light,' "Talking Irish; Seamus Heaney's Poems Dwell Both on His Origins and on Endings," The New York Times, April 8, 2001.

"The poor need community. The poor trade off and help each other. The poor have to have that. The only people who can live happily in high-rises are the rich, because they have a lot of money and don't need community. At least they don't think they do. But the poor need the interaction. That isn't part of the experience in a high-rise."

-- Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art Vincent Scully, "Putting People Back Into Architecture," The Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2001.

"While most record companies are understandably worried about new variants of Napster, an equally serious problem for consumers and the broader public is that the enforcement of intellectual property rights may actually become too severe."

-- Dean of the Yale School of Management Jeffrey E. Garten in his article "Intellectual Property: New Answers to New Problems," Business Week, April 2, 2001.

"[Studying the ALH84001 Mars meteorite] has forced us to focus on whether there was life on Mars and how we might answer that question."

-- Postdoctoral associate in the Department of Geology & Geophysics James Greenwood, "Debate Continues Over Whether Mars Meteorite Shows Signs of Life," The Dallas Morning News, April 3, 2001.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Team learns how hepatitis C virus recruits cells' RNA

'Art for Yale' charts growth of gallery's collections

Ten honored for their work promoting town-gown relations

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright describes his inspirations and aspirations

Center offers programs in uncommonly taught languages

Study: Teens' reputations offer clue to their risk-taking behavior

Yale Rep serving up cocktail of hope and cynicism in 'Big Night'

Author Styron defends decision to confront the taboo in his fiction

Exhibit of photographs shows Yale as 'a place of changes'

Annual film festival to take place at campus sites and nearby venues

Symposium will explore 'trends in machine learning'

Concerts feature works by Yale composers that integrate computer technologies

Medical Library exhibit examines the evolution of microscopes

Creative Arts Workshop pays tribute to Yale artists in exhibition

'Administrative Professionals' Day to be celebrated April 25 and 26