Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 13, 2000

Volume 29, Number 6

IMF official to speak at master's tea

Anthony Elson, a senior adviser of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will be a guest at a master's tea on Monday, Oct. 16.

He will discuss "The IMF after Prague and Seattle" at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley College master's house, 125 High St. The talk is free and open to the public.

Elson joined the IMF in 1969. He is currently the senior adviser of the Asia and Pacific Department and is one of five senior coordinators for fund operations in the Asian region with particular responsibility for Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam. He previously held the positions of deputy director of the statistics department and senior advisor of the western hemisphere department.

A 1963 graduate of Yale College, Elson received a M.I.A. from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and a Ph.D. in economics, also from Columbia.

F&ES lecture will focus on Bornean forest frontier

Jeffrey A. Sayer, the founding director general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), will be a guest of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 16 and 17.

As part of his visit, Sayer will present a lecture titled "Bulungan: Studying the Complexity of a Bornean Forest Frontier" at 4 p.m. on Tuesday in Bowers Auditorium of Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St. The talk is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.

Headquartered in Bogor, Indonesia, CIFOR is an international non-governmental organization with a research mandate covering the entire tropical developing world. Its research programs address broad environmental forestry issues with an emphasis on outcomes that are favorable to poor people in forest-dependent countries and that maintain the global environmental values of forests.

Best-selling author will be guest of tea

Amy Bloom, author of the collection of short stories "A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You," will speak at a tea on Tuesday, Oct. 17, at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St.

The tea is free and open to the public.

"The Story," one of the offerings in "A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You," was selected for inclusion in "The Best American Short Stories 2000" by E.L. Doctorow. Bloom's other collection of short stories, "Come to Me," was nominated for the National Book Award, and her novel "Love Invents Us" was a New York Time's Notable Book and national bestseller.

Bloom's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Antaeus and Story, as well as Self, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Mirabella. Her stories appear in numerous anthologies, including Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, both in the United States and abroad.

ISPS seminar will explore genetic modification of crops

Research geneticist Neil Schultes will be the featured speaker at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) Bioethics and Public Policy Seminar on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

Schultes, a researcher in the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, will discuss "Genetic Modification of Crops: How Genetics Shapes the Food We Eat" at a noon seminar in the lower level conference room of ISPS, 77 Prospect St., then again at a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Joseph Slifka Center, 80 Wall St. Both talks are free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided at the noon event. To reserve a lunch or for more information, contact Carol Pollard at (203) 432-6188 or carol.pollard@yale.edu.

Schultes is particularly concerned with the ethical problems that emerge from genetically modified crops and the impact of these technologies on the environment and on human health. During his talk, Schultes will offer a few examples of genetically modified crops currently in use.

For the past 19 years, Schultes has researched plants and microorganisms. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he studied the molecular biology of photosynthetic genes in blue green algae. He received his Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University following his studies into yeast artificial chromosomes and genetic recombination. From 1990 to 1994, Schultes pursued postdoctoral research in Yale's Department of Biology, where he isolated new maize genes involved in photosynthesis.

Filmmaker to screen and discuss "Brother Born Again"

Filmmaker Julia Pimsleur '90 B.A. will screen and discuss her video documentary "Brother Born Again" at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19, in Rm. 101 of Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 64 High St.

Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program, the event is free and open to the public.

Pimsleur is the founder of Big Mouth Productions. Her producing credits include Kirsten Johnson's fiction film about female genital mutilation, "Bintou in Paris," which won the French Human Rights Award. Her line-producing credits include the documentaries "Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz," an ARTE-Bravo co-production, and "The Abortion Pill" for PBS.

While at Yale, Pimsleur directed "Boola Boola ... Yale Goes Coed," for which she received the Sudler Award for artistic achievement. She is a founder and board member of Women in Film and Television, France, and since 1998 has been a volunteer teacher of job development at the Fortune Society in New York City, a non-profit organization which helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society. Pimsleur recently joined the Independent Television Service Board of Directors for the 2000-2003 term.

"Brother Born Again" is a one-hour documentary about Pimsleur's relationship with her brother Marc, who abandoned his Jewish heritage and joined a born-again Christian community on a small island in southeast Alaska.

Governor's commission on mental health to be topic of talk

Shelley Geballe, president and co-founder of Connecticut Voices for Children (CVC), will speak in the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy lecture series on Friday, Oct. 20.

Her talk, titled "The Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Mental Health: Moving Beyond Its Promises to a Model System of Care for Children with Mental Health Needs," will take place at noon in Rm. 211 of Mason Laboratory, 9 Hillhouse Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

CVC is a state-wide, citizen-based public education and advocacy organization that mobilizes citizens to act on behalf of Connecticut's children, youth and families. Geballe and her colleagues founded CVC in 1995.

Over the past two years, much of Geballe's research and writing has been concerned with child poverty, the impact of welfare reform on Connecticut's families, and state tax and budget policy affecting the state's children. She recently completed a report, titled "Connecticut Families: Poverty Despite Work," which identifies the state's working poor and explains why their numbers are increasing.

Prior to founding CVC, Geballe was associate legal director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation, where she was lead counsel in various class action cases. Geballe represented the state's abused and neglected children in a challenge to the foster care system, and children with HIV/AIDS who were excluded from New Haven public schools. She edited "Forgotten Children of the AIDS Epidemic" and co-produced the documentary "Mommy, Who'll Take Care of Me?"

Geballe received degrees in law and public health from Yale.

Ground-breaking psychologist to present Hovland lecture

Roger N. Shepard, a Stanford University psychologist whose research in cognitive psychology has transformed the field, will present the Hovland Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, October 25.

Shepard's talk, titled "The Cognitive Grounds of Science and Ethics," will take place at 4 p.m. in Rm. 220 of Dunham Laboratory, 10 Hillhouse Ave. A reception will follow in the lounge of Kirtland Hall, 2 Hillhouse Ave. Both events are free and open to the public.

A 1955 Ph.D. graduate of Yale, Shepard is known for his investigations of the mental processes of generalization and spatial transformation. He contributed to the cognitive revolution in psychology with his insights into the use of inferential techniques to discover mental structures that are not directly observable. His book "Mind Sights" is a collection of visual illusions that is famous both for his drawings and for his investigation into the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that give rise to them.

Shepard's scientific contributions have been recognized with many honors, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the National Medal of Science and the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation.

The Hovland Lecture was established in the 1960s to honor Yale psychologist, and adviser to Shepard, Carl Hovland.

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'The Skriker' to inaugurate Drama School's new theater space

New Republic editor to visit alma mater as Poynter Fellow

Peabody Museum seeks volunteers to serve as docents

Academy to host talk at Trinity College

Carter to discuss book on religion and politics

Genocide Studies series hosts talk at Jewish Center

Richard Benson to discuss 'A Yale Album: The Third Century' at booksigning

Geriatric psychiatry to be focus of alumni group's conference

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