The crowd that came to hear noted neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson speak on April 13 filled both Woolsey Hall and the Law School auditorium and spilled over onto Hewitt Quadrangle.

Surgeon/trustee tells youngsters: Don't make excuses

Several thousand New Haven schoolchildren and their families filled Woolsey Hall on April 13 to hear the inspiring message of Yale trustee Dr. Benjamin Carson, who rose from urban poverty to attend Yale and become a world-renowned surgeon. "I know a lot of very successful people," Carson told his audience. "I know a lot of Fortune 500 CEOs and university presidents and heads of state. They take responsibility. They don't make excuses. "I've also met a lot of very unsuccessful people throughout my life. They also have one thing in common: It's not their fault. Somebody else created the problem. And you know what? As long as you can wallow in an excuse, you don't have to do anything." Carson, who graduated from Yale College in 1973, was introduced by Yale Vice President Bruce Alexander, who directs the Office of New Haven and State Affairs. "Yale is one of the doors that opened for Dr. Ben Carson," Alexander said. "Because you now live in New Haven, I invite you to take advantage of the opportunities here at the University, just as Dr. Carson took advantage of the opportunities presented to him when he was growing up. I urge you to join the 10,000 young people in New Haven public schools who come to this campus regularly for our tutoring programs, for our summer camps, for our courses on the campus or for visits to the Peabody Museum, all as guests of the University." Carson, who heads pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University, said he knew the New Haven community well when he attended Yale, and was pleased at the Yale-New Haven partnerships of today. "I'm very proud of the programs that have been enacted through my alma mater, Yale, with the community here, and I want to see those expand and expand," he said. "And I want to see this whole community recognize one very important factor; and that is, even though all our ancestors came to this country in different boats, we're all in the same boat now. And I think New Haven is well on the way to recognizing that." The schoolchildren who came to Woolsey Hall on April 13 to hear Yale trustee Dr. Benjamin Carson talk about the importance of education received a free copy of the surgeons autobiography "Gifted Hands." Carson grew up poor in Detroit. His mother, who suffered from depression, struggled alone to raise him and his brother after she and her husband divorced. The surgeon said a turning point in his life came when his mother required him and his brother to read two books a week and write book reports. Prior to that, Carson said, he was considered the "dummy" of his fifth-grade class. "Between the covers of those books, after a while, I began to discover that I could go any place in the world. I could be anybody; I could do anything. I began to learn all kinds of fabulous things," he told his audience. It was years later that Carson learned that his mother, who was one of 24 children and was married at age 13, had only a third-grade education and could not read the reports her sons had written. Before he began to read voraciously, Carson said, he was like many young people who have an extensive knowledge of television shows, entertainers, cars and music on the radio. "That information and 50 cents might get you a can of soda," he said. While singing and dancing and sports have their place, he noted, the emphasis on them in comparison to reading and other intellectual pursuits is badly out of proportion to the career opportunities they offer. "Less than 1% of people who go to college on an athletic scholarship will end up playing professional sports," he noted, pointing out that the average career span in professional sports is only three-and-a-half years. "We decided we had to do something about it," Carson said of the scholarship program he and his wife established in 1994. The program provides $1,000 college scholarships to children in grades 4 through 12 who are nominated by their schools. Children can receive multiple scholarships. The program has awarded about 600 scholarships to date, and Carson's goal is to have one scholarship winner from each school in the nation. By providing the scholarship winners with an award banquet and a large trophy for their schools, Carson said, he hopes their classmates will want to emulate the scholars as much as they now admire a school's top athletes. Carson completed his talk with a gripping account of a 28-hour operation he performed at a black teaching hospital in South Africa to separate twins from Zambia who were attached at the head. It marked the first time -- after 13 previous failures -- that twins attached in that way were successfully separated. "Taking the talent that God has given you and using it to elevate other people--that's what success is all about," he said. Yale gave each student who attended Carson's talk a free copy of the doctor's autobiography, "Gifted Hands." The crowd not only packed Woolsey Hall, but filled the Law School's Levinson Auditorium, where Carson's talk was broadcast. Still others listened to the Yale trustee on speakers placed on the plaza next to Woolsey Hall. T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S For first time, applicants get admissions news online Communiversity Day will be held April 20 Study: Children's lives not improved by welfare reform Statesman warns victory in Afghanistan is . . . Surgeon/trustee tells youngsters: Don't make excuses F&ES adding four new assistant professors to faculty 'Journalists and Terrorism' is focus of Poynter talk Conference to explore Agent Orange's effect . . . 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