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September 21, 2001Volume 30, Number 3



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Former University chaplain to preach in Tercentennial series

The Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr., former chaplain of Yale University, will present a sermon on Sunday, Sept. 23, as part of "Preaching in the New Millennium: The Tercentennial Preaching Event."

He will speak at 11 a.m. during University Public Worship in Battell Chapel, corner of College and Elm streets. All are welcome to attend this free event, sponsored by the Chaplain's Office.

Coffin received his bachelor of arts degree from Yale College in 1949 and his bachelor of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 1956. After serving as chaplain of Phillips Academy and of Williams College, he held the post of Yale University chaplain and pastor of the Church of Christ at Yale from 1958 to 1975.

Coffin was an active leader in the civil rights and peace movements. As one of the founding members of Clergy and Laity Concerned for Vietnam, he traveled to Hanoi in 1972 to accompany three prisoners of war back to the United States. In 1968 he was arrested, along with Dr. Benjamin Spock, for aiding and abetting draft-resisters; the charges were later dropped. An early advocate of civil rights, Coffin was one of seven "freedom riders" convicted in 1961 in Montgomery, Alabama, for protesting local segregation law. The Supreme Court later reversed the Southern court's decision.

Coffin's honors include the Americanism Award from the Connecticut Valley Council of B'nai B'rith, the Dahlberg Peace Award from the North American Baptist Convention and an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Wesleyan University. He is coauthor of "Civil Disobedience: Aid or Hindrance to Justice?"


Public service is focus of community forum events

Laura Liswood, founder and secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders housed at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, will speak at a Community Forum for Public Service event on Monday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public, and will take place at a location to be announced. For more information, send e-mail to jennifer.staple@yale.edu.

From 1992 to 1996 Liswood served as director of the Women's Leadership Project, identifying global leadership contributions by women heads of state. She interviewed 15 current and former female presidents and prime ministers and chronicled those interviews in a book and video documentary, "Women World Leaders." In 2000 she was appointed to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services for a three-year term by the secretary of defense.

Liswood's previous professional positions include chief executive officer and president of the American Society for Training and Development, consultant to Fortune 500 and international companies, and executive positions at Rainier National Bank and Group W Cable. She received the Westinghouse Award of Excellence for her contributions to women and minorities in the workplace. She is the author of a book on service quality, "Serving Them Right."

The Community Forum for Public Service is a new Yale student organization seeking to foster leadership and social responsibility in New Haven youth through public service.


Newark councilman to present Harper Fellowship Lecture

Cory Booker, councilman of the Central Ward in Newark, New Jersey, will present the 2001 Harper Fellowship Lecture, titled "Change and Challenge: Personal Lessons and Urban Effort," at the Law School.

Originally scheduled for March 6, Booker's talk will take place on Monday, Sept. 24, at 4:30 p.m. in Levinson Auditorium of the Sterling Law Buildings, 133 Wall St. The event is free and open to the public.

In 1998 Booker successfully ran for city councilman of one of America's poorest and most crime-ridden communities. He defeated a popular 16-year incumbent and became at age 29 the youngest member elected to Newark's Municipal Council.

Booker has sometimes chosen unorthodox solutions to the problems of his community. He lived in a mobile home so that he could move as needed to troubled areas of his ward to address pressing problems. In 1999, he and many of his supporters spent 10 days and nights fasting in a tent by the drug-infested Garden Spires housing complex to garner support for more police presence and security for the residence.

With his reputation as an ardent community activist, innovative problem solver and passionate advocate for social justice, Booker's work has been recognized by Time magazine, The New York Times, CBS Evening News and other publications and news programs.

Booker earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Stanford University before continuing his education at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and studying law at Yale. While at Yale, he ran a student legal clinic and volunteered in a local Big Brother program in New Haven, and worked as a legal adviser for a low-income tenants association in Newark.


Johns Hopkins ophthalmologist is next Unite for Sight speaker

Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, will speak at a Unite for Sight event on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. in Dwight Hall, 67 High St.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, send e-mail to jennifer.staple@yale.edu or visit www.uniteforsight.org.

Sommer was the founding director of the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins. His landmark research on vitamin A has been credited with saving the lives of millions of children around the world. His work has earned him numerous awards, including the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, the Helmut Horten Medical Research Award and the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health.

Also professor of ophthalmology, epidemiology and international health at Johns Hopkins University, Sommer is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), president of the Association of Schools of Public Health and the 19th chair of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis. He is a corporate director of Becton Dickinson & Co. and the Academy for Educational Development and has served on boards and advisory groups for organizations such as the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, NAS and UNICEF.

Sommer is the author of over 250 articles, as well as books and monographs. His current research interests include outcomes assessment, clinical guidelines, cost containment, blindness prevention strategies, child survival, health interventions in developing countries, and the growing interface between medicine and public health.


New York Times science writer to speak at medical school

Gina Kolata, science and medical reporter for The New York Times, will present the Margaret Roth and Glynis McKiernan Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, Sept. 26.

She will discuss "The Media and Medical Science" at 10 a.m. in Fitkin Amphitheatre of the Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar St. The lecture, sponsored by the Department of Dermatology, is free and open to the public.

Kolata is the author of "Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It" (1999), a national bestseller and winner of the 2000 Book Award from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities; "Clone: The Road to Dolly and the Path Ahead" (1998); "The Baby Doctors: Probing the Limits of Fetal Medicine" (1990); and "Combating the Number One Killer: The Science Report on Heart Disease" (1978). She coauthored "Sex in America" (1994) and "The High Blood Pressure Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Families" (1979).

Kolata's writing awards include two Howard W. Blakeslee Awards, two William Harvey Awards, the Susan G. Komen Foundation's media award, first prize in the Front Page Awards, and awards from the American Dental Association, the New York Public Health Association, the American Medical Writers Association and the American Mathematics Society. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting in 2000.

Before joining The New York Times in 1987, Kolata was a senior writer for Science magazine. She has written articles on a freelance basis for a variety of magazines, including Smithsonian, Discover, Ms., Glamour and GQ.


French pre-kindergarten is topic of Bush Center lecture

Shanny Peer, director of education programs at the French-American Foundation (FAF) in New York City, will speak in the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy lecture series on Friday, Sept. 28.

Her talk, titled "Ecole maternelle: French Pre-kindergarten Offers Lessons for the U.S.," will be held at noon in Rm. 211 of Mason Laboratory, 9 Hillhouse Ave. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (203) 432-9935.

Over the past 12 years, the FAF has sent three teams of Americans to France to look at the French systems of child care, maternal and child health, and, most recently, preschool. For its current project on the French pre-kindergarten system, the foundation sent a team of 15 American early childhood education experts on a study tour of France in 1999. Following the study tour, a report was published titled "A Welcome for Every Child III: Ready to Learn: The French System of Early Education and Care Offers Lessons for the United States."

After the report's publication, Peer launched an outreach effort aimed at publicizing the study tour delegation's findings and recommendations. She organized a briefing in Washington, D.C. in 2000 at which several delegates who participated in the study tour addressed an audience of legislators. In March 2001 Peer was invited to testify before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at a hearing titled "Early Education and Child Care: How Does the U.S. Measure Up?" Peer is currently organizing a November 2001 study tour of French preschools for a group of U.S. senators.


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

Campus Mourns Tragic Attacks

A Community of Concern

Perspectives from Yale Experts

In the Wake of Tragedy

Yale receives $15 million for human genome research

'Be part of the community' psychiatrist urges in tragedy's wake

IN FOCUS: Mental Health Services

Experts to discuss 'The Development of Earth and Its Life'

Tercentennial exhibit showcases British masterpieces

Early European views of 'Wilde Americk' explored in exhibit

Law School 'runners' hope to beat Harvard to the beach

Yale employees being treated to free football, tailgate party

Conference to examine disparities in health care based on sex, race and income

Peabody invites all interested to volunteer open house

Memorial Services

Campus Notes



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