Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 27, 2002|Volume 31, Number 4

Yale Professor Curtis Patton (far right) and students from the School of Medicine visited the gravesite of Edward Bouchet during a tribute to the Yale alumnus sponsored by four New Haven churches. The event in the city's historic Evergreen Cemetery was held in conjunction with Yale's celebration of the 150th anniversary of Bouchet's birth.

Educator stresses importance
of grooming 'future Bouchets'

Battell Chapel echoed with a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to You" on Sept. 18, when several hundred people gathered to honor the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edward A. Bouchet, the first African-American student to graduate from Yale College and the first African American in the United States to earn a Ph.D.

Bouchet, a member of the Yale College Class of 1874, earned his doctorate in physics from the University in 1876, becoming the sixth individual in the country of any race to achieve that distinction.

Joining the celebration were Yale faculty, staff and students, along with science students and teachers from Career High School and 6th-graders from the Wexler Grant School in New Haven.

The keynote speaker was Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Hrabowski has devoted his career to inspiring minority students and faculty -- particularly African Americans -- to study the sciences, mathematics and engineering. One-third of all bachelor's degrees in biochemistry awarded to African Americans in the United States last year were given at UMBC.

Coincidentally, Hrabowski went to the same high school in Birmingham, Alabama, that was attended -- albeit a few years earlier -- by Curtis Patton, professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale, who has long advocated honoring the legacy of Bouchet at Yale and is one of the organizers of this year's events.

Importance of education

"Well before the mid-point of this century, one in every two Americans will be of color," noted Hrabowski in his talk. "We know well that we will need many more Americans educated in a variety of disciplines across the sciences, humanities and social sciences. Our ability to be competitive as a nation will, in large part, depend on our ability to educate all types of people from all types of backgrounds."

To illustrate the importance of education, he spoke of his own mother, who had to go to work as a housemaid at the age of 12 to help support her family. During her free time, she was invited to read books from the library of the wealthy white family whose house she cleaned, and she began to develop a passion for reading and learning.

"This was at a time when there was no public library for children of color," Hrabowski recalled. The more his mother read, he said, the more she loved learning. She ultimately went to college and became a teacher, instilling in her son the belief that "no career was more noble than teaching," recalled the educator.

Hrabowski contrasted the high level of scientific research at universities in America with the low level of learning in many of America's schools. "If a child does not learn to read well, she will never be able to do science," he said. Pointing to the rich tradition of learning at Yale and the history of "having produced a Bouchet," Hrabowski challenged Yale "to become known as a center of excellence for all types of people in the sciences and beyond, producing students who become faculty members across the country."

Hrabowski contrasted the fame accorded to Booker T. Washington with the relative obscurity of Edward Bouchet -- despite the fact that both were African Americans who had studied the sciences, were born in the 1850s, earned college degrees in the 1870s and died within three years of each other.

"I'm convinced that the reason that Booker Washington became the leader of black people, in contrast to Bouchet, was that America was willing to listen to him talk about using your hands in the trades," he said. "America was not ready to hear that blacks could be scientists, educated in the humanities, that they could know Greek and Latin, that they could study logic and rhetoric, be mathematicians and physicists. To know physics is to have power. To be well rounded in the liberal arts is to be able to think broadly and question all sorts of things. ...

"We, as a nation, must come to believe that large numbers of under-represented minorities, Latino children and African Americans, can excel -- not just succeed, but excel -- in science," he added, noting that people of all races "must take ownership of the issue ... We must see minority students as future Bouchets ... and get them involved in research."

African Americans earn only 2%-3% of all Ph.D.s in the sciences today, and that has to change, he argued. "We have to produce enough Ph.D.s so that Edward Bouchet is not the exception, but the norm."

Inaugural Bouchet Awards

At the ceremony, Graduate School Dean Susan Hockfield presented the inaugural Yale Bouchet Leadership Awards in Minority Graduate Education to Hrabowski and Dieter Söll, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and of chemistry at Yale, for their lifelong contributions to encouraging minority students to enter Ph.D. programs.

"The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is committed to building a well-traveled highway out of the path that Bouchet pioneered alone," Hockfield said.

She noted that the Graduate School recently welcomed its first class of students in the Yale Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (or as it is also known, Yale PREP), a program supported by a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that supports under-represented minority college graduates who are pursuing Ph.D.s in the biomedical and/or behavior sciences. These students, said Hockfield, "will test their skills and passion for research science here on our campus before, hopefully, deciding to pursue a graduate degree in the sciences."

The Dean also noted: "We also this year celebrate the largest increase in entering under-represented minority students that we've had in many years" -- an increase of 77% over last year. Critical to this effort, she acknowledged, were the Graduate School's Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, directed by Assistant Dean Liza Cariaga-Lo and the graduate students who serve as Diversity Fellows.

Other upcoming Bouchet events

The celebration of Bouchet's sesquicentennial will continue throughout the year.

Junior faculty and graduate students of color will present their work in seminars held every month at the Graduate School. The Bouchet Junior Faculty Seminars will alternate with Bouchet Graduate Student Seminars on the third Wednesday of each month, 5-6:30 p.m. in Rm. 211 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. The first faculty speaker will be Hemant Tagare, associate professor of engineering, on Oct. 16. Students Sonya Winton and Jonathan Kidd of the African American Studies Program will present their research on Nov. 13.

Bouchet Departmental Lectures will be given throughout the year, co-sponsored by the Dean's Offices of the Graduate School and Yale College.

In addition, the Phi Beta Kappa Chapter at Yale will honor Bouchet this spring at its annual dinner and lecture.

-- By Gila Reinstein

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

Courses to expose students earlier to 'thrill' of research

Student's 'urban museum' showcases city's modern architecture

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to speak on campus

Conference marks anniversary of Holocaust archive

Gift will continue work of Yale center devoted to studying impact of slavery

Educator stresses importance of grooming 'future Bouchets'

Murals at Peabody open 'window' on Maya culture

Exhibit showcases works by longtime Yale professor

'Blessing' of washerwoman's legacy brings New Haven policeman to Divinity School

Event advances knowledge of Vietnam's toxic legacy

Anti-drug advertising curbs teen use, says SOM researcher

Expert on racism during Civil War to join faculty

Just a Bowl of cheerers: Employee Day at the Yale Bowl

A place for poetry

Lecturer speaks about newest issues in field of information technology

'Intersections' aims to close the rift between academic theories and . . .

Noted cancer specialist and surgeon Dr. Jack Westley Cole dies

Fair will acquaint (and re-acquaint) staff about myriad of University benefits . . .

Donations of computers can help bring India into 'Information Age'

College master showcases his private art collection

Quilts, photos featured in new show

Nursing school staff take part in training retreat

Rubenfeld featured in library book discussion