Columbia University recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree to Franz Rosenthal, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. The award citation read in part: "Inspiring teacher and author, preeminent scholar of Islamic intellectual and social history, your astonishing erudition and penetrating vision have illuminated the study of Islamic civilization for more than half a century. In a time of enormous need for greater cultural knowledge, you have inspired generations of students to assume leadership in Islamic and Semitic studies."
Dr. Lawrence S. Cohen, the Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Medicine, cardiology, and special adviser to the dean at the School of Medicine, has been inducted into the British Cardiac Society, an organization which advances knowledge of the diseases of the heart and circulation to benefit the public. The society includes approximately 1,000 members who are primarily interested in the practice or research of cardiology, cardiac surgery or allied subjects. It is considered a signal honor for an American to become a member.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded the Gold Medal for History to Peter Gay, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History. The Gold Medal, the academy's highest honor, is awarded each year in two categories that rotate among various disciplines; the prize in history is presented every six years. C. Vann Woodward, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History and a member of the academy, praised Professor Gay's work, saying, "Not only in quality and abundance are his works remarkable, but also in the variety of their subjects and the expanse of the fields they address." Professor Gay has written more than a dozen books examining the cultural history of France and Germany. He is also author of "Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider," "Freud: A Life for Our Time" and, most recently, "The Naked Heart," the fourth volume in his study "The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud."
Gilbert M. Joseph, professor of history, chair of the Council on Latin American Studies and director of the new Mellon Fellowship Program on Latin American History, has been appointed as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the 1996-97 academic year. Professor Joseph's research project is titled, "Forging and Contesting the Mexican Nation, 1821-1995." The Woodrow Wilson Center seeks to foster scholarship and dialogue in the humanities and social sciences. It brings fellows from around the world to Washington, D.C., encourages discourse among the academic disciplines and policy professions, and publishes the results of these activities through the Wilson Center Press.
Eustace Theodore, executive director of the Association of Yale Alumni, was recently elected to the board of trustees of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, CASE, . Mr. Theodore will serve a two-year term as secretary of the board.
The 1996 State of Connecticut Medal of Science has been awarded to Ronald R. Coifman, professor of mathematics and a expert on data compression, in honor of his contributions to the state's scientific development. Professor Coifman was cited for his pioneering work in wavelet packets, a mathematical shorthand for compressing and restoring virtually any image or sound. Professor Coifman was also recently named as the winner of the 1996 DARPA Achievement Award for Sustained Excellence by a Contractor.
The men's soccer team recently acquired a new head coach, Brian Tompkins of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, UWM, . In the past seven seasons, Mr. Tompkins has guided the UWM Panthers to 90-41-11 record overall, including a NCAA Tournament appearance, a Mid-Continent Conference title and a Big Central Soccer Conference crown. "I look at this as an opportunity to really develop what I see as a program with great potential. ... I believe Yale can be a top-20 program in the near future," says Mr. Tompkins. In 1995, the coach received a Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Soccer Association Hall of Fame and a Special Achievement Award from the UWM Athletic Hall of Fame. Mr. Tompkins succeeds Steve Griggs, who retired in February after 18 years as head men's soccer coach.
In related Athletics Department news: Andy Van Etten, who guided the Eli softball team this spring after former coach Kathy Arendsen took a post at Mississippi State, has been officially named as head coach of Yale softball. Mr. Van Etten led the Bulldogs to an 8-4 Ivy League mark and a tie for third place this spring. He is a former coach of the Raybestos Brakettes, a championship-winning amateur softball team based in Stratford, Connecticut. During Mr. Van Etten's tenure, the Brakettes captured eight American Softball Association title. He has also coached five members of this year's U.S. Olympic team.
Two School of Medicine researchers were honored for their groundbreaking work in the field of multiple sclerosis, MS, in June at a reception sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Greater New Haven Chapter. Nancy H. Ruddle, professor of epidemiology, microbiology, and of biology and immunobiology, was cited for her research on tumor necrosis factor, TNF, a protein which plays a role in the inflammation of the brain and spinal cord that is one of the symptoms of MS. Also honored was Dr. Steven G. Waxman, professor and chair of neurology, and director of the PVA-EPVA Neuroscience Research Center at the West Haven campus of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. An established investigator of the National MS Society, Dr. Waxman is studying the molecular architecture of nerve fibers and the glial cells that surround them, and the mechanisms by which nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord adapt to injury. His work has led to development of new drugs and may ultimately provide new treatments for MS, spinal cord injury and stroke. The work being done by Professors Ruddle and Waxman are funded by three-year grants from the National MS society.
Dr. Roberto J. Groszmann, professor of medicine at the School of Medicine and chief of the digestive diseases section of the West Haven campus of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, has been invited to join the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in London. A member of the Yale faculty since 1975, Dr. Groszmann is internationally renowned for his research on the regulation of splanchic hemodynamics. He helped develop a technique for measuring the wedged and free hepatic venous pressure with balloon catheters, and helped promote the use of nitrates for the treatment of patients with portal hypertensions. His most recent studies focus on understanding the mechanism of vasodilatation in chronic liver disease.
In August, graduate student Nichole Parisier will assume her new post as dean of Branford College. Ms. Parisier, who earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, holds a M.Phil. degree from Yale in 1992; she is currently working on her dissertation, "Stage Fright," looking at American actresses and women writers in the period from 1890 to 1920. She has been coordinator of the Residential College Seminar Program in Branford College since 1992 and taught a seminar on autobiography in the fall of 1995. As a graduate student, Ms. Parisier has been a teaching fellow in several popular lecture courses in the American studies program and won a Prize Teaching Fellowship in 1994.
Stephanie Atiyeh, who graduated from Yale College this May, and Eugene Hagiwara '99 of Pierson College are among the college students taking part in the 1996 Summer Medical and Research Training, SMART, Program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The 10-week program, which is directed by Baylor's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, offers first-hand experience in laboratories conducting biomedical projects. Participants are chosen on the basis of their commitment to achieving excellence in the preparation for a biomedical science career.
This June Robert Farris Thompson, the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art and master of Timothy Dwight College, was one of two scholars representing the United States at a conference on "Postcolonialism in Paris," which was held at the National Museum of the Arts of Africa and Oceania in Paris, France.
Ann Biersteker, director of the Program in African Languages, has been awarded a $180,000 three-year grant by the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program to lead a six-week advanced intensive course on Kiswahili in Tanzania 1996-1998. This is the sixth such grant that has been presented to Ms. Biersteker, who is also associate chair of the Council on African Studies at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Yale graduate student Kevin Willcutts is among the students who are taking this year's course, which is affiliated with the department of Kiswahili at the University of Dar es Salaam.
At the annual meeting of the New Haven County Medical Association, Dr. Michael Kashgarian was elected as the organization's president, becoming the first academician to lead the society in recent years. Dr. Kashgarian is professor of pathology and biology and editor of Yale Medicine.