Space shuttle astronaut to visit as Tetelman Fellow
Astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman, who has been a member of five space shuttle flights -- including the 1993 mission to restore the Hubble Space Telescope, will visit the campus Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 11 and 12, as a Tetelman Fellow. His visit is sponsored by Jonathan Edwards College.
Mr. Hoffman will be the guest at a tea on Monday at 4 p.m. in the Jonathan Edwards College JE master's house, 70 High St. Earlier that day, he will meet informally with students during a lunch at Mory's at 12:30 p.m. He will also meet with students during a 12:30 p.m. luncheon on Tuesday, Nov. 12, in the senior common room of JE, 68 High St. Those interested in attending either luncheon must sign up at the JE master's office.
Mr. Hoffman will present his main lecture, titled "How We Fixed the Hubble Telescope, And What It Has Done Since Then," on Tuesday at 5:15 p.m. in the auditorium of the Yale University Art Gallery entrance on High Street . The event is free and open to the public.
After earning an undergraduate degree in astronomy and advanced degrees in astrophysics and materials science, Mr. Hoffman conducted postdoctoral research at Leicester University, where from 1972 to 1975 he worked on several x-ray astronomy rocket payloads and served as the project scientist for a medium-energy x-ray experiment on the European Space Agency's EXOSAT satellite. He worked in the Center for Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1975-78, where his principal research was the study of x-ray bursts, about which he authored or coauthored more than 20 scientific papers.
Mr. Hoffman became a NASA astronaut in 1979, initially testing guidance, navigation and flight control systems. He made his first space flight on the Shuttle Discovery in 1985; the mission required him to walk in space in an attempt to rescue a malfunctioning satellite. He was also a crew member of the 1990 Shuttle Columbia spacelab mission. His third space flight, as payload commander and mission specialist, was on the Shuttle Atlantis in 1992. On that mission, the crew deployed the European Retrievable Carrier, a free- flying science platform, and carried out the first test flight of the Tethered Satellite System, a joint project between NASA and the Italian Space Agency. Repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope were successfully completed on his fourth mission aboard the Shuttle Endeavor in 1993. The repairs of the telescope's misfocused primary lens required five space walks by four astronauts.
This year, Mr. Hoffman flew on a 16-day mission, during which he and the other crew members worked around the clock performing combustion experiments related to a microgravity payload, which included a droplet experiment by Yale engineers. With the completion of that flight, Mr. Hoffman has logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space. His honors include two NASA Exceptional Service Medals and a NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Chronicler of natural history to present forestry school talk
Richard Conniff '73, a frequent contributor on natural history to National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines and the producer of nature programs for National Geographic television and the Discovery channel, will discuss the writing of natural history in a talk on Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 4 p.m. in Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St. The public is invited to attend the free event.
Mr. Conniff's television and writing assignments have led him to immerse his hand in a mound of fire ants for TV cameras, to pursue dragonflies with a Super-Soaker water gun, and to acquire a tarantula as a pet for his children. He has become one of America's most widely read chroniclers of the natural history of such invertebrates as fleas, flies, moths, mosquitoes and giant squid. He has also covered a wide range of environmental issues. His talk at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies will be based on his most recent book, "Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World."
Local novelist writer to be guest at master's tea
Catharine Weber, a Bethany resident whose recent first novel "Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear" has been favorably reviewed in the nation's top newspapers and magazines, will be the guest at a tea on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 4:30 p.m. in the Calhoun College master's house, 434 College St. The event is free and open to the public; however, due to space limitations, those interested in attending should call 432-0742.
"Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear" tells the story of the friendship between a newly successful photographer named Harriet Rose and Anne Gordon, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who becomes the mistress of an older man, also a Holocaust survivor. Harriet travels to Geneva on a fellowship and moves in with Anne; while there she is faced with a dilemma over whether she should, or even can, rescue her friend from the destructive relationship. Harriet records many of her concerns about Anne in the form of letters to her boyfriend back home in America; these letters make up the beginning of the novel.
"Things in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear" was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 25 best novels of 1995 and was cited by The New York Times Book Review as one of the "Notable Books of the Year 1995." The book also made columnist Ellen Goodman's list of the best books for summer reading that year as well as Glamour magazine's July summer reading list. Booklist described Ms. Weber's debut novel as "Compelling from the outset, due in large part to an enchantingly vulnerable, articulate, clever, yet candid protagonist, Harriet Rose. ... This well-crafted debut heralds a masterly fiction writer." A reviewer for the Kansas City Star wrote: "First novels are rarely this good. Catharine Weber has produced a work that reveals an uncommon control of her craft and a mature understanding of human character and motives. 'Objects in Mirror' is also a very entertaining novel. ... A mature, tragic study of the mysteries of human conduct."
Ms. Weber has spent most of her career as a freelance journalist. In addition to writing a Sunday column for the New Haven Register, she has been books columnist for Connecticut magazine and has written book reviews and done author interviews for such publications as The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly and the Boston Globe. She also maintains a home in Ireland.
Bristol-Myers Squibb executive to speak at SOM
Charles Heimbold, chair and chief executive officer of Bristol- Myers Squibb, will discuss the topic "Changing a Major Health Care Company for the 21st Century" during an International Business Roundtable on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 11:45 a.m. in the General Motors Room of Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave. The event is free and open to the public.
Mr. Heimbold has spent most of his career at Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of the largest diversified health and personal care companies in the world. He first joined the company's legal department in 1963, and a few years later was appointed director of corporate development. He held positions as vice president of planning and development; senior vice president; president of the health care group, planning and development, and the consumer products group; and executive vice president before being named president of Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1992. He was named chief executive officer in 1994 and became chair of the board in 1995.
Mr. Heimbold also serves as chair of the board of overseers of the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania UPenn and is a trustee of UPenn, Sarah Lawrence College and the International House. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Mobil Corporation and is chair of the board of directors of Phoenix house, a nonprofit agency devoted to drug abuse treatment for adults and children. He is chair of the board of directors of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and is a member of the Commonwealth Fund Commission on Women's Health.
Contributing editor of The Nation to talk at tea
"Crime Victims, the Media and American Politics" is the topic of a talk being presented by Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor of The Nation, on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m. in the Davenport College master's house, 271 Park St. His talk is free and open to the public.
Mr. Shapiro's talk will be based on a series of essays published in The Nation over the last year and that are related to a book he is working on for Basics Books. He was among the individuals assaulted two years ago at Koffee!! on Audubon Street in New Haven.
Mr. Shapiro is an investigative journalist and political reporter specializing in civil rights, civil liberties, community-based politics and related subjects. In addition to his own articles, he is one of The Nation's senior editorial writers, and since 1991 has been director of The Nation Institute's Supreme Court Watch project. His 1995 essay "One Violent Crime," published in The Nation, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. Mr. Shapiro has received awards and grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists, the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and others.
His work has also appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers worldwide, including Harper's, the Guardian of London, the Irish Times of Dublin, New Statesman and Society, the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia and the Utne Reader, among others. He has been a guest on the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, C-SPAN and the BBC, and is a regular commentator on the syndicated "Radio Nation" program. He was cofounder and editor of the New Haven Independent, a weekly community newspaper, and Haymarket, a Chicago political monthly. He has taught investigative journalism at Yale and at New York University.
Differences between wood and metal bats explored in talk
Robert D. Collier, consultant to Major League Baseball and a retired Tufts University engineer, will discuss the performance differences between wood and metal baseball bats on Thursday, Nov. 14, at a seminar sponsored by the Yale student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 5 p.m. in Davies Auditorium at Becton Engineering Center, 15 Prospect St.
While professional baseball is played with traditional solid wood bats, the NCAA permitted the introduction of tubular aluminum bats into collegiate baseball in the early 1970's. The controversial increase in home runs hit in recent NCAA College championship games is attributed to increased hitting power with new lightweight, thin-walled, high-strength aluminum alloy and titanium bats, Mr. Collier said. These metal bats, now used throughout recreational baseball, have significantly different impact and hitting characteristics than those of wood bats. As a result, all aspects of the game -- pitching, hitting and fielding -- have changed.
Mr. Collier's talk will include slow-motion photography of bat and ball collisions, and measurements of "real-life" contact velocities using a new laboratory-controlled hitting system. He also will show how engineering methods were applied in the design and performance evaluation of the Baum AAA Professional wood composite baseball bat, approved by Major League Baseball. The highly durable bat replicates the dynamic characteristics, feel and hitting performance of the traditional professional wood bat.
Mr. Collier spent a large part of his career in underwater acoustics, sonar systems research, and noise and vibration control as a senior staff member of Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc. As professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University, his research was focused on experimental methods for the dynamic characterization of composite materials. This research led to a collaborative research, design and testing project with Steve Baum, the inventor of the durable wood composite baseball bat.
Child care is subject of Bush Center talk
Bill Gormley, professor of government and public policy at Georgetown University, will present a talk titled "Child Care and Federalism" on Friday, Nov. 15, at noon in Rm. 410 of Sheffield- Sterling-Strathcona Hall, corner of Grove and Prospect streets. The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.
Professor Gormley's most recent book, "Everybody's Children: Child Care as a Public Problem," was published by the Brookings Institution in 1995. He is also the author of "Taming the Bureaucracy," which won the Louis Brownlow Book Award for the best book of the year in public administration in 1990 from the National Academy of Public Administration. He also has written or edited books on federalism, government regulation, public policy and privatization. His latest article, on child care regulatory enforcement, will appear soon in the Public Administration Review.
Last summer, Professor Gormley was a resident fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Servelloni in Ballagio, Italy.
For further information, call 432-9935.
Head of GM to present strategy for global marketplace
John F. Smith Jr.,chair, chief executive officer and president of General Motors GM , will speak on "GM's Strategy for a Changing Global Marketplace" on Monday, Nov. 18, at 11:45 a.m. in the General Motors Room of Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave. Mr. Smith is visiting the University as a Gordon Grand Fellow. His talk is free and open to the public.
Mr. Smith was named president and chief operating officer of GM in April 1992 and became chief executive officer and president seven months later. He became chair of the board in 1996. He also chairs the GM President's Council, the corporation's top management body, and GM's Strategy Board. In addition, he serves on the boards of a number of GM subsidiaries as well as the Proctor & Gamble Company, the U.S.-Japan Research Council, the Business Roundtable and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, among others, and is a trustee of Boston University.
General Motors has been a strong supporter of the School of Management since its founding in 1976. The U.S. auto maker has made substantial donations to enable and enhance student and faculty initiatives, and in 1985 GM funded the renovation of a lecture hall, now called the General Motors Room. French poet novelist will read from his works
On Monday, Nov. 18, the French department and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library will cosponsor a reading by French poet and novelist Bernard Noel. The reading, which will be in French, will take place at 4 p.m. in the Beinecke Library, 121 Wall St., and will be followed by a reception. The public is invited to attend, free of charge.
Born in 1930, Mr. Noel moved to Paris in 1949 to study journalism and sociology. His first book of poems, "Extraits du corps," was published in 1958, and his second collection, "La face de silence," was released in 1967. In 1973 his novel "Le chateau de Cene" provoked a wide polemic after being banned for pornography. Since then, Mr. Noel has published several collections of poems, including "Bruits de langue," "La chute des temps," La remeur de l'air" and "Genese de l'arbre." His fiction includes "Une messe blanche," "Portrait du monde," "Le syndrome de Gramsci" and "Le roman d'Adam et Eve" the latter was published this year . He is also the author of the autobiographical texts "Le lieu des signes" and "Journal du regard"; one play, "La reconstitution"; and numerous essays. In addition, he has written extensively on the arts, especially on Magritte, Matisse and Olivier Debre.
'Bomb the Suburbs' author to speak at Law School
William Upski Wimsatt, author of "Bomb the Suburbs," will discuss the topic "The Blindspots of a Yale Education: what's missing from the conversation about race, sex, crime and money" on Monday, Nov. 18, at 8 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Law School, 127 Wall St. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be followed by a discussion with members of the audience. A reception and book signing will follow at the Afro-American Cultural Center, 211 Park St.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Wimsatt will be the guest at a master's tea at 4 p.m. Location to be announced.
Mr. Wimsatt, who is Jewish, grew up in Hyde Park on Chicago's South side and attended public and private schools with a predominantly black student population. While hitchhiking around the country to promote "Bomb the Suburbs," he made a point to travel to urban areas such as the one in which he grew up, and he claims that consequently his insights into America's social problems were enhanced by the experience.
Mr. Wimsatt has written for many publications nationwide, including The Chicago Tribune, The Source, Vibe and Utne Reader. He has been honored as an "Utne Visionary" the youngest ever to receive this distinction and was also a National Endowment for the Humanities Younger Scholar in constitutional theory.
Mr. Wimsatt's visit is sponsored by the Yale Black Political Forum. As his talk and the discussion that follows it are designed to encourage conversation about the subjects he will discuss, one of the main goals of the event is to "gather the most diverse audience possible," say the organizers of the event.
For further information, call Jamie Harrison at 436-1469 or Mordica Simpson at 436-1623.
Human population expert to examine limits of Earth's capacity
Joel Cohen, a Rockefeller University expert on theories about how many humans the world can support, will speak on "Water and Population: An Example of Trade-offs in the Earth Human Carrying Capacity." The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be presented Thursday, Nov. 21, at 3 p.m. in Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The event is sponsored by the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Zucker Fellowship Fund.
Mr. Cohen's research focuses on the demography, ecology, epidemiology and social organization of human and nonhuman populations, and the mathematical concepts useful in these fields. Since 1975, he has been professor of populations and head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York. In 1995, he was jointly appointed professor of populations in the Department of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where he also serves on the faculty of the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation.
His most recent book is "How Many People Can the Earth Support?", which he calls "neither an alarmist tract nor a cornucopian lullaby" but a book "for those who seek factual information about where the human species and its companion species on the earth are headed." His other books include "A Model of Simple Competition," "Casual Groups of Monkeys and Men," "Food Webs and Niche Space," and a recent book of scientific and mathematical jokes titled "Absolute Zero Gravity." Among his many honors, he is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Mr. Cohen's lecture is part of a series on population hosted by Charles L. Remington, professor emeritus of biology and curator emeritus of entomology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.