The Yale Glee Club will perform in a benefit for the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen on Friday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m. in the Center Church on the Green. David H. Connell will direct the singing group. Tickets are $10; $5 for children; and free to Yale undergraduates with a valid I.D. For informtion, call 432-4136.
The Modern Language Association presented its first award for "lifetime scholarly achievement" to Maynard Mack, Sterling Professor Emeritus of English, on Dec. 28 during its annual convention in Washington, D.C. Professor Mack is a prolific writer and an expert on William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope and 20th-century literary criticism. He was editor of "The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope" and wrote the award-winning biography "Alexander Pope: A Life." He is also author of "King Lear in Our Time," "The Garden and the City" and, most recently, "Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies," among other works. Professor Mack is a Yale alumnus -- 1932 B.A. and 1936 Ph.D. -- and taught at his alma mater for 45 years before retiring in 1978. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he served as president of several professional societies, including the Modern Language Association in 1970.
Dr. James P. Comer, the Maurice Falk Professor in the Yale Child Study Center and the child psychiatry department as well as associate dean of the School of Medicine, has received the 1996 Heinz Award in the category of Human Condition. The awards, which honor the memory of the late U.S. Senator John Heinz, carry a cash prize of $250,000. Dr. Comer was cited for his creation of the School Development Program, which seeks to improve the quality of schools by creating a team of parents, teachers, school administrators and staff members who work together to develop a comprehensive plan for the school. First established in New Haven in 1968, the program has since become a national model. "Dr. Comer was not interested in a 'quick fix,' knowing full well that the process he envisioned would take years to develop," says Teresa Heinz, chair of the Heinz Family Foundation. "Now, 27 years later, the 'Comer model' successfully addresses the inner-city problems of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and crime. His program has made a decisive difference in the role of the public school in many communities."
Martin Bresnick, professor of composition at the School of Music, has been commissioned to create a musical piece for the St. Paul, Minnesota, ensemble Zeitgeist under a new commissioning program launched this year by the Meet the Composer organization and the National Endowment for the Arts. Under the new program -- called Meet the Composer-Arts Endowment Commissioning Music- USA -- awards totaling $215,000 have been given to 22 composers to create new works for orchestras, chamber ensembles, choruses and jazz ensembles. According to Professor Bresnick, his new work will be a "virtuosic and theatrical work" scored for Zeitgeist's musicians, which include a clarinetist, pianist and two percussionists.
Former assistant director at Undergraduate Career Services, Rita Chepulis is now associate director of career development at the School of Management. In her new position, Ms. Chepulis will supervise the day-to-day operations of the Career Development Office and its staff. She will also work to develop short- and long- term departmental goals and strategies, develop career placement and counseling strategies for SOM students and alumni, and cultivate external relationships with other university officials, corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Before coming to Yale, Ms. Chepulis, who earned a M. Phil. degree in 1978 from Yale, conducted research into the socioeconomic implications of labor migration from the former SFR Yugoslavia via a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board.
In other SOM news, Karl Evert and Ellen Greenberg have been selected to receive the Jess Morrow Johns Scholarship, which is awarded to second-year students at the school who are interested in a career in marketing. Among the factors on which candidates are judged are their resumes, essays detailing their interest in marketing, summer internship experience and course selections during the 1996-97 academic year.
Yale's assistant treasurer, Rosalie J. Blunden, was recently elected to a three-year term on the national board of directors of the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, a professional forum for the exchange of information, concepts, practices and developments among university risk managers. She is also president of the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, an international organization dedicated to the advancement of the professional standards of risk management.
The Athletics Department has received a first-year program recognition award from the National Youth Sports Program -- NYSP -- for the free program that brought more than 250 New Haven youngsters to campus this summer for five weeks of sports and educational instruction. The NYSP committee cited the Yale program for utilizing 18 non-NYSP-paid staff members and eight volunteers, providing, 267 medical examinations at no cost to the program and presenting all of the educational instruction sessions in small, hands- on interactive groups. The committee also acknowledged the "outstanding leadership" provided to the program by Larry Matthews, the project's administrator and associate director for sports and recreation, and Tim Ford, the project's activity director and assistant director of athletics.
The next lecture sponsored by the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, a scholarly association affiliated with Yale, will be "Political Myth-Making During the Dutch Revol and Its Consequences for Painting in 17th-Century Holland" by David Levine, professor of art history at Southern Connecticut State University. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 23, at SCSU, 500 Crescent St. For further information, call 432-3113, ext. 2.
Joachim Pissarro, formerly chief curator at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has joined the staff of the Yale University Art Gallery as the Seymour H. Knox, Jr. Curator of European and Contemporary Art. A native of France, Mr. Pissarro was educated in Paris and London and served for a year as director of the department of Impressionist and Modern painting and sculpture at Phillips, Son and Neale in London and of the Musee de la Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is the great- grandson of Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903, and during the past decade has been in charge of creating a new edition of the catalogue raissonne of the artist's paintings; he has also curated several shows of Pissarro's works.
The editors of Popular Science magazine have presented a "Best of What's New" award to a method for breaking down ozone- destroying chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, developed by Robert Crabtree, professor of chemistry, and graduate student Juan Burdeniuc. The process uses sodium oxalate, a chemical found naturally in rhubarb leaves, and heat to transform freon and other CFCs into harmless carbon, everyday table salt and sodium fluoride, which is found in toothpaste. The researchers' discovery was among the 100 new products, technology developments and scientific achievements featured in the "Best of What's New" section in Popular Science's December 1996 issue.
Students at two New Haven middle schools had the opportunity to display their scientific know-how at expos sponsored in December by SMArT -- Science and Math Achiever Teams -- a mentoring program that pairs Yale students with middle school students who share their interests in science or math. At the Roberto Clemente SMArT Science Expo on Dec. 9 and at the Troup Magnet Academy SMArT Expo on Dec. 10, the middle school students displayed the projects that they'd been working on during the fall semester with the Yale students. The theme of these projects ranged from biology and chemistry to physics and computer programming, animal dissections, bacteria cultures, osmosis-diffusion studies, crystal growing, building sound-reactive robots, light reflection and refraction, water purification, volcanoes and the earth's crust, and PASCAL computer language.
Paul Bracken, professor of management at the School of Management and in the political science department, was recently appointed to the Engineering Advisory Council of the Florida A&M University-Florida State University -- FAMU-FSU -- College of Engineering. The council, which is made up of senior officials from industry and government, seeks to bolster the attractiveness of engineering as a profession among minorities and women. FAMU-FSU is the institution that combines students from Florida State University with the historically African-American student body at Florida A&M; currently about half of the FAMU-FSU student body is African American and one-quarter is female. The council will assist the college with program development, recruiting and entry into new fields.
Marion Morra, associate director of the Yale Cancer Center, received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Cancer Society -- ACS -- at the annual meeting of the organization's board of directors last month. A volunteer for the Connecticut Division of the ACS for more than 20 years, Ms. Morra was recognized as a leader in providing cancer information to the public through several publications on cancer-related topics and for her many contributions in relation to quality-of-life issues for cancer patients. The coauthor of several award-winning books on cancer, Ms. Morra has been involved with the ACS in many ways, including helping to develop national plans for tobacco control and comprehensive school health education. At Yale, Ms. Morra directs the Cancer Information Service for the New England region, which provides cancer patients and their families with up-to-date information on cancer prevention, detection and treatment.