Dr. Michael Merson, dean and chair of the department of epidemiology and public health at the School of Medicine, is serving as an honorary co-chair for a ball being held on Saturday, Nov. 9, by AIDS Interfaith Network AIN to celebrate the agency's work and to raise money for its new Elsie Cofield Day Center, named in honor of AIN's founder and president. Among the goals of the new day center is providing services to those living with AIDS that would allow them to improve their quality of life and participate more fully in society. The center will offer various activities and support services for clients and their families, including counseling, health care, education and children's programs. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. to mark the opening of the day center at 1303 Chapel St. For information on tickets for the benefit fundraiser, call 624-4350.
Items from Yale's collections are on display in the exhibit "The Voyage of the Neptune, 1796-1799," which will be on view Oct. 11- June 29 at the New Haven Colony Historical Society. The show, which tells the story of an 18th-century ship that sailed from New Haven to China and around the world, includes a 1791 medical handbook from the Cushing-Whitney Medical Library in its section on life aboard ship and several specimens from the Peabody Museum of Natural History illustrating descriptions of the crew's encounters on their journey. The latter include a stuffed king penguin from the Falklands, albatross eggs and various items from the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaii), including a breastplate of animal canine teeth and a small grass skirt. Contributions from the Sterling Memorial Library Map Collection and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library are also featured. The New Haven Colony Historical Society, located at 114 Whitney Ave., is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 2-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $2 for adults, $1.50 for senior citizens and students with I.D. and $1 for children ages 6-16. Children under age 6 are admitted free. For information, call 562-4183.
Barry Kane, formerly registrar at Colgate University, has accepted appointment to the newly created position of Registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Last spring, it was decided that technological developments have made it both possible and advantageous to merge the operations of the Registrar's Offices in Yale College and the Graduate School. As the first appointee to the new post, Mr. Kane will oversee that merger. Before working at Colgate, Mr. Kane served as director of graduate admissions and, later, as registrar at Drew University. He assumed his new Yale post on Oct. 1.
The next lecture sponsored by the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, a scholarly organization affiliated with Yale, will be "Biography as an Interdisciplinary Art" by Joan Doran Hedrick, professor of history and director of women's studies at Trinity College in Hartford. In her talk, Professor Hedrick will explore some of the choices she made in writing her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, "Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life." The talk will take place at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 22, in Hamlin Hall, Trinity College. It is free and open to the public. For further information, call 432-3113, ext. 2.
Baritone Richard Lalli, associate professor (adjunct) at the School of Music, and pianist Gary Chapman recently released two new CD's, "One for My Baby" and "I Guess She's Not for Me." The recordings include such favorites as "I've Got You Under My Skin," "One for My Baby," "I Love a Piano" and "How Long Has This Been Going On?" As with the duo's first release, "Songs My Mother Might Like," profits from the new CD's will be donated to organizations that provide care for people with AIDS. The duo is also preparing a disc of American classics that will accompany a Yale University Press publication by music theorist Allen Forte.
On another note: Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale and professor at the School of Music, has been appointed as principal guest conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. His first conducting engagement with the orchestra under his new title will be March 7-9 for an "Audience Favorites" program featuring works from North and South America.
Paul Bracken, professor of international business at the School of Management, was recently appointed to the steering committee of the Intelligent Transportation Systems by the State of Connecticut. Intelligent Transportation Systems blend new innovations in transportation, communications and information technology to ease automobile traffic flows. They will be introduced to Connecticut's major transportation corridors over the next few years. An expert on international business and politics, Professor Bracken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a consultant to U.S., European and Asian corporations, as well as to the U.S. and foreign governments.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded a grant to Stephen C. Edberg, professor of laboratory medicine at the School of Medicine, for his project to determine how the individual components of the "water treatment train" help eliminate microbial risks. As part of this project, Professor Edberg will "fingerprint" bacteria on the molecular level and then examine samples from source water, the treatment process, the water distribution system and human beings to determine which bacteria have been eliminated and which survive. The water utilities participating in the project are in New Haven, Los Angeles and Thames, England. Professor Edberg, whose research is focused on the interface between medical and public health microbiology, is active on international and national government panels generating regulations concerning safe food and water. He also serves as director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Rega Wood, professor adjunct at the Divinity School and senior research scholar in the philosophy department, is coeditor of a newly published book on the ethics and metaphysics of "John Duns Scotus." Ludger Honnefelder and Mechthild Dreyer, who hail from the University of Bonn, are coeditors of the book with Professor Wood, who is also editor and director of the Richard Rufus Edition at Yale. The book, published by E.J. Brill, includes contributions from all the major Scotus scholars, including Marilyn McCord Adams, professor of historical theology at the Divinity School and professor of religious studies.
In other publishing news: Jonathan Klaaren, a doctoral candidate in sociology, is one of six coeditors of a new book titled "Constitutional Law in South Africa," Juta, 1996. The book was described as "one of the most substantial and significant legal texts to have been published in South Africa for a long time" by the South African Law Journal. Mr. Klaaren, who also coauthored or authored six of the book's chapters, is also senior lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Witwatersrand and an associate of the Constitutional-Administrative Project at South Africa's Centre for Applied Legal Studies.
Alessandro Gomez, the Barton Weller Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center for Combustion Studies, has received the 1996 Kenneth T. Whitby Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research. The award, which consists of a plaque and cash prize, honors Professor Gomez for his "outstanding contributions to aerosol science and technology."
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra NHSO will pay tribute to the late School of Music faculty member Jacob Druckman during its "Opening Night Gala Celebration" at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 17, in Woolsey Hall, corner of Grove and College streets. Professor Druckman, who died on May 24, had been commissioned to compose a piano concerto for pianist Emmanuel Ax, who will join the NHSO for its season opener. Although this work was not completed Mr. Ax will perform the composer's piece "Seraphic Games." For ticket information, call 1-800-292-NHSO or 776-1444. Prior to the concert, Ezra Laderman, professor of composition and former dean of the School of Music, will offer his reminiscences about Professor Druckman at 6:50 p.m. in the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall St. The "Prelude" discussion is free and open to the public.
In light of the recent U.S. News & World Report survey naming Yale as the nation's Number 1 university, Eustace Theodore, executive director of the Association of Yale Alumni, offers the following anecdote about his recent trip abroad: "As we drove along the coast of Turkey last week, we stopped in on a road-side restaurant, a 'Taverna' common along the Aegean. As the 36 Yalies dismounted, resplendent in their Yale Alumni College Abroad hats, an excited conversation began among the staff of the restaurant. Our guide translated their question: 'Just what is this Yale that is Number One?' they asked. Opening the daily paper in this small village in the middle of nowhere we 'read' in Turkish the banner headline of the full-page story: 'Yale Takes Number One Position.' So, some weeks after the story in U.S. News & World Report, the message echoes around the world."
Jonathan D. Spence, Sterling Professor of History, will discuss his book "God's Chinese Son" on Thursday, Oct. 17, as part of the "Books Sandwiched In" program sponsored by the Friends of the New Haven Public Library. The presentation will be held 12:10-12:50 p.m. at the United Church on the Green, corner of Elm and Temple streets. It is free and open to the public.