Campus News and Notes

The following items list recent accomplishments by Yale University faculty and staff:

The following items list recent accomplishments by Yale University faculty and staff:

Karl K. Turekian of North Haven, the Benjamin Silliman Professor of Geology and Geophysics, recently received the Maurice K. Ewing Medal for significant original contributions to understanding physical, geophysical and geological processes in the ocean. The medal was presented jointly by the U.S. Navy and the American Geophysical Union. The award citation described Professor Turekian as “one of the world’s most productive, widely known and best-loved geochemists” whose research has been “carried out with unsurpassed insight, originality, dedication and selflessness.” Professor Turekian is director of the Center for the Study of Global Change at the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and curator of meteorites at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Four faculty from the School of Music have received awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers –ASCAP. They are: Martin Bresnick of New Haven, adjunct professor of composition; Ezra Laderman of New Haven, professor of composition and former dean of the School of Music; Frank Tirro of North Haven, professor of music and another former dean of the school; and Jack Vees of New Haven, lecturer in electronic music and acting director of the Center for Studies in Musical Technology. The ASCAP awards are designed to assist and encourage writers of serious music.

Peter Gay of Hamden, the Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, has been named as the founding director of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. The center, which is expected to open in January of 1999, will seek to foster innovative thinking about society by supporting humanities scholarship and discourse. During his career, Professor Gay has written extensively on the Enlightenment, the Weimar Republic, Sigmund Freud and bourgeois culture. The fifth and final volume of his study “The Bourgeois Experience: Victorians to Freud” will be published in January by W.W. Norton.

Among the 49 new members of the American Philosophical Society are faculty members Guido Calabresi of Woodbridge, the Sterling Professor of Law and federal judge; Vincent J. Scully Jr. of New Haven, the Sterling Professor Emeritus and lecturer in the history of art, and Heinrich von Staden of Woodbridge, chair and professor of classics and of comparative literature. The society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, is devoted to the advancement of scientific and scholarly inquiry.

The Reverend Frederick J. Streets of New Haven, University chaplain, received his Ph.D. in social welfare at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work at the 1997 Commencement exercises in New York City. Mr. Streets earned his master’s degree from Wurzweiler in 1981.

At its 1997 Commencement ceremonies, Calvin College presented the Distinguished Alumni Award to Harry S. Stout of New Haven, the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity and master of Berkeley College. He was honored for his work as a historian of Puritan religion, his two Pulitzer Prize-nominated books on early American religion, and his contributions as general editor of “The Works of Jonathan Edwards.”

The June issue of Working Mother magazine honored the pioneering work of Dr. James P. Comer of Hamden, associate dean of the medical school and director of the Yale Child Study Center’s School Development Program, and Edward F. Zigler of North Haven, Sterling Professor of Psychology and director of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, in its list of the 25 individuals nationwide who have helped improve the lives of working parents and their children.

Jonathan Brent of New Haven was named to the newly created position of editorial director at the Yale University Press. Mr. Brent, who joined the Press in 1991 and has served as executive editor since 1994, will be responsible for maintaining the traditionally strong acquisitions programs while redirecting the acquisitions list in response to changing opportunities in the publishing marketplace. Among Mr. Brent’s prominent recent acquisitions are “The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust” and the ongoing series, “Annals of Communism,” for which he has also negotiated a contract for a documentary film.

Law School professor Ruth Wedgwood of New Haven attended the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where she was invited to argue as “amicus curiae” before the tribunal in the Netherlands. She argued that the United Nations’ tribunal has the power to require the former warring states to turn over government records of military operations, which are needed to prove command responsibility for ethnic cleansing and war crimes in the Lasva Valley in central Bosnia. The argument is part of the case brought against General Tihomir Blaskic.

Harold Bloom of New Haven, the Sterling Professor of the Humanities, lectured on Shakespeare in Bologna and Rome as part of the Yale/Bologna Exchange Program. Professor Bloom also received an honorary degree, the Laurea ad Honorem in Lingue e Letterture Straniere, from the University of Bologna.

Edward R. Tufte of Cheshire has received another honor for his work in “advancing the art and practice of effective visual communication.” The Society for Technical Communication named him as its 1997 annual “Honorary Fellow.” The society praised Professor Tufte for his three books on visual communication and for his consulting work. Professor Tufte teaches in the political science and computer science departments and is also a senior critic in graphic design at the School of Art.

Nobel laureate James Tobin of New Haven, the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Economics, received the Connecticut Bar Association’s Public Service award on June 16. The association presents the annual award to a Connecticut resident who has made significant contributions to society. Professor Tobin won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his work in macroeconomics, monetary theory and policy, fiscal policy and public finance. He served on President John F. Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors and is the author or editor of 13 books and more than 400 articles.

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Media Contact

Gila Reinstein: gila.reinstein@yale.edu, 203-432-1325