Attorney for Terry Nichols, Greek Orthodox Archbishop, Inventor, Safari Guide and others to Speak at Yale

The following talks at Yale University the week of March 23-29 are free and open to the public.

Unisys Corporation CEO to talk at the School of Management

“Building a New Unisys: Challenges and Opportunities for a New CEO” is the title of an International Business Roundtable talk being given on Tuesday, March 24, by Lawrence Weinbach, chair, president and chief executive officer of Unisys Corporation. His talk will take place 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. in the General Motors Room of Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave.

Weinbach was elected to his current position in September 1997. He joined Unisys after serving his second four-year term as managing partner and chief executive of Andersen Worldwide. During his tenure, the company became the largest and most successful global professional services organization. When he left, the firm had revenues in excess of $11 billion and operated in 80 countries, employing more than 100,000 people.

Weinbach joined Andersen Worldwide following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1961, and became one of the youngest partners in the firm’s history. He served in various capacities in Andersen Worldwide’s Chicago, New York and Stamford (Connecticut) offices prior to being elected chief executive. He is on the boards of numerous not-for-profit companies.

‘Winfrey vs. Texas cattlemen’ codefendant to speak at tea

Howard Lyman, program director of the Humane Society of the United States and co-defendant with Oprah Winfrey in the recent unsuccessful lawsuit brought by a group of Texas cattlemen, will be the guest at a tea on Tuesday, March 24, at 4 p.m. at the Davenport College master’s house, 271 Park St.

Lyman, a former rancher who became a vegetarian, appeared on a 1996 Oprah Winfrey show on the subject of mad cow disease. He claimed on the show that U.S. cattle were fed ground-up cattle parts and that the practice increased the risk of a mad cow disease epidemic. His comments prompted Winfrey to proclaim that she would no longer eat hamburgers. A group of Texas cattlemen said Winfrey and Lyman should be held liable for over $10 million in damages they say they suffered as a result of the show. On Feb. 27, a Texas jury ruled in favor of Winfrey and Lyman; their attorneys praised the verdict for protecting the right of free speech.

Local author will read from her fiction

New Haven author Alice Mattison will read from her fiction on Tuesday, March 24, at 5 p.m. in the Faculty Room of Connecticut Hall, 344 College St. The reading is sponsored by the English department.

Mattison’s most recent book, a collection of intersecting stories titled “Men Giving Money, Women Yelling,” was published by William Morrow in 1997 and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. She is also the author of two novels, “Hilda and Pearl” and “Field of Stars,” as well as two previous collections of stories, “Great Wits” and “The Flight of Andy Burns.” In addition, she has written a collection of poems titled “Animals.” Many of Mattison’s stories have appeared in The New Yorker. She teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College in Vermont.

Battered women is the subject of talk, video presentation

Grace Poore, who created a video on battered women titled “Voices Heard Sisters Unseen,” will discuss her video and other projects on Tuesday, March 24, at 7 p.m. in Rm. 309 of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The event is sponsored by the Yale Women’s Center as part of Women’s History Month celebrations.

“Voices Heard Sisters Unseen” presents personal stories and feminist analysis about how the courts, police and social services “re-victimize” battered women who are deaf, disabled, lesbians, prostitutes, HIV-positive, or undocumented (have no immigration status). Through interviews, poetry, dance and music, the video shows survivors of domestic abuse working to change the way the system treats battered women. Poore’s current project, a video titled “The Children We Sacrifice,” focuses on incestuous sexual abuse of female children in South Asian communities. During her talk, Poore will discuss her visits with activists, incest survivors and service providers in Sri Lanka, India, the United States and Canada.

For further information, call 432-0845.

Attorney for Terry Nichols to give lecture on Jewish ethics

Internationally known defense attorney Michael Tigar, who recently defended accused Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, will deliver the fifth David and Goldie Blanksteen Lecture in Jewish Ethics on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Levinson Auditorium of the Law School, 127 Wall St. His lecture, titled “The Ethics of Compassion,” is cosponsored by Yale Hillel and the Law School.

Tigar is known for his controversial clients, who have included John Demjanjuk (the man accused of being the Nazi known as Ivan the Terrible), the Chicago Seven, Angela Davis and Kay Bailey Hutchinson. He is the author of “Examining Witnesses,” “Persuasion” and “Federal Appeals: Jurisdiction & Practice, 2nd Ed.”

The David and Goldie Blanksteen Lectureship in Jewish Ethics of Yale Hillel was established to afford the Yale community an opportunity to engage in the discussion of critical ethical questions of the moment with leading thinkers, artists and activists.

Tanner Lectures to focus on beauty and justice

Harvard University professor Elaine Scarry will deliver the 1998 Tanner Lectures on Wednesday and Thursday, March 25 and 26, at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The talks will focus on “Beauty and Its Relation to Justice.” Wednesday’s lecture is titled “On Beauty and Being Fair,” and Tuesday’s talk is “On Beauty and Being Wrong.”

Scarry, the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, joined the Harvard faculty in 1989. Her work gained national prominence with the 1986 publication of “The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World,” an interdisciplinary study of the representation of violence and pain in literary texts, aesthetic theory, political philosophy, science and medicine.

Scarry is also author of “Resisting Representation” and “Making Mental Pictures Fly” (in press), and editor of two volumes on English literature and poetry. She is currently working on “The Matter of Consent,” an account of the structural attributes common to consent in aesthetics, medicine, political philosophy and law, as framed through the problem of absence of consent in the development and use of nuclear arms.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Scarry was a Leff Fellow at Yale Law School in 1993 and delivered the Luce Lectures at Yale in 1986.

Stewardship is topic of talk by award-winning author

Peter Block, an award-winning author of books about management (and organization development, will speak on “Stewardship: Implications for Public Service and Social Justice” on Wednesday, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. at Dwight Hall, 67 High St. The event was organized by the Dwight Hall Leadership Institute under the sponsorship of the Surdna Foundation and Dwight Hall.

Block, who received a master’s degree in industrial administration at Yale in 1963, is the author of three best-selling books: “Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest,” “The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work” and “Flawless Consulting.” His work now centers on ways to bring service and accountability to organizations and communities. He is on the board of directors of the Association for Quality and Participation and has joined with the association to create a School for Managing, a year-long program to teach public and private sector teams how to redesign their workplace.

Former Yale chemist returns to campus as Sternbach Lecturer

Samuel J. Danishefsky, a former Sterling Professor of Chemistry at Yale who is now professor of chemistry at Columbia University and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, will present two talks this week as the ninth Sternbach Lecturer.

The lectures will take place Wednesday and Thursday, March 25 and 26, at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 110 of Sterling Chemistry Laboratory, 225 Prospect St. His lecture titles are “On the Chemistry Biology Interface: From Glycals to Clinically Evaluatable Carbohydrate-Based Antitumor Vaccines” and “A Travel Log in the Fascinating World of Total Synthesis.”

Danishevsky taught at Yale 1980-93 and chaired the department of chemistry 1981-87. He moved to New York in 1993. His research focuses on synthetic strategy, synthetic methodology, cytoxic natural products, and most recently, fully synthetic carbohydrate-based tumor antigens. He has received numerous awards for his work, including Harvard University’s Tischler Medal, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the Tetrahedron Prize for Creative Work in Organic Chemistry and the American Chemical Society’s Cope Scholar Award.

The Leo Sternbach Lecture Series was established by the Hoffmann-La Roche Company of Nutley, New Jersey, to honor the series’ namesake, who was a pioneer in the medicinal chemistry industry.

Church official to discuss promoting youth involvement

His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, former archbishop of North and South America, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, will talk on the subject “Evangelismos: an Ever Challenging Call to Youth” on Wednesday, March 25. His talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St. The event is sponsored by the Yale College Hellenic Society and the Divinity School.

Iakovos, who was born on the Turkish island of Imvros, was archbishop 1959-96. He has been a crusader in the modern ecumenical movement for Christian unity, and was considered to be dean of all religious leaders in the United States. He served for nine years as president of the World Council of Churches and initiated Orthodox dialogue with Jews. He has been a leading champion of civil and human rights, marching with black civil rights leaders during the 1960s. Among Iakovos’ many awards are the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Greek Grand Cross of honor and the Grand Cross of the Order of Archbishop Makarios III.

Doctor to address issue of decision-making about death

Dr. Timothy E. Quill, who is considered one of the foremost authorities on end-of-life decision-making, will address the subject “Death, Dignity and Individualized Decision-Making” in two events on campus on Wednesday, March 25. He will speak at 4 p.m. in the library of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), 77 Prospect St. His second talk will take place at 7:30 p.m. that day at the Joseph Slifka Center, 80 Wall St. A reception will follow the latter event.

Quill, a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, has published and lectured widely about aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, including partnerships, communications, barriers and delivering difficult news. He has authored the books “Death and Dignity: Making Choices and Taking Charge” and “A Midwife Through the Dying Process: Stories of Healing and Hard Choices of Life.” He has written for numerous publications and has been featured on such news-related programs as “Frontline,” “Dateline,” “20/20” and “Nightline.”

The event is sponsored jointly by ISPS and Yale Hillel as part of the Third Annual Forum Series on Bioethical Issues in Society. For further information, call Carol Pollard at 432-6188 or Amy Aaland at 432-8525.

“Creativity and Disease” is title of lecture by Swiss doctor

Dr. Philip Sandblom of Lausanne, Switzerland will lecture on “Creativity and Disease” on Thursday, March 26, at 3:30 p.m. in the Beaumont Room of the Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar St. His lecture, sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine, is a special feature preceding the Robert Penn Warren Lecture later that same day (see the next listing).

In his talk, Sandblom will discuss what writers, poets, artists and musicians have thought about medicine and doctors. A reception will follow at 4:30 p.m. For further information, call 785-5494.

Oncologist/poet to present Robert Penn Warren Lecture

“One Word: The Poetry of Medicine” is the title of this year’s Robert Penn Warren Lecture, which will be given on Thursday, March 26, by Dr. Mark J. Straus, an oncologist and poet. His lecture, sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine, will begin at 5 p.m. in the Beaumont Room of the School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St.

Straus is president of The Oxford Medical Group, P.C. and is chief executive officer and chair of MDx Med-Care. In addition to three textbooks on lung cancer, he has written three books of poetry: “Scarlet Crown,” “One Word” and the forthcoming “Not God.” His four novels are “The Spa,” “The Branford House,” “Lindbergh Street” and “Rudolph Valentino’s Tie.” Straus’ poetry has been published in many publications, including The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, the Journal of the American Medical Association, TriQuarterly and Poetry East. His awards for poetry include a commendation award in the 1993 National Poetry Competition and a 1995 award from the Israel Poetry Association.

Success after college is topic of entrepreneur’s talk

“Climbing your own Mountain, or Life after Yale” is the title of a talk being presented during a master’s tea on Thursday, March 26, by John F. Zaccaro, an entrepreneur and inventor. His talk will be at 4 p.m. in the Pierson College master’s house, 231 Park St. The event is sponsored by Pierson College and The John Pierson Fund.

Zaccaro is executive producer of the American Medical Association’s International Health and Medical Film Festival, the world’s preeminent competition devoted specifically to health and medical films. In his talk, he will share his formula for success after college, drawing from his book “Climb your own Mountain.” The book combines his personal experiences with his 20-year study of the most successful and highly motivated people in the world, as well as the writings of individuals in the success-motivational field.

Scholar will discuss the Jews of Yemen

Ephraim Isaac, a scholar on Jews, Africa and African Americans, will give a talk titled “Can the Donkey Recognize the Messiah when He Arrives?: The Story of the Jews of Yemen” on Thursday, March 26. His talk will begin at 4 p.m. in Rm. 202 of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The event is sponsored by the Morris Levinson Lecture Fund in conjunction with the Program in Judaic Studies and the Council on Middle East Studies of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.

Born in Ethiopia to a Yemenite father, Isaac specializes in Yeminite and Ethiopian Jewish history and literature. He was the first professor hired in Afro-American studies at Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. and taught 1968-77. He founded and is now director of the Institute of Semitic Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is also a visiting professor at Princeton University. He has written and edited numerous publications, most recently “An Ethiopic History of Joseph” and “The Book of Enoch.” A fellow of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, he is currently working on a new edition of the “Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments of The Book of Enoch,” as well as “A History of Religions in Africa.” Isaac is widely known in Ethiopia as founder of the National Literacy Campaign of the 1960s. He is the international chair of the board of the Peace and Development Committee for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

Canada’s minister of industry will present Dean’s Lecture

John Manley, minister of industry for Canada, will lecture on “Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy: Constructing a Smart, Comparative Advantage” on Thursday, March 26, at 4:30 p.m. in Davies Auditorium of Becton Center, 15 Prospect St. The talk is sponsored by the Faculty of Engineering as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer series. A reception will follow in the Becton faculty lounge.

Manley was a member of Parliament for Ottawa South before he was appointed minister of industry in November 1993. He is responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec, and the Western Economic Diversification, as well as for a number of government agencies. These include the Standards Council, the Canadian Space Agency, the National Research Council, the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Canadian Tourism Commission. Under his leadership, members of his team are acting to build a positive entrepreneurial climate and help small businesses grow; expand markets for jobs and growth through trade; create an efficient and modern infrastructure; and build stronger regional economies within an integrated national framework to meet the challenge of global competition. As minister responsible for telecommunications policy, Manley has also led the development of a strategy for Canada’s Information Highway.

African safari guide to speak at the forestry school

Allen Bechky, who has been traveling to Africa for more than 20 years both independently and as a safari guide with Mountain Travel-Sobek, will lecture at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies on Thursday, March 26, at 7 p.m. in Bowers Auditorium of Sage Hall, 205 Prospect St. His talk is sponsored by the African Natural Resources Group at the forestry school.

Noted for his knowledge and love of Africa, Bechky has written two Sierra Club books that provide information about the continent beyond traditional guidebooks. The first, “Adventuring in East Africa,” highlights such wildlife viewing areas as the Serengeti and Maasai Mara. His newest book, “Adventuring in Southern Africa,” is a comprehensive guide to safaris and wildlife parks in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland. It describes the geography, culture, natural history and adventure opportunities in those areas and explores issues of conservation in Africa. Bechky’s writings and photographs have also appeared in Outside, Sierra, The New York Times and other publications.

Young children and welfare reform – Bush Center lecture

“Young Children and Welfare Reform: Lessons from the States” will be the subject of a talk by Jane Knitzer, deputy director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at the Columbia University School of Public Health, on Friday, March 27, at noon. Her talk, part of the weekly lecture series sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, will be held in the Sterling Library lecture hall, 128 Wall St.

Knitzer, a psychologist, joined the National Center on Children in Poverty as deputy director in 1994. She was executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Children of New York 1990-91 and also worked for eight years as a senior policy analyst at the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., where she authored “Unclaimed Children: The Failure of Public Policies for Children and Adolescents in Need of Mental HealthServices.” Her recent work includes “Map and Track: State Initiatives for Young Children and Families” (with Stephen Page) and “Lessons from the Field: Head Start Mental Health Strategies to Meet Changing Needs” (with Hirokazu Yoshikawa). She received the first Nicholas Hobbs Child Advocacy Award from the American Psychological Association.