Gay or straight, do you have thoughts to share? The 50th Reunion ClassBook will have our “Personal Essays”, but it will also host some “Invited Essays” on topics of broad interest. One of these has a working title, Being Gay At Yale [in the 60s]. Two classmates, artist Bill Stanisich and educator Jeff Horton have agreed to author/edit the essay. They have their own views, and that of people they know from Yale 1969 personally. But they…
Michael Medved, our very own College Bowl champ and now a conservative talk show host in Seattle, has just launched a new podcast series, Great Minds with Michael Medved. Check out the first two episodes in Season One and learn how to subscribe for more.
Tom Guterbock, Ph.D. (SM ’69 and Director of UVa’s Center for Survey Research) gave the reunion committee an interim report on the Class Survey. Feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Sadly, some people are incapacitated and can’t take it. Participation is good so far, but Tom hopes everyone can take the survey before the February 26th cut-off date. Read Tom’s bullet list of what’s he’s seeing so far.
Calvin Hill, one of our best known classmates, was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at the 2016 commencement in New Haven. You undoubtedly remember his heroics at Yale Bowl, and you likely knew about his spectacular success in the NFL. But how about his trailblazing work to help those struggling with addiction and his service to Yale … from supporting the employees strike in our senior year to the Calvin Hill Daycare center?
Shortly after leaving Yale and completing graduate work at MIT, Harry Forsdick (PC) joined the engineering firm creating the hardware, software and communication protocols for ARPANET, the predecessor and testbed for the Internet. In semi-retirement, he now has a business that scans pictures and converts films, videos and audio tapes — and is busily converting items from our undergrad years into digital form for us to share and enjoy in the new ARCHIVES section of the website.
I just finished taking the Class Survey — you know, the one for the 50th Reunion? It will show how we, as a group, have changed over the years. More importantly, it will catalogue what we are doing NOW — and what plans and dreams lie ahead. I can report that the Survey itself is really excellent. It was simultaneously fun and thoughtful. And it’s now ready for YOU!
Kingman wrote a letter to the Director of Admissions detailing what he was looking for in new Yale freshmen. See his articulate, well-written guidance addressing things like leadership, public vs. private school, morality, “legacy”, diversity, well-rounded-ness, athletics and the like. This letter was used by Admissions officers and in Alumni Schools Committee training for many decades.
Each year, Davenport published a booklet, Davenport Rogue’s Gallery, with candid shots of D’porters as commentary on life in the college that year. As part of our “digital archiving” project, this is the first Rogue’s Gallery to be scanned and presented on Yale1969.org.
Julian Fisher has returned to his first love, photojournalism, with an exhibit at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center (January 13 – June 6, 2018). The exhibit, Trapped in the Middle: Photographs by Julian Fisher, investigates, in photographs and interviews, how growing income inequality in the US affects the middle class, and how they increasingly feel stressed – and trapped. Get a preview of the show here!
An incredible legacy: the winningest coach in Ivy League history (which includes back when Yale won everything nationally); College Football Hall of Fame, 2004; 15 players (including our own Hill and Dowling) going to the NFL; 5 Rhodes scholars; only 7 of his 2000 players failed to graduate. Read Brian Dowling’s remembrance in the Comments section of this post.
News about the life of Ed Boyle, who blazed a brave and productive path to his end in 1999, leaving behind a lot of people who deeply respected and admired him.
Our class representative reports back from the annual AYA Assembly, held in November. This year the theme was “creating communities at Yale” — yes, communities, plural! Read Harold’s letter about what he learned, especially about how on-campus and off-campus housing is rapidly changing undergraduate life.
In 2018, Yannis Simonides (SM) channels Socrates in a one-man show touring the USA, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Russia — using ancient texts to challenge modern life.
Judge Myron Thompson first visited Yale Law School when he was 15 years old, invited by a YLS student-volunteer who taught Myron during a 1963 Freedom Summer enrichment program. Owing to Myron’s slow recovery from polio, that student carried Myron around to show him the colleges, encouraging him to apply. In a 37 year career as a federal district court judge, Myron ruled Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument unconstitutional and struck down Alabama’s restrictive abortion law, among other opinions. Now he receives Yale Law’s Award of Merit.
Vincent Scully spent virtually all his life in New Haven, as a star student at Hillhouse High School, Yale College, and Yale Grad School — teaching at Yale from 1947 until 2014. A major scholar and gifted teacher, Scully insired us. Read the comments that your Classmates left at the bottom of this remembrance … and leave some of your own.
You’ll get an invitation to the Class Survey shortly. Here’s the behind-the-scenes story about how the survey came into being and the thought that went into the survey design. Lucky enough, one of our Classmates is a leading expert in creating valid and reliable surveys!
