Join our classmates Yuka Manabe, Val Norton and Carl Zimmer as they discuss COVID. Yuka is a Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School, specializing in infectious diseases. Val Norton is an Emergency Room doctor and hospital administrator in San Diego. Carl Zimmer is a science writer for the New York Times and 14 books, including A Planet of Viruses. (https://carlzimmer.com/)
You can access the podcast here.
The tables are turned in the next episode of the podcast, with Tim Harkness being the interview subject. Hear about how Tim's application to college started as a family joke during a 1976 road trip through New England and his thoughts on the importance of improving diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.
To hear Tim's interview, click here.
I have been watching with some dismay the firestorm at Yale concerning academic independence. I saw a blog post, which is excerpted here, from a Yale Professor -- Jason Stanley. Please give it a read. His argument is both sound and troubling, calling recent actions by the Yale leadership an "existential threat to the university mission."
I would also recommend the statement by the Yale History Department, which is breathtaking in its brevity and message. Click here for that.
Here is the beginning of the post, from the Academe Blog:
BY JASON STANLEY
Yale University is a central democratic institution, a fact recognized by its tax-exempt status. It provides a forum in which society’s most difficult issues can be confronted and freely discussed. The University educator is thus tasked with presenting their students with intellectually rigorous foundational challenges to tradition; that is the role of education in fostering autonomous thought. Fulfilling this mission will always threaten those in power, and that is why academic freedom is the university’s core principle. A university with no firewall between a society’s billionaires and its academic program is no university at all. Yet, a disturbing pattern of behavior by this university’s administration over time suggests the absence of a firewall, which is an existential threat to the university mission.
Click here for the whole post.
I read this article recently and found it compelling. Please take a few minutes to read it. Is this something we should discuss as a class? Is this a fair/helpful topic for reunion?
While the author's focus is on Princeton, can the same be said for Yale?
Here is a link to the article: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/opportunity-hoarding-elite-private-university#.YWmJvvYBhMg.link
It’s time to address elite private universities’ role in maintaining social hierarchy and intergenerational inequality.
Tune in to the latest podcast episode featuring classmate Emily Greenwald. Emily shares her journey from pre-med to history to grad school to professional historian. Along the way, she learned a great deal about herself and the world. One of her biggest lessons came on a tandem bicycle! So, tune in and enjoy the podcast. Click here to listen in.
Brian Williams, '87 JE, SOM '97 writes:
"In early Fall, I had the pleasure of hosting a brunch with
four '87 classmates. Yale brought us from different home states to New Haven in
August of 1983 for the weeklong Pre-Registration Orientation Program, where we
became fast friends. Our educational, career, and life journeys took us all
around the country and the world, and we now find ourselves in Los Angeles,
adoptive home to all of five of us. It was great to catch up, 38 years after
our initial meeting on Old Campus, with Preston Lewis, Vincent Jordan,
Steve Harper, and Jon Walls. All of us are doing great and we're
looking forward to seeing our '87 classmates next June!"
"I also am thrilled to announce my marriage, on January 21, 2021, to Kimberly (Clayton) Hershman '87 BK, '92 Law. We got married in a beautiful, COVID-safe backyard ceremony."
We have launched a class podcast, which you can access here. Every Thursday leading up to our Reunion in June, 2022, we will be posting discussions with classmates. These are meant to explore how we have lived our lives and how we see our future. We won't be sauntering through resumes or talking about our successes only. The whole point is to share our lives and what we've learned since 1987.
We are always looking for guests to give an interview. Please give some thought about sitting for an interview -- everyone has learned through life and has something to share.
If you would like to sign up to be a guest on the podcast, you can do so here:
In the latest episode of our podcast, we hear from Caprice Young about her life as an educator and how her college classmate saved her life.
Take a listen to Caprice's interview by clicking here.
You can find the Y87 Podcast on Spotify, Google and Apple. We are hoping to drop an episode every Thursday.
