By Tommy Bourgeois
I begin by stating the obvious: it’s been far too long since my notes have mentioned Tyler Prize and National Medal of Science recipient May Berenbaum, Swanlund Chair of Entomology at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, who felt compelled to win yet another honor so that she might return to the limelight. (May knows that I kid, to borrow an expression from Bill Maher, because I love.) In a ceremony held on November 4 at the Law School’s Levinson Auditorium, May was one of four scientists awarded the Addison Emery Verrill Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Named for Yale’s first zoology professor and one of the Peabody’s first curators, the Verrill medal was instituted in 1959 by then-director S. Dillon Ripley to recognize “signal practitioners in the arts of natural history and natural sciences.” May became one of only 18 scientists to win the award in its 57-year history. Among them: E. O. Wilson, also one of May’s predecessors as a Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement winner; and her fellow 2016 recipient Naomi Pierce ’76, Hessel Professor of Biology at Harvard and sister of our late beloved classmate, Tomi Pierce. The day after the award ceremony, May and the other honorees each presented a half-hour lecture in the Peabody’s newly renovated Hall of Minerals. She posted on the class Facebook page, “The event was spectacular in every way (convivial, celebratory, and scientifically stunning). . . . It’s intimidating, though, to give a lecture in front of rocks—tough audience!”
The week following May’s well-deserved recognition saw several ’75ers back on campus. The Yale Dining Halls’ executive chef Ron DeSantis enlisted Arthur Greenwald’s expertise in the planning and production of a celebration of barbeque cuisine on November 8. Arthur booked grill master “Meathead” Goldwyn, of amazingribs.com fame, who spent the day instructing Yale’s top chefs in the finer, science-based points of his craft. Trumbull College head Margaret Clark hosted a special students’ tea featuring a Q&A session with “Professor” Meathead, whose refusal to disclose an alternative given name leaves us to wonder whether his parents were simply fans of Norman Lear’s landmark sitcom All in the Family, and the event culminated in an evening lecture and—what else?—a barbeque dinner. November 8 was also Election Day, of course, but that’s been adequately covered elsewhere.
Arthur stayed on, after the dishes were put away and the grills cleaned, to stand in as alternate for class representative Joan Spear at the annual AYA assembly held on November 10 and 11. This year’s gathering focused on an aspect of Yale unique among its peer institutions: namely, its four professional schools of the arts. The deans of Drama, Art, Architecture, and Music, along with some faculty and students, addressed alumni and opened their classrooms and workspaces to us. Joining Art and yours truly were treasurer Nancy Young, Yale Club presidents Robert Cole (DC) and Ron Goldser (Minneapolis/St. Paul, quaintly known as the Club of the Northwest), and Alumni Service Corps representative Rob Biniaz, whom I ran into during a tour of Yale’s rare musical instruments. A Friday luncheon at Commons, now marked by a plaque proclaiming it the Schwarzman Center at Commons, honored this year’s Yale-Jefferson Award winners, cited for distinguished community and public service. We were happy to see my fellow Piersonite Jan Grossman and her husband Josh Rubins, whose son Daniel Rubins, PC ’17, was recognized for Hear Your Song, a project he devised and executed with other musicians to compose original songs and bring them to hospitalized youngsters in the New Haven area. Congratulations to the Grossman-Rubins juggernaut! I’d be remiss not to note that Jan is an accomplished singer and writer, and Josh a professional accompanist and arranger, so young apple Dan hasn’t fallen far from the family tree.
Nancy and I hosted our class table in Alumni Village before the Princeton game at the Bowl. Classmates who dropped by for Bloody Marys (thanks to Nancy and husband Paul Ford!) and conversation included the aforementioned Messrs. Greenwald and Cole, along with Mike and Jackie Albis, Paul Baumgartel, John Friedman, Greg Zorthian, my Spizzwinks(!) mates Jeff Brenzel and Bob Kennedy, and Kim Elliman, accompanied by his daughter Claire, who joins her twin brother Theo in the Davenport freshman class. We also welcomed ’76ers Ken Inadomi and David Bodney. Those of us who sat through the Elis’ 31–3 drubbing at the hands of Princeton’s Tigers could hardly have imagined Yale’s streak-ending victory over Harvard just one week later. 2016 has been a year of surprises on many fronts, none of which requires my commentary.
Kudos to Nancy for her hard work in pulling the October class Cuba trip together—our first such venture as a class. Accompanying Nancy and Paul were Jim Austin and Susan Conger-Austin, James and Linda Fiffer, Jeremy Korzenik, Al and Pamela (’76) Palitz, Jon and Debra Ruderman, Andrew and Lisa Satlin, Laurie Stevens and Mark McAndrews, and Chris Donnelly, who posted this thoughtful and comprehensive summary on the class Facebook page: “And we are back—from the first, and the first-class, class trip of the Class of ’75 to Cuba. Thanks, especially, to Nancy, who did a lot to make it happen. A great trip, I think we all agree—very interesting and very challenging. Cuba was different from what I expected. Just to comment from one perspective—that of my ’70s environmental point of view—I found Cuba puzzling, contradictory, even paradoxical at times. It is a very green country. We noted as we drove in towards Havana how many people had small, well-kept gardens in their minimal yard spaces. Yet, at the first stop on that same drive, we also noticed a smoke stack spewing orange smoke, of a color I probably haven’t seen since the early ’70s. (It certainly sparked the interest of our resident DOJ lawyer with a specialty in environmental affairs, Jeremy Korzenik.) We regularly saw people fishing along the malecon, near piles of litter washed in with the tide. And so on. Perhaps the greatest paradox for me, at least in natural resource terms, was the disjunction between the amount of available resources—great agricultural lands, the waters of the Atlantic and the Caribbean surrounding them—and the small amount of produce for sale in the streets. Amazingly, most of their seafood is imported from Canada (although the scarcity of fishing boats is an easy puzzle to figure out). Clearly, Cuba is an island and a country with great potential, much of it still waiting to be released. Which brings me to the educational aspects of the trip: the talks we heard from professors at the university, as well as the unabashed commentary from our guides, opened our eyes up widely as to what is happening in the country and also behind the scenes. It is hard to sum it up, in just a few words, but it will certainly add both dimension and greater interest to the news as it develops out of the country. The bottom line: the trip was well worth it, and I am pleased to have had the chance to participate in the continuing educational legacy of Yale. (Although, it should be noted, the US State Department also played a role.) It makes the next class trip invitation something to look forward to. And, of course, it was a great group to be a part of. That elevated the experience to another level.”
As always, I encourage you to check out the class listserv at www.aya.yale.edu/lists, and to sign on to our “secret” Facebook page, which you can do by e-mailing Nancy or me at the address listed above.