Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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STAUGHTON LYND Staughton Lynd, Assistant Professor of History, represents a growing but still small number of American professors making a deep commitment to intellectual activism off campus as well as on campus. Professor Ly11d's activities outside Yale have included work with a settlement house on New York's lower East side, living in a conscien- tious objectors colony in Georgia, Director of a summer Freedom School in Mississippi, and participation in last summer's Washington march protesting U. S. involvement in Vietnam. More recently Mr. Lynd travelled to Hanoi, North Vietnam on a personal and un- authorized peace mission. Although he teaches two undergraduate courses, History 40 and a History 85 seminar, and one graduate course, History 205, Mr. Lynd is probably better known to the greater part of the Yale community through the publicity attending his involvement in the pacifist and civil rights activities. Nonetheless, his credentials as a scholar are fully as impressive as his record of action on timely moral issues. A graduate of Harvard in 1951, he later received his masters degree and doctorate from Columbia. His first book Anti-Federalism in Duch- ess County, New York, which arose from his lNI.A. thesis, was fol- lowed last winter by Non-Violence in America: A Documentary His- tory. ln all facets of his intellectual and moral commitments, Mr. Lynd's strong individualism has caused him to remain independent of strong ties with national organizations. His only permanent affiliation to date is with the Society of Friends, which he joined with his wife in 1962, having been attracted to the Quaker faith by his belief in the doctrine of pacifism. No ivory-tower intellectual, he displays in his relationship with students the same directness and sincerity that marked such public episodes as the march on Washington against the Vietnam war and his refusal in early 1965 to pay that portion of his income tax which under- writes military expenditures. Stating briefly his theory of intellectual responsibility, Mr. Lynd says, I believe that scholarship and social action can and should be combined. R.W.B.l. M.D. BH.. MANUEL DURAN As an undergraduate at the University of Mexico, Manuel Duran, Professor of Romance Languages, lived a life full of adventure. He published four volumes of his own lyric poetry, and he is represented today in many Spanish and Mexican anthologies. Mr. Duran also worked as a translator for the United Nations in New York and at various international conferences. Mr. Duran produced his own radio program after climbing mountains. On one expedition of Popocatepetl, Mexico's famous vol- cano, two of his companions were killed in a fall. Mr. Duran himself was lucky to escape with comparatively minor injuries. Thirty years ago he had to make another escape when he was forced to flee Spain due to Franco's hatred of Mr. Duran's family. After Mr. Duran's undergraduate years at the Univer- sity of Mexico, the French government awarded Mr. Duran a fellowship to study at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1949 to 1951, and the already well-known Spanish poet received his doctorate from Princeton in 1953. Mr. Duran next went to Smith College as an assistant professor. He came to Yale in 1959 to have access to the excellent library and to see if the students were as sharp as the girls at Smith. A full professor since 1964, he is currently Director of Undergraduate Studies in Spanish and also a member of the Latin American Studies Conciliurn. .,, rtlzaiti - . 4 Lia

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ALLEN R. WAGNER The initial impression which Allan R. Wagner, Associate Professor of Psychology, presents to his students is one of intense involvement in his profession. Tall and slim, Mr. Wagner is an imposing figure behind the lectern which he uses while teaching a section of the extremely popular Psychology 10a. His wit and warmth enliven an elo- quent delivery which many listeners have described as amazingly comprehensive and lucid. Educated at the State University of Iowa, Mr. Wagner began his undergraduate study in chemistry, but soon, becoming excited with psychology, decided to make it his life's work. He received all of his degrees from Iowa: B.S. in 1956, M.S. in 1958, and Ph.D. in 1959. Since September, 1959, when he came to Yale, he has been a rising young star in our outstanding Department of Psychology. This year, in addition to teaching the introductory course in experimental psychology, Mr. Wagner has served as faculty supervisor to Psychology 91, the senior research seminar for intensive majors. Professor Wagner deals primarily with learning and motivational processes in infra- human organisms. As with most basic research, he says, our concern may seem con- siderably removed from immediate practical problems. On the other hand there has been considerable fruitful application of basic learning principles to practical questions of behavior modification. He cites the recent appearance of programmed textbooks as an illustrative example. Much of his recent research has been concerned with attentional processes in learning. Among the welter of informative cues available in the environment only certain ones come to have any control over an organism's behavior. I hope to identify the regularities according to which organisms may learn to 'attend to' some stimuli and learn not to 'attend to' others. Included in this work is an attempt to isolate the im- portant neurophysiological correlates of such attentional processes. Mr. Wagner has published about thirty pieces in leading psychological journals. His recently-published book, Reward and Punishment, deals with the learning theory. T.C. THOMAS CAIN The road to Yale began for Thomas Cain, Assistant Professor of English, in a one room schoolhouse in rural Ontario, as one of twenty-two pupils ranging in age from seven to sixteen. After study at Victoria College, and the University of Toronto, where he received his B.A. in 1953, he left for Europe with six hundred dollars to tour the continent. In between lots of art and music he found himself in Morocco during a rebellion and was also trapped in the Russian zone of Vienna. Back in Canada, Mr. Cain returned to Toronto for his M.A. It was here that he became interested in Renaissance literature and did his first teaching, a task which he now admits he performed at first, very incompetentlyn. Refusing a Harvard fellowship, he went to the University of Wisconsin to pursue his interest in Renaissance studies. He devoted an entire year to the study of Renaissance Latin, particularly the works of Erasmus and St. Thomas More, examining the use of ancient rhetorical structures of praise poetry in the work of nature and inventive poets like Spenser and Jonson. Mr. Cain came to Yale in 1959, and he claims to have taught every elementary course in English that Yale offers . During the last two years he has been teachinga course in Spenser, his primary interest. He admits to having occasionally stayed up all night preparing his lectures, and the experience, though terrifying has heightened his in- terestin Spenser and given rise to numerous new ideas. A.R.W R. W. B. LEWIS American Studies, like other area studies programs, is designed for undergraduates who prefer to study culture through its many dimensions, rather than limit them- selves to one particular discipline. R. W. B. Lewis, Professor of English and American Studies, is a leading figure in one of the dimensions of American Studies. His inter- ests center on American literature-a fact evidenced by his books of criticism, The American Adam , The Picaresque Saint and a recently acclaimed volume of essays, Trials of the Word. Mr. Lewis is presently completing a critical book on the American poet Hart Crane. Mr. Lewis is at his best teaching 19th century American literature. He remarks that much 19th century American literature is very relevant to present times. He cites Thoreau's outrage at the conditions of the American Negro and at the Mexican War. He also observes that the best of American literature records contemporary themes for later generations to read. Mr. Lewis received his A.B. degree from Harvard University and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Dur- ing World War II, he served in the Middle East, North Africa, and Italy and was dis- charged with the rank of Major. He has taught at Bennington College, acted as Dean of Studies at the Salzburg Seminar in Aus- tria, lectured at Smith College, and served as resident fellow at Princeton University. His most recent post before coming to Yale in 1959 was Professor of English at Rutgers University. In his first year at Yale, he was visiting Professor of English. His appoint- ment to a full professorship quicklv follow- ed in 1960.

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CHARLES E. SCOTT Charles E. Scott, Dean of Berkeley College, leads a double life. Together with his administrative duties, Mr. Scott instructs the Berkeley Seminar in Philosophy 13. Dean Scott approaches this double life from a solid edu- cational background. He completed his undergraduate education at Southern Methodist University. After a year of study at Tubingen University on a Fulbright Scholar- ship, he returned to the United States, earned his doc- torate at Yale and stayed on to become Dean and In- structor. Commenting on the Yale undergraduate, Dean Scott noted that the average student does not recognize the difficulty of clear thinking and cannot respond intensive- ly and reflectively to difficult intellectual problems. The undergraduate experiences a period of dissatisfaction with the easy life and raises some very profound questions. However, he fails to take his dissatisfaction seriously enough and is unwilling to pursue his questions energetic- ally enough to arrive at satisfactory answers. The under- graduate becomes preoccupied with career considera- tions and defines purpose in terms of professional goals. He goes on to lead a successful but ordinary and un- creative life. Dissatisfaction was only a moment briefly experienced but never utilized. The student body might well listen to Dean Scott's criticism. KARL M. WAAGE Whether trekking through Colorado, or finishing a manuscript in the shadow of the Peabody Mu- seum's plodding brontosaurus, Karl M. Waage, As- sociate Professor of Geology, finds much to challenge him in his job or as Research Geologist. As a teacher, he deals mostly with graduate students, yet on many occasions he has guided skilled undergraduates in their geologic researches. During the summer months he is off in the hills of the Dakotas, exploring, log- ging, tracing, mapping, doing all he can to gather and categorize a myriad of facts. Later when he returns to Yale, he attacks the prodigious task of interpret- ing his materials. Finally, during the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth hours of his day, he fulfills his job as Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum. Residing in Hamden, Professor Waage pursues fishing and pastels in more relaxed moods. His pri- mary interest, however, is his profession. His mind is continuously active, as his overflowing desk and numerous journals indicate. Working for the U.S. Geological Survey, he has produced from his findings in the Western United States such bulletins as Strati- graphy of the Inyan Kara Group in the Black Hills, and the Dakota Group in Northern Front Range Foothills, Colorado. His self-prepared photographs, charts, and maps combine with a lucid structure to make his materials superior Government journals. Professor Waage's future plans involve research 011 the continental sea which covered the Western Interior during the Cretaceous Period. Averaging no more than 100 feet in depth, this sea once ex- tended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean and has left behind many unsolved problems con- cerning tides, currents, life restrictions, and sea bot- tom conditions. JOHN HERSEY Outside Yale John Hersey is probably best known as the author of Hiroshima or one of ten other books which he has written since 1942. At Yale, and especially at Pierson College, he is becoming in- creasingly known as an active master with his own distinctive ideas about what Yale's colleges should be. Of his role at Pierson Mr. Hersey says, I want what I do to become my r6le. Thus far, in his first year at Yale, what Mr. Hersey has done is to meet and dine with all Pier- son residents in small groups, to attend many college sports and social events, and to encourage communication between undergraduates and graduates by offering rooms vacated during the year to grad students. Mr. Hersey himself has long been active in public affairs. Since the war he has served on school committees, worked with citizens' study groups in public education, and campaigned twice for Adlai Steven- son. During this time he has been primarily engaged in writing fiction, a career which he began in 1942 with Men on Bataan and has since followed continuously at a pace of a book every few years. After three novels he won a Pulitzer for fiction in 1945. His novels include Into the Valley fl943j, A Bell for Adano Ql944j, Hiroshima fl946j, The Wall fl950j, The War Lover fl959j, The Child Buyer Ql960j, and White Lotus fl965l. His writing career began at Yale in the mid '30s when he wrote music criticism and a football column for the NEWS. Prior to Yale he prepared at the Hotchkiss School, and after graduation from Yale in 1936, he studied for a year on a Mellon Fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge. Mr. Hersey remarks on the differences between Yale in the '30s and Yale today: The intellectual force on life is much stronger now than it was when I was at college. Although he was himself in a 'vivid' class, including Jonathan Bingham, Stuart Alsop, Brehndan Bill, and August Heckscher, he thinks all the students seem more 'vivid' today.