School Notes: Yale College
May/June 2008

New master named for Jonathan Edwards College

Music professor Richard Lalli ’80MusAM, ’86MusAD, will become the master of Jonathan Edwards College in January 2009, when current master Gary L. Haller steps down after 11 years of service. (For the Yale Alumni Magazine report, see page 20.) Lalli's partner, Michael Rigsby ’88MD, medical director of the Yale University Health Services, will become associate master. "Richard and Michael have served as freshman advisers in JE College for many years," said Peter Salovey, dean of Yale College, "and they have well-deserved reputations as great supporters of student creativity and initiative."

Professor Lalli has taught in the Department of Music since 1982. He has recently been named artistic director of the Yale Baroque Opera Project, which introduces undergraduates to aesthetic, stylistic, and performance aspects of seventeenth-century Italian opera.  For the past six years he conducted the Yale Collegium Musicum, an ensemble devoted to early music and started by Paul Hindemith in the 1940s; the Collegium regularly performs works from manuscript at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Lalli also teaches courses related to vocal performance, oversees the instruction of Fundamentals of Music, and coordinates the Shen Musical Theater Curriculum.

College honors young faculty

Yale College has recently honored the work of five young professors with prizes that recognize the contributions and achievements of faculty early in their careers.

The Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication or Research by Junior Faculty Members in the Humanities is given in recognition of work that has made a significant contribution to scholarship in the particular field of endeavor of a junior member of the faculty in the humanities. The Heyman Prize was awarded this year to Assistant Professor Ian Quinn of the music department and Assistant Professor Stefanie Markovits of the English department. Professor Quinn was honored for his two-part article, "General Equal-Tempered Harmony," published in the journal Perspectives of New Music; Professor Markovits was recognized for her first book, The Crisis of Action in Nineteenth-Century English Literature, an analysis of action/inaction and character in the era's prose and poetry.

The Poorvu Family Prize for Interdisciplinary Teaching recognizes outstanding members of the junior faculty who have demonstrated excellence in teaching in interdisciplinary programs in the liberal arts. This year's Poorvu prize honors Corinne Pache, associate professor of classics, whose research and teaching interests involve Greek archaic poetry, Greek religion and myth, and the modern reception of ancient epic; Vivek Sharma, assistant professor of political science, who studies the relationship between social institutions and political order, including alliances, warfare, and violence; and Erin Lavik, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, whose research centers on developing new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of spinal cord injury and retinal degeneration.

Environmental studies graduate breaks new ground

This May, the first environmental studies major to concentrate in the field of sustainable food and agriculture will receive a diploma. This concentration, formalized in the fall of 2007, allows students to spend their four years at Yale exploring issues of food, agriculture, and the environment through an academic lens. There are currently two environmental studies majors concentrating in sustainable food and agriculture, with one graduating this spring. The concentration was developed in partnership with the Yale Sustainable Food Project; the partnership allows concentrators to take full advantage of the Sustainable Food Project's resources, including the Yale Farm.