Wilbur Cross medals honor outstanding alumni
The Graduate School Alumni Association will award the Wilbur Cross
Medal -- the Graduate School's highest honor -- on October 9 to five
distinguished alumni of the school. The medal recognizes achievements in
scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and public service. This year's
Wilbur Cross medalists are: Carol T. Christ ’70PhD (English), president, Smith
College; Paul Friedrich ’57PhD (anthropology), professor of social thought,
anthropology, and linguistics, University of Chicago; Yoriko Kawaguchi ’72MPhil
(economics), senator in the House of Councillors (Japan), former foreign
minister of Japan; Anne Walters Robertson ’84PhD (music), the Claire Dux Swift Distinguished
Service Professor in Music, University of Chicago; and John Suppe ’69PhD
(geology and geophysics), Blair Professor of Geology, Princeton University.
Each department will host a lunch for graduate students and faculty, followed
by a lecture or informal conversation with the medalist. Honorees will be feted
at a formal dinner in the library court of the Yale Center for British Art.
The Wilbur Cross Medal is named for Wilbur Lucius Cross, who was dean
of the Graduate School from 1916 to 1930. He was a scholar of distinction who
wrote definitive works on English literature, revived and edited the Yale
Review, and, following retirement
from Yale, served as governor of Connecticut for four terms.
Immersion in English for incoming Chinese students
Speaking English is a challenge for many international students when
they first arrive at Yale. To enhance English language skills for those coming
from China -- the largest cohort of international students -- the
Graduate School piloted an intensive one-month immersion program in Beijing
this past summer. Participants pledged to speak only English for the duration
of the program.
Developed through a year-long collaboration between the Beijing Foreign
Studies University (BFSU) faculty and Yale's English Language Institute,
sessions focused on oral English proficiency and featured a high level of
personalized training: no more than five students were assigned to each
instructor. Written comprehension and composition were also taught. Twenty-five
students from the People's Republic of China registered for the program, which
was fully funded by the Graduate School, including housing and meals. Weekend
events introduced the students to Yale alumni and students living in or
visiting Beijing. "We hope that these social events allow the students to learn
more about American culture and graduate education. Of course, they also
provide the students an excellent opportunity to practice their English with
future peers and faculty," said Associate Dean Richard Sleight, who helped
organize the program.
Alumnus receives National Medal of Science
Gordon Bower ’56PhD (psychology), the Albert Ray Lang Professor of
Psychology, Emeritus, at Stanford University, was named one of seven recipients
of the National Medal of Science. Bower, 74, is a cognitive psychologist
specializing in experimental studies of human memory, language comprehension,
emotion, and behavior modification. He retired in 2005 following a 46-year
career at Stanford and is considered one of the nation's leading experimental
psychologists and learning theorists. In 2002, he was ranked one of the 100
most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century in a study published by the Review of General Psychology.
Established by Congress in 1959 and administered by the National
Science Foundation, the National Medal of Science is the nation's highest
scientific honor. Bower was cited "for
his unparalleled contributions to cognitive and mathematical psychology, for
his lucid analyses of remembering and reasoning, and for his important service
to psychology and to American science."
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