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Cover Des~~n by Mark Badger Cover photo taken from the album Go West by The Villa.~e People
Editor's Note
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NewsJournal
6
Between the Vines
10
M oderate relief . . . Paper tigers . . . Extended vacation Turning the Beat Around Where were you when disco died? Trick question, it never did. It Just .~ot nudged out if our consciousness by Baby Boomer rock and roll. The author urges us to strap on our boo.~ie shoes and ease on down a forgotten road. By Ted Friedman.
Features
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20
Rubbish R ed ux Early this year the University made a financial commitment to recyclin.~ in the hopes if stemmin.~ the deluge if garbage put out by Yale. Students wonder whether administrative control will actually improve the program. By Arthur Bradford.
A M ovemen t D ivided Resentment, misunderstandi11ÂŁ clashing egos and backbiting. Two New Haven anti-apartheid ,((TOups spend their time protesting racial oppression and attacking each other. Is the city big enough for both if them? By Laura Bradford.
Essay
24
Profile
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H ead T rauma
Over spring break, a Yale pre-med spent two weeks watching a team if neurosurgeons do ther'rjob. The author, inspired by her experience, returned to campus with a new perspective on medicine. By Christine Park.
This Wom an's Work Is Never D one Elga Wasserman knows her way around New Haven. For the past twenty years, she has helped women at Yale and in the city make their way through perilous terrain. By Amy Waldman.
The New J oumaVApril 20, 1990 3
Publisher Lisa Silverman Editcr-in-Chiej Motoko Rich Managing Editcrs Ellen Katz Josh Plaut Business Manager Jerry Hwang Designer Mark Badger" Production Manager Masi Denison" Photcgraphy Editor J ennifer Pitts
Editor's Note
We have watched the sun rise for three days in a row now, and we're slightly behind schedule on our first production weekend as a new staff. As we scramble to write headlines, develop photos and lay down copy, we stop to remember our friend Chris Warfield, who would have been a member of our staff. Last winter break, after two months in the hospital , Chris died from complications of lupus, an immuno-deficiency disease. When we returned to campus to tackle our first issue of the semester, we hoped she might be back to work with us. During reading period, we had visited her in the infirmary at University Health Services, where she talked about plans for The New Journal. Chris never stopped asking about the magazine. Sometimes we felt awkward sitting on the orange vinyl couch in her room at UHS, but Chris always tried to make us feel comfortable. She laughed at our stories of production crises and offered us chocolate chip cookies that the doctors wouldn't let her eat herself. Chris started coming to writers' meetings at the crarrtped TNJ office on Crown Street in the fall of 1988. We had all just joined the magazine and were eargerly throwing .out ideas for stories. Chris thoughtfully listened to the other writers and began to generate some ideas of her own. Her first story, about a School of Music program for gifted high school graduates, appeared in the April 21, 1989 issue of TNJ. In March 1989, Chris was elected circulation manager. When she took on the job, Chris really threw herself into it. She drew up route lists, called people the night before each issue came out, and got to know almost everyone on the staff. Barreling around campus behind the wheel of a bulky U-Haul truck, Chris distributed 11,000 copies of TNJ. Sometimes she ran red lights or double parked, blasting the radio and cracking jokes as she drove. Chris said she purposely chose the position of circulation manager because it involved physical work and she wanted to challenge herself. Even when it rained during circulation, as it invariably did, she never complained. Chris couldn't run circulation from the hospital, but she continued to think about the magazine. When we visited her at UHS during her last weeks there, she bubbled over with ideas for TN]s future. "We'll make T-shirts, organize parties and really boost spirit," she said. "I want to make the magazine better!" We hope to carry on The New .Journal as Chris would have wanted. We will miss her.
••• As Commencement approaches, The New Journal wishes to acknowledge the important contributions made to the magazine by members of the Class of 1990. We extend our thanks to Ethan Cohen, Ruth Conniff, David Greenberg, Stephen Hooper, John Kim and Jamie Workman for all their hard work, talent and enthusiasm. Their dedication has shaped The New Journal. We are grateful for the time and energy that they devoted to the magazine, and we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.
Associate Photcgraphy Editcr Pam Sturner• Circulation Manager AI Fox• Subscription Manager Elizabeth Hopkins•
Staff Andrea Assarat Arthur Bradford Eric Fisher Matthew Fleischer Hank H su Jamie Workman
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Moderate Relief
The examples remain hypothetical. A sophomore repeatedly steals food from his roommate's refrigerator. A T.A. gives a student an unfair grade and refuses to consider changing it. Students sharing a bathroom argue about cleanliness. Last semester, Emily Zimmerman (LAW '91) decided Yale undergraduates needed a way to resolve commonplace conflicts. She and Michael Malinowski (LAW '91) developed the Yale Student Mediation Program. They .launched the project three months ago, but still await. their first client. As first year students, Zimmerman and Malinowski participated in the Yale Law School Mediation Clinic, a program which helps New Haven area residents to resolve neighborhood conflicts, such as landlord-tenant disputes. A three-person panel moderates discussion between disgruntled residents. With the panel's help, both sides recommend possible resolutions, choose the most acceptable option, and sign an agreement. If the parties can agree, they avoid formal litigation. "Coming into court and getting a verdict of 'you're guilty' is not going to help these people," Zimmerman said. "They have to keep living with each other." Mediators are not advocates for either party, nor do they seek to establish guilt. "Mediators try to get the parties to express what they feel," Zimmerman said. Law School Professor Mary McCarthy, coordinator of the program, reports that during the past two years, the mediation clinic has resolved about 60 cases. Having seen mediation work for New Haven residents, Zimmerman and Malinowski now want to provide a similar service for the Yale community. They view mediation as another way to resolve conflicts on 6 The New .JournaVApril 20, 1990
Emily Zimmerman (LAW '91). co-founder of the Yale Student Mediation Program prepares for her first client. campus. Zimmerman believes that the program will complement peer counseling services offered by Walden. Mediation addresses interpersonal rather than personal problems through a highly-structured system. "We deal with very different issues," said Walden counselor Brian Litzenberger (CC '90). "The mediation program is more interested in people who are in conflict with each other. It is rare that two people would come into Walden and say 'resolve our fight."' Malinowksi and Zimmerman hope that Walden counselors will refer problems for mediation. Walden counselors seem responsive to the idea: "I might pass on a roommate conflict, a nasty relationship thing, or a longterm fight between friends, " Litzenberger said. Mediation could also address conflicts ill-suited for the Dean's Procedure for Student Complaints. That procedure addresses undergraduate accusations of unfair treatment by members of the Yale College faculty or administration , but does not respond to conflicts between
undergraduates or disputes about grades. The process is complex and formidable , involving review by the Dean's Advisory Board and ultimate resolution by Yale College Dean Donald Kagan . But mediation can help resolve smaller problems through an accessible procedure. "The refrigerator scenario would be an incredibly mediatable problem ," Malinowski says. But mediation will not work if one party can threaten or intimidate the other, Zimmerman said. The mediation program will not handle substance abuse, mental illness, or disciplinary cases, referring these to University Health Services or to the Executive Committee. To generate interest in the program, Malinowski and Zimmerman are publicizing their mediation service with table tents and flyers. At a meeting with Dean Kagan, the Council of Masters endorsed student mediation, but getting information on the program from a college Master's office is difficult. All Masters are supposed to keep the program's flyer,
yet administrative assistants in eight out of began and YSFI's non-political days Paper Tigers 12 colleges had never heard of it..June ended. Though the group still made Ellen Sullivan in Timothy Dwight falafel and danced to Israeli music, College and Alicia Baker in Trumball unrest on the West Bank became a College both remembered the flyers major topic of conversation. The but couldn't find them. "I threw them discussion attracted new members, out months ago," said Sullivan. "No and today the group boasts thirty one ever took them." Three years ago, Dan Gerwin OE '90) participants. Zimmerman, Professor McCarthy and Ami Kleinman (DC '90) dined in Kleinman explained the changes in and Malinowski remain optimistic that the Kosher Kitchen each week with four the group. "When there's an opposing the program will catch on in time. other students. Gerwin had recruited force, you have to start dealing with Malinowski, who commits forty hours them to revive a dying orga~ization, more political issues," he said. The per week to other extracurricular Yale Student Friends of Israel. Under Coalition for Palestinian Rights activities, hopes that writing letters to Gerwin's leadership, the resurrected represented such a force. Concerned freshmen counselors and to College _ by Israeli treatment of Palestinian Masters this summer will help promote settlers, Mario Kashou (BR '91) and the program. "I'm sick of the admini~David Ranz (BR '91) founded CPR in strative bullshit. I just want to do l the fall of 1988. "We wanted to educate mediations." McCarthy thinks Yalies are : the Yale community about what's been too accustomed to ignoring problems 'i happening in the West Bank. People or going to a decisive authority to settle ยง shouldn't take one medium or one them. "It's not very often you're offered ~ voice as the truth," said Christina this sort of remedy. It takes a while to ~ Erickson (DC '92), CPR's current generate an appetite." president. This year, five core members Malinowksi is confident that mediattend CPR meetings regularly. ation can work, both at Yale and in the Unlike YSFI, CPR has a clear polilarger legal picture. "If there's tical agenda. In this year's edition of something that's bothering two The Yale, CPR defines itself as a human people," he asked, "why not try to rights group advocating a two-state resolve it? If it works, and it does a lot solution in the Occupied Territories. of the time, they'll leave the mediation "We hope to educate the average American voter," Erickson said. with a much better relationship." Over the past year YSFI and CPR Zimmerman hopes mediation will curb Sam Schwartz (TC '91}, is current the frequency of lengthy and expensive president of Yale Student Friends of have tried to get their messages out. This spring, CPR is holding three litigation. "Often people escalate a Israel. panel discussions on Arab-Israeli conflict just so it becomes 'valid' enough to bring it to court." Last year, YSFI became a social group devoted to relations. Three weeks ago, YSFI the American Bar Association created learning more about Israel. YSFI screened A Search For Solid Ground, a a new division solely for mediation and forwarded neither a stated manifesto television program about Israeli lawyers nationwide have established nor a political consensus, and perspectives on the Intifadah. A CPR private mediation practices. "Medi- members ranged from the far right to forum on March 29th drew a ation is really taking off," Malinowski the far left. They argued about Israeli smattering of middle-aged adults and said. But at Yale, Zimmerman and cinema, passed around back issues of some members from both groups, but !"falinowski are having trouble getting The Jerusalem Post, and chatted in few other students showed up. The turnout was typical for both CPR and It off the ground. Hebrew. In December 1987, the Intifadah, YSFI events. ' YSFI and CPR rely on table tents Palestinian upnsmgs against the Israelis in the Occupied Territories, for their real interaction with the Yale -Alison Buttenheim
e
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The New Journal/April 20, 1990 7
The former Arthur M . Rosenberg building waits for a campus. Though both groups contend they do not necessarily oppose each · other, the aggressiv¢ tones of the table · tents might belie this assertion. One YSFI table tent blames Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat for condoning the Tiananmen massacre. A CPR table tent rhetorically asks "who fears our careful documentation of the Israeli army's human rights abuses?" Gerwin, who quit the group he helped found, is displeased with YSFI's table tent tactics. "CPR tries to discredit Israel andYSFI tries to discredit the PLO," he said. "It looks fairly childish." After attending a YSFI meeting last fall, Gerwin went away feeling disgusted. "People were incredibly angry, defensive, and reactionary. Defending Israel was not what we were about. YSFI is not a branch of the Israeli army." Gerwin even dislikes the group's name, which he believes has contributed to the group's political orientation. "I think YSFI is a cheesy name." Other YSFI members say that publi - opinion on Israel forced the group to change. "The political aspect was brought about by the negative propaganda," said Sam Schwartz (TC '91 ), YSFI's current president. Still, Schwartz denies that YSFI is fighting a table tent war. "Last year CPR published a number of table tents which we 8 The New JournaVApril 20, 1990
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tenant.
found offensive," he said. "Our policy is that we don't respond to the table tents CPR puts out. It's not worth our while to respond to slanders which we don't even find constructive." Kleinman believes that YSFI, even in its earliest days, was actively prqIsrael. "YSFI is doing now what I think is a major, if unspoken, part of the charter." CPR also denies that they are engaged in a battle of table tents. Group members consider themselves both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. "Criticizing Israel does not mean that you hate Jews or hate Israel. It just means that you are opposed to some of Israel's policies," states Jeff Finkelstein (MC '92), a CPR member. "I'm not an anti-Zionist. I support Israel's existence," he said. "But it's founded on the ideal to save a people from persecution, not to persecute other people." Many members of YSFI aJ;~;ree with Finkelstein. Though some YSFI members wholeheartedly support Israeli policies, others are Peace Now activists in favor of dialogue with the PLO. Still others think the Israeli electoral system should be overhauled. With so many disparate voices, it is difficult for YSFI to get its members to agree on a political message. A YSFI table tent needs to receive majority approval before it is distributed, but it is not representative of the entire group.
"The majority of what YSFI has done this semester has been putting out political table tents," said Jason Glasgow (PC '90), president of YSFI last year. "People aren't exactly happy with that. A lot of table tents haven't been particularly productive at all." As the Intifadah wears on, YSFI struggles to define its role on campus. The tension between varying political agendas within the group begs the question, "Can you have your falafel and eat it too?"
•
-Anna Clark
Extended Vacation Last spring the Arthur M. Rosenberg Company held a massive sale before closing its doors for the last time. Mter seventy years of selling preppy suits and ties, the clothier on the corner of York and Elm streets finally went out of business. "I felt like they were here forever," said Beverly Eliasoph, owner of the Guilford Trading Company. Today, advertisements from Eliasoph's shop, Graham Travel, Karen Alexis
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~d the D aily Caffe dress the large wmdows where Rosenberg once d isplayed khaki pan ts and blue blazers. Impact M anagemen t, which handles the lea sing for this Yale-owned building, p rovides free advertising space for these four merchants, all of whom rent p roperty from the University. Accord ing to the Yale Real Estate Office, Impact will o ffer the windows for promotional purposes until a new tenant m oves into the R osen berg building. Because the four b usinesses do not get the commercial traffic that stores on Chapel Street and Broadway enjoy, the Rosenber g building gives the adve rtisers ad ded visibility. Eliasoph called the corner "a perfect location," and said tha t the displays helped boost Christmastime sales. Barry Cobden , o wner o f Boola Boola , Campus Clothing, and Cobden's General Store, who d oes not rent shop space from Yale , thinks be m issed out on a good chance to advertise. "We certamJy would have welcomed the advertising opportunity," be said. "We like to feel we are part of the Yale community." Impact M anagemen t hopes to find a tenant to take over the building soon. Other area m erchants wonder why the property has remained e mpty for so long. •It's a shame to leave it empty," said Chuck Cald well, owner of T he Game. "It's no t helping the community
any." K aren Alexis, owner of the Park Street store which bears her name, is not surprised that Impact Management cannot fi nd a new occupant. "It seems to me that Yale has a lot of empty commercial spaces," she said. Alexis pointed out that the Universityowned space next door to her store, vacated in J anuary, still has no tenant. She suggested tha t property owned by Yale is no longer attractive to prospective renters. "People d o n't want to d o b usiness in d owntown New H aven ," she said. "I t's not safe for me to be here in my store alone. A lot of my better customers from ou t of town are afraid to come to New H aven." Alexis holds Yale responsible. "Yale does not contribute to safety on New H aven's streets or help to create com mercial business," she said . Alexis plans to m ove out of New Haven soon. Beth Judd, associate director of Impact Management , is unsure how much longer the large blue "Arthur M. R osenberg" sign will bang outside the building that the clothier vacated last year. "The building will be occupied as soon as the right tenant is found," said Judd. In the meantime, the Rosenberg building remains the most elaborate billboard in New Haven .
•
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The New Journal/April 20, 1990 9
Between the Vines/Ted Friedman
Turning the Beat Around
Danny and the Juniors promised us "Rock and roll is here to stay," but they weren't completely right. According to popular optmon , only "classic rock"- music made, for the most part, by white males between 1964 and 1970-has stood the test of time. Old songs like "My Generation" and "Sympathy for the Devil" were never relegated to the oldies bin; these tunes continue to permeate our lives through radio play and compact disc marketing. Rock and roll is warped by the process of canonization just like every other cultural form, be it the Nineteenth Century American Novel or professional baseball before Jackie Robinson. The stories told by oppressed groups such as African Americans, women and gays are marginalized, tokenized or delegatea altogether by the institutions that get to write the histori~sacademia, halls of fame, magazines and radio stations. Disco, for example, started in gay clubs, was built around black musical styles and featured a large proportion of female stars like Donna Summer, Sister Sledge and Anita Wood. Disco's conquest of America is an underdog story of epic proportions. Yet a decade down the line, we snicker at "We Are Family." The marketing of CDs has accelerated the whitewash of rock and roll in the last few years. On CD, the music in10 The New Journal/ April 20, 1990
dustry re-sells us our past, rewriting it in the process. (If disco great Sylvester never makes it onto CD, in ten years he'll simply be extinct.) Pop music, the center of youth culture since Elvis, is growing more and more nostalgic. Since baby boomers are the largest consumer market, their past dominates the sales drive. The rest of us are just along for the marketing ride. And what a long, strange trip it's been: a generation that grew up with the Village People becomes convinced that our real musical heroes should be a bunch of geriatric Brits. Why do we need heroes anyway? Or, to be more specific, why do we need to idealize one musical era
instead of indulging in an eclectic past and an eternal present? Rather than bagging the ideal of the canon altogether, let's grant that most generations need the Good Old Days to hold as a standard against which to judge the present. But if that's the case, why can't we at least manage to feel nostalgic for our own past, instead of the past of our parents? The party line is that classic rock is simply better. On an aesthetic level, this point is moot. It is as useless to argue about the musical superiority of classic rock to disco as it is to pit Chuck Berry against Beethoven. Every art chooses a set of standards best suited to communicating its own values. The real question to ask here, then, is how do the val ues communicated by classic rock compare to those expressed by disco? Well, let's make a little point-by-point comparison. Obviously , making general arguments about entire musical movements is going to involve a mess of oversimplifications. But that's what the naive celebration of an era is all about. 1. Politics: protest vs. pleasure. There aren't too many disco songs about the environment, world hunger, or the budget deficit. Classic rock, on the other hand, is the genre of The Big Statement. But classic rock's vague social conscience means ¡ little in
practical terms. It does not say anything about how its fans should be treating other people or themselves, only how the people in power ought to be acting, as if the power structure cared what we think. Disco, on the other hand, turns nebulous hippie utopianism inward, to discover a far more radical ideal: the pleasure principle. Reflected back out on the rest of the world, disco's hedonistic individualism in turn demands the tolerance of each person's right to the pursuit of happiness. An explosion of diversity rarely matched by any cultural movement in American history resulted from the disco ethos. Consider the Village People, selfconscious icons for the disco era. They were a gay, racially integrated group representing grand synthese~ of American antagonists. Cowboy and
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Indian, Cop and Biker, Laborer and Soldier. Compare this glorious heterogeneity to the brutal narrowmindedness of the classic rockhead response to disco in its heyday- homophobic "Disco Sucks" t-shirts and record-burning. 2. Sensibility: intentionality vs. camp. This isn't a matter of themes or even rhetorical strategies, but rather of the underlying assumptions about how lyrics will be interpreted. Even at his most ironic, Mick Jagger damn well expects to be taken seriously. He's invested a lot in his credibility. He writes his own songs, his band plays its own music. He's supposed to have earned the right to tell us what to think. The Village People, on the other hand, challenge their audience to laugh at them, and are ready in turn to laugh right back. Making no claims to authority, they tear everyone else's down. On a basic level of personal autonomy , then, disco has the advantage of letting you have your heroes and laugh at them too. Even as practical political arguments, disco's camp sensibility translates into a subversive power every bit as potent as classic rock earnestness. Protest songs, trapped by an obligation to mean something, signal their intentions and can only preach to the converted or bounce off deaf ears. The
only audience whose hearts and minds might actually be won are new fans, obliged by the rules of the game to buy into their heroes' politics. If you are a Bob Dylan fan, you're supposed to support his populist politics. Because disco never demands that we understand, it can hint at far more. Consider the marvelously subversive "In the Navy," a paean to male bonding which the Navy actually attempted to buy as a recruitment jingle. I assume they didn't get the joke at fJISt, but they must have been let in on it eventually. Even if they never did, the point was already made for the world to see and giggle at- the American military stumbled upon a language it had refused to accept, admitting in the process that male bonding and gay sex are on more common ground than either the military or the Supreme Court would like to admit.
3. Community: concert os. ~. You go to a Paul McCartney concert, and what are you expected to do? Stare up at the stage, or, more likely, at the Th~ N~w
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giant TV screen above. Sing along with the songs. Clap. Hold up your lighter at the end. This is the classic rock vision of community, one which, as rockers such as Pink Floyd have observed, places it in the company of such phenomena as fascist rall ies- social bonding through uniform experience. In disco, on the other hand, every audience member invents the experience for him or herself. Since the fans are almost always dancing to an invisible prerecorded track, each participant's attention is focused on the other
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dancers. The d isco community is united through diverse expressions of a common experience. The present is a fun place; more Yalies ought to visit it some time. But it might just be that every era needs a past to which it can cling. We don't have to free fall forever through the generation gap; as we become tomorrow's yuppies, the advertisers might flatter us by idealizing the '70s. It's not like disco ever died; it just renamed itself Madonna. As hip-hop and house music propel us into the 90s, classic rock atavism is looking sillier and sillier. As we look for a new model for rock and roll, the Me Decade looks more like a golden age. Help speed the process along. Let's turn our tie-dyes into dust rags, pull out those white suits, and dance the night away.
•
Ted Fried'ITUln, a Junior in Timothy Dwight College, is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Nadine.
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In 1981 two Yale Law School students decided that the University should begin recycling its wastepaper. Their entire operation consisted of eigh t barrels, an old station wagon and no money. A handful of students spent their afternoons emptying the barrels and then hauling paper off to the Hershman Recycling Company in New Haven. Although none of these pioneer recyclers earned a salary, everyone involved in the project took home what they called "psychic income." Today, 41 students make
The student-run organization will still empty some of the wastepaper barrels and take responsibility for most of the campus educational programs. But according to May, starting this summer custodial and physical plant workers will take over most of the collection runs as part of their regular job duties. "Ultimately we'd like to get the custodial service doing most of the regular pick-ups," he said. May stressed that the budget for recycling will remain fairly tight, however, and the administration does not plan to hire new workers for the pick-ups. ;;; "We're still trying to work a lot of this out," said May . "Yale has never had a program like this so it's hard to say what the final results are going to be." ~ The University is taking over a prof gram that manages to recycle roughly f 130 tons of newspaper and office paper i each year. Yet this figure represents i only 17 percent of all the recyclable paper thrown out by Yalies and a mere 2 percent of the University's entire wastestream, which includes cans, bottles and all material shipped to a landfill for disposal. "We should be doing better," said Adam Davis ( BR '90), current head of Yale Recycling. -
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daily runs to 80 spots on campus in a Chevrolet flatbed truck and collect wastepaper which they deliver to dumpsters behind Ingalls Rink. The operation is more sophisticated now; the student collectors earn wages from the Employment Office and the Stratford Bailing Company picks up the paper from the dumpsters twice a month. Yale Recycling currently receives some money from the Univenity on a need basis, but the administration has grown increasingly eager to fund Yale Recycling. This September, recycling will appear on the University's official budget for the rant time. By rmancing Yale Recycling, the administration plans to relieve the student group of some of the management and labor involved in the Proc:eu. Last February, in an effort to atreamline the program, the Facilities Management Office hired Cyril John May {FES '89) as Yale's first Recycling Coordinator. May, who worked with Y~e Recycling as a graduate student, will help make the recycling system run more efficiently.
A foot soldier in the war against solid waste bags some trash.
The state of Connecticut agrees. Legislators have mandated that by the end of 1990, all municipalities in the state must reduce the garbage going into the landfLlls by 30 percent. Lawmakers have drawn up a list of nine types of recyclable waste- including cardboard, office white paper, newspaper and glass- which landrills cannot accept after this year. Both Davis and May suggest that this statewide legislation has influenced Yale's decision to put recycling on the University's budget. But Alan Braun, ~ director of Facility Management, f worries that Yale will probably not ! reach the 30 percent waste-reduction ~ goal by the end of the year. Yale ~ generates an intimidating amount of garbage. Each year Yale ships 6,000 tons of waste ofT the campus and in that time the University goes through 15 tons of Post-It notes alone. Even with a recyling program to help reduce the wastestream, Yale's entire garbage output has actually risen since the program began in 1981. Since the University still depends on landfills for much of its garbage disposal, New Haven's landfill crisis has forced Yale to look elsewhere. The city government planned to close the Cyril John May (FES '89), Yale's overflowing New Haven dump three newly-hired Recycling Coordinator, months ago, but extended its term of works out some bureaucratic details. operation because of the absence of
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The New .Journal/April 20. 1990 15
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alternate disposal sites. To help relieve the garbage crunch in New Haven, Yale began sending some of its waste to a resource recovery plant in Bridgeport last year. "We thought we'd be good neighbors," said Braun. Now the University sends over two-thirds of its waste to Bridgeport. But being a good neighbor costs Yale. According to Braun, the University spends approximately $10,000 more per year in disposing waste at the Bridgeport facility than it did in Ne"w Haven. Faced with these increased expenses, the administration views recycling as an attractive alternative. "We are committed to a recycling program," said Braun, "we want it to work." Even with increased University commitment, recycling at Yale is still difficult to pull ofT. May has already run into difficulties that mere dedication can't alleviate. "The biggest problem actually is not the people, it's the space. Yale is a very tight campus," said May. On Old Campus, for example, one recycling drop-off point serves 1200 people. Renovated buildings like Calhoun College have special areas set aside for recycling bins, but on the rest of the campus the University is having trouble finding
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space for even regular garbage dumpsters. "This leaves us with little room for recycling bins," said May. Yale's architects didn't account for so much waste. Fire regulations further impede Yale Recycling's operation . The Fire Marshal's busy schedule almost always prevent s him fr o m approving receptacle sights until mo nths after an application is made. "A lot of times," said Davis "we just have to judge the area for ourselves. Otherwise nothing would get done ." According to Davis, Yale Recycling could work around some fire regulations if the receptacles were m ade fireproof. Once the wastepaper is finally collected, Yale recyclers can easily unload office a nd computer paper, but they have m o re trouble getting rid of newspaper. "There is a glut of newspaper on the market," said May. Now, a portion of the n ewspaper collected by
Yale Recycling must travel as far as Korea and Great Britain because few newspaper recycling facilities operate near New Haven. In fact, only nine facilities recycle newspaper in all of North America. Even though Yale must pay $25 to send each ton of newspaper abroad, recycling is still more cost-efficient than waste disposal. While the New Haven landfill charges Yale $90 dollars for each ton of garbage, recycling companies will pay $45 per ton of white office paper and $60 per ton of computer paper. Still, the financial benefits will be delayed while Yale invests in new equipment and refmes the recycling process. "Right now, recycling is probably going to cost us," May said. In developing Yale's recycling program, May looks to Brown University as a model. "Here it's not just a political issue anymore, it's a reality," The New .Jo urnal/Ap ril 20, 1990 17
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said Molly Freeman, Brown's student head of recycling. The Brown administration has supervised the recycling program there since its inception three years ago. Custodial workers regularly collect recyclable materials from
This September, recycling will appear on the University's official budget for the first time. receptacles which are placed in all dormitory rooms. Freeman claims that Brown instituted its comprehensive recycling program in response to a law mandating that Rhode Island reduce waste by 45 percent. May hopes that Yale will follow Brown's lead, and believes the Yale adminstration will accommodate the expanding project. "I have been very happy with the cooperation that everyone has given the program," he said. Davis, on the other hand, remains skeptical about how much of the recycling burden custodial workers will actually bear. "I think we're going to see the students collecting for at least another year," he said. But Davis doesn't want to phase students out of the program, e ither. He fears that the administration's larger role in the recycling process will encourage complacency among students. "Every week three or four runs get missed," Davis said. "People are beginning to approach it like 'Oh we've got somebody in the office. He'll take care of it.'" Still, as Yale moves toward a more extensive program, the rudiments of the recyling effort remain the same. "The very basis of our organization is getting out there on a rainy day and collecting paper," said Davis .
•
Arthur Bradford, a freshman in Pierson College, is on the staff of TN]. 18 The New Journal/April 20, 1990
A Movement Divided Laura Bradford AI Marder and fellow members of the New Haven Free South Africa Coalition went to the Palace Theater to denounce real estate mogul Joel Schiavone. They left lambasting not only Schiavone, the theater's owner, but also the South African Action ¡ Committee, another anti-apartheid organization. Both groups came to the Palace on August 30, 1987 to protest Schiavone's plans to vacation in South Africa with the Young President's Organization, a group of high ranking businessmen. The YPO planned to gamble in Sun City, meet with then Prime Minister P .W. Botha, and shop at the South African diamond mines. After private meetings with Schiavone had .failed to convince him to change his plans, Coalition members decided to demand publically that he cancel his trip. While Marder and other Coalition members spoke into a microphone in front of the Palace, SAAC activists weaved through the crowd, encouraging people to boycott the theater. Marder, committed to private negotiation and public statement, thought the SAAC boycott caused more harm than good. "A boycott of the Palace was an idea that the Coalition had already rejected," Marder said. He emphasized that boycotts depend on large amounts of effort and organization. "We didn't want to undermine genuine community outrage by announcing an empty threat." SAAC member Frank Panzarella thought the Coalition would never get anywhere with their approach. A boycott, he thought, might do the trick. "Anything that deals a blow to the pocketbook of the person you're targeting is effective," said Panzarella. In spite of the hubbub, Schiavone journeyed to South Africa as planned in October, 1987. "A lot of what you hear about conditions in South Africa .20 The New .Journal/April 2(/, 1990
The Panzarellas, former anti-war protesters, think New Haven is big enough for more than one anti-apartheid group. is just nonsense," he said. "The New Haven protest was staged by a bunch of crazy people to express their own self-righteousness." Marder blames the SAAC for muddling efforts to stop Schiavone. Because SAAC publicized their plans at the Coalition's Palace press conference, many people assumed that Marder's group also supported the boycott. Representatives from nonprofit organizations like Columbus House and the Connecticut Food Bank, which held fund raisers in the theater rent-free, called the Coalition wondering if they should cancel their events. Although the boycott never won widespread support, P anzarella said it was valuable as a symbolic gesture. J ust prior to Schiavone's departure, the Board of Aldermen made a symbolic gesture of its own. The Board named the intersection of College and Chapel streets "Bishop Tutu Corner." The crossing overlooks much of Schiavone's property. The Schiavone incident typifies the
rift between the Coalition and SAAC. On a crusade for the same cause, the two groups employ different tactics. Rather than advancing their common goals, they often have resorted to antagonism and backbiting. With the recent developments in South Africa, both groups struggle to define their present role in local efforts. The New Haven anti-apartheid movement started in the fall of 1984 with the formation of the Coalition. When the South African government jailed eleven union organizers, New Haven labor leaders Frank Carrano and Andrea Cole coordinated a local response. "We initiated a support movement within the New Haven labor groups to show our solidarity from halfway across the world," said Carrano. At the first meeting of the Coalition, 25 people representing several organizations, including the NAACP and the Downtown Co-op Ministry, launched a campaign calling for New Haven to divest from companies with holdings in South Africa.
Coalition m embers took up nego-tiation as their primary strategy right from the beginning. Since the city uses retirement funds for its principal investments, the Coalition set out to convince N ew R aven's p en sio n board s that divestment would be a fiscally responsible m ove. If New Raven's legislators would agree to divest, the Coalition argued, the city could actually increa se revenue by reinve s tin g m more profita b le companies. While the Coalition lobbied behind closed d oors, Panzarella, his wife Paula and several friends fou nded the South African Action Committee. "We were impatie n t with the Coalition's quiet process o f negotiatio n ," said Frank P anzarella. T he newly formed group wanted more public agitation against a partheid . "We didn't think any one group sh ould have a franchise on the ant i-apartheid movement," said Paula Panzarella.
"A lot of what you hear about conditions in South Mrica is just nonsense." While SAAC shared the Coalition's commitment to d ivestmen t, Committee m embers opted for a more ~assroots a pproach. They began distributing leaflets to city employees urging them to support divestment. Aubrey W illiams, a New Haven firefighter, learned a thin g or two about New Raven's fmances. "Until the leaflets came out, we were u naware that our m oney was going to South Africa," Williams said. When the city's pension boards finall y voted to divest all its funds in August 1985, both th_e SAAC and the Coalition took credtt
AI Marder, a _member of the Free South Africa Coalition , is committed to private n ego tiation a n d public statement. for the victory. T he Panzarellas claim that th eir leafletting cam paign amassed the needed support for divestment. Coalition members maintain that the broad constituency they mobilized in favor of divestment carried the day. Spurred by the New Haven divestment campaign and searchin g for a new focal point, the SAAC tried to shape Yale's emerging anti-apartheid movement. "Yale studen ts were still involved in discussion and education," Paula Panzarella said. "They d idn't know how to organize an effective protest." She thought they could forge a relationship that would prove vital in tackling the Yale Corporation. While the Coalition also supported the fledgl ing studen t movem ent, M arder felt SAAC's hands-on tactic was inapprop riate. "Yale students had the primary responsib ility to o rganize their own efforts," h e said . "In a sense they are a village within our city and their leadership had to come from the Yale community." Although willing to assist student projects , Coalition members stressed the separateness of the two groups. W h en studen ts decided to build sh anties in Beinecke Plaza, the Coalition helped them with carpentry. Still, according to Marder, the success of the campus divestment movement rested with the stud ents . During the spring of 1986, the student protester s g r abbed t h e attention of the entire city. They staged numerous rallies, clashe? with local police and block aded port1on s of
the campus. The student body joined th e Yale Coalition Against A partheid in d eman ding that th e University sell its $300 m illion o f South African assets. SAAC claim s th ey ra dicalized the student m ovemen t. "Studen ts were just b eginnin g to r ealize th e impor tance of public involvement," said Frank P an zarella. H e points to SAAC's p icketing of then P resid ent Bart G iamatti's house in October 1985 as the semin al event in the student movement's maturation. Panzarella claims th e stud ents n eeded SAAC to n udge them in to act1v1ty. "The studen ts were waffling," he said. "They weren't sure if they really wanted to go over the edge with the struggle." According to P anzarella, SAAC took CAA u n der its wing and gave the students confidence to build the shan ties o n Beinecke P laza. Al Lucas {BR '90), a m ember of CAA, said SAAC takes too much of the credit. "T hey did n't originate the idea for the sh a n t ies," h e said . New Haven Alderman M ike M oran d, ( S Y '89, DIV '91) a former mem ber of CAA,
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"We didn't want to undermine genuine community outrage by announcing an empty threat."
Morand said that community support was essential to the student protest. "The Administration can ignore the student voices, but when students and the community speak together, the University takes notice," he said. While the University has severely cut back on its investments in South Africa from over $300 million to $26 million today, the protesters never realized their goal for total Yale divestment. "Yale responds to the beck and call of the U.S. Governement and won't divest until the federal government does," said Paula Panzarella . In 1987 the Coal.ition Against Apartheid changed 1ts name to Students Against Apartheid, and announced that they would restrict their meetings to Yale students. "We needed to limit the protest to people who were in a position to demand something from Yale," Lucas said . Despite the changes in CAA, the two New Haven groups continued to squabble on campus. In February 1989, SAAC and Yale's Black Law Students Association planned a forum featuring speakers from the African National Congress and other Southern African liberation groups. Promotional posters for the event identified South Africa as Azania-an ancient name used by members of the Pan Africanist Congress. ANC speaker
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Ben Magubane suspected the forum's sponsors of ties with the PAC, a black nationalist group repudiated by the multi- racial ANC. According to Marder, Magubane saw the Coalition listed as an endorser of the event and called Marder to question the sponsor's politics. Marder said that SAAC never even asked the Coalition to endorse the forum. "The first I heard of the forum was when M agubane called me," he said. "I didn't know what he was talking about." Frank and Paula Panzarella claim Marder insinuated that SAAC supported the PAC . This allegation, the Panzarellas said, influenced Magubane's decision to w ithdraw from the forum . Other speakers followed suit, and the symposium never took place. In an AprillO, 1989letter to The New Haven Advocate, the P anzarellas denied any 'ties to the PAC and accused Marder of deliberately misleading Magubane. "Marder's . . . sabotage of a significant opportunity for the people of New Haven to learn of southern Africa is the lowest depths we've seen of factionalizing in New Haven," they wrote.
"We didn't think any one group should have a franchise on the anti-apartheid movement." Marder said he never discussed the SAAC's political affiliations with Magubane . "My only suggestion was that Magubane call SAAC directly," Marder said. "That was the last I heard of it until I was accused of all these nasty things." Since the forum fell apart last year, SAAC has been losing momentum. Now, confidence that apartheid is on the decline has tempered much of SAAC 's zeal for local protest. With the
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The wall on Beine.cke Plaza replaced the shanties which students built during the hey day of Yale's antiapartheid movement. de Klerk regime's recent reforms, SAAC members hint that they may soon abdicate their role in the battle. "In many ways this struggle is for the South African people themselves to resolve," said Paula Panzarella. SAAC met only once this year, when they held a party to celebrate Nelson Mandela's release. Coalition members fear that progress in South Africa is overrated. "People think that they're on their way to freedom land," said Frank Carrano. "That's one of the dangers we have to guard against." Far from giving up the fight, the Coalition won't rest until the South African government abolishes apartheid. Pooling their resources with other groups, the Coalition has joined a Northeastern network of antiapartheid organizations. Pam Saffer, the Coalition's delegate to the North East South Africa Solidarity Network, said this organization allows groups from different cities to share information. As New Haven's anti-apartheid movement redefines itself, Joel Schiavone prepares for Connecticut's gubernatorial race. Schiavone doesn't think his past confrontations with the Coalition and SAAC will affect his bid for the Republican ticket. He anticipates that the only votes he will lose are those that come from the far left. "I wouldn't have gotten those votes anyway," he said.
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Laura Bradford is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight College.
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Essay I Christine Park
Head Trauma
The elevator just would not come. Dragging my "YALE U" backpack and my indestructible tan Samsonite. I climbed five flights of stairs to the Intensive Care Unit. I know I broke ICU etiquette, because .the nurses stared at me in amazed silence. "This is the neurosurgery department at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California hospital," their looks seemed to say , "Don't you think you'd be better off in a resort hotel?" I stammered that I was there for an externship with Dr. Michael Apuzzo (TD '61). Finally the nurses decided to page Dr. Tom Chen, the junior resident on call. When he came to meet me, he noticed my bags and decided that I should unpack first. I was thankful to get my embarrassing luggage out of there. In the residents' dorm, I put my suitcase on the bed, donned a white coat and scrub clothes, and followed Dr. Chen to the Emergency Room. The Sunday evening news droned from the TV in the waiting area outside the ER door. "Nonetheless, the spraying of crops, for now . . . will go . . . on," the anchorman announced dramatically. Nobody paid any attention. We entered one of the cubicles used as a temporary holding area to see Estella, who had suffered a gunshot wound. Tom showed me where the bullet had entered the left side of her neck and had come out near 24 The New .Journal/ April 20. 1990
I was possessed by a screaming urge to scrape the whole · tumor out at once. her right shoulder. Her head was taped to the board beneath her, but her eyes followed us wildly. "Her spinal cord is OK," Tom told me, "but some of her vertebrae have been shattered. The question is whether she will be able to support her head or not." "She needs X-rays," Dr. Chen told her husband, "we'll need to bend her neck away from her chest and then toward it." The husband played with the pink and blue fake feathers on his white straw hat as he spoke to her in Spanish; her eyes rolled, trying to fmd where he stood. He put out a trembling hand to touch her hair, then cleaned off some of her smeared makeup. Dr. Chen called me over to help him, and I noticed that my hand was pressed protectively against my own neck. We had to force Estella's shoulders down so that the X-ray could get a clear picture. She had beett quiet
all that time. But she screamed then. The X-rays showed that her vertebrae could still support her neck. She would wear a soft neck brace and go home in a week. "Bueno," Tom told her with an encouraging smile, but she didn't seem to believe him. Tom went to finish her paperwork, and her husband informed me, "She wanna peeess." Peace? Yes, I could understand. "You know, shit, PISS!" he repeated. Startled into speech, I said that I couldn't speak Spanish, only to realize that he had addressed me in English. At that, the husband took his quest elsewhere.
•••
The LAC/USC medical center is a large county hospital in East Los Angeles. Most of the soap operawatching population would recognize it as the building in Genua[ Hospital. LAC/USC primarily serves patients without insurance, and the city and county absorb much of the costs. Anyone who attended public high school knows the look and feel of the place: long hallways, two-tone walls, the tired fluorescent lights and the smell of paint (all that painting and repainting). The nurses' stations in the wards are hulking and painted; nothing like the sleek wood-grain stations found in posher clinics. Monday morning I arrived twO hours late for 7 A.M. rounds, and
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R sheepishly met senior resident Dr. Craig Clark, Dr. Chen, and interns Nicole Moayeri and Kurt Johnson . As an extern I was to "run with the team" whenever I wasn't with my sponsor, Dr. Apuzzo ("Dr. A"). This meant that I accompanied them on rounds, in conference and in surgery. In my scrubs and white coat I looked like part of the team, and by the end of the week some of the nurses greeted me with "Hello, doctor." I couldn't bring myself to admit that the title was still five years away for me, that I knew about the evolution of annelids but couldn't give an injection to a patient. In the wards there were patients with conditions ranging from just-outof-ICU to ready-to-go-home. One woman, who padded around in foam slippers and a turban to cover her shaved head, was ready to move to a rehabilitation center after her aneurism surgery. Dr. Moayeri and a social worker were trying to find a place for her, but she was an illegal immigrant and almost no center could or would accept her. Another patient, Robert, talked only to me. I stopped by his bed when the team moved on and asked him how he was. He always gave a surly "Okay," but it was a triumph I had all to myself. Joe walked through the wards and combed his hair using shaving cream and looked around with wide, crazed eyes. After being threatened with surgery, he
L began to improve rapidly. He liked to something quick." I imagined it was play with words: "USC me-di-cal quite an ego trip to see someone on the center. USC ma-ra-thon verge of death and, godlike, to give center. . ." that person life. But Dr. A believes I met Dr. A , and we spent that that happiness for a physician doesn't afternoon at his clinic. Unlike the come from a sense of power. "The people at the county hospital, the men superiority act gets tiring after awhile. and women we saw here were You have to remember that the doctor outpatients. Some of them would is the handmaiden of the patient, and eventually need surgery, some would never the other way around." undergo radiotherapy, and still others That night I accompanied Dr. Scott were continually monitored for Litofsky on all-night call. We saw a progress. In the examining room, each woman whom the police had found pauent sat on a table while Dr. A sat unconscious on the road. The flesh on on a stool at the patient's knees. He the back of her head was torn and spoke in an earnest and entreating craniospinal fluid from her brain voice that turned easily and often to drained out of her ear. She couldn't tell laughter. "Tell me about your job, us her name, so the orderlies gave her your kids, your new car" blended in one- "Mary 35." The 35 represented with "tell me about your back or your her approximate age. The cuts and headache." "If this much pain right bruises on her abdomen and inner here is a dollar," he said to Sam, who thighs were the marks of sexual declared that he liked cities where he assault. While Dr. Litofsky examined made "tons-a-dough," "how much is it her, she struggled in an effort to escape down here?" He told Linda that she from the restraints that kept her on the needed a second surgery. She asked hospital bed. I could do nothing but whether her head had to be shaved feel useless in the medical costume I again. "' hate to look at myself when wore. At Yale, I had been an excited all there is on me is a face ," she said. freshman but spent sophomore year Dr. A comforted her. "It will grow cursing organic chemistry and most of back beautifully. but look at me. rm last semester complaining about losing my hair-permanently," he physics. Why the hell? I often asked myself. Standing with fists clenched on said. Once back in his office, Dr. A the rail of ~ary 35's bed, I was became serious. He once burst out, ashamed at how easily I had lost sight "That thing is sitting in her head, she of my goal over a benign problem set could die if it acts up. We gotta do or two. Th~ N~w
Journal/April 20, 1990 25
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whole tumor out at once. One night a man was brought in with a nshot wo~to the head, and in the er tin"' omtl watched him die . fiat fi.rst, but suddenly ~tft h d to begm CPR. "I need bi~rbtate." ;Giv~hil more blood. NOW. "Gfmle \" e's starting to push t s a . Dammit, the blood won' do . "He needs more volume." "Pfs me bicar~ was druJs d to m ) "Are ~ou .ill
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At first I found the ceremony of going into the operating room thrilling: putting on shoe and hair covers and finally the mask. Once inside, I highlighted my pre-med-ness by pointing out, when the anesthesiologist explained the various reactions he used, that I recognized them from organic chemistry. The first time I smelled the burning of the cauterizers thttofpt snl&all bleeds, I tas~d d$t mo ing's teakfast in my thro ~ut aft watc "ng sev~ral cases in e OR, I deemed myself a pro at observing surgery. Finally Dr. A allowed me to don gown and gloves so that I could stand right next to the surgeon. I remained al..rtly interested while he cut the bont'fflap, descended bftwecfn the two heJTtSpheres of the brain add began to extract the yellowish white mass of tumor. Dr. A was on hand to coach Dr. Clark. "Good, yes. Careful . . . Beautiful!" I expected the tumor to pop out in a few magical strokes. Instead, Dr. Clark stood there for over five hours. The nurses handed him cleaned sterile instruments and gauze while the anesthesiologist's machine beeped on and on, and I was possessed by a screaming urge to scrqpe the
One night a man was brought in with a gunshot wound to the head, and in the operating room I wa~ched him die. pumping?" These abrupt bits of communication stuck in the air for the fifty-five minutes between the start of
~~Rand t~e~ofsurg:t. I p4id~ •• ged era d saw e Ju ~d b aking o bit of the s ll to t tel the source of bleeding. Somebody said, "Did you ever hear that song, Pump uP the VoluTM?" From the comfort of my textbooks at Yale, I never imagined 1 would watch such trauma cases for more than a few seconds. But I didn't turn away. Witb my eyes I tried to force the blood to stop; with my eyes I tried to hold tbe dying man's hand tighdy and beg hilll to live.
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The bleeding only got worse and continuing the operation finally became a hopeless ef(ort. The man was left on the respirator so that his family could still see him techn~·altalive. In "' the operating roomJbl ined the \ floor, and the half.lrull a -bucket,' empty syringes and lood bags .li,ttet.d ~ the space. I could h ar fO souqd t j the wheeze of the ar ficill espifa r. , Two days later, I ' read in the newspaper that: the man. 'fV.ged lgrocery store. He smiled out fro! a
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me that he had been a hold-up vic im and the robbers escaped. The report ended with a sentence on how small grocery stores were still doing well in spite of rising violence. I could find no connection between the news report and the silence of the operating room. * • •
On Friday I went on late aftemoon rounds with the team for the last time before going to Dr. A's office (not the ICU) to J>ick up my luggage. The i"athoft man" was !tiJ, 1n '\he ' lin , " anging ot.f," and 1y imstrovtg patienft! were •cruising." I was especially going to miss Robert. He muttered a sleepy "uh bunh, goo'bye" when I told him I was leaving. In Dr. A's office, he told me, "N~isurge~ is the most cavalier ~eld u cin o into1 Many live, some a~~ d the some .ive dead ... -yo kno how I deal With the stress?• he asked, pointing to a coffee mug on his desk. It said, "Ask me about my lobotomy."
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The New .JoumaVApril 20, 1990 27
This Woman's Work Is Never Done Amy Waldman
Elga Wasserman helps women find rooms of their own. Although it is tricky work, she has had twenty years of practice. As a special assistant to Yale President Kingman Brewster from 1969 to 1972, she persuaded Yale men to double up so'that women could have a place in the 'dorms. ~he shielded Yale's first female undergraduates from media scrutiny, ensured that the Department of University Health provided gynecological services and convinced gymnasium officials to open locker rooms for the women. Today she practices family law down the street from the Yale campus in a small comfortable office on Orange Street. "She was one of the pioneers in gaining an acceptance of women in family law," said jim Greenfield, a fellow New Haven attorney. Wasserman's colleagues regard her as a persuasive courtroom advocate. Greenfield remembers arguing against her in a divorce case. "She absolutely buried me," he said. As a divorce lawyer, Wasserman often represents women who have sacrificed their individuality for their families. "Unlike me," she said, "they devoted their entire lives to their husband's career and to their children." Wasserman helps these women recover a degree of independence. "I'm probably doing more for women as a divorce lawyer than I could anywhere else," she said. Wasserman began her working life as a chemist. She always thought she could balance married life and her career, but her colleagues felt 28 The Ne w .JournaVApril 20, 1990
differently. She remembers their reaction when she announced her plans to wed ~ ' "People assumed," she said, "that I was lost to the cause of science." Her husband's job would determine her career path, colleagues warned. To some degree, they were right. Wasserman followed her husband to New Haven when he found a job at Yale, but she did not apply for a faculty position here. No women taught at the undergraduate level during the early postwar years. Instead, she worked full time as a research assistant in microbiology until the birth of her first child. For the next ten years, she worked part time in education and industry. In 1959, Wasserman returned to the lab. But she was soon overwhelmed by the competing demands of career and family. "I didn't think I could really be a first rate scientist and do justice by my family. Being a second rate scientist didn't appeal to me," she said. She taught chemistry at the University of Southern Connecticut for a year and then accepted an assistant deanship in the sciences at Yale. For six years she administered grant and fellowship money. When Brewster decided to admit women to Yale College, he created the position of special assistant to the president on co-education. "Wasserman was the perfect choice," said Sam Chauncey, then a special assistant to President Brewster. Wassserman noted wryly that. she was an obvious choice. "I was one of very
few female administrators around," she said. Originally, Brew~ter designated Trumbull College as the women's college, with Wasserman as Master. But Trumbull students protested, and although Wasserman argued tha,t the women should live in one college, the adminstration ultimately placed them in all twelve colleges. Chauncey and Wasserman selected independent and resilient women for Yale's first co-ed class. Once the women arrived, Wasserman met with women from all twelve colleges each
"Elga, what do you women want? Don't you realize that you are the ones who have the babies?"
week. When custodial workers installed full-length mirrors in all the women's rooms, female studeniS complained that men were telling the women what they needed. Wassermatl also contended with administrato11 who refused to make any special concessions for women. She battled for a shuttle bus and better street lighting so that women could walk to the labs or
library at night. Wasserman's phone rang off the hook with calls from confused administrators. ¡she remembers one dean who called her because a female student was dating a music teacher at another college. The dean wanted to know if he should call her parents. "Would he ever have called me if it were a male student?" Wasserman wonders. Another asked her in exasperation "Elga, what do you women want? Don't you realize that you are the ones who have the babies?" Barbara Deinhardt, a member of the class of 1973 who worked in the Office of the Education of Women with Wasserman, remembers that she was always "solidly supportive" of the women . Deinhardt assisted W~sserman in assembling a publicauon called "She," a directory of women's services, resources and female faculty members. Nevertheless, for many of the women, Wasserman remained an untapped resource. "Many of us didn't perceive the kinds of dif!iculties we were having," said Assoc1ate Professor of English Susanne Wofford, also a member of the first class of women. "We didn't perceive the importance of Yale having someone like her available to talk to." After that first year, Wasserman devoted her efforts to increasing the number of female faculty and students at ~ale. She also pushed for affirmative action. From 1970 to 1972, she traveled around the country speaking to alumni groups, reassuring them that
"nothing terrible was going to happen because Yale had admitted women." One of the alumni groups cancelled her speaking engagement because it met in a building that would not allow women inside. On the whole, however, Wasserman found that the alumni welcomed women to Yale. By 1972, after three intense years in the spotlight, Wasserman felt burnt out, and she took a leave of absence from Yale. "She went through a process of becoming more and more cynical," said Deinhardt. "She became increasingly frustrated by the administration's lack of commitment to equalizing the experience of women at Yale." Before she left the University, Wasserman demanded that Yale hire and admit more women. "Everything else was irrelevant," she said. Wasserman remains dissatisfied with the continuing lack of role models for young women, and asks, "How can a woman student aspire to become a
professor when every professor she has is male?" "Eventually Wasserman thought she would be able to make more of a difference elsewhere," Deinhardt said. Wasserman left Yale in 1972 and began to explore some of her own interests. She spent a few months conducting a study of female academics in foreign countries, inspired by her observation that a disproportionately high number of women in American universities were foreign born. Wasserman concluded that in the U.S., these women felt free of binding cultural norms. "They were pulled out of their own cultures," Wasserman observed, "so they could do what they wanted." Wasserman herself came to America from another country. Born in Germany, she fled Nazi oppression when she was only twelve. Wasserman believes that this early move helped her to defy social expectations that American The Ne" Journal/April 20, 1990 29
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mothers remain in the home. "I'm sure being transplanted freed me," she said. Wasserman moved on to the Carnegie Commission on Children, where she studied the need for daycare in a society with increasing numbers of double-income families. The daycare issue continues to upset Wasserman today. She points out that Yale still lacks adequate childcare facilities for its faculty and employees. As a mother with a career, Wasserman often felt guilty leaving her children to go to work. "When I was still a rarity working,
"We're giving lip service to equality but people aren't willing to accept it." whatever went wrong with the kids would be blamed on the fact that I had a career," she said. Even when a man tries to adapt his lifestyle to relieve some of these pressures on his wife, he often faces public criticism. Wasserman believes that condemning President Benno Schmidt and his wife, Helen Whitney, for not spending enough time on campus, reveals a double standard. "We're giving lip service to equality but people aren't willing to accept it," she said. Wasserman complains that society expects too much of career women. "You're supposed to exercise and relax and socialize and read and pay attention to your kids and your job and your appearance and your teeth and the news- how can you do all that?" Though Wasserman seems to have mastered the juggling act herself, she suggests that women can onlY achieve true equality by dropping some of the balls .
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Anry Waldman is a junior tn Saybrook College. 30 The New .JournaVApril 20, 1990
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