The Week in Brief

Terry lectures explore Israel's fate

These were among the questions posed by Dr. David Hartman, a philosopher, social activist, and author, to an attentive audience composed of students and faculty who gathered in Henry R. Luce Hall on Tues., Sept. 8 to hear the first in a series of three Terry Lectures.

Each year, a committee headed by the Dean of the Divinity School at Yale chooses a speaker to address members of the Yale community about religion and its application to human welfare. The series began with a gift from Dwight Harkington Terry of Bridgeport in 1905.

Hartman is the founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, an institution dedicated to providing moral and spiritual direction for Judaism's confrontation with modernity. He has published several books on the topic of Israel's struggle to redefine its identity in the modern age, including A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism, for which he won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought in 1986.

In the opening lecture, Hartman asserted that Israel is in a state of internal war, rooted in opposing interpretations of Jewish tradition by rival groups. "Israel is a society in search of its soul," Hartman said.

--Janey Lewis

Brodhead aims to reduce night sections

Brodhead claimed that the plea was intended to "accommodate those students who also participate in extracurricular and co-curricular activities." However, fewer evening sections may actually make it harder for students to schedule around other classes or activities like sports.

"I usually have practice from 4:30 to 6:30," Yale lacrosse player John Ordway, PC '01, said. "Night sections are a lot easier to fit in. Not having them makes more difficulties in scheduling and causes problems."

--Molly Ball

Visiting fellow wins invention contest

The project lasted several years, according to Han, a native of the People's Republic of China. "I've been here a couple of years, and it has been a struggle with English, my project, and studies for a long time," she said. "This is a turning point for me." Electrical engineering Professor Tso-Ping Ma worked with Han on the project as her advisor. Ma and Han entered the competition as a team, and he said that it "feels very good to win." Ma mentioned that this DRAM cell has produced profound scientific implications, and was a breakthrough in studying new phenomena.

--Marissa Leung

LC renovations bring old building up to date

Professor Michael Thur-ston, assistant director of undergraduate studies in the English department, considered the new amenities to be a vast improvement. "No one's paying attention to the plaster falling off the walls," Thurston said. "Students pay attention to the chalkboard and class discussion."

The project spanned 15 months and cost an estimated $22 million, according to Arch Currie, director of project management in Yale's Office of Facilities. Chittenden Hall was completed first and Linsley was added later, it was "a difficult building to navigate," Dimeo Project Executive Geoff Beddoe stated. The renovations, which began in the summer of 1997, closed the building during the 1997-98 academic year.

--Matthew Murchison

Yale researchers test schizophrenia drug

A recent study conducted at the Yale School of Medicine may have exciting implications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, including addiction. Led by Dr. Bita Moghaddam, researchers gave doses of PCP to rats to create symptoms resembling those of human schizophrenia, such as frantic running and memory loss.

Researchers are excited at the prospect of a drug that could influence the confused thoughts and poor attention spans of most schizophrenic patients, but are quick to add that the discovery may not be applicable to humans. James Lopes, MC '00, a research assistant for the project, said, "It will be years before anything definite comes out."

--Catherine Reed

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