In last week’s thought-provoking Yale Class of ’62 ‘First Thursday’ Coffee Hour by Zoom (Sept 2), the final topic was about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Questions were raised about what will happen to women in the Taliban culture of religious oppression, and whether their new abilities arising from education, professional training, and social communication will give them some freedom and more political… READ DAVID’S FULL ESSAY HERE

9/10/21
English at Yale: Full Contact, No Holds Barred
A Chapter from My Memoir
By Lee V. Bakunin

Until I majored in English at Yale during my junior year, I never gave much thought to creative writing, much less poetry, script writing or professional speaking. I was shy, lacked self-confidence and sometimes stuttered or groped to find the right words… READ THE FULL EXCERPT FROM LEE’S MEMOIR HERE

9/07/21
Smoke, Fire and Our Brief Vacation
By George Snider

On August 21, my wife and I departed Cleveland for a long-planned week’s vacation in South Lake Tahoe. Three days later, in the face of suffocating smoke and approaching fire, we were on our way home.

For over 30 years, Nora and I have traveled around the end of August to celebrate her birthday and our wedding anniversary, aka “birthaversary.” With Covid and the Delta variant playing havoc with overseas cruises and travel, we opted this year for a week in the West. Lake Tahoe… READ GEORGE’S FULL REPORT HERE

9/07/21
Y62 ‘First Thursday’ Coffee Hour:
Our Retired MDs Talk About Aging

On Thursday, September 2, half of our Coffee Hour was devoted to three of our classmate retired physicians talking about some of the realities of aging. In order of appearance in this excerpt of the meeting, they are Jim Kelly, neurologist, John Wickenden, orthopedic surgeon, and Bob Lefevre, pioneering hospice and palliative care physician.

Comments on this brief excerpt? Please make them here.

9/07/21
Yale’s Fall Semester Begins
By John Stewart

The Yale College Class of 2025 has a record-setting 1,789 new students, representing a 4.5% admission rate. This number includes 335 who’d delayed a year. All 14 residential colleges will be full, which has not been the case in past years when many students chose to live off-campus.

The extra-large Class of 2025 is also remarkable for its diversity. Students in the first-year class represent 48 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 67 foreign countries. The 1,789 students are graduates of 1,221 different high schools around the world, and 14% attended high school outside the United States.
For a third year, a majority (51%) of incoming first-year students are US citizens or permanent residents who self-identified as a member of a minority racial or ethnic group when applying. More than 44% reported speaking a language other than English as their first language or in their home.

Yale’s undergraduate financial aid policies meet 100% of every family’s financial need without requiring loans. Families with incomes below $75,000 and typical assets will qualify for financial aid awards with a “$0 parent share.” Nearly 300 members of the Class of 2025 qualified for one of these awards, which cover the full cost of tuition, on-campus housing, the meal plan, and health insurance through scholarship grants, and include an extra $2,000 startup grant for a student’s first year.

College graduation continues to be financially worthwhile, and its value in the career marketplace continues to rise. According to a recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the average starting salary for the college Class of 2020 was $55,260 — 2.5% higher than that of the Class of 2019 ($53,889) and 8.5% higher than the Class of ’18 ($50,944). Graduates who majored in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields tend to earn even more, on average.

Comments on this news? Please make them here.

8/30/21
EDITOR’S NOTE

Website interest and participation were strong in the days following our August 20th Afghanistan and Climate Change posts. Classmates posted a good flow of comments and stayed on the site longer than usual.

We decided to follow up. Retired diplomat Steve Buck, contributed a short but solid confirmation and update of his view about flawed American policy. We asked two classmates to expand on their website comments. For Lee Bakunin, the subject was Yale ’62 as part of the “Silent Generation.” He applies cultural truths not only to our lives but also to Yale’s and the United States’ history using Afghanistan as a prime example. Norm Jackson identifies as an ex-patriate and shares several of his ideas and experiences while drawing damning conclusions about the Afghan misadventure.

It was a dreadful week for our nation and President Biden, even though Americans support his overall exit strategy and recognize the extraordinary logistic success of the Kabul airport evacuation. Wasn’t it a sad picture yesterday at Dover Air Force Base with President and Mrs. Biden and America’s top Government leaders attending the return of the 13 fallen service members and consoling the grieving families? The contrast with Republican leaders, who were calling for the President’s resignation or impeachment, was noteworthy as another signal of the polarization that is fracturing our nation.

Our monthly “First Thursday” Coffee Hour will proceed as scheduled this week, on September 2, with three retired classmate doctors on hand to share their thoughts regarding Senior Health Care, and Steve Howard moderating. This will be followed by a 30-minute open discussion on US Foreign policy and the impacts of the Afghanistan developments. Our policy subject expert, Kent Hughes, will moderate.

If you have comments you wish to make about this Editor’s Note, please make them here. Thanks.

8/30/21
Thoughts on Afghanistan, August 29th
By Stephen W. Buck

Alas, we are in a deep debacle of our own creation. So long as we had forces in Afghanistan with no end date for their departure there was a government and some measure of stability. This was necessary to ensure that the then al-Qaeda, now ISIS, did not have a base in Afghanistan. Now we have the absolute worst situation with chaos in Kabul making for the perfect situation for ISIS. We went from no American casualties to many, American and Afghani. All this to say we are out. Our international reputation is in tatters and drones may not be the answer.

(Please note: Steve’s August 20th essay, Afghanistan: A Major Challenge, is lower down on this page. Scroll down to locate it.)

Comments? Please make them here

8/30/21
Afghanistan: Slippery Slope or Reminder of the Work We Did and Didn’t Do?
By Lee V. Bakunin

How do you define Freedom?

Freedom has a taste, smell, and feel that’s especially difficult to understand when you are repressed, held back or downright discriminated against. It’s also a question of how much and how little or none. Too little and you are wanting more and then just a little more because you want to savor what it’s like to be satiated. Too much and the satiation… READ LEE’S ESSAY HERE.

8/30/21
An Expatriate’s View and Strong Conviction
By Norm Jackson

I was last in Afghanistan in 1977, but it seems like I’ve visited the country every day for the last several weeks. I last lived in the U.S. in 1984, but it seems like I’ve been there too, off and on, since 2016, when I last had any faith in Americans’ sanity and goodness. I’ve been living in Australia since 2010, and during nine years of COALition government, my faith in Australians’ sanity and goodness has taken a similar hit.

At first I thought that Aus would be different… READ NORM’S ESSAY HERE.

8/20/21
Afghanistan: A Major Challenge
By Stephen W. Buck

People having lost their hold on US plane as it left Kabul airport

President Biden called the photos of Afghans hanging on to the wheels of a U.S. military aircraft as it taxied towards take off at Kabul aircraft “gut-wrenching.” … READ STEVE’S COMPLETE ESSAY HERE…

8/20/21
AAG Statement on Climate Emergency
By Rutherford Platt and colleagues

photo credit: BuroHappold.com

The following statement was adopted by the American Association of Geographers as developed and co-authored by an ad hoc group of senior colleagues around the U.S. that I assembled this past… READ THE STATEMENT HERE…

8/17/21
A Brief Eulogy for Professor Donald Kagan
Honorary Y62 Classmate Passes Away

Prof. Kagan, 2010

A friend of the Class of 1962 and a renowned professor has passed away. Donald Kagan, Sterling Professor of History and Classics Emeritus, died August 6, 2021. He was the foremost expert on the Peloponnesian Wars, and ancient Greek and Roman history. He served as Dean of Yale College for several years, and was a devoted sports fan, particularly baseball. Yale President Benno Schmidt appointed him as Acting Athletic Director for one year to bring order to discord.

Prof. Kagan was awarded the National Medal for the Humanities in 2002 and gave the National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecture in 2005.

Prof. Kagan contributed his Lecture to the incoming Freshman Class of 1993 to the group of essays that our 50th Reunion Class Book featured. He also addressed our class at several reunions and took our designation as an honorary classmate in good spirits with just the sprinkling of good humor it deserved.

We were privileged to see and hear greatness. We will miss him.

— written by Bob Oliver

The Listing of Front Page Stories for the Past Year Continues Here…