News

Our classmate Myron H. Thompson, longtime federal judge in Alabama, was honored at a Supreme Court dinner hosted by Justices Barrett, Jackson, and Sotomayor, with a performance by Jon Batiste.

His five-decade career has spanned landmark rulings on civil rights, prison reform, voting rights, and reproductive freedom, alongside national recognition from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and the National Bar Association.

Soon, the historic Frank M. Johnson Courtroom will be renamed in his honor, cementing his role as a defender of “Equal Justice Under the Law.” A remarkable journey for one of our own.

The Blue Leadership Ball returns this fall to celebrate Yale’s legacy of leadership on the eve of the 141st playing of The Game. As part of this marquee biennial celebration, the Yale Athletic Department will bestow its highest honor, the George H.W. Bush ’48 Lifetime of Leadership Award, on five outstanding individuals and one Special Award recipient.

The 2025 honorees are standouts in athletics, academics, and their professional fields. They are Keith Flaherty ’93 B.S.; Wendell Mottley ’64 B.A.; Lorraine Pratte Lewis ’78 B.A.; Margot Putukian ’84 B.S.; Victor Staffieri ’77 B.A.; and J. Lloyd Suttle ’69 B.S., ’73 M.Phil., ’75 Ph.D.

As noted last month, we sought your input about our new Listserv.  (See “We Need A New Listserv. Your Input Needed.”)  Thanks for all the comments and inputs.  After trying a few commercial packages, we made a choice. See below for the rollout plan.

We have also created a permanent “Listserv Summary” page that is linked in the masthead menu. It explains how and when to use the listserv. Please check that out for more detail, too.

Editor’s Note: Those who attended the Reunion last summer had an opportunity to get a private tour of the newly renovated Peabody Museum, including the expanded exhibits of dinosaurs and replicas of other prehistoric flora and fauna. We also got to see the work being completed on the David Friend Hall, a section of the Peabody dedicated to the mineral collection donated by David Friend, ’69 Calhoun.

This story is reprinted from this month’s Roskin Gem News Report, a leading journal focused on the natural gemstone industry. It reports on the formal debut of the completed exhibition, well documented with some stunning pictures. 

Editor’s Note: Proving once again the value of persistence, Reed Hundt’s Coalition for Green Capital won a major commitment from the federal government. This effort started in 2009, when Reed tried to get funding for green banks enacted into law. Finally, in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act set aside $27 billion for public-private investments in rooftop solar, energy efficiency upgrades for homes and other projects. It’s a major win — and could be a model to mobilize the huge amounts of capital necessary to fund the transition to clean energy.

This academic year is the first of six for Larry Franks as a Trustee of Clark University, Worcester, MA.   As the announcement of his appointment says, “After graduating from Clark with a master’s in government and international relations, Franks joined the Peace Corps and lived in Africa. Prior to retiring in 2007, he worked for Vertex Solutions, a tech company in Washington, D.C., whose clients included the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science…

Every member of the Yale community knows that November in New Haven is filled with compelling and colorful events.  Whether Princeton or Harvard is the opponent, the campus is energized by championship football, the YAA Assembly, the Yale Medal Dinner, and the Blue Leadership Ball, all concentrated into a single long weekend. This year Harvard was the opponent and The Game attracted over 51,000 to the Yale Bowl, a robust crowd that excitedly saw the…

We all know we were born at the right time — our music was the greatest of the century, our football team was the most exciting since Yale joined the Ivy League, we came of age in an Age of Aquarius and our classmates were truly exceptional.   Yale just confirmed our preeminence by identifying six people for “lifetime leadership awards” — with two of the six from our class!

Earlier this month our own Harold Mancusi-Ungaro, M.D. (’69, ’73 MD) was honored by the Yale Medical School with the DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD. The citation, reproduced below is very detailed and illuminates some impressive contributions to the Yale School of Medicine, and Yale more generally.

Frank Shorter ’69 says he learned early in his time as an undergraduate student at Yale University that there was no point playing it safe in an environment where every student on campus was at least as accomplished as the next one.

Recalling the number of valedictorians in his class, he …

Driving the news: “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” Schwarzman says.

“It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.”

The Boston business press proudly announced that “After dry spell, Boston has a new unicorn.”  (A “unicorn” is a startup valued at over a billion dollars.)  The profile is of David Friend, ’69, who founded his company – Wasabi Technologies — in 2017 and just closed a funding round of $250 million at a company value of $1.1 billion. This is David’s seventh company and his biggest.  He also has been a long-time Yale supporter,…

In the summer of 2021, David Howorth hosted some online lessons to teach bridge to classmates — some who played earlier in their lives (and who wanted a refresher) and some newbies. Rave reviews followed.

Well, he’s offering the course again, starting in early October. Click thru to read more and sign up by September 25^th.

We recently learned that our own Dick MacKay, MD has been awarded the  2022 Humanitarian Award by the U.Va Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation.