Connecticut: A Project by Yale Alumni Profiles Lives Lost to AIDS

The Yale AIDS Memorial Project is in the process of documenting the epidemic's impact on the Yale community. After a year's work, the project printed 1,000 copies of its first journal in May; the publication comprises research, anecdotal profiles, and the photographs of eight Yale alumni and scholars. The next phase will enhance the project's website presence, commemorating the lives of some of the estimated 450 Yale students, alumni, professors, and staff lost to AIDS.

"A big part of my work involved the study of collective memory, particularly surrounding the Holocaust, where you had 20 years of silence and then an explosion of interest, a memory boom," said Christopher Glazek (class of 2007), the project creator and senior editor of the magazine n+1.

"These people were here and they're not here anymore, and how we remember them is up to us," said Richard Espinosa (class of 2010), a graphic designer who is guiding the website phase. "What we want to make is much larger than Yale: Our website will be a proof-of-concept model that other colleges can use."

The project's board of advisers includes Yale history Professor George Chauncey (class of 1977); and Mark Schoofs (class of 1985), whose series on AIDS in Africa won a 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

"This is a serious piece of work devoted to real research that incorporates visual technology as well as verbal recollection," said Joseph W. Gordon, dean of undergraduate education at Yale College.

Details and portions of the journal can be seen on the website www.yaleaidsmemorialproject.org.

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