T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, JANURY 28, 2022 · VOL. CXLIV, NO. 10 · yaledailynews.com
CHUN TO STEP DOWN One-term dean to serve until June, return to teaching
YALE NEWS
BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun announced on Thursday that he would step down as dean after five years in the position. In an email to the Yale College community, Chun stated his intention to leave the position following the end of the spring 2022 semester. A professor of psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science, Chun served as head of Berkeley College from 200716 and was the University’s first Asian American dean. Chun’s term will officially end on June 30, after which he will return to full-time teaching and research.
“The institution has given me so much, and maybe as dean, I was able to give back a little, but I think I still got more from Yale than I'm able to give back,” Chun told the News. “I just love this institution so much. I love all the people here, and that's why I'm not thinking of leaving the place. I look forward to engaging with students and my colleagues in different ways, especially back in the classroom.” In his email, Chun noted that he had informed University President Peter Salovey of his decision in November, but waited until now to alert the rest of the community due to deteriorating public health conditions. Although five years is the standard term length for Yale’s deans, Chun cited several factors that influenced his decision not to seek reappointment. For one, Chun said he was proud of what he had accomplished during his term alongside students and faculty, in particular expansions to financial aid including the creation of the Summer Experience Award and Yale Safety Net and the expansion of the First-Year Scholars and STARS programs. Chun also empha-
Zoom University returns “A very expensive podcast” BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER
weeks of student advocacy following an abrupt switch to remote instruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Chun also introduced Yale College Community Care in April 2021, an expansion to
A national rise in COVID-19 cases in late December and early January led administrators to delay the start of the semester by a week, move the first two weeks of instruction online and shift to grab-and-go dining services until further notice. Students had the option to return to campus between Jan. 14 and Feb. 4, opting to start their classes for the semester either in residence at Yale or from home. The News spoke to eight students about their first days of the semester, many of whom described a widespread sense of uncertainty as they returned or planned to return to campus. “I almost felt better being home because my therapist is there and I had a lot more free time and there wasn’t this issue of having to figure out when I was going to eat meals,” said Lawrence Tang ’25, who returned to campus before classes began. “My parents were being parents and taking care of me. Being here, not only am I separated from this very safe safety net, but there’s also a lot more uncertainty.” Rhayna Poulin ’25 said that she returned to campus on Jan. 14, the first day students were permitted to move back into their dorms, and that she is satisfied with her decision to take classes from Yale rather than from home.
SEE CHUN PAGE 4
SEE ZOOM PAGE 4
YALE NEWS
Chun served as Head of Berkeley College from 2007 to 2016 and was the College’s first Asian-American Dean. sized the success of Yale’s certificate programs, adding that he looked forward to faculty introducing new certificates in years to come. In April 2020, Chun oversaw the adoption of a universal pass/fail grading policy for the spring 2020 semester after
STUDENT LIFE
ADMISSIONS
Yale’s “fake middle class” 50,000 apply in record pool
TENZIN JORDEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Low-income students at Yale describe a pressure to “cosplay as a different class character.” BY LUCY HODGMAN AND JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTERS At Yale, whose undergraduate population is overwhelmingly above the national income average, Suzanne Brown ’23 noticed a phenomenon in which many higher-income students play down the extent of their wealth, while some lower-income
students also face pressure to “cosplay as a different class character.” Brown used clothes shopping as an example. She might be told by her mother, she said, not to wear a particular pair of jeans because “they look old and you don’t want people thinking you’re poor.” Wealthier students, on the other hand, might outwardly pretend
to have less money, thrifting clothes that they could afford to buy new. Brown described it as students often “cosplay[ing] as a different class character. Logan Roberts ’23 echoed Brown’s observations, suggesting that skewed income distribution at the University results in students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds trying to emulate their idea of “middle class”— a standard which does not represent the experiences of most students on campus. “I think there's this issue at Yale where all the really wealthy kids try to act as though they're not wealthy and all the kids who are low-income try to fit into this very clearly elite community,” Roberts, who is SEE FGLI PAGE 13
ADMINISTRATION
U. to evaluate Chinese holdings BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER
The committee that recommends areas for divestment to Yale’s board of trustees will begin investigating companies in China to determine whether some may be deemed ineligible for Yale investment in light of the Chinese government’s widespread human rights violations.
Both Matthew Mendelsohn ’07, Yale’s chief investment officer, and University President Peter Salovey declined to reveal how much of Yale’s endowment is invested in Chinese companies. However, according to the Investment Office’s 2020 report, it allocates 6.5 percent of the portfolio, or just over $2 billion, to emerging markets, which includes China. The New York Times further
revealed that, as of 2015, part of the endowment’s emerging markets portfolio had gone toward two major Chinese companies, Tencent and JD.com. Both Mendelsohn and Salovey did not respond to a request to guarantee that the companies receiving investments from the University were entirely uninvolved with human rights violaSEE CHINA PAGE 5
CROSS CAMPUS
INSIDE THE NEWS
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1983.
STUDY ABROAD CANCELLED AMID OMICRON SPIKE
A fire breaks out in a Trumbull College suite after a teapot boiled dry. The fire is put out by Trumbull fellow Jack Hasegawa before the New Haven Fire Department and Yale police officers arrive.
PAGE 11 UNIVERSITY
YALE DAILY NEWS
The admissions office will read through more than 50,000 applications to decide the class of 2026. BY JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTER Yale received 50,022 applications to join the University’s class of 2026, the most in the school’s history. The record-breaking pool includes the 7,313 early action applications prospective students sent to New Haven in December. The 2021–2022 cycle yielded seven percent more applications than the year
prior and 42 percent more than 2019–2020. “We do not measure success simply by the number of applications we receive,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan wrote in an email to the News. “Quality matters much more to the Admissions Committee than quantity.” Nevertheless, the increase in applications is significant and could lead to a further drop in Yale’s acceptance rate.
Last spring, Yale accepted 4.62 percent of 46,905 applicants, and in 2020, 6.4 percent of 35,220 were welcomed to join the class of 2024. Though Quinlan said that “it is impossible to attribute direct cause and effect relationships” between various outreach strategies and the application yield, Mark Dunn, the director of SEE APPS PAGE 13
SCOTUS weighs affirmative action BY JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTER The United States Supreme Court announced Monday that it would hear a pair of cases challenging race conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North
Carolina Chapel Hill. With the Court’s conservative majority, the outcome could dismantle affirmative action in higher education and set a precedent for a similar case against Yale. The plaintiff in both cases is Students for Fair Admissions Inc., an organization dedicated
to engendering a legal end to affirmative action. The group holds that Harvard and UNC discriminate against white and Asian American students in their admissions practices, and asked the Supreme Court to SEE SCOTUS PAGE 13
DOMINGUEZ
OMICRON
BASKETBALL
As the city’s search for a new permanent police chief drags on, Acting Chief Renee Dominguez has been slapped with a lawsuit. PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 7 SCITECH
PAGE 14 SPORTS
Researchers showed that the Omicron variant might be infectious for longer than previously believed.
Azar Swain scored a career-high 37 points and nearly broke a 64-year Yale scoring record as the Elis jumped to an early lead.
