Yale Daily News — Week of March 11, 2022

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · VOL. CXLIV, NO. 16 · yaledailynews.com

Mask mandate to partially lift Term bill

TENZIN JORDEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The University announced that masking will be optional in certain spaces beginning March 21.

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER After nearly two academic years of strict mask mandates, Yale will partially lift its indoor mask mandate on March 21.

University Provost Scott Strobel, Senior Vice President for Operations Jack Callahan and University COVID-19 Coordinator

Stephanie Spangler announced Thursday that Yale would lift its masking requirement for select indoor activities — a change that will become policy at the start of spring recess. Masks, however, will still be required in all classes. Amid a wave of loosening restrictions across the Ivy League, Yale’s policy remains one of the most conservative among its peer institutions.

cracks $80,000

“Based on public health conditions and new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), we write today to announce that we will modify Yale’s indoor masking requirements and our events, gatherings, and meetings policies on Monday, March 21, 2022,” Strobel, Callahan and Spangler wrote to the Yale community. “In our campus community, the numbers of new COVID-19 infections among faculty and staff remain low, and those among graduate and professional students are stable.”

Students will still be required to wear a face mask in all classrooms and instructional spaces, on campus transit and at healthcare facilities such as Yale Health.

In all other settings, however, masking will be optional. As such, members of the Yale community will no longer be required to wear masks in dining halls, libraries and gymnasiums.

According to Strobel, Callahan and Spangler, the University's near-universal vaccination rates, the decline in cases from the Omicron wave and the absence of any severe illness among the student body enable the University to begin loosening its pandemic restrictions. Ninety-nine percent of students and 96 percent of faculty are fully vaccinated, according to the University’s COVID-19 Dashboard.

The University will raise the Yale College term bill from $77,750 to $80,700, a four percent hike for the third time in the last three years.

The Feb. 21 update marks a 3.8 percent increase to the bill from last year. The new fee breaks down to $62,250 for tuition and $18,450 for on-campus room and board. The term bill increase is in line with that of the last two years, in which the bill swelled from $74,900 to $77,750 in April 2021 and from $72,100 to $74,900 in February 2020.

"Yale's financial aid program is designed to make a Yale education affordable for all students by providing equitable support that meets every family's financial need" Scott Wallace-Juedes, director of undergraduate financial aid, told the News regarding the tuition increase.

John Dysart, president of the Dysart Group and an enrollment management and finance expert, told the News that he suspects Yale

SEE MASKS PAGE 4

SEE TUITION PAGE 4

BY JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTER

Faculty support Ukraine Yale severs Sackler ties

BY ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTER On Wednesday, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Senate issued a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The senators expressed deep concerns about Ukrainians in need of humanitarian aid, Yale community members with connections in Ukraine and academic scholars and students at Ukrainian universities that have been affected by the growing crisis.

The statement was signed by 20 of 22 FAS Senators, including all seven members of the Senate’s Executive Council.

“Universities are central to the defense of democracies, as they share with democracies the principles of free and unfettered debate, and the ability to challenge authority in the pursuit of truth,” the resolution stated. “As scholars, we reject the erasure of history imposed by

an imperialist narrative to justify the invasion of a peaceful, sovereign nation.”

The Senate also urged faculty to review two lists of information, one compiled by Professor Timothy Snyder and the other compiled and circulated by students.

Additionally, faculty members across the University are offering positions for displaced Ukrainian students and scholars, in most cases for postdoctoral researchers. Sixteen leaders of laboratories or research groups added open positions to an international database created by University of Oregon evolutionary genomics professor Andrew Kern. Twelve of these leaders, including FAS Senate Chair Valerie Horsley, are School of Medicine faculty. At least four are professors with primary appointments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences: chemistry’s Timothy Newhouse, SEE UKRAINE PAGE 4

Sovetov case still unsolved

BY SOPHIE SONNENFELD STAFF REPORTER A month after Yale employee Anton Sovetov reportedly went missing, the date of his disappearance remains fuzzy and few details have been released in the Yale Police Department’s investigation.

Sovetov is a 44-year-old graphic designer who has worked with the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communications since 2017 and graduated from the Yale School of Art in 2016. Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins initially notified

SOPHIE SONNENFELD/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Yale Police Department has not released significant updates on the status of Sovetov.

the Yale community of Sovetov’s disappearance in an email alert Feb. 17. In that notice, Higgins said that Sovetov had last been seen in the downtown area on Feb. 4.

On Feb. 18, footage of Sovetov emerged on a New Haven crime tracking platform called On Scene Media. The footage showed Sovetov checking out at Chapel Street’s Elm City Market on Feb. 5 at 5:45 p.m.

Higgins wrote in an email to the News that though YPD did not release the footage, they believe the footage is of Sovetov. If the YPD has confirmed that this is Sovetov in the footage, it is unclear why this footage has not been shared with the public for identification and tips.

On Feb. 26, a week after On Scene Media released the Feb. 5 footage of Sovetov, Yale’s public information office released a statement published in several news outlets reporting that Sovetov disappeared “approximately” around Feb. 4.

The release claimed this is when Sovetov was last in contact with colleagues.

Following the wide circulation of footage of Sovetov at the Elm City Market on Feb. 5, in later releases and postings the YPD corrected the date without explanation.

Sovetov lives in an apartment at 1012 Chapel Street called “The Townsend” overlooking the New Haven Green and Old Campus. When reached by phone last SEE SOVETOV PAGE 5

CROSS CAMPUS

INSIDE THE NEWS

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1966 Former University President Kingman Brewster Jr. announces that the C. N. Hugh Long professorship has been established by an anonymous gift of $600,000.

SONIA RUIZ/SENIOR ILLUSTRATOR

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER The University is in the process of quietly severing ties with the Sackler family, and will soon announce the results of this effort, according to University spokesperson Karen Peart.

The Sackler family founded pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma, which produces the opioid OxyContin and is significantly responsible for contributing to the country’s ongoing opioid epidemic. Members of the Sackler family, whose wealth totals around $11 billion,

have donated millions of dollars to the University, endowing two professorships and a program in the sciences. Yet, according to University officials, Yale began severing its ties with the Sacklers last year, and will soon complete the process.

“In 2021, the University made a decision to pursue a separation from the Sackler name and has been actively working on specific plans consistent with that decision which we expect to announce soon,” Peart told the News.

The news comes after the University had previously declined to comment on multiple occasions in the last three months on whether they were planning to sever University associations with the Sackler family. Peart did not directly respond to a question of whether the University would return the Sackler donation or merely remove the family’s name.

The Sackler family had endowed two professorships at the Yale School of Medicine — the David A. Sackler Professor of Pharmacology and the Richard Sackler and Jonathan Sackler Professorship in Internal Medicine — and had also endowed the Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences, which has since been restructured under the umbrella of The Program in Physics, Engineering, and Biology.

Professor Mark Lemmon, who was the most recent occupant of the David A. Sackler Professorship of Pharmacology, was reassigned from that professorship last month, according to Peart. This week, the School of Medicine website was changed to remove the name of the Sackler chair.

SEE OPIOIDS PAGE 5

Investments pulled from Russia

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER Millions of dollars from the Yale endowment were pulled from Russian investments, eliminating all of the University’s financial exposure to the country, according to University President Peter Salovey.

At the end of 2021, Yale held $362 million in Vanguard’s emerging market exchange-traded fund, or ETF, which allocates 2.9 percent of its common stock towards Russian holdings — translating to a $10.5 million exposure on Yale’s behalf

AUTOMATION

to those Russian assets. The ETF invests in stocks of companies from countries in emerging markets around the world, and is intended to track the return of the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index. In the wake of international government sanctions on Russia, FTSE decided to remove Russian stocks from the index, thus erasing Yale’s financial exposure to Russia.

“The endowment has no manager relationships in Russia or who focus on RusSEE INVESTMENTS PAGE 4

A CAPELLA

After a virtual audition process, Yale’s two senior a cappella groups tapped next year’s class.

YALE-NUS

ER&M FLEXES ITS INDEPENDENCE IN THREE HIRES

Yale professors are addressing the racial bias ingrained in the algorithms that depict humans in computer graphics.

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PAGE 6 SCITECH

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Students at Yale-NUS criticized the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) handling of the 2025 merger of Yale-NUS and NUS’ University Scholars’ Programme.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

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OPINION GUEST COLUMNIST

GUE ST COLUMNIST LAURA ZENG

S I D N EY CA R L S O N W H I T E

From one Olympian who tested positive to another

Why We Debate R

ecently, a guest editorial at the New York Times has caused a stir — and a fair bit of pearl clutching — on college campuses around the country.

A University of Virginia Student, who came to campus “eager to debate” was surprised, it appears from the text, that her views received pushback in class from her peers. This, she claims, results in “self-censorship.” In addition to the regular rigamarole surrounding “free speech” on campus, the article has curiously spawned a fair amount of critique about “debate” as a concept, and why people might choose to participate in it.

Debate has, especially on the campus Left, been derided as a poor format for the exchange and growth of ideas. At worst, it’s written off as a wholly performative process, given to displays of whiteness and masculinity, and at best, it is considered an ineffective mode for sharing beliefs and growing them as a community. As the current chair of the Party of the Left, a campus debate organization devoted to the development of difficult — and perhaps even dangerous! — ideas, I have always found this particular disdain towards debate to be unproductive and misses the point of why we want to have them with our friends, and maybe even our enemies.

It’s easy to talk about politics.

I do it on Twitter every day, I do it with my friends, and I call my parents to talk about politics with them. It’s simple, it’s quotidian, and it keeps me grounded in the world. What is much harder, however, is to take a topic, to stand up in front of my friends on the floor of the Party of the Left and speak from my heart about something I deeply believe. It is hard to know that my every word is going to be scrutinized and examined and, when I’m done speaking, eventually questioned. But I know as Chair that I have cultivated a space in which it is safe to do that with my peers because we have built up the trust we need in order to critically examine our principles as a collective intellectual project.

Classroom discussions and seminars are nice — and I have been in plenty of pleasant ones — but they are not, as this Times op-ed suggested, the place for debate. They are for examining texts and connecting them with our own bodies of knowledge and our personal experiences. We can resist each other’s viewpoints, but a classroom comment will never be enough space to dive deeply into the core principles of our system of beliefs.

When I watch my friends give more lengthy speeches, I get to learn how our understandings of parenting, class struggle, the Directed Studies curriculum, or any number of other specific topics reflect our interpretation of the world around us. Our debate floor gives us a chance to let ourselves and our ideas about the world be vulnerable not to the scru-

tiny of the grader’s pen, but to the other ideas that comprise the Left and the people that form it. When it comes time to ask the members of my Party questions on their speeches, I get to do so not with the intent of taking them down — or perhaps to use a more traditional turn of phrase, “owning” them — but with the understanding that my friends’ ideas matter to me, and that I am joining them in getting a chance to better flesh them out.

IF I HAVE LEARNED ANYTHING FROM THE PARTY OF THE LEFT, IT IS THAT WE GROW AS THINKERS IN THE SPACES IN WHICH WE DISAGREE. If I have learned anything from the Party of the Left, it is that we grow as thinkers in the spaces in which we disagree. And I will never deny that it is easy to disagree with each other in productive ways. To do so, to have the humility to let yourself and your ideas be examined is hard, but I believe that is ultimately what good debate is all about. I have spoken at other organizations’ debates where my ideas are welcome, and in some where they certainly aren’t. But even when I am surrounded by people that I know disagree with me and my Black socialist ideals, I trust that belief in the project of debate as one of many tools that help us grow and that the other people in the room understand that they may yet have something to learn from me.

Not every debate will be good, and not every debate will directly change people’s minds. Although I think debates have fundamentally changed my worldview in more ways than I can count, the project of debate is bigger than just the words said on our floor.

It’s about community, and it’s about trust in each other to grow as thinkers and activists. The great Senator Paul Wellstone once said that “Our politics are our deepest form of expression: they mirror our past experiences and reflect our dreams and aspirations for the future.” The Party of the Left carries this as our principle because we know that ideas are beautiful things, and that they are meant to be shared and cultivated with friends.

SIDNEY CARLSON WHITE is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College. He is the thirty-third Chair of the Party of the Left. Contact him at sid.carlsonwhite@yale.edu .

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COPYRIGHT 2022 — VOL. CXLIV, NO. 16

W

hen I was 18 years old, I competed at the Pan American Championships in Lima, Peru, before going on vacation with my family to Machu Picchu. One month later, I tested positive for a drug called acetazolamide.

According to WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, acetazolamide is a substance that can be used as a masking agent to hide the presence of other drugs and is thus prohibited at all times.

It is also a commonly prescribed medication used to treat altitude sickness.

In the fall of 2018, I finished competing at the rhythmic gymnastics World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, which normally marks the beginning of the off-season, but in this case, preceded one extra competition. After the job was done, I was feeling both exhausted and exalted in the high mountains of Peru, and I let my guard down.

When I began to feel lightheaded, nauseous and symptomatic of altitude sickness, I took the white pill my mom handed me — assuming it was ibuprofen, which is non-prohibited.

It wasn’t.

THROUGHOUT MY OWN SANCTION, I STRUGGLED WITH SHAME, AND THE GUILT OF BEING PERCEIVED AS A CHEAT WHEN I HAD ONLY EVER BEEN CLEAN. IT WAS PAINFUL, EXPENSIVE AND A HARD LESSON TO LEARN. IT STILL FEELS LIKE THERE IS LITTLE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THOSE WHO MAKE HONEST MISTAKES AND THOSE WHO CHEAT ON PURPOSE. In rhythmic gymnastics, you become a senior athlete when you turn 15, and you enter the drug pool when you make the national team. For the rest of my career, I reported where I was living, training and traveling at all times to USADA, the US Anti-Doping Agency, so I could be tapped for random drug testing at any time, in addition to being tested every year at the U.S. National Championships.

I was also subject to testing at every international World Cup or Grand Prix I went to, administered by the respective host country’s doping agency, separate entirely from USADA’s jurisdiction. Every country has its own protocol, but adheres to a globally agreed-upon standard set by WADA. As an athlete, I tried my best to be as diligent as possible. No poppy seeds, no multivitamins. No supplements at all, because even if I went through the rigmarole of getting a third-party certification of a

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substance, USADA would still not approve the drug, not wanting to be held liable for any possible contaminants.

A few days after I arrived back home, USADA came knocking on my door at 6 a.m. for a urine and a blood sample. Four weeks later I received notification of my positive result, and thus began a long and strenuous legal process, where I had to painstakingly prove that my mistake was both unintentional and incommensurate to a prolonged punishment.

Ultimately, I was sanctioned for six months, unable to train with my team or compete in any capacity. To the outsider, six months might seem like a successful outcome — lenient, even— but for an elite athlete hoping to qualify for her second Olympic Games, it was a cataclysmic ordeal that uprooted my life. I could have appealed to CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but at what cost, and for what probability of success?

“You’re not a person, you’re an athlete.” This was the refrain I began to understand throughout the process, how the burden of proof and responsibility fell squarely upon my shoulders.

Never mind that the drug was non-performance-enhancing, taken after the competitive season and ingested without malicious intent in a fatigued state of mind; the rules were clear. Yes, certain details would be taken into account, but more important than any such context was the fact that I had been negligent in the first place, and so needed to be punished.

It is fair to be held accountable. But is it fair for individual mistakes to feel so criminal when actual and systematic doping schemes are being perpetuated elsewhere? Does justice bear credibility when it’s not proportionally disseminated?

When degrees of punishment are subjective, but not transparent? When embedded conspiracies are discovered after the fact, without thorough follow-up, explanation or retribution? The rules were, ostensibly, clear in my case — but that doesn’t seem to hold true for every other case.

During my investigation, I learned about athletes who were given mere reprimands or absolved completely due to acceptance in their argument of accidental ingestion, be that contaminated drinking water or contaminated food. There were cases where an athlete accidentally used their mother’s inhaler, ingested their wife’s medication or trusted a team doctor’s prescription.

In the case of 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the pitfalls of the doping system were once again center stage. Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, a substance that can elicit increased stamina but is also used to treat heart disease.

The issue was the timing: any litigation of a positive case takes at least one month to process upon receipt of notification, if not more, but her result came back after she had already competed in the team event. So in effect, there were three questions to resolve: one — would this disqualify her past performance and thus negate Russia’s golden team medal? Two — would she be allowed to compete in the individual event? And three — if she earned a medal in the individual event and was later found guilty, would the disqualification happen retroactively?

In the end, she was allowed to compete, but question number three became a moot point.

Protocol says that with notice of a positive result, an athlete is

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immediately suspended. Pending an official judgment, an athlete cannot compete. In the eyes of the panel, however, given this “extraordinary” circumstance, they were being generous by letting her compete, despite it being explicitly against the rules, and irrespective of the chaos it would cause. By blatantly disregarding their own rules, another precedent of selective enforcement was established. Any attempt to salvage the young girl’s experience backfired as Valieva instead became the public’s de facto scapegoat for the CAS decision, her performance a lose-lose situation in which many were rooting for her failure.

TO ME, HOWEVER, THERE IS SOMETHING FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED WITH A SYSTEM THAT IS CONTINUALLY EXPOSED, EXPLOITED AND EMBROILED WITH SCANDAL, OVER AND OVER, UNABLE TO HOLD ACCOUNTABLE WHAT IT DEMANDS FROM ITS ATHLETES. If anything, I am sympathetic to Kamila, and all the athletes involved. I don’t think she should have been allowed to compete, but I don’t think she deserved extraneous blame either. The shadow of a scandal detracts from the point — from the privilege of the spotlight, years in the making. It’s a frustrating situation when athletes’ best interests don’t feel prioritized, and the system loses all pretense of credibility.

It’s unfair to her and unfair to the rest of the athletes. I think it’s premature to accuse her of anything elaborate without all the facts, but I’m not granting her blanket immunity either.

Rather, I am left disenchanted with the system — a system that allowed such an incident to escalate, and burdened other athletes in the crossfire.

I cannot imagine exactly what it must’ve felt like to skate that day, but I can imagine it better than most. Throughout my own sanction, I struggled with shame, and the guilt of being perceived as a cheat when I had only ever been clean. It was painful, expensive and a hard lesson to learn. It still feels like there is little distinction between those who make honest mistakes and those who cheat on purpose. I don’t pretend to have the answers, nor do I ask to be absolved — I can only speak from my own experience. To me, however, there is something fundamentally flawed with a system that is continually exposed, exploited and embroiled with scandal, over and over, unable to hold accountable what it demands from its athletes.

LAURA ZENG is a first-year in Ezra Stiles College. Contact her at laura.zeng@@yale.edu .

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NEWS

PAGE 3

“As long as gay people don’t have their rights all across America, there’s no reason for celebration.”

MARSHA P. JOHNSON AMERICAN GAY LIBERATION ACTIVIST

AfAm House Director Dean Nelson shifts to new role with Library

KAREN LIN/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Assistant Dean of Yale College Risë Nelson will leave her role as Director of the African American Cultural House for an inaugural role at the Yale University Library.

BY DANTE MOTLEY STAFF REPORTER On April 1, Assistant Dean of Yale College Risë Nelson will leave her role as Director of the African American Cultural House to take the inaugural role of Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Yale University Library.

Nelson began her role at the AfAm house in 2015, and she presided over initiatives such as the House’s 50th Anniversary and the creation of Black graduation.

She will now transition to her new role at the Yale University Library, presiding over DEI initiatives throughout Yale’s library system.

“I have been here almost seven years,” Nelson said. “And I think it’s time. I think that I have done with our students and alumni and others some extraordinary work together. And I think at this point, it is time for me to move on.”

The change in position was announced in separate emails to the House and to Yale College Dean’s Office colleagues on March 1. Both emails included a message from Dean Nelson, and the email to YCDO colleagues include a message from Yale College Dean Marvin Chun.

Chun told the News that Nelson’s new role is “a terrific opportunity… and a promotion.”

“She was an outstanding Director of the AfAm house, and she’s an outstanding assistant dean of Yale College,” Chun told the News. “She really understands the importance of diversity and inclusion and belonging and has really been very effective and innovative in offering programs for the House, but that are very open to the broader community, to basically just really promote an appreciation for Black history and our Black students and our alumni.”

Chun specifically cited the programming Nelson created that connected the House and the New Haven community. Nelson said that House works with up to 12,000 or more people, and ensuring that people stay connected to each other and to the resources at Yale and in New Haven was a large part of her role.

Nelson, a self-described “townie,” was raised in New Haven. In her announcement of her new role, she said that growing up, out of all of Yale, she only ever felt comfortable at the House.

“Even as a teen, I knew that the House was for ‘us,’” Nelson wrote.

“So being appointed Director of the House in 2015 was surreal. It still is.”

In her role with both the House and the Dean’s Office, Nelson worked to create programs in support of underrepresented students, including the House’s History Keepers Program — a collaboration with Yale Library and the Smithsonian that helps students gain experience in archival and academic work while preserving Yale’s Black histories.

Nelson said she developed the program during a particular “period of campus unrest” from 2015 to 2016, to help students “learn about and grapple with these really complicated histories” surrounding the House and Black Yale.

“She’s an important voice and not just for the college but for the broader University,” Chun said.

“She offers very important wisdom and important perspectives and expertise. So the fact that she’s staying at Yale is huge.”

Nelson said that in her new role at Yale University Library, she will work on diversifying the library’s collections, archives and resources, along with ensuring that those resources are “accessible to our community,” including students, New Haven residents and anyone who might be visiting Yale.

She said the role will also include “staff recruitment and retention,” along with new professional development initiatives that will help staff learn more about DEI. “To fully support Yale’s educational mission, we must also strive to make our collections as discoverable and accessible as possible to research communities at Yale and beyond, and particularly to communities whose heritage may be represented in the collections,” University Librarian Barbara Rockenbach wrote in a message about DEI released July 2021.

In that message, Rockenbach said that she looks forward to working with the new direc-

tor — at that point not yet hired — to “develop and implement DEI strategies throughout the university library system.”

In leaving her role with the House, Nelson said she is confident that students will “be able to pick things up,” as they have been integral to the House’s daily life throughout its history.

But Nelson also noted that more recent students haven’t seen the House in its “hay-day” due to the pandemic. Nelson said that pre-pandemic, the House was always active, saying that “there wasn’t a dull moment.”

“I think I’m going to need to bring folks in over the next few months, even after I officially stepped into my library role, to help our students kind of understand these backgrounds,” Nelson said.

Nelson added that in her new role, she is looking forward to having better boundaries around her work schedule and being able to “share time with [her] family.”

Chun told the News that the process for selecting a new House director will be just like any other cultural center and will include the creation of a committee of faculty, students and staff members that will recommend applicants to Chun. He added that a national job posting has already been released.

Nelson will give her farewell remarks at the Afro-American Cultural Center’s 50th anniversary, which will be held from April 29 to May 1.

Contact DANTE MOTLEY at dante.motley@yale.edu.

ER&M flexes independence with three new hires

TIM TAI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The program, which gained hiring power in 2019 after years of advocacy, will bring on two new junior faculty members in Native studies and one in Latinx studies.

BY ISAAC YU AND EVAN GORELICK STAFF REPORTERS Ethnicity, Race and Migration is taking advantage of its new independence.

Almost three years after thirteen affiliated professors temporarily withdrew from the fast-growing program, citing a lack of institutional support, ER&M is building its ranks — this time on its own terms.

Faculty committees have completed searches for three new ladder positions, ER&M chair Ana Ramos-Zayas told the News. Hi’ilei Hobart and Tarren Andrews will specialize in Native studies, and Leigh-Anna Hidalgo will teach Latinx studies. All three are at the beginning of their careers and will become junior faculty members.

The hires represent both ER&M’s newfound independence and a heightened interest in ethnic studies nationwide. The new hires also mark a significant expansion of Yale’s Indigenous Studies opportunities, as previously the University had only one American Indian professor tenured in the Faculty of Arts and Science.

“It made all the difference in the world,” Ramos-Zayas said of the program’s independent hiring power. “We are the only ones who really know who deserves to be in the field, in these positions, in assessing a candidate’s possibilities at Yale.”

Faculty in the department, as well as members of the University’s Native American and Indige-

nous community, praised the new hires and the increased opportunities for student engagement with Indigenous studies.

Self-determination The three new hires represent the fruits of long-time advocacy for greater ER&M autonomy. The program, which for decades was housed within American Studies, gained five formal faculty positions in May 2019 following weeks of student protests and national attention.

ER&M has two dozen affiliated professors and lecturers, scattered across a variety of academic units, including history, sociology and American Studies. But only four are currently supported by the programs’ funding lines for tenured faculty. The remainder tenured faculty either have lines split with other departments or are situated entirely outside of ER&M but serve in advisory roles.

The department was allocated two tenure-track positions last fall, one each in Latinx and Indigenous studies. But the talent pool for Indigenous studies was particularly strong last year, history and American Studies professor Ned Blackhawk and Ramos-Zayas told the News, and faculty were enthusiastic about two top-tier candidates, both of whom had competitive offers. This led the program to successfully petition the University for an extra faculty line, bringing its total lines to seven.

“I’d like to think that the outstanding capabilities of each of these applicants is a testament to

the program’s capacity to evaluate and recruit people, because it’s actually an incredibly competitive year,” said Blackhawk, who chaired the committee for both Indigenous studies positions.

Had the program not been granted hiring power, Blackhawk added, attracting such top talent would have been much more difficult. Indigenous studies is currently a major growth field in American universities, he added, and several peer institutions, including Princeton and UC Berkeley, are also actively recruiting for their programs.

The hiring process also brought a sense of unity amongst the program’s faculty, RamosZayas said, and deliberations on each candidate naturally prompted a wider discussion about the program’s vision and values. The ultimate decisions were also made with unanimous approval from committee members, Ramos-Zayas said.

“It really brought us together as a group, incredibly, because we were all in agreement about every single one of them,” Ramos-Zayas said.

“We’re so thrilled by these three people that we chose, so vibrant and energetic. They’re really going to make a splash at Yale.”

ER&M’s new structure is also particularly conducive to mentorship of junior colleagues. Previously, new faculty members affiliated with the program would be mentored by colleagues scattered in other units and, in many cases, by scholars without expertise in ethnic studies. Now, senior faculty members within ER&M will guide Andrews, Hobart and Hidalgo through their scholarship and the tenure process, RamosZayas said.

ER&M is also in the process of finalizing a possible fourth hire split between ER&M and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Ramos-Zayas told the News.

“The program has developed a robust and thriving major where students are exposed to a range of methodological approaches to issues of ethnicity, race, and migration,” Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tamar Gendler wrote to the News. “The new faculty will increase this range even further.”

Fresh voices The News spoke to Hobart and Andrews about their academic interests, personal backgrounds and motivations for coming to Yale. Hidalgo did not respond to requests for comment.

Born and raised in Hawaii,

Hobart spent two years at the University of Texas at Austin specializing in food studies and Indigenous relationships with land and the environment. She has taught classes on Indigenous art and activism as well as Native and Indigenous food sovereignty.

Hobart described her new position as a “dream job” and said she hopes to engage with the Yale Farm and the Native American Cultural Center when she arrives on campus in the fall.

“Yale is one of those rare East Coast-institutions that actually has a relatively robust NAIS [Native American and Indigenous Studies] community, and being able to provide mentorship to Indigenous and Pacific Islander students is really special to me,” Hobart said. “Being present in these places that were not built for us, but built upon our dispossession, is really powerful to effect change.”

Andrews, currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado, researches settler colonialism in the early medieval North Atlantic. She specifically focuses on how settler colonial structures intact today originated before Indigenous-European contact.

Andrews will spend her first year at Yale as a postdoctoral researcher and then will transition into a junior faculty role. “‘I’m really excited about teaching an origins of settler colonialism class, as well as a canonical introduction to critical indigenous studies and indigenous feminism,” Andrews told the News. “I also do a lot of work in Indigenous new media and Indigenous storytelling, so I’m looking forward to offering classes in both of those areas as well.”

Andrews grew up on a reservation in northwest Montana and has lived around Indigenous communities throughout her life.

Though she is excited about coming to Yale, she was initially concerned about the smaller Indigenous community in New Haven.

“I was initially a little apprehensive about [coming to Yale],” Andrews said. “But I think that the fact that they did hire two [indigenous studies faculty] from this search suggests that the administration has really invested in these initiatives. And there’s a really vibrant undergraduate community that I think brings a lot to the table. So I am excited about it.”

Joining a community The new hires are particularly momentous for the Native Amer-

ican and Indigenous community.

According to the Office of Institutional Resources, only 12 faculty across all of Yale’s schools identified as either ‘American Indian or Alaskan Native’ or ‘Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander’ in 2020, making up less than 0.001 percent of total faculty. Just one person from each group is tenured in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Blackhawk was the first tenured American Indian professor at Yale and is the only Native American faculty member in the FAS. He is also the only professor who explicitly specializes in Native American studies, though he pointed out that several faculty in other units, including English professor Alanna Hickey and Divinity School professor Tisa Wenger, teach and write on Indigenous topics. But the addition of Andrews and Hobart will allow the department to offer more entrylevel lectures as well as more advanced courses, particularly in contemporary Indigenous studies.

Both Hobart and Andrews expressed excitement about joining the robust community of Indigenous and Native Americans already at Yale. Evan Roberts ‘23, a peer liaison for Yale’s Native American Cultural Center and an ER&M major, met some of the candidates during the University’s faculty selection process.

“I am eager to see the Indigenous studies field grow here and to take classes in more areas of Indigenous studies my senior year,” Roberts said.

The Native American Cultural Center, located at 26 High St., aims to support Indigenous students and programming throughout the school year. Matthew Makomenaw, the Center’s director, praised the program’s expansion.

“Increasing the representation of Indigenous people, culture and language in the curriculum and classes on campus is a wonderful step in providing more awareness and belonging for the Indigenous community on campus,” Makomenaw said. “The addition of more faculty with a background in Indigenous studies not only benefits the number of classes offered but also increases the presence of Indigenous Studies faculty available to mentor students and attend events on campus.”

The ER&M major was established in 1998.

Contact ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu and EVAN GORELICK at evan.gorelick@yale.edu.

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly.” STAN LEE AMERICAN COMIC BOOK WRITER

Mask mandate Tuition rises from $77,750 to $80,700 soon to lift MASKS FROM PAGE 1 Coupled with these loosened restrictions, the University further relaxed gathering regulations, announcing that gatherings can now proceed without approval from the University’s COVID Review Team.

The announcement comes as Yale is seeing a decline in its infection rate after an initial surge as the term began. As of March 8, 145 students were in isolation. The University recorded 59 total positive cases on March 7, down from 97 when the University experienced its most recent on-campus spike in mid-February.

University officials called on the community to be considerate of people who are immunocompromised. Students had previously written a petition calling for all classes to offer a remote option.

“We recognize that some of us will welcome this policy change, and others will still feel hesitant to unmask regardless of improved public health conditions,” Strobel, Callahan and Spangler wrote. “For most, choosing whether to mask will be a personal decision reflecting individual circumstances — such as underlying health conditions or caretaking responsibilities for those at higher risk — as well as comfort levels. As we move forward, we ask that mutual respect and civility continue to guide our behavior.”

While this announcement marks a significant change in the University’s pandemic policy, it nevertheless represents a more cautious approach

than that of Yale’s peer institutions in the Ivy League.

On Monday, Harvard University announced that it would lift its mask mandate on March 14. Students and professors can unmask in classrooms, regardless of class size.

However, faculty can require students to wear a mask at their discretion. Moreover, masks will still be required at large indoor gatherings, in health care facilities and in transit facilities.

Princeton University and Columbia University also both announced that they would lift mask requirements, including during classes, while reducing the frequency with which students must test.

Howard Forman, professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, explained the delicate balance between relaxing regulations and protecting students.

“You don't want to ostracize Yale students,” Forman said. “But we've never run Yale University to be protective of every student equally. There are people with peanut allergies, [and] we don’t forbid peanuts on campus. We take measures to protect them but we have to figure out how to balance that.”

Ultimately, Forman said, the University could not “go on with masking forever.” But he noted that there may be times in the future when the mandate should be reimposed.

COVID-19 booster shots are currently required for students on campus.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu .

FAS issues resolution UKRAINE FROM PAGE 1 biomedical engineering's Andre Levchenko, and ecology and evolutionary biology's Martha Muñoz and Jenn Coughlan.

“I felt this is one thing I could do to help,” Muñoz said. “With the collective effort of many labs, we can do our part and send a message of unity.”

Muñoz added that her funding is structured with flexibility, allowing her to take on any academic whose work fits within the scope of her research. Her position is open to both graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.

The Senate’s resolution aligns with widespread condemnation of the invasion issued by governments and academic institutions alike.

“I felt that the impact of the invasion on our students (as I experienced at the vigil), and the impact of this war on our academic colleagues in Ukraine, warranted a statement,” Horsley wrote to the News. “Beyond the impact on academia, Russia’s aggression may lead to a major world war, which impacts all of us.”

Vice President for Global Strategy Pericles Lewis wrote to the News that the University is working towards a policy to allow more international visitors, including those from

Ukraine, onto campus this summer. The Office of International Students and Scholars will continue to assist international researchers with visa applications, though Lewis noted that visa timelines largely depend on the State Department.

Sterling professor of Social and Natural Science Nicholas Christakis, a senator who worked on the Senate’s statement, praised both the Senate’s and University’s response to the war in Ukraine.

“The University needs to be judicious in which causes it speaks out about,” Christakis said. “An event like this, in which an authoritarian regime is invading a democratic neighbor, represents a threat to the fundamental values that underpin universities. Every instrument of civil society needs to take this seriously.”

Christakis added that he is considering ways his lab, which investigates the spread of disinformation online, could produce research helpful to the resistance efforts in Ukraine.

The Senate met Thursday, March 10, for a Zoom session open to all faculty at 4 p.m.

Contact ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS & SCIENCES

The senators expressed deep concerns about displaced Ukrainian academics.

AMAY TEWARI/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The University will raise the Yale College term bill for the third time in the last three years.

TUITION FROM PAGE 1 continues to increase the term bill as a means to increase revenue. He explained that inflation, the pandemic and rising costs — particularly those related to faculty and staff — could have motivated the change.

According to Wallace-Juedes, Yale’s board of trustees sets the cost of tuition, on-campus housing and the dining plan for undergraduates each February. Wallace-Juedes said that this cost of attendance is used to calculate financial aid. Financial need — and therefore aid packages — grow relative to cost of attendance, so students receiving financial support from Yale will be less affected than those paying full price.

Wallace-Juedes said financial aid “is determined relative to the Estimated Cost of Attendance,” so increases in financial aid offers often follow increases to the term bill, as long as there is no change in a family’s financial situation.

Santiago Calderon ’25 said he was “incensed” when he first heard that Yale was raising tuition. Calderon, who is on financial aid, was worried that his parents would have to sacrifice more to afford his Yale education. However, his friends then explained to him that his financial aid package would rise proportionally to the tuition spike.

“They explained to me that the tuition increase would increase the needs of families, which would then increase the financial aid that Yale gives us,” Calderon wrote in an email to the News.

He added, however, that he remains unsure of why the term bill increased.

Yale meets 100 percent of demonstrated student financial need. Of the undergraduate population, 54 percent receive need-based grants from Yale. The remaining 46 percent of Yale College students paying for their full term bill will bear the brunt of the spike.

Dysart explained that most people do not understand “the extraordinary resources” necessary to ensure middle income and low income students can obtain post-secondary education — resources that often only high-endowment colleges can afford.

“If I charge $1,000 for tuition but a student needs $500 to attend, I am simply discounting the tuition charge to provide access so I’m only netting $500 for the enrollment,” Dysart said about low-endowment colleges. “A large endowment would give me the opportunity to cover the $500 ‘scholarship’ with cash so I would still net the whole $1,000 I charged in tuition.”

Universities like Yale, whose endowment has surpassed $40 billion, can more easily secure

funding and be more generous with financial aid.

Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan said his office is not beholden to a predetermined budget and instead tries to meet the needs of every Yale student.

"I am proud that Yale has greatly expanded our financial aid policies over the past decade, further demonstrating our commitment to affordability," said Quinlan. "I am grateful to the Yale leaders who have devoted significant financial resources to helping all students thrive."

Still, Dysart noted that many colleges and universities froze or even lowered student costs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schools like Princeton University, Georgetown University and Williams College all lowered tuition or offered student discounts for the 2020-21 school year. Yale raised tuition instead.

Nevertheless, the three schools have since raised their prices once again. Princeton will charge $57,690 for tuition, Georgetown will charge $61,872 and Williams will charge $61,450.

Yale is currently being sued for considering financial need in admissions.

Contact JORDAN FITZGERALD at jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu .

Funds pulled from Russian holdings INVESTMENTS FROM PAGE 1 sia, and we haven’t for over two decades,” Salovey told the News.

“We are pleased that FTSE has decided to remove Russia from its index, which eliminates the very small passive indirect exposure to Russia that we previously held.”

The Yale endowment gives management control of some of its funds to external fund managers, who invest the University’s money on its behalf. Vanguard is one of these fund managers, and the firm invests hundreds of millions of the University’s money in assets around the world. According to Salovey, the Yale Investment Office directed Vanguard to place some of Yale's money in a fund that invested in the FTSE Index – the emerging market ETF – which had included Russian assets.

The University declined to reveal exactly how much was previously invested in Russian holdings. According to the Investment Office’s 2020 report, the University allocated 6.5 percent of its portfolio, or just over $2 billion, to “emerging markets,” which includes Russia, among many other countries.

Matad Zinkevicius, who authored an opinion piece in the News calling on the University to divest from Russian holdings, indicated that the University’s decision was a step in the right direction.

“I think institutional investors should divest from Russia completely while the war is going on,” Zinkevicius said. “And afterwards, I think they should reevaluate their investments.”

Oleksii Antoniuk ’24, a Ukrainian student and advocate who led the Feb. 27 student vigil at Cross Campus, praised the University for its stance on Russia’s invasion, saying that it had taken all the correct steps

so far. In particular, he pointed to Yale Health’s decision to send medical supplies to Ukraine, as well as the University’s increased financial support for Ukrainian students who need it, its swift message of condemnation and this divestment.

Antoniuk explained that even though the nominal value of the University’s Russian holdings is not significant relative to the size of the endowment, it is a symbolically important decision.

“It is very important to symbolically show support for Ukraine and to divest money, even small money from Russia, because every instance counts,” Antoniuk said. “It is much easier to enforce this divestment from Russia when everyone does.”

However, he noted that there is still more to be done to support Ukraine in this war. Specifically, Antoniuk called on the University to admit more students from Ukraine to prepare the next generation to rebuild the country.

On Monday, Vanguard further announced that it was suspending all purchases of Russian securities.

“We have suspended purchases of Russian securities across our internally and externally managed active funds and are actively working to further reduce our exposure to Russia and exit the positions across our index funds,” the company’s statement read.

Associate professor of political science Tyler Pratt explained the significance of the newest global sanctions on Russia and their impact on American investment.

“There are both direct and indirect effects,” Pratt said of the sanctions. “In some cases, the United States and others have simply banned trade and financial transactions with certain portions of the Russian economy. This includes

Russian entities operating in the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk. It also includes several specifically designated firms (like VTB Bank) and business entities linked to some Russian oligarchs.”

Pratt further explained that it is unlikely that the United States will issue a general ban against all Russian investment, but that the business community has, in some cases, gone farther than the government regulations, with many private companies voluntarily pulling investments and operations out of the country.

Russian assets are also drastically falling in value as sanctions, coupled with a collapse in the Russian Ruble, has made assets in the country undesirable.

According to the Financial Times, asset managers face the potential for “deep losses,” as Moscow’s equity markets are suspended, trading in many Russian companies is stopped and bonds are nearly impossible to trade.

Pratt described the recent wave of global sanctions on Russia as the most “onerous financial and economic restrictions ever placed on a major economy,” and even expressed surprise at the scale of the punishments seen in recent days.

“The additional restrictions on Russia's economy due to the recent invasion — which includes trade sanctions, financial and travel restrictions, asset freezes, and voluntary boycotts or withdrawals from private firms like Apple, Shell, and Visa — have been both deep and broad,” Pratt wrote.

The Yale endowment was worth $42.3 billion on June 30, 2021.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked.” LITTLE RICHARD AMERICAN MUSICIAN

Yale quietly cuts ties with Sackler family

RYAN CHIAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Over the last year, Yale has quietly cut ties from the controversial family that propagated the opioid crisis.

OPIOIDS FROM PAGE 1 The Richard and Jonathan Sackler Professorship in Internal Medicine was established in 2009, and the position was held by Dr. Thomas Lynch until 2015, when he left the University. The internal medicine professorship was never reassigned to a faculty member.According to Peart, the University has no plan to fill either of those professorships.

Professor of Medicine Harlan Krumholz told the News that he feels it is a privilege to name a place on campus, one which requires due diligence from the University.

“Increasingly Universities need to vet donors not just for how much they want to give, and where they want to put their name – but also who they are and how they made their money,” Krumholz wrote in an email to the

News. “No one wants to enter the hall named for someone whose largess was generated in shameful ways. We are grateful to donors, but the association with a great University also confers many benefits. In this era, Universities need to be aware of who is being provided that halo. The key question will be where is the line.”

This announcement comes after years of mounting pressure

on public and private institutions to purge the Sackler name from prominent places within those institutions. The family has also been entangled in legal battles, most recently culminating in a $6 billion settlement last week.

In the March 4 settlement, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family agreed to pay $6 billion to victims and survivors of the opioid epidemic, as well as states, for their role in causing the crisis. As part of the agreement, the Sackler family must also apologize and allow institutions to remove the Sackler name from buildings and scholarships.

Joel Rosenbaum, professor emeritus of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the Yale School of Medicine, called on the University to return the money and to rename the professorships entirely, rather than just not filling them.

“The name Sackler should be removed from the professorships and the money returned to the Sacklers,” Rosenbaum told the News. “Surely it is tainted money, and I am not sure if those faculty who received the Sackler Chairs are happy having the Sackler name attached to their own. I don’t think either of these actions would be easy to take, and I don’t think I recall Yale ever giving money back to a donor after already receiving and using some of it. At the very least, the money should be used by Yale Medical School to treat those people, locally, who have been touched by the opioid problem.”

One of the most significant removals of the Sackler name came in December, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City announced that it would remove the Sackler name from seven galleries where the name appears.

In a conversation with the News, Patrick Radden Keefe LAW ’05, whose book “Empire of Pain” details the Sackler fam-

ily and Purdue Pharma’s responsibility for the opioid epidemic, explained the significance of the Met’s decision.

“The Met is hugely significant,” Keefe said. “And I know this, in part, because I’ve talked to people at other cultural and educational institutions that have this dilemma about what to do with the Sackler name, and been told that these other institutions were watching the Met.” The Sackler’s relationship with the Met is one of the family’s oldest philanthropic partnerships, with the family’s donations to the museum beginning in the 1960s.

In 2019, Tufts University made national news when it announced that it would be removing the Sackler name from five facilities and programs at the University. At the time, Dr Harris A. Berman, the dean of the Tufts University School of Medicine, said that “our students find it objectionable to walk into a building that says Sackler on it when they come in here to get their medical education.”

“They feel the names are incongruous with the mission of the school and what we’re trying to teach them, since the name has become synonymous with the opioid epidemic,” Berman told The New York Times at the time. “I think the significance is symbolic, but it’s an important symbolic move.”

At the time, Yale did not remove the Sackler name from campus, but said it would no longer accept donations from the family.

Attorneys representing the Sackler family protested the Tufts decision and said they would seek to have it reversed.

Still, the Sackler name remains absent from the walls of the Tufts School of Medicine.

Purdue Pharmaceutical is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu .

Anton Sovetov’s disappearance remains a mystery SOVETOV FROM PAGE 1 week, Elm Campus Partners, who operates The Townsend, declined to comment.

Higgins told the News that the YPD collected more video footage in addition to the Elm City Market video of Sovetov heading back along Chapel to his apartment. When approached by the News for footage or information two weeks ago, several business managers and employees along Chapel told the News that they had not been aware of Sovetov’s disappearance, and that they were not approached by any police for information.

Higgins said that the YPD canvassed areas “related to his day-to-day activities in and around the downtown New Haven area.” This canvass included interviews with residents and employees of area businesses, though not necessarily the businesses the News visited. Higgins added that the YPD reviewed video surveillance footage from “throughout downtown.”

Magic the Gathering and “nature and disconnecting” In winter, Sovetov likes to stay in and play video games. Sovetov’s friend and former classmate Marvin de Jong ART ’15 said Sovetov often visited game stores to play Magic the Gathering, a popular trading card game.

De Jong said Sovetov did “a ton” of hiking with friends around New Haven. He said he wasn’t sure which trails Sovetov enjoyed hiking, but that if Sovetov had gone hiking casually, he would’ve picked East Rock. In an update at a NHPD press conference Feb 20, Yale Police Department Assistant Chief Anthony Campbell said the YPD had conducted a search around East Rock. “He loved nature and disconnecting to a certain extent,” de Jong said.

He said Sovetov would venture out on trails farther away if he went with friends. de Jong noted Sovetov did not own a car and never drove. Instead, Sove-

tov traveled exclusively on his bike unless he got a ride from a friend or Ubered if needed.

St. Petersburg, The Hague & Yale De Jong met Sovetov when they were in the same undergraduate class in 2010 at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. De Jong was in a “tight friend group” of a few international students at school along with Sovetov.

Sovetov is from St. Petersburg. Sovetov’s parents divorced when he was young, and he was raised by his mother. According to de Jong, Sovetov’s father started a new family after the divorce, and Sovetov was not in contact with them. “It was him and his mom as far as I know,” de Jong said.

Sovetov joined the bachelor program at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague when he was in his 30s, which de Jong noted was “pretty late.” Prior to living in The Hague, Sovetov spent time at another art school and worked in St. Petersburg as a graphic designer in advertising. De Jong said Sovetov felt that working in the ad world wasn’t enough for him and was “too superficial.”

“He wanted to engage with more of the thinking behind design and that’s always been an interest of his,” said de Jong.

After finishing the program at the Royal Academy of Art, de Jong began graduate school at the Yale School of Art, where Sovetov and another friend from the Royal Academy of Art joined de Jong a year later.

Despite always having been close friends, de Jong said Sovetov is a “pretty private person.”

De Jong said Sovetov kept a predictable routine. For instance, Sovetov picked up food from the same bakery each day. de Jong wasn’t sure if this bakery was Atticus or another bakery along Sovetov’s route to work. “I think he was a creature of habit,” said de Jong.

Outside of his daily routine, Sovetov accompanied a group of friends to spend time in Prov-

YALE DAILY NEWS

Several business managers and employees along Chapel told the News they were not aware of Sovetov’s disappearance. incetown, Massachusetts a few times a year.

Last contact with Sovetov De Jong was last in contact with Sovetov on Thursday, Feb. 3, just before Sovetov disappeared. de Jong sent an Instagram message to which Sovetov responded with what de Jong said was nothing out of the ordinary.

De Jong said to his knowledge Sovetov didn’t talk to anyone about feeling “out of it.”

He was first alerted that Sovetov might be missing when Sovetov’s Yale co-workers started reaching out to Sovetov’s friends. de Jong said they contacted him the week after Sovetov went missing because Sovetov had been missing work which was “very unlike him.” de Jong said Sovetov would have left a message or made sure his colleagues were aware of his plans for the week if he had planned to leave.

By the time colleagues reached out to de Jong, they had already contacted the police. At that point, the police had checked out Sovetov’s apartment and began to ask his friends about his whereabouts.

The YPD has not confirmed what apartment searches unveiled and if Sovetov’s belongings — such as his passport and bicycle — were found inside. The YPD has also not confirmed if the groceries that Sovetov bought from Elm City Market were still out on Sovetov’s counter and what those groceries were.

De Jong said one or two weeks between messages from Sovetov were not unusual because the two hadn’t seen each other in a while. Similarly, he said it was not unusual for Sovetov’s friends in the New Haven area to not be in contact for a few days unless they had plans.

De Jong said that he and his friends thought the nearly two-week gap

between when colleagues and friends reported Sovetov’s disappearance and when the YPD sent out the first public alerts about Sovetov missing was “bizarre.”

He said at the time he thought the YPD sent out alerts so late because they knew something that Sovetov’s friends and colleagues didn’t know or had a solid lead that would have been spoiled with too much public attention. “From a distance [the investigation] feels not good enough but that’s just because we still don’t know anything,” he said.

Anyone with information is being asked to contact the Yale University P.D. at 203-432-4406, or the New Haven P.D. at 203-946-6316, or use the Yale University LiveSafe app.

Information can be anonymous and will remain confidential.

Contact SOPHIE SONNENFELD at sophie.sonnenfeld@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY !"#"$%&'()&*"+,-(./'.0&1"+$'2-$34&5'20& +0%0'+670+&0892"+0%&70'2$7&-19'6$%& ":&';$"1'$-"(

BY KAYLA YUP STAFF REPORTER What do robots have to do with humans dying? A new study from researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania investigated the relationship between automation and the rising mortality rate among working-age adults in the United States.

In a paper published on Feb. 23 in the academic journal Demography, Rourke O’Brien, assistant professor of sociology at Yale, and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania sought to evaluate how automation has affected economic opportunity. This study was part of a broader research program, Opportunity for Health, aimed at examining the impact of economic opportunity on health. They found a causal relationship between increased automation and mortality in American working-age adults, and they concluded that generous social-safety net programs can soften automation’s detriments to community health.

“This work is motivated by the basic idea that health is a type of human capital, like education,” O’Brien said. “When individuals perceive greater economic opportunity, they are more likely to invest in their own health; conversely when individuals feel less hope for the future, they are less likely to invest in their health and more likely to engage in risky health behaviors.”

The rise of automation in manufacturing was a “shock” to economic opportunity in many communities, according to O’Brien. The study indicated that automation led to declines in manufacturing jobs and wages.

As industrial robots displaced hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers on factory floors, working-age adults saw an increase in mortality rates.

The team found that the causal relationship between automation and mortality operated through both “material” pathways and “despair” pathways. “Material” pathways refer to the impact of automation on current employment, wages and access to health care. The “despair” pathways refer to reduced future economic opportunities, categorized by the study as being linked to “deaths of despair.”

“We have to realize that economic opportunity can impact health not only by impacting material outcomes — income, health insurance, access to health care — but also by shaping aspirations and expectations of the future,” O’Brien said. “It’s not just the workers who were hurt by automation, but the many ‘would be’ workers who now have fewer opportunities for upward mobility and therefore, perhaps, less reason to invest in their own health and well-being.”

The dramatic decline in the number of manufacturing jobs led to a decrease in the total number of manufacturing jobs that provided health insurance coverage. Therefore, the resulting decrease in health care access and utilization, particularly for preventative and diagnostic visits, has been linked to increased mortality for conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

The increase in working-age mortality is driven largely by increased “deaths of despair,” which refers to deaths from suicide, drug overdose and alcohol abuse. Deaths of despair have increased markedly among working-age adults in recent decades. According to O’Brien, these deaths are driving the overall decline in U.S. life expectancy that started even before the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the key arguments in the study is that a decline of manufacturing employment is likely to

have a negative impact on perceived economic opportunity and future expectations, especially for residents of the industrial heartland.

“Work is a central part of our identity, an important source of meaning in our lives,” O’Brien said. “Work comes with not just economic rewards — income, health insurance, etc. — but also social status, dignity and respect. The manufacturing jobs lost by automation were relatively good jobs that afforded both economic and social benefits. When these jobs disappear, future prospects dwindle, particularly for persons without a college degree.”

The team found a more dramatic effect of automation on drug overdose mortality in areas with more prescription opioids. The risk that a displaced worker — or young person who feels little hope for the future — becomes addicted to opioids is likely to be greater in areas where the drugs are more readily available, according to O’Brien.

He emphasized that declining economic opportunity was not the root cause of the opioid epidemic, but that it exacerbated the crisis.

Alexander Tsai, a researcher at Opportunity for Health, explained that if people find themselves in life circumstances where they do not have the means to accomplish their life goals, this mismatch can give way to stress, mental health problems, substance use disorder and overdose. He suggested that social and economic policy would be needed to reverse the decline in life expectancy.

“By hollowing out employment opportunities and reducing economic security,” co-author Atheendar Venkataramani GRD ’09 said, “automation made it harder for working-age adults, particularly those without a college degree, to

JESSAI FLORES/ STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

A recent study revealed the relationship between automation and U.S. working-age mortality. access the middle and upper middle-class life that this sector previously afforded. That’s how automation reduced social mobility.”

The study stressed the significance and potential impact of public policy, particularly in regard to social safety net programs, such as Medicaid and unemployment benefits. Social safety net program generosity at the state level moderated the relationship between automation and mortality by blunting the social and economic hit to workers, families and their communities. Automation increased mortality more in states with less generous safety net policies, the researchers found.

Labor market policies including minimum wage rates and “right to work” laws also influenced the effects of automation, particularly in relation to suicide and drug overdose deaths. Overall, states with right to work laws and lower minimum wages had a more pro-

nounced relationship between automation and increased working-age mortality.

“First we must recognize that economic health and population health are inextricably intertwined,” O’Brien said. “Reversing America’s population health crisis therefore requires investing in the economic well-being of workers and their communities. Yes, that includes safety net programs that provide income support to households, but also investments in education and training. Perhaps most important is to invest in places — for the public and private sectors to work together to target new investment and jobs to communities hardest hit by manufacturing decline.”

The U.S. life expectancy is on average three years shorter than peer high-income countries.

Contact KAYLA YUP at kayla.yup@yale.edu

Yale researchers find collective activism can be a buffer for ecoanxiety and depression

BY CHLOE NIELD CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Yale and Suffolk University faculty jointly conducted a study on climate change-related anxiety and depression in college students, as well as how collective action may help prevent these disorders.

Climate change anxiety is often overlooked in discussions on climate change, as studies and dialogue often focus on the physical effects. The Yale and Suffolk University study found that climate change anxiety is semi-independent from generalized anxiety, and in some cases can lead to depressive symptoms. Researchers concluded that students with climate change anxiety that participated in collective activism tended to have significantly less depressive symptoms.

“Younger people are anxious about climate change and that is not something we should trivialize,” said Sarah Lowe, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health and a senior author of the study. “It is not that the younger generation is weak or overly sensitive, it’s a real threat that is broadly affecting younger people…

And in some circumstances, [this anxiety] can be debilitating,” According to Kai Chen, director of research, climate change and health at the Yale School of Public Health, there has been significant research on the physical consequences of climate change, but less so on the mental effects.

When people talk about climate change and its impact on health, Chen explained, they often discuss outcomes relating to physical health.

“But…in the past few years, there has been emerging evidence on the health impacts of climate change on the mental health side,” Chen said.

In this study, the researchers set out to investigate two main

questions: Is there a relationship between climate change anxiety and generalized anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms, and how does engaging in climate change activism affect this stress.

“Broadly we are defining [climate change anxiety] as a range of responses to climate change including cognitive, behavioral, and emo-

versity students, the research team found that climate change anxiety is indeed related to generalized anxiety, but the relationship is not oneto-one — the existence of one does not imply the presence of the other, explained Lowe.

Laelia Benoit, research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine and an author on this study,

result. People who fall into this category often do not take part in collective activism.

Rather, these individuals often perform individual actions or do nothing at all. Therefore, the research found that collective action — such as being a member of an environmental organization, going to events or protests, working with others to

CECILIA LEE/ ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

A study conducted by faculty from Yale and Suffolk University found that climate change-related anxiety and depression could be combated by participating in collective action against climate change. tional responses related to worries about climate change,” said Sarah Shwartz, professor of psychology at Suffolk University and first author of the study. “We shouldn’t be looking at [climate change anxiety] like a manifestation of generalized anxiety disorder.”

Some scholars believe that individuals who are already anxious are more likely to suffer from heightened anxiety about climate change. But after surveying Yale and Suffolk Uni-

explained one reason why this may be the case.

“Climate change anxiety is a societal problem, it’s not an individual problem,” Benoit said. “It’s because our society is denying and ignoring climate change and not taking enough action, that individuals start feeling mental distress.”

Lowe explained that this study also found that only some people who are anxious about climate change display depressive symptoms as a

send letters to policy makers, taking on leadership roles, etc. — can work as a buffer to help prevent depressive symptoms as a result of climate change anxiety.

The qualitative portion of the study revealed that students who are experiencing the most mental distress as a result of climate change anxiety feel a loss of sense of purpose and meaning, which is an important part of emerging adulthood, explained Shwartz.

“There was a sense among some…of our participants, about the meaningless of all of the milestones [that come with young adulthood],” Shwartz said. She quoted study participants, who said, “Why should I get an education if I don’t know what my future would be” and “I always thought I wanted to have kids, but maybe I don’t because of climate change.”

Benoit, who led the qualitative component of the study, provided some insight as to why those expressing depressive symptoms are less likely to perform collective activism. “[Students] were feeling kind of paralyzed, they would say, ‘actually I don’t do anything,’ or ‘I just recycle’… or ‘I’ll say something on the internet but I won’t change my lifestyle,’ so I think the contradiction, the paradox, was something that was associated to their mental distress,” Benoit said.

While Lowe, Schwartz and Benoit all said that collective activism can work as a buffer for depressive symptoms, they all agreed that individual actions are just as important to combating climate change.

The study’s results, Lowe said, provides evidence that collective activism could potentially be used as a form of treatment.

According to Lowe, “[climate change] anxiety in some contexts can be really adaptive, in that it can lead people to take action to fix the problems in their lives and in the world.”

In February 2022, the global average temperature was about 0.2 degrees Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 average for February, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Contact CHLOE NIELD at chloe.nield@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

Sen. Murphy participates in medical school misinformation roundtable

BY YASH ROY STAFF REPORTER The Yale School of Medicine hosted a roundtable with professors, state and local public health officials and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy to discuss new legislation aiming to combat medical misinformation and to bolster preparedness for future public health emergencies.

On Monday, the School of Medicine convened a Public Health Misinformation Roundtable at the Harkness Ballroom which was attended by Senator Murphy, State Director of Public Health Manisha Juthani, New Haven Health Director Maritza Bond, School of Public Health Dean Sten Vermund and Institute of Global Health Director Saad Omer. Attendees discussed the most efficacious measures that should be included in Murphy’s Public Health Information Act. “Throughout this pandemic, the impact of misinformation has been devastating,” Murphy wrote in a press release. “Rumors and conspiracy theories about the efficacy of masking or the safety of vaccines still run rampant on social media and have caused thousands of deaths that could have been prevented. This legislation will help us get smart about how to tackle misinformation and effectively promote science-based health information, especially as we continue fighting COVID-19 and prepare for future public health emergencies.”

Murphy’s bill focuses on rebuilding trust around the CDC as well as ensuring that people take the public health advice that they get seriously.

He cited a study of 18,000 Americans which found that 5 percent of respondents believe that the COVID-19 vaccine has a microchip, 7 percent that believe it contains fetal tissue, 8 percent believe that it will change their DNA and 10 percent believe it will make a person impotent.

His bill aims to create a Public Health Information and Communications Advisory Committee within the Department of Health and Human Services. The committee would make recommendations on methods for scientific and medical information to be communicated during a public health emergency.

Officials at the event told Murphy that an integral part of rebuilding trust is focusing on building public health infrastructure from the community up instead of from a top-down approach.

Bond and Juthani both emphasized the work they have done at the state and local level to encourage residents to get vaccinated. They both pointed to town hall meetings that they hosted with members of the New Haven community to improve trust in vaccines.

Juthani also discussed how to better communicate scientific information to the community,

suggesting that public health officials should address measures like masking and social distancing as though they are a doctor providing a prescription.

“Monday morning’s event gave Sen. Murphy the opportunity to hear firsthand how physicians and researchers have done their best with the information they have had at any given time during the pandemic,” Juthani wrote to the News. “Science is constantly changing and evolving, and we need to learn from experiences in this pandemic how to communicate that best. Building upon this understanding can be one of the first achievable goals with the Promoting Public Health Information Act.” Members of the roundtable also raised the importance of factoring social media into future strategies to counter misinformation. Bond emphasized the importance of building a strong network of people to counteract misinformation that people may come across on social media sites like Facebook.

Bond also spoke to the importance of having the government fulfill its role as a convener and bring people together so that they can learn trusted public health information. She further emphasized that local governments should receive assistance in bolstering their networks and transparency.

Brian Marcus, Yale School of Medicine Pediatric Cardiology Fellow, also pointed out that the

YALE DAILY NEWS

Senator Chris Murphy heard from members of Connecticut and the Yale community on how to best fight medical misinformation. medical community has historically had issues with transparency and unethical medical trials. Marcus told Murphy that part of this bill should work to acknowledge those issues to foster future trust in federal and state public health institutions.

“It is crucial for legislators to have opportunities to both share and receive feedback on relevant issues, particularly those that relate to public well-being,” said Marcus. “Sen-

ator Murphy’s desire to combat misinformation is evident.

He is committed to allocating state resources to both limit the spread of harmful misinformation as well as to actively promoting evidence-based recommendations to his constituents.”

Murphy was elected to the Senate in 2012.

Contact YASH ROY at yash.roy@yale.edu .

As two-year anniversary of Yale New admission approaches, hospital launches new initiatives

YALE DAILY NEWS

In a press conference on March 8, YNHH leaders updated the public on recent COVID-19 statistics, the hospital purchase proposal and their donation plan to support Ukraine.

BY SOPHIE WANG AND BRIAN ZHANG STAFF REPORTERS At a Tuesday press conference, Yale New Haven Health officials reflected on how its hospitals have navigated pandemic healthcare over the past two years — as the system looks to continue serving patients amid new and emerging challenges.

Following brief forewords from former YNHH Chief Medical Offi-

cer Marna Borgstrom, current YNHH CMO Thomas Balzacek and YNHHS President Christopher O’Connor, the conference included the opportunity for attendees to ask questions and express their healthcare concerns.

Among the YNHH updates and questions addressed during the webinar were the changing landscape of COVID-19 regulations, the system’s plan to acquire three hospitals from Prospect Holdings

and its donation of $1 million in relief supplies to Ukraine.

“We will need to remain vigilant because there is the possibility of future waves and the emergence of additional variants,” Balzacek said.

“As we continue to pivot toward continuing to give other services to our community … there are also other crises that collectively require our attention.”

The panelists noted that there is cause for celebration despite the

enduring pandemic, with Borgstrom citing dwindling infection rates and thanking medical staffers for their “selfless” contributions during times of peak infection, such as the holidays.

Of the 58 patients currently admitted in YNHHS for COVID19, seven are in the intensive care unit and three are on ventilator support. Thirty-three are at Yale New Haven Hospital, 17 are at Bridgeport Hospital, two are at Greenwich Hospital and six are at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital.

And “for those of you out in western Rhode Island, there are no patients in Westerly,” Borgstrom added.

Balzacek emphasized that the YNHH COVID-19 mortality rate — at 8.2 percent — was not only significantly less than the national average of 24.6 percent, but also remained constant across different ethnicities and races. Moreover, out of the 21,000 patients administered to the system from COVID-19, all but 1,700 have been discharged safely, according to Balzacek.

Recognizing that many communities are grappling with mental health challenges during the pandemic, YNHH has also ramped up behavioral health services that allow patients to participate in a variety of counseling and support programs.

There has been an “uptick in employees seeking help due to increasing pressure and strain,” said Senior Vice President Vin Petrini, who noted that these support programs extend beyond pediatrics to also cater to adults and employees.

With declining rates and several states planning to lift masking regulations in indoor spaces, Balzacek nonetheless emphasized that “masks are a two-way street,” reaffirming the importance of masking during travel and in largecrowd settings. He emphasized the importance of respecting the mandates and regulations imposed by individual business owners, and he

acknowledged the recent increase in “unruly behavior” from some community members in response to COVID-19 guidelines.

He also highlighted the importance of people continuing to educate themselves throughout the “evolving” pandemic to prevent misinformation, drawing attention to the fact that “there’s a difference between giving advice when you don’t know the answer and … giving false advice when the answer is known.”

When asked whether there was a seasonality to COVID-19, Balcezak said that “it’s probably going to be like many of the other respiratory viruses” that are “cyclical in the winter.” He noted that in the wintertime, there is less humidity and people tend to crowd together closely, which allows viruses to spread more easily.

O’Connor also mentioned that the health system will be donating over $1 million in medical supplies to support the people of Ukraine.

“In the past when crisis has struck, our team has stepped up to do whatever we can to offer support,” said O’Connor. “This time, we will be offering our support in a donation of protective gear to the U.S Cooperative for International Patient Programs. Our employees share in the pain of the Ukrainian people and are hoping to do what we can with this donation to reduce some of the immediate suffering.”

O’Connor noted that the health system will continue to monitor and assess the situation and find other ways to offer aid and support.

A news release that was sent out during the conference elaborated that the personal protective gear donated included surgical masks, gowns, gloves and N95 masks.

Medical institutions and other health-related environments will continue to require masking under federal mandate.

Contact SOPHIE WANG at sophie.wang@yale.edu and BRIAN ZHANG at brian.zhang@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS Whiffenpoofs and Whim ’n Rhythm tap 2023 classes

BY RUTH LEE AND OLIVIA CHARIS STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Friday, the Whiffenpoofs and Whim ’n Rhythm — Yale’s prestigious all-senior a cappella groups — announced their classes of 2023.

The Whiffenpoofs, an all-gender singing group, are known for their selectiveness: they only choose 14 seniors every year. They are the oldest a capella group at Yale University, and their repertoire covers a variety of genres: traditional Yale tunes, jazz standards and pop songs.

“Being in the Whiffs is a fantastic opportunity to make music with a great group of people and travel to amazing places while doing it,” incoming Whiffenpoof Ian Berlin ’23 said. “Especially after losing so much time touring with my current a cappella group, Mixed Company, because of COVID-19, I was eager for the opportunity to get more time traveling and singing with friends.”

This year, due to the large number of students who took gap semesters or gap years during the pandemic, anyone with 1-3 semesters left at Yale was eligible to audition for the Whiffenpoofs.

Whiffs are all required to take a gap year to fully commit their time to performances and recording an album.

The Whiffs traditionally go on an international tour, performing more than 200 concerts across six continents. However, due to the pandemic, they have not been able to perform abroad for the past two years.

Recently tapped Whiff Carl Viyar ’23 noted that the new class does plan to tour internationally in 2022 and 2023.

“I’m most excited for the music, the touring, and the people,” Viyar said. “I’ve made some of my closest bonds over the years going on tour and singing with [Yale a cappella group] the Alley Cats, and I’m super excited to form new bonds with new music and new people.”

The Whiffenpoofs tapped Berlin, Viyar, Seoho Kim, Adrien Rolet, Dania Baig, Will Salaverry, Evelyn Huilin Wu, Jacob Kaufman-Shalett, Ben Kramer, Waruguru Kibuga, Sharon Ahn, Adrian Kyle Venzon, Owen Wheeler and Katumu Tuchscherer.

Whim n Rhythm tapped Ivana Barnes, Bella Bolayon, Sophie Kyle Collins, Chibuzo Enelamah,

Emilia Fernández, Sophia Hall, Ellie Latham, Alex Lawson, Baylina Pu, and Isabella Zou. The Whim ’n Rhythm has a dynamic history. They were founded by seven female seniors in 1981 who wanted a senior a capella group for women, mirroring the traditions of the all-male Whiffenpoofs. They tour both

domestically and internationally, performing in cities such as Hong Kong and Cairo.

According to their website, this year’s class of Whiffenpoofs plan to tour Japan, South Africa, Australia, India and other countries in the summer of 2022.

“I am looking forward to being able to keep making music during

the rest of my time here, and also getting to know my tap class better,” Whim tap Ivana Barnes ’23 said.

“They have such a beautiful sound and incredible arrangements, and I feel so lucky to get to sing with such talented people next year.”

The pandemic posed a challenge to the audition process this year. Usually, auditions would be held in-person — but this year, both the Whiffs and Whim ’n Rhythm decided to hold their auditions online.

According to Viyar, the audition experience consisted of a 15-minute Zoom audition involving warmups, ear training, sight-reading, a practiced quartet and a personal solo. Despite having to adapt to an online format, he said pre-recording the process made him “less worried about audio issues.”

“While I would have loved to be in a real audition room, Whim was somehow able to bring the excitement and positivity that are very characteristic of Yale a capella auditions into the zoom room!”

Barnes said. “They made the whole process feel a lot less intimidating and more fun than I could have imagined given all of the restrictions we had to deal with this year.”

Juniors tapped into Whim ’n Rhythm and Whiffenpoofs spoke about the excitement of ending their Yale journey alongside a new community.

“I think a capella is such a huge part of Yale, but Whim is particularly special because of how it honors the generations of women at Yale,” Whim tap Ellie Lathan ’23 said. “I also think senior groups are just a different dynamic and so fun.”

The Whiffenpoofs are set to perform in Nashville, Tennessee this week.

Contact RUTH LEE at ruth.lee@yale.edu and OLIVIA CHARIS at olivia.miller@yale.edu .

COURTSEY OF YALE WHIFFENPOOFS

After a virtual audition process, Yale’s two senior a cappella groups tapped next year’s class.

Yale School of Music reopens to the public with “New Music New Haven” concert

BY GAMZE KAZAKOGLU STAFF REPORTER Large performances at the Yale School of Music will reopen to the public Thursday with the second “New Music New Haven’’ concert of the semester.

The concert forms part of the “New Music New Haven” series, which takes place three times per semester and solely features pieces composed by students and faculty at the Yale School of Music. The audience will hear music from faculty composer Martin Bresnik and Matiss Cudars MUS ’23, Julián Fueyo MUS ’23, Sophia Jani MUS ’22, Udi Perlman MUS ’26, Harriet Steinke MUS ’22 and Benjamin Webster MUS ’23.

“The New Music New Haven concert series are designed to represent our fine graduate students of composition in their work and also to represent, from time to time, some of the faculty that teaches the students — in this case, me,” Bresnick said. “This new music is made by people of a young generation, just exploring the world of music. I think people will think that this music is beautiful. It’s moving. It’s thought provoking.

It’s music that is necessary. We need this music.”

Steinke’s piece “Hymnal” will be performed by a voice and chamber ensemble. The text for the piece is by American poet Alessandra Lynch. While studying English at Butler University, Steinke took Lynch’s poetry classes and worked alongside her, becoming instantly drawn to the “distinctly musical” characteristics. In “Hymnal,” Steinke explores Lynch’s work, describing her “beautiful” text as the piece’s muse.

On Thursday, School of Music students will perform pieces written by composition students and faculty composer Martin Bresnick.

“I hopefully portrayed them in my piece as well,” Steinke said.

Fueyo’s piece is titled “Cantica Gelidæ.” According to Fueyo, he has always been interested in ancient aesthetics and their place in the rapidly-changing contemporary culture. As he was reading the poem “De Rerum Natura,” or “On the Nature of Things,” by the ancient Roman poet Lucretius, he was struck by a series of lines about the human desire to memorialize and perpetuate the voice in time both literally and allegorically. Using it as his inspiration, Fueyo wrote a song exploring that text for a bass singer — basso profondo — and electronics generated in real-time by processing the singer’s voice — “live electronics.”

With the help of live electronics, Fueyo’s music explores humans’ relationship with time. The audience will hear the singer’s voice live, which will first be echoed by the electronics half a second later, multiplied by a vocoder, fragmented by

a granulator and sustained indefinitely via reverb. Through this process, Fueyo aims to convey the idea that memory is materialized through sound as the singer’s voice is sustained or fragmented into micro-looping bits of sound.

“Inevitably, echo and other electro-acoustic sounds accumulate to the degree that the singer’s words become unintelligible, forcing the singer to come to terms with the impermanence of his voice,” Fueyo said. “As the world moves into uncharted territory, technologically, politically, and anthropologically, so do culture and behavior. This piece is a meditation on memory, idealization, historicism, and the human desire to transgress them, as I hope to better understand it myself.”

Bresnick’s piece is called “Bitter Suite.” According to Bresnick, there is a “very special” beginning point for this music. He received a commission from an organiza-

tion in Manhattan that was interested in seeing if they could revive a place in a modern context for old Yiddish folk songs. His aunt was a folk singer from the area, which established his close connection with the material. After completing his work, which was based on an older song placed in a new context, Bresnick became inspired by the process of revisiting older songs that he already knew and placing them in a different light. Thus, Bresnick composed three more pieces to make four in total. Each of the pieces has folk at its center and reevaluates how people can understand them in a modern context.

“I found it a challenging, but also a very touching way to remain in contact with some part of my own past that I don’t usually reveal,” Bresnick said.

While naming the piece, Bresnick chose to make a play on the word “sweet.” “Suite” refers to works that are put together —

YALE DAILY NEWS

such as English and French suites of composers like Bach.

Concertgoers must reserve tickets online in advance of the show due to capacity limits. Audience members will also be asked to show proof of vaccination and photo ID at the door and wear an ASTM or N95-equivalent mask at all times when inside the building. Reservations will close an hour before each concert.

“I’m really excited for the concert,” Steinke said. “New music is such an important thing — to be able to hear music by people that are alive right now and living in the same world that you’re living in. Especially right now, when so many things are happening in the world. To be able to experience the art that other people are making with whom you’re living at the same time is super special.”

Morse Recital Hall is located at 470 College St. Contact GAMZE KAZAKOGLU at gamze.kazakoglu@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

NEWS

“I think being gay is one of the blessings of my life. And it made me a better person, it made me a better reporter.”

ANDERSON COOPER AMERICAN BROADCAST JOURNALIST

Despite criticism, Alders confirm Alston reappointment

BY SYLVAN LEBRUN STAFF REPORTER After Fire Chief John Alston was unanimously reappointed by the Board of Alders on Monday night, a group of a dozen firefighters standing along the back wall left the chamber, talking amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, uniformed chiefs sitting with Alston remained — reflecting a divide between the final vote and rank-and-file firefighter concerns with Alston’s reappointment.

Alston has served five years in the New Haven Fire Department, weathering both the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of deaths of local firefighters. Nevertheless, Mayor Elicker’s request for Alston’s reappointment in January has proved controversial. At an Aldermanic Affairs Committee hearing last Monday, many praised the chief for his leadership and dedication to diversity. However, complaints about low staff morale, outof-service fire hydrants and a lack of support for grieving firefighters rose to the forefront — particularly from executive members of the firefighter’s union Local 825.

Despite union objections, no alders dissented to Alston’s reappointment during the final vote on Monday. About two dozen firefighters were present at City Hall to watch the result, lining up against the back wall and sitting next to Alston in uniform.

“Is there work to be done? Yes, there is always work to be done to improve ourselves and our workplaces,” Ward 10 Alder Anna Festa said. “This is where we all have to come together and hold each other accountable, making sure that the priority of saving the lives of our residents and their safety is number one… if the unanimous vote goes through for reappointing Chief Alston, we will have four years to do that.”

Festa added that going forward, the Board of Alders and the fire department will need to work together to address issues raised by firefighters in opposition to Alston’s reappointment. “Together

we can achieve so much,” she said, concluding her remarks.

All three alder speeches at Monday’s meeting emphasized the need for the Board of Alders to work with the fire department to address concerns with Alston’s reappointment.

“Safety can’t be a line item on the budget, it can’t be a conversation off in their future, it has to be something that is front and center,” Ward 28 alder Shafiq Abdussabur noted in his speech. “I pledged my services when I took [the oath of office] to make sure that we follow up on the issues and concerns of these firefighters, and that we support this chief, so that we can have a successful fire department.”

Ward 4 Alder Evelyn Rodriguez also shared that the new city Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle has made a commitment to work with Alston. Furthermore, according to Ward 1 Alder Alex Guzhnay ’24, the Board of Alders is hoping to strengthen the Employment Assistance Program’s mental health support for firefighters.

Chief James O’Brien from the West Haven Fire Department told the News that he had come to the meeting for “moral support,” adding that Alston “does a great job” in their work together.

Despite aldermanic promises to address union concerns, questions still persist.

At the Aldermanic Affairs Committee’s virtual reappointment hearing last Monday, Alston was given a chance to make a statement about his tenure as fire chief and answer alder questions. Next, 23 firefighters and city officials gave testimony regarding his reappointment, divided almost exactly evenly between support and opposition — a display of the strong opinions on both sides.

In his opening remarks, Alston presented the committee with a list of the accomplishments of his five years at the helm of the NHFD, including the introduction of a new paramedic unit, revamps of the training process and the implementation of new technology such as drones and apps tracking broken fire hydrants. He also focused on his department’s comprehensive

SYLVAN LEBRUN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Fire chief John Alston has officially been reappointed by the Board of Alders after a contentious public hearing last Monday. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which they “never missed a single call.”

Further, Alston discussed his commitment to furthering diversity in the fire department through changes in traditional recruitment and hiring practices. He said that he had worked to address “years of nepotism, favoritism and cronyism,” stating that he had been hired in 2016 to “change the culture of the department.”

Rev. Steven Cousin, chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, echoed the sentiment, praising Alston for hiring three classes in the last five years, of which 70 percent were people of color or women.

“I’m overwhelmed in terms of the negative response that we’re getting from some of the members of the fire department,” firefighter Miguel Pittman said. “He has an open-door policy, and I’ve never heard of that policy given from a chief in the fire department. I’ve been in New Haven for 59 years, and this particular chief is phenomenal and in the sense that not only does he interact with the public, but also he has that experience and his resume is impeccable.”

Alston himself also acknowledged the backlash he had received from Local 825, but urged the alders to recognize his dedication to the department and the New Haven community amid “tragic loss.”

Firefighters testifying against Alston focused on the low morale in the department under his tenure. Many accused him of failing in his responsibility to provide support to grieving firefighters after the tragic deaths of two of their colleagues in 2021 — one in the line of duty.

NHFD’s Captain Gerard Bellamy, who is on the executive board of Local 825, said that there are a lot of firefighters who are “hurt,” and that he wished he had seen the chief “reach out and make sure that the members are good all the time.”

Bellamy cited the recent union poll — in which 128 firefighters voted against Alston’s reinstatement compared to 31 in favor — as evidence that the members are “dissatisfied.”

Other complaints raised by firefighters included malfunctioning or expiring equipment, as well as the over 100 out-of-service fire hydrants across the city, which they saw as a threat to public safety

and evidence of a decline in the department’s quality standards.

“The morale has never been this bad,” firefighter Scotte Pullen said. “There’s been a lot of bullying tactics…and I’ve never seen the department, the apparatuses, the firehouse, in such disrepair.”

After Alston’s reappointment was confirmed, he gave a brief statement to the press in which he emphasized that this was “not a night for celebration.”

The opposition of even one firefighter to his reappointment, Alston said, would be an issue to him. He shared that he hopes to continue to work “tirelessly” to address the concerns raised by members of his department and the union.

“I greatly thank [the alders] for their confidence in me,” Alston said.

“There has been support for me and there are those who don’t support me as the chief. I understand that, after 37 years in this business. I want the firefighters to know, those that spoke up, I heard them.”

John Alston was sworn in as New Haven’s fire chief in December 2016.

Contact SYLVAN LEBRUN at sylvan.lebrun@yale.edu .

Yale kicks off search for new science dean

BY ANIKA SETH AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is looking for another dean to guide its future in science, as the University moves resources and hiring slots into the field.

On Monday, FAS Dean Tamar Gendler announced a search committee for the divisional dean of science, a full-time role that will begin during the next academic year. Currently, Jeffrey Brock ’92 serves as both dean of science and the dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Based on a February announcement from University administrators, SEAS is set to operate separately from FAS effective July 1, and Brock will step down from his role as FAS Dean of Science to focus more wholly on the expanding responsibilities of the SEAS deanship.

“Brock did an amazing job in both roles, but we realized that each deserved full-time attention, like the other two deanships,” Gendler wrote to the News, referencing two other FAS roles responsible for overseeing

the divisions of humanities and social science.

The FAS science division includes the departments of applied physics, astronomy, chemistry, earth and planetary sciences, mathematics, physics and Yale’s three biology departments. The division also oversees the undergraduate program in cognitive science. SEAS includes the departments of biomedical engineering, chemical and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, electrical engineering, applied physics and computer science.

Chemistry professor Scott Miller, a previous dean of science, will chair the seven-person search committee for the role he once held.

Joining him are four professors tenured in science departments: earth and planetary sciences professor Ruth Blake, ecology and environmental biology professor Erika Edwards, biology professor Ron Breaker and physics professor Meg Urry. Also on the committee are Deborah Coen, a history professor who chairs the History of Science, History of Medicine program, and

Lisa Turner, a senior administrative assistant in Gendler’s office. The search committee will provide a list of candidates to Gendler at the end of March.

This search comes on the heels of the University’s recent announcement of major developments in science and engineering. Last month, University President Peter Salovey and Provost Scott Strobel announced a wave of investments into faculty and facilities, as well as upcoming structural changes — including the School of Engineering & Applied Science’s forthcoming independence from the Faculty of Arts and Science. In the February message, Strobel and Salovey said the new dean of science will work closely with Brock and the School of Engineering & Applied Science team. “[Gendler] will seek to identify a leader who will continue the tradition of close coordination and partnership between FAS science and SEAS,” Strobel and Salovey wrote.

Brock echoed Salovey and Strobel’s remarks on collaboration, noting that he will continue working alongside FAS administration — in

JOSHUA BAEHRING/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A committee will search for the next FAS divisional leader as Yale makes sweeping steps in its science strategy.

particular, the new dean of science — to continue Yale’s various STEM endeavors. Among these are the ongoing construction of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB), which is set to open in 2027, and an overhaul of Hillhouse Avenue’s STEM-geared facilities.

The February announcement also included the addition of 45 faculty positions — 30 in the School of Engineering & Applied Science and 15 in FAS, with about half of the FAS posts designated for data-intensive social science.

“The next dean of science will steward the science division in an era of deep investment in the biological and physical sciences at Yale, and I look forward to the opportunity to collaborate on the challenges and opportunities that will confront science and engineering in this period of extraordinary growth in the faculty,” Brock wrote in an email to the News.

In 2018, the University Science Strategy Committee released a report recommending five primary areas of investment opportunity: integrative data science; quantum science, engineering and materials; environmental and evolutionary sciences; inflammation science and neuroscience. These areas were incorporated into Yale’s capital campaign, which launched this past October and has a strong STEM focus.

With the USSC report in mind, Edwards — the EEB professor serving on the search committee — described the importance of interdisciplinary familiarity in the next dean of science.

“This is an especially exciting time to be the next Dean of Science, as Yale embarks on fulfilling its promise to invest heavily in sciences here, including the 5 priority areas outlined by the University Science Strategy Committee,” Edwards wrote in an email to the News. “I think we are looking for a bold and inspiring scientist to fill this role. Ideally, they will be fluent (or at least conversant!) in the language of multiple science disciplines and develop an ambitious

vision for what we can do here, while paying close attention to the nuts and bolts – making sure the infrastructure and institutional support for science keeps pace with our intellectual ambitions.”

Brock came to Yale as a professor of mathematics in the summer of 2018, assuming the role of inaugural dean of science the following January. In the summer of 2019, Brock took on further responsibilities as the School of Engineering & Applied Science dean.

Prior to joining Yale’s ranks, Brock served as director of Brown University’s data science institute and also chaired its mathematics department.

Though Brock was an outside hire from Brown University when he became dean of science in 2018, Gendler wrote to the News that the new dean is expected to be an existing full professor from one of the nine departments in the science division, likely one who served as a department chair or leader of a research center or group. She noted that faculty in the School of Engineering & Applied Science or an empirical social science field like data science or neuroscience would also be eligible.

“It was really a deep pleasure and career highlight to have the chance to work with this amazing group of science colleagues over the last three years,” Brock wrote to the News. “They care deeply about Yale, and work tirelessly to make sure that science is celebrated within and externally to the University. In an era of increased interest in applications, these faculty recognize how vital it is to preserve an environment of enduring scientific excellence, and to maintain focus on the core values that have made Yale’s science enterprise so exceptional.”

The FAS is split into three divisions: science, humanities and social science.

Contact ANIKA SETH at anika.seth@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I'm an example of somebody who went against what their team thought was best for them and stood up for what they wanted.”

JACK EICHEL VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS FORWARD

Yale and Columbia to compete in Ivy semis

YALE ATHLETICS

Yale women’s basketball team enters postseason play hoping to return home with the league crown.

W BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 14 who is an elite scorer beyond the arc and in the mid range,” Yale women’s basketball head coach Allison Guth said. “It is important that we have an awareness of where she is at all times. It will not just be her defender’s job to limit her touches — but the entire group of women on the floor.”

The Bulldogs also struggled to limit Columbia’s transition offense in their previous matchups, as the Lions scored several easy layups on the fastbreak. If Columbia is able to supplement their already-potent offense with free points in transition, it will be very difficult for the Blue and White to pull off the upset.

The Bulldogs know that their transition defense starts with their offensive decision-making. All season long, the Elis have struggled to limit their own turnovers, coughing the ball up 18.7 times per game, the most of any Ivy League team.

“Most [of our opponents’] transition points come from poor decisions and shot selections made on the offensive end of the floor,” starting shooting guard Christen McCann ’25 said. “By cleaning up our offensive efforts and executing better transition defense in this next game, we should be able to improve in that category.”

In the other semifinal matchup, the Princeton Tigers (22–4, 14–0) will face off against the Harvard Crimson (13–13, 7–7). Top-seeded Princeton, currently ranked 24th in the country in the Associated Press Poll and undefeated in conference play, enters the tournament as the heavy favorites. The Tigers won all of their league games by double digits, and only three games by less than 20.

Yale had the smallest margin of defeat against Princeton in their first matchup, losing by just 12 points. However, the Tigers ran away with the second matchup, winning 74–36.

The Bulldogs know that they cannot dwell on their past performances or their potential opponents. Instead, they are focusing on themselves as they enter the postseason.

“I think we all realize how talented of a team we are and how capable we are of winning,” forward Grace Thybulle ’25 said.

“Going into the Ivy tournament I think everyone has a clean slate mindset. What’s happened in the past doesn’t matter because everything can change in these next two days.”

Yale and Columbia will tip off at 7:30 p.m. at Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Contact ANDREW CRAMER at andrew.cramer@yale.edu .

Bulldogs to face the Quakers M BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 14 Penn in the first round in Boston that spring — before the league took a yearlong hiatus from athletic competition in 2020–21.

Nearly 1,100 days will have passed between the moment Princeton and Cornell tip off the first men’s semifinal Saturday at 11 a.m. and the triumphant championship victory over Harvard that won Yale the tournament in March 2019. Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater hosted the event that spring. Swain, who has been selected to the All-Ivy First Team in the two seasons since and leads Yale in scoring with 18.9 points per game, was the only current Bulldog who saw significant playing time during that weekend in 2019.

“It was an incredible time, almost dream-like, being able to play in those games,” Swain said during an interview for the News’ weekly podcast, The Yalie. “And in those games, honestly it felt pretty homey for us. We didn’t feel uncomfortable in any way. So this year … we’re trying to just stay level-headed, not expect anything to go our way, but lean on each other in the way we were able to lean on the home crowd a little bit in 2019.”

Swain’s experience at Ivy Madness is rare around the league.

Yale captain Jalen Gabbidon ’22, sitting next to Swain during this week’s podcast interview, pointed out that given the three-year gap, very few players in the men’s field have competed in the tournament.

Gabbidon, who was named to the All-Ivy Second Team on Tuesday, was injured for the event in 2019.

Swain enters the weekend with 118 career appearances; playing in both the semifinal and championship would tie him with Justin Sears ’16 for Yale’s most all-time.

Along with Swain, Princeton guards Jaelin Llewellyn, Ethan Wright and Max Johns are the only other Ancient Eight players that spent significant time on the floor. Penn guard Bryce Washington appeared for two minutes, Princeton guard Drew Friberg for one minute and Yale guard Matthue Cotton ’23 for less than one.

Yale enters Ivy Madness having split its regular-season series against all three other teams in the field. After a win over Brown to conclude the regular season on Saturday, head coach James Jones

Elis face ECAC rematch in regionals HOCKEY FROM PAGE 14 to bury your chances when you have them.”

Yale hopes to improve its physicality in playoff hockey.

While the Bulldogs appeared to be faster and more skilled at maintaining puck control, by the second period it became clear that the Raiders were bigger and stronger. Colgate played aggressively and began to win more puck battles in the second and third periods against the young Yale team.

The competition on the road this Saturday will be Yale’s fourth game against the Raiders this season. After winning the two regular season games by substantial margins, the Elis must examine their 4–0 and 3–0 wins to learn what previously worked against Colgate.

“We are disappointed, but we’re not done,” head coach Mark Bolding said. “We’re proud of them. We just got to let it go quick, because we’ve got some things we can fix.”

The ECAC Championship was a controversial heartbreaker.

Colgate scored the game-winning overtime goal shortly after a faceoff change in the neutral zone. Though the home team always has the right to the last change, the referees failed to catch Colgate’s late change after Yale sent out their line.

Still, Bolding refrained from criticizing the referees after the game.

“Smart move on them. They got a double change. At the end of the day, that’s a really important situation,” Bolding said. “The home team has the last change. I was a little frustrated with that.

But nonetheless that’s over.”

emphasized that Yale’s coaches and players are very familiar with their potential opponents’ personnel and tactics.

“We’re going to play two teams we’ve already played twice,” Jones said, sitting in between Swain and Gabbidon, whom he then motioned towards. “These guys can tell you the starting lineups on both teams. They can tell you which actions they both try to run. They can tell you how they’re gonna defend us. What we’ll do is take a look at what hurt us in the games prior, what we were good at and try to accentuate the positives and get better at the negatives.”

After an up-and-down 6–8 start to the year in nonconference play, a COVID-19 pause within the program delayed the date of Yale’s Ivy League opener. When the Bulldogs returned to the court in mid-January, they strung together their first pair of consecutive wins over Division I opponents this season and claimed nine of their first 10 Ivy League contests.

The lone loss during that stretch came to Penn during a late January game at the Palestra, where the Bulldogs fell 76–68. Quakers guard Jordan Dingle — the league’s leading scorer and like Swain, a unanimous selection to this season’s All-Ivy First Team — dropped 31 points during that contest in Philadelphia. Yale’s defensive tandem of Gabbidon and first-year guard Bez Mbeng ’25 limited Dingle to four-of-19 shooting as the Elis took the teams’ second meeting last month.

After a record-breaking run in the ECAC playoffs, the No. 6 Yale women’s hockey team will skate into the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history.

The rematch against Colgate will be fiercely competitive and every second on the ice will count.

The Raiders have a strong offense and are ranked third in the nation for scoring. Colgate will have to play against Yale’s formidable defense with veteran goalie Gianna Meloni ’22 and captain defenseman Greta Skarzynski ’22 leading the way.

Helping Yale rank second in the country for fewest goals against this season, Meloni’s goals against average is 1.50, while her save percentage is an impressive .937. Along with other players, Emma Seitz ’23, ECAC Defensemen of the Year, also provides a unique challenge for Colgate with her defensive and offensive abilities. As a defenseman, Seitz has the fifth-most points (14–11–25) for Yale. This season, she has the third-most shots on the team with a whopping 123 pucks to the net.

“I am super excited for this team to get the opportunity to

perform on the national stage.

It’s something we’ve worked for all year and deserve,” Skarzynski told Yale Athletics. “We have unfinished business from Saturday night.”

Of the 11 teams in the NCAA Women’s Hockey Tournament, five are from the ECAC, the most of any conference. Winners across the four conferences — ECAC, Hockey East, WCHA and CHA — were awarded automatic bids, while the other seven bids were at-large based upon team records and national rankings.

Yale, which is the fifth seed, will play fourth-seeded Colgate on Saturday, March 12 at 3:00 p.m. in Hamilton, NY. The winner will face Ohio State, Quinnipiac or Syracuse in the Frozen Four semifinals in University Park, PA on March 18. All games will be streamed live on ESPN+.

Contact ROSA BRACERAS at rosie.braceras@yale.edu .

Contact WILLIAM MCCORMACK at william.mccormack@yale.edu .

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

A March Madness bid hangs in the balance as the Bulldogs travel to Boston for the season’s most pivotal weekend.

Yalies beat UMass in second game of season LACROSSE FROM PAGE 14

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

“In that second game,” Gabbidon said, “while we were really able to contain him well, that gave a lot of opportunities for other guys on their team to step up, and they made a lot of big plays and kept the game really close. The key for us this game is going to be mostly the defensive side of the ball.”

Gabbidon scored a career-high 32 points during Yale’s win over Penn in New Haven. Jones mentioned the Quakers, coached by Steve Donahue, often try to limit assists. Yale, which is averaging 12.1 per game this season, had 15 in its victory over Penn and only five during its loss.

Picked first in the Ivy League’s preseason media poll, Yale ultimately finished one game behind the Tigers. Harvard finished tied for sixth, becoming the first men’s team hosting Ivy Madness to miss out on the actual tournament.

As of Wednesday evening, college basketball ratings site KenPom predicts a 71 percent chance that Princeton defeats Cornell in the first semifinal; however, the Big Red were just a missed Princeton buzzer-beater away from sweeping the Tigers, who are led by the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year, Tosan Evbuomwan. KenPom gives Yale a 62 percent chance to move past the Quakers and into Sunday’s championship.

Yale’s semifinal with Penn is set to air on ESPNU at 2 p.m., while ESPN2 will broadcast the men’s tournament championship game Sunday at noon.

into the net and sending Reese Stadium into pandemonium.

“This is the first lacrosse game I’ve been to at Yale,” Joaquín Fernandez-Duque ’25 said of his experience watching the game. “I came with some friends and the overtime was electric. I’m definitely going to go to more of these games.”

Despite the win, and likely due to the fact that it took overtime to beat an unranked team, the Bulldogs dropped one spot in the Inside Lacrosse national rankings to No. 14. The win also kept the Bulldogs perfect at home this season.

For the University of Massachusetts, the loss showed that the team is capable of playing with

anyone in the nation, but still has room to improve.

“Up-and-down, back-andforth game,” University of Massachusetts head coach Greg Cannella said to the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. “We were very competitive … Yale is obviously an excellent program and they have been for quite some time.”

The season won’t get any easier for the Bulldogs, as each of the next five games for the team come against top 20 ranked squads in the country.

The Bulldogs’ next game will be in Denver against the Denver Pioneers at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Contact SPENCER KING at spencer.king@yale.edu .

YALE ATHLETICS

The Bulldogs’ next game will be in Denver against the Denver Pioneers at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

NEWS

“If you help elect more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward.”

HARVEY MILK AMERICAN POLITICIAN

Snyder, Westad offer insight on war in Ukraine

OLIVIA LOMBARDO/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

At a talk held by the Jackson Institute on Friday, the world’s foremost experts convened to analyze the invasion of Ukraine.

BY OLIVIA LOMBARDO STAFF REPORTER Amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yale experts spoke about how Ukrainian resistance had defied Russian expectations, the likelihood that the war would inflame tensions and expand around the globe and the need to decarbonize to limit Russia’s power.

The Friday event, titled “War in Ukraine,” was open to the Yale

community and was moderated

by Jim Levinsohn, director of the Jackson Institute. Levinsohn was joined by leading scholars in the field: Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of history at Yale, and Arne Westad, Elihu Professor of history and global affairs at Yale. Nellie Petlick JGA ’22, a graduate student in the Jackson School of Global Affairs who previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in south-central Ukraine, joined them to provide a

“human perspective” to analysis of the conflict. “[Russia believed] the Ukrainian government would quickly collapse,” Snyder said. “[They believe that] Ukrainians are some kind of inchoate mass … and will just listen to the stronger.”

Westad was the first panelist to speak, and talked about how Putin is engaged in a fight against the recognition of “Ukrainian nationhood.” While Putin’s intentions, according to Westad,

are to create a Russian superstate, he said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will only further isolate Russia and make the country more dependent on China.

Furthermore, Westad predicted that the invasion will lead to tensions on a global scale unlike those seen in a very long time because “this war is in no way over.”

Snyder drew contrasts to a previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, and occupied and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Snyder noted that during that invasion, Russian special forces attempted to provoke rebellions in eight Ukrainian districts with partial success in two of them, one being around the city of Donetsk.

According to Snyder, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine is different. The current violence is based on a “very familiar governing assumption” steeped in a colonial power mentality, he explained.

Snyder also spoke about how war in Ukraine should be viewed on a global scale. He said that the short-term goals should be thinking about and supplying resources to Ukranians, but to get to the 22nd-century, we must work towards breaking up Russia’s “hydrocarbon oligarchy.” This war, he said, is a strong reason to shift to clean and safe sources of energy.

Petlick, having spent time working with Ukrainian students and forming an intimate community in Ukraine, spoke about a strong need to recognize the humanity of Ukrainians. In the wake of the Russian invasion, Petlick has been working with Ukrainian organizers who encourage the general public to listen to Ukrainian voices and amplify them, call their congresspeople to push for more aid and to donate to Ukrainian organizations.

“I really want to highlight the generosity and the love of the Ukrainian people,” Petlick said.

“And I’m really glad that the rest of the world is seeing the spirit of Ukranians right now.”

Petlick shared resources that both she and Elen Aghekyan JGA ’22, another graduate student at the Jackson School, collaborated to assemble. These resources provide places to send donations as well as suggestions of non-monetary ways to help.

Nine days before the Jackson talk, and before Russia invaded Ukraine, Yale’s Alexander Hamilton Society held a debate on the current tensions between Russia and Ukraine as they unfolded. Raphael Cohen, the director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, shared that Putin was likely afraid of the possibility of Ukraine democratizing, and the potential for it to threaten Russia’s power on a global stage.

Levinsohn, who will oversee Jackson’s transition to a full professional school this year, stressed that the school will focus on “the global challenges of the day,” and that currently, the conflict “tops that list.”

“I think a critical component to understanding the geopolitical landscape today is learning from the lessons of the past and Yale in general and Jackson in particular have some of the best international historians in the world,” he said.

Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2014 according to Reuters.

Contact OLIVIA LOMBARDO at olivia.lombardo@yale.edu.

Lamont proposes plan to fight childhood lead exposure

BY YASH ROY STAFF REPORTER In Connecticut, 3,483 children have a blood lead level, or BLRV, almost six times greater than 98 percent of kids in the nation.

However, due to current statutes in the state, Connecticut has only sent inspectors to two percent of these children’s homes to find and mitigate lead exposure.

On the heels of his annual State of the State address and presentation of the state budget, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is unveiling plans to both reform the state’s response to childhood lead poisoning while also calling for an increase in funding for improved heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, systems in schools in light of ventilation concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unveiled on March 3, Lamont’s House Bill 5045, which mirrors actions taken by New Haven since Mayor Justin Elicker took office, aims to change the state’s definition of what triggers a “comprehensive environmental inspection.” These inspections are detailed epidemiological reviews by the state. The new policy is estimated to increase the number of inspections by 4,671 percent and bolster funding to replace water pipes that contribute to lead poisoning.

“For too long, Connecticut has failed to address the problem of lead poisoning in our children, a problem that impacts most deeply minority families and disadvantaged communities of our state,” Lamont said in a press release. “Thousands of children are not receiving the treatment and health interventions that they need. Connecticut’s standards for lead testing and treatment fall well behind the best practices and the time is now to take action.”

The Governor has modeled the state’s new lead poisoning plan on New Haven’s approach. Currently, all children between the ages of 1–5 in New Haven must have their blood drawn and if their BLRV exceeds 5 mg/dL, the city will investigate, determine and then abate potential sources of lead exposure.

According to Elicker, the current city’s appropriate BLRV of 5 mg/dL has been in place for

COURTESY OF BRIAN M. O’CONNOR, CONNECTICUT HOUSE DEMOCRATIC OFFICE

Lamont announces statewide lead poisoning proposal based off of New Haven program, while also unveiling a proposal to improve school HVAC systems. years, but the city had reverted to the state’s inspection trigger level of 20 mg/dL until two years ago, when he took office.

“It’s a very good step in the right direction for Governor Lamont to propose reducing the standard,” Elicker told the News.

“I am proud that a new, more rigorous lead inspection and enforcement program that we launched in New Haven has provided a model to expand these critically important protections to every child in the state.”

According to State Commissioner of Health Manisha Juthani’s office, the change in the level at which an investigation is called for comes after new National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data was released, which culminated in an October 2021 recommendation to the CDC that the 97.5th percentile of the BLRV be shifted down from 5 mcg/dL to 3.5 mcg/dL. Juthani’s office added that while the CDC and EPA have both stated that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children, the BLRV level “paves the way for early intervention and the prevention of additional exposure and associated harm.”

According to Juthani’s office, lead exposure even below 10 mg/dL can be associated with

behavioral effects, delays in puberty and decreases in hearing, cognitive performance, and postnatal growth or height.

BLRV levels as low as 5 mg/ dL can have effects including diminished IQ scores and academic achievement, as well as increased behavioral problems and attention-related behaviors.

“House Bill 5045 proactively moves Connecticut toward doing a better job of protecting our children from lead poisoning and being better aligned with national standards,” said Juthani.

“The science and understanding of the effects of lead have greatly changed, …[which] has forced us to face the fact that even low levels of exposure can be devastating to children.”

This program is included in Lamont’s fiscal year 2023 budget adjustment and is covered by the American Rescue Plan’s $70 million dollar funding investment in the state to fight lead poisoning.

The funding will also help property owners and landlords in vulnerable communities undertake lead abatement and remediation projects. This program will be led by the state’s Department of Public Health in coordination with local health departments and the state Department of Housing.

Connecticut is also due to receive $150 million to identify and replace lead service lines for drinking water over the next five years through the bipartisan federal infrastructure bill.

The legislation is currently under consideration by the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee, which held a Mar. 7 public hearing on the bill where members of the committee signaled support for the bill.

Lamont kicks off HVAC project On March 1, Lamont proposed legislation for a grant program that will assist public school districts in paying for HVAC and other indoor air quality impwrovements for schools.

“One thing the COVID-19 pandemic exposed is that many school buildings in our state, particularly those that are of a certain age, are in serious need of air quality improvements,” Lamont said. “I strongly urge lawmakers to approve this proposal so that we can begin releasing funds to school districts and make these much-needed HVAC upgrades.”

This proposal is also a part of the 2023 fiscal year budget.

According to Lamont’s office, the state is receiving $90 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan for this grant program.

The proposed program, which would be administered by the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, requires municipalities to provide matching grants to fund the project costs. Lamont has also directed the Department of Administrative Services to develop the proposed program in coordination with the state’s Department of Education, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and the Department of Public Health.

The Connecticut Council of Municipalities lauded the decision. Joe DeLong, CCM Executive Director and CEO, said that the state is stepping in to fill the gaps in upgrades for systems that are in “dire need of repair.”

“The cost for needed HVAC repairs in schools across the state would overwhelm municipal resources,” said DeLong. “The quality of indoor air in public schools remains critical in good times and bad for the health and safety of our students, teachers and staff.”

The legislation is currently under consideration by the Connecticut General Assembly’s Education Committee.

Contact YASH ROY at yash.roy@yale.edu.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

BULLETIN BOARD CROSSWORD ACROSS 1. Hill of film 6. Burn 11. Apple product 14. Recall cause, often 15. Actor Jason 16. Hubbub 17. *Former Mets ballpark 19. Cocoa ___ 20. Sun over Salamanca 21. Nothing, in Nottingham 22. Sills 24. *Record-setting 1963 single from The Beatles 27. Ranges 30. It's often hit in court 31. Airline to Tel Aviv 33. Lacking face value, as stock 34. A cave swiftlet makes one using its own saliva 35. Miami-____ County, Florida 36. Garden dweller 37. *Con artist 40. One-named Australian singer 41. Prefix with -nautical 43. Pub purchases 44. German city in the Ruhr Valley 46. "Rats!"

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DOWN 1. The new girl on "New Girl" JEM BURCH is a first-year in Jonathan Edwards College.

Contact him at jem.burch@yale.edu .

EMILY CAI is a first year in Pauli Murray College.

Contact her at emily.cai@yale.edu .

SOPHIE HENRY is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College.

Contact her at sophie.henry@yale.edu .

GIOVANNA TRUONG is a junior in Pauli Murray College.

Contact her at giovanna.truong@yale.edu .

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTIONS C A R E S S

P I G F A R M

A R A R A T P R O L A B O R

M I N A R I R I T A D O V E

O D S C I L A E G G A O T M E A N C A M B E S D

B L A C C

D I R E C T D I A L

R E F F E D A J A X

A L E C H E N C E P E L E

Y O D A P O I N N C S H T O A N B T O T S A S N A

C A P O M U L A N A B A S E S C T S H W A I T I R M A E N T E R A K E S R S M A Y B E A T E A M R S R I K I I N G O D E R N O S E

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

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“Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union.” CORETTA SCOTT KING AMERICAN AUTHOR

Yale-NUS students call for transparency

BY MIRANDA JEYARETNAM STAFF REPORTER Almost eight months after the announcement of the planned closure of Yale-NUS College in 2025, Yale-NUS students lament the lack of student consultation in the future of Yale-NUS and its successor, NUS College.

On Aug. 26, 2021, the National University of Singapore (NUS) announced that Yale-NUS College, a partnership between Yale and NUS, would merge with NUS’ University Scholars’ Programme (USP), effectively dissolving Yale-NUS as its own institution. Among the outcry from students, faculty and alumni, a common criticism rang through — that NUS had taken a top-down approach, it had not consulted students or faculty and it had essentially sprung the news onto its community, leaving them to mourn a school that many had only just joined. Now, more than half a year since the announcement, students are still dissatisfied with the level of transparency and student involvement in the planning process for the new NUS College. Sam Kouteili Yale-NUS ’23 told the News that there was no transparency, rationale or input for any decisions that have been made so far, and that students seem to be informed as an “afterthought.”

“No I don’t feel satisfied, but I never was going to be fully satisfied the second they announced the school’s closure the way they did,” Kouteili told the News. “They are not acting in our interest anymore, so why include us in any decision making process?”

NUS College, which will open its doors this fall for its first cohort of students, is a four-year honors program for undergraduates enrolled at NUS and will not retain the same level of autonomy as Yale-NUS, which was founded in 2011. The planning process for NUS College involved a planning committee that was supported by seven working groups, each focusing on one of the following areas: admissions, common curriculum, student and residential life, facilities management, communications, faculty appointments and staff appointments.

According to an email obtained by the News, around 20 students from both USP and Yale-NUS were represented on the planning committee and working groups.

The email, written by Ho Teck Hua, the provost of NUS and chair of the New College Planning Committee, promised a “collaborative, consultative and open approach that will steer the New College into its future.” This line was echoed by several members of Yale-NUS and the NUS administration, including NUS President Tan Eng Chye and YaleNUS EVP Joanne Roberts.

“I feel like the administration’s promises were just made to super-

ficially satisfy the backlash after the closure announcement, and they know that they can get away with a mockery of a participatory process because there aren’t any real checks and balances we can effect on them,” said Avery Yale-NUS ’25, whose last name has not been included due to fear of retribution from the Singaporean government. “It just seems like the administration is putting up this masquerade of seeking student input and discarding it to give a bit more legitimacy to whatever they were planning to do in the first place.”

Simon Chesterman, dean-designate of NUS College, told the News that NUS College remains committed to addressing the concerns of current students, but also to ensuring that the incoming students get to play a role in co-creating the college’s culture, which will be distinct from Yale-NUS and the USP. He emphasized that the planning committee’s final recommendation report incorporated many of the student representatives’ suggestions and that students have also participated in at least eight town halls, several focus groups and written submissions at all stages.

Avery, who has attended two out of the seven working group sessions, told the News that student participation was limited, because it relied mostly on the one or two student representatives appointed to each working group. Avery added that ultimately, the recommendations put forth by the working groups are non-binding. The working group sessions that she attended, one on facilities and one on curriculum, she said, were the only two that did wider outreach.

The facilities working group held a series of focus group discussions that students were asked to sign up for. In spite of student participation, Avery said she is “not sure how much they listened.” Many students, she said, advocated strongly for gender-neutral housing and permitting recreational alcohol consumption on campus — the legal drinking age in Singapore is 18 — which were not incorporated into the final decision.

Facilities and housing was a common concern raised among the students the News spoke to. Yale-NUS students had expressed a desire for NUS College students to be integrated into the community by housing them across different residential colleges, according to one current Yale-NUS student who was granted anonymity by the News for fear of retribution. In January, however, NUS announced its decision to house the new cohort of NUS College students entirely in Cinnamon College, the dormitories used to house current USP students.

“It came as a surprise for most students in [Yale-NUS] because I know from friends who have attended other sessions that the option of housing the students in that single building

was not discussed,” the student told the News. “This decision was not open, it was not consultative and it was not collaborative.”

She noted that Yale-NUS students do not know when or if NUS College students will begin living in Yale-NUS buildings together with the existing Yale-NUS students, which could mean a sense of a shrinking community for Yale-NUS classes of 2024 and 2025.

Avery, who covered the news of NUS College’s housing plans for The Octant, Yale-NUS’ student newspaper, also pointed out that she was likely one of the first students to learn of these plans through a webinar for prospective applicants.

“I guess it just shows how little they care about [Yale-NUS] input in what is purportedly a vehicle for our legacy,” she told the News.

The curriculum working group organized a town hall that Avery estimates 50 students attended.

They presented a slideshow and invited attendees to give feedback, although, Avery said, not much changed from that presentation to the curriculum that the News reported on in February.

Students also expressed concerns about how the working groups were being run. The anonymous student told the News that the first working group session, which was held online, barely acknowledged students’ concerns and questions. She attributed this partially to the fact that the online sessions made it easier for working group members to ignore students’ comments and questions.

Ryan Yeo Yale-NUS ’24 told the News that much of the work to consult other Yale-NUS students was being done by the students in the working groups. At the facilities working group session, he said, he could tell that the only student in the working group was often on the students’ side, but found himself without much agency within the group.

“We would be giving feedback, like ‘can we ask for this?’ or ‘why do you recommend this?’ and at times he couldn’t really give answers because, you know, he was just a student, he was just one member of the working group, so all the answers were like, ‘okay, I’ll bring this up’ or ‘actually, I brought this up, but they were shut down,’” Yeo said. “I guess they were a platform for us to give feedback, but we had no idea whether the feedback was actually listened to. We have no idea what has happened to the feedback that we gave.”

A poll was sent out after decisions were announced for people to give feedback, but Yeo said he felt it was fruitless because he did not know what they would concretely do with the feedback.

A survey published in The Octant on Dec. 5, 2021 showed that less than five percent of Yale-NUS and USP students were satisfied with the NUS College planning process. Yeo, the

YALE DAILY NEWS

Students at Yale-NUS criticize the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) handling of the 2025 merger of Yale-NUS and NUS’ University Scholars’ Programme. managing editor of The Octant and author of the article, told the News that the group of students that conducted the poll sent a report to the planning committee with the survey results, but only one person responded and that person was an administrator at Yale-NUS. “They promised to involve us, but I don’t feel involved,” Yeo said.

The same group that Yeo is part of recently held a community conversation event in one of the courtyards at Yale-NUS, inviting students to come down, talk about Yale-NUS and write their feelings on several blackboards that had been set up. The students were asked to respond to questions about what the Yale-NUS community meant to them and how they felt about the announcements and the closure of Yale-NUS. Yeo told the News that a few members of the YaleNUS administration also attended.

“I felt like there wasn’t really a lot of space to talk about NUS college together as a community,” Yeo said. “There was a lot more anger at the start. Now, it feels more muted … because it’s just bad news after bad news, and every time we try and do something, they show that they don’t listen to us … But people are still feeling things — when we set up the board, there were a lot of people who wrote that they were still angry, still disappointed.”

The group was initially formed to push for a reversal of the decision to close Yale-NUS, Yeo said, but has since evolved to focusing on how the community can heal and ensure that the Yale-NUS experience stays alive.

Yeo emphasized that several students were frustrated with the way the closure of Yale-NUS had been framed as a merger.

“Ever since the top-down decision was made — completely disregarding students’ and stakeholders’ concerns and opinions regarding the merger — the administration has been repeating the same empty promises of holding an “open, collaborative, consultative” approach,” the anonymous student told the News. “Since the very beginning, the process has been closed off and a privilege only to those higher up, while the people affected by this had no idea and only came to know about an already made-up decision in August 2021.”

Students believed, Yeo said, that a merger would entail taking parts of Yale-NUS and parts of USP and integrating them together.

Instead, he said, at some point, NUS changed its narrative, and is now treating NUS College as a new institution. Chesterman called the school a “collaboration, not integration” in an interview with The Octant.

NUS College students are not part of Yale-NUS, pay different fees and are subject to different rules and procedures, Chesterman told the News. For the next three years, YaleNUS will continue to run its own programs. Chesterman therefore felt that the idea of a “merger” is not the most fitting.

“Alas, there is only one YaleNUS, and now they have lost it,” the anonymous student told the News.

“There is no more liberal arts education in Asia, and it is a real shame.”

Yale-NUS is the first and currently the only liberal arts institution established in Singapore.

Contact MIRANDA JEYARETNAM at miranda.jeyaretnam@yale.edu .

AACC event explores center’s history

BY YEJI KIM STAFF REPORTER To kick off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrations, the Asian American Cultural Center hosted an event last Friday to celebrate the history of the cultural center.

Speakers talked about the journey of opening the AACC, the student advocacy involved with securing a building and the broader AAPI presence at Yale.

AAPI Heritage Month is celebrated nationally in May, but the AACC’s celebrations take place in March because the school year ends mid-May. Friday’s event featured three AACC staff members who presented their work related to the center and AAPI heritage. “[The AACC] was a product of student activism across racial and cultural lines,” Adi Kumar GRD ’25, a graduate assistant for the AACC and one of the presenters at the event, told the News.

“We should try as much as we can to understand the history of the spaces we are in.”

Kumar worked to understand the history of the AACC by developing a virtual museum. This website, which was designed for the 40th anniversary of the AACC, features interviews with

RUIYAN WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Asian American Cultural Center hosted an event detailing the creation of the AACC last Friday. alumni who were crucial figures in the founding of the cultural center, including Don Nakanishi ’71.

He told the News that one of his goals with the virtual museum is to foster a dialogue between generations to strengthen the AAPI community at Yale.

The event also featured Sunehra Subah ’24, who presented on the history of the Asian American Students Alliance and the AACC, and Resty Fufunan ’24, who talked about the history of cultural centers nationwide.

The AACC was born out of an idea by Nakanishi, who wanted

Asian students to be able to have a physical space to express their experiences of attending a predominantly white institution.

In 1969, inspired by Yale Chicano students meeting and bonding over meals, Nakanishi started selecting Asian-resembling surnames from the student telephone directory and inviting those students to dinner. At the time, only around 50 of the 4,600 Yale College students were Asian. This informal dinner soon led to the founding of the Asian American Students Alliance.

Three years later — with 250 Asian undergraduates in Yale Col-

lege — the AASA obtained a oneroom office in Durfee Hall.

In 1978, Nick Chen ’79 organized a meeting with then-University President Bart Diamatti to advocate for a bigger space for Asian students at Yale. Subah described this meeting as a pivotal event in AACC history. An “overwhelming” number of students attended this meeting, and — as is traditional in Asian culture — they all took their shoes off at the door. This created a “sea of shoes” outside the office, reflecting the high student interest in obtaining more space.

Kumar emphasized the large role that students had in advocating for and creating the AACC. “Every renovation, every improvement, every small thing is lobbied for and fought for by … students, over time,” he told the News. “What started off as a small basement room in Durfee is now a campus institution, thanks to decades of student activism.”

In 1979, the AASA and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán obtained a shared building at 295 Crown St. In 1981, the building officially opened, then known as the Chicano and Asian Cultural Center.

“For me, the AACC embodies safety, community, imagination,

and empowerment.” Jenny Lee ’25, Community Programming Chair of the AASA, wrote to the News.

“Walking through its rooms and staircases reminds me of the collective work of the Asian-American student generations that came before us and inspires me to honor and sustain their legacy.”

The AACC is continually expanding its space and presence. This past November, the center unveiled a mural covering an entire side of the building. The mural, designed by artist Lauren YoungSmith, was partly conceptualized through listening to the oral interviews at the virtual museum to better understand the past, present and future of the center.

Jason Jiang ’25 elaborated on the importance of the space.

“I feel like my friendships have been made so much more meaningful because of our shared times at AACC events,” Jiang wrote. “It’s just a flood of memories for me — painting tote bags at game night, deep talks at stargazing, procrastinating from work [with] Squid Game.”

The AACC is open Sunday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m.

Contact YEJI KIM at yeji.kim@yale.edu .

W BASKETBALL Princeton 73 Harvard 53

SPORTS

W LACROSSE Harvard 9 Penn 8

M BASKETBALL Dartmouth 76 Harvard 54

M HOCKEY Union 3 Princeton 2

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

TENNIS YALE HOST DELAWARE The men’s team hosts the Hawks on Saturday, Mar. 12th, while the women’s squad takes the weekend to rest ahead of its trip to Florida. This is the only home match this weekend across Yale Athletics.

SOFTBALL BULLDOGS TRAVEL TO ARIZONA Yale will continue its out of conference slate in Tucson, Arizona for the Bear Down Fiesta. The Bulldogs will be challenged by three top opponents, before returning home to kick off their Ivy schedule next week against Harvard.

“I just felt like it’s my last race of the indoor season, last indoor race, you know, while wearing the Y, like, just gun it and hold on for dear life. And it worked out” JUMA SEI ’22 M TRACK & FIELD CAPTAIN

Bulldogs in Boston for Ivy Madness No. 3 Elis vs. No. 2 Columbia Lions WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

The Yale women’s basketball team will face off against Columbia in the semifinals of the Ivy League tournament on Friday night.

BY ANDREW CRAMER STAFF REPORTER Having won three of its final four regular season contests, the Yale women’s basketball team (16–10, 9–5 Ivy) enters postseason play hoping to return home with the league crown.

In order to achieve this goal, the Bulldogs will first have to try

to beat the tournament’s second seed, the Columbia Lions (21–5, 12–2). The teams played each other twice this season, with Columbia winning both contests by scores of 65–55 and 65–57.

However, the Yale squad remains confident of its chances against the Lions.

Point guard Jenna Clark ’24, who finished the season one

assist shy of the program record, explained the team’s mindset heading into the tournament.“I think the losses just fuel us to get the win,” the sophomore guard said. “We know Columbia’s a great team, but we know our potential and think that we can beat every team in the league. It'll be an awesome matchup that we're all excited for.”

The game will likely be decided by the team that can dictate the pace of the game. Forward Camilla Emsbo ’23 is the focal point of the Bulldogs’ offense, averaging 14.3 points and 10 rebounds per game.

In the Bulldogs’ two regular-season matchups against the Lions, Emsbo scored just 15 points total.

If Yale can slow down the game and allow Emsbo to dominate on the interior, then its whole offense can run much smoother as its guards can find more space to get off open shots.

“I think my team has done a great job getting the ball inside and trusting me to make plays,” Emsbo said. “That has definitely been the main factor in my recent success, and it should be equally important against Columbia.”

The Columbia offense, in contrast, starts with the perimeter play of guard Abby Hsu, who ranked third in the league in points per game and first in three-pointers made per game. Hsu averaged 13 points a game against Yale this season.

However, the Bulldogs struggled to defend Columbia not just because of Hsu’s actual scoring production, but also because the threat of her shooting stretched their defense.

“Abbu Hsu is a tremendously talented basketball player SEE W BASKETBALL PAGE 10

No. 2 Yale vs. No. 3 Penn MEN'S BASKETBALL

TIM TAI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale guard Azar Swain '22 drives around Penn guard Jordan Dingle (3) during a game at John J. Lee Amphitheater on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022.

BY WILLIAM MCCORMACK STAFF REPORTER With 28 games of regular-season play complete, the Yale men’s basketball team reaches the apex of its season this weekend at Ivy Madness.

Yale travels to Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion, the host venue for this year’s postseason conference tournament, as the No. 2 Bulldogs (17–11, 11–3 Ivy) prepare to face No. 3 Penn (12–15, 9–5) Saturday afternoon in what they hope will ignite a postseason run that continues into next week’s NCAA Tournament. Advancing past the Quakers and defeating the winner of the conference’s other semifinal matchup — No. 1 Princeton (22–5, 12–2) vs. No. 4 Cornell (15–10, 7–7) — in Sunday’s championship would secure Yale the Ivy League’s automatic bid to March Madness.

“We’re trying to put together our best basketball right now,” Yale guard Azar Swain ’22 said.

“So in order for that to happen, we need to take care of all the things that are controllable, like bringing energy, effort, toughness, enthusiasm — and those things will be visible come this weekend.”

The wait for this weekend’s conference tournament has been long. The Ivy League, which became the last Division I conference to institute a postseason basketball tournament with the first iteration of Ivy Madness in 2017, has not hosted the event since March 2019. The abrupt onset of the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the 2020 tournament a few days before it was scheduled to begin — in a dash of déjà vu, Yale was also set to meet SEE M BASKETBALL PAGE 10

Yale to face Colgate in first- Bulldogs win in overtime over UMass ever NCAA tournament game

BY SPENCER KING STAFF REPORTER

The No. 14 Yale men’s lacrosse team (2–1, 0–0 Ivy) won its second game of the season in a 13–12 overtime win over the University of Massachusetts (1–3, 0–0 CAA). The Bulldogs won the game with just 39 seconds to play in overtime on Matt Brandau’s ’23 fourth goal of the afternoon.

LACROSSE

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

Yale will face Colgate for a rematch from the ECAC title game as it heads to the NCAA regional finals for the first time in program history.

BY ROSA BRACERAS STAFF REPORTER After a record-breaking run in the ECAC playoffs, the No. 6 Yale women’s hockey team will skate into the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history.

HOCKEY Just a week after falling in overtime, 2–1 to No. 4 Colgate (30–7– 1, 16–5–1) in the ECAC finals, Yale (25–8–1, 16–5–1 ECAC) will face

the Raiders again on the road for the regional finals of the NCAA tournament. After earning a bye in the first round of the NCAA playoffs, the fifth-seeded Bulldogs enter the tournament at the regional finals stage.

“We had a great run,” Charlotte Welch ’23 said after Saturday’s loss. Welch recorded three assists last weekend against Princeton and Colgate. “Our main takeaway from this weekend is that you have

STAT OF THE WEEK

SEE HOCKEY PAGE 10

5

The Bulldogs were led by two strong individual performances: goaltender Jared Paquette had the best game of his young career, posting 18 saves and a .600 save percentage, while Brandau continued his hot start to the season with four goals and three assists.

For much of the game, the Bulldogs were chasing the University of Massachusetts, as the team trailed at the end of each of the first three quarters.

“We've talked for two years now on our identity of being a team that could come back from behind and get a win,” head coach Andy Shay said to Yale Athletics. “Against Penn State didn't feel them; today I did. In the fourth quarter I had that feeling like we are getting better. To respond to a challenge like that … I'm proud of our guys but we have a lot of

work to do. We didn't do everything right in the second half, but we made the improvements we needed to.”

The Bulldogs also displayed the same depth they’ve shown all season, with their 13 goals coming from eight different players.

While Brandau led the way for the offense, Leo Johnson ’25 continued his strong start to his rookie season with two goals and an assist, while fellow first-year Johnny Keib ’25 scored his first Yale goal on the man-up.

Brandau leads the team in goals, assists and total points with a statline of 10–5–15.

Overtime was the Bulldogs’ best period of the game. The Elis outshot the University of Massachusetts 7–0 during the stretch and won by putting the ball in the hands of their best player.

With seven seconds left on the shot clock, Brandau dodged from behind the goal to the far side of the field before creating space to rip a low-to-low shot SEE LACROSSE PAGE 10

YALE ATHLETICS

The Yale men’s lacrosse team earned its second win of the season in overtime against the University of Massachusetts.

THE NUMBER OF RBIS BY YALE’S RIGHT FIELDER JIMMY CHATFIELD ’23 IN THURSDAY’S GAME AGAINST LIU.

FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022

WEEKEND SOUNDTRACKS:

// JESSAI FLORES

Yalies score their lives

Mars Adams: The first time I heard “Boys Will Be Bugs”, I was seventeen years old, listening to Spotify on shuffle in the dead of night, alone in my bedroom at boarding school. At the time, I was one of around 60 girls in a grade of over 200 students at an originally allmale boarding school. Music was one of my few escapes in a misogynistic environment that engulfed me in intense anxiety.

I related to the song in an unexpected way; in my interpretation, “Boys Will Be Bugs” morphed into a poignant commentary on the inscrutable ways in which my male peers behaved and conformed to toxic gender norms, often tormenting one another, and especially the girls at school, for reasons that I just couldn’t wrap my head around: “Don’t message me cause I won’t reply, I wanna make you cry / Ain’t that how it’s supposed to be?

Though it isn’t me / Boys will be bugs, right?”

Two years passed, and “Boys Will Be Bugs” re-emerged on my radar as I began my freshman spring at Yale and entertained new and — at the time — terrifying thoughts about my gender identity. I didn’t feel like I could deal with being a girl for any longer, and I didn’t feel particularly like a boy either; in fact, I felt worse than either, almost subhuman at times, wanting to shed my own skin. I was newly fascinated by Cavetown’s music — here was a transgender musician who had written several songs depicting his experiences and struggles with dysphoria and his own identity. So as I unravelled my own cocoon in coming out as nonbinary, I crawled back to Cavetown’s warm melodies, wallowing in the lyrics: “I feel stupid (stupid) / Ugly (ugly) / Pretend it doesn’t bother me / I’m not very strong, but I’ll fuck you up if you’re mean to bugs…”

“Boys Will Be Bugs” served as the soundtrack — and a resolution — to this distress: maybe it was alright for me to be a little bit lost, to still be figuring myself out, even as I verged on the age of twenty. I was

allowed to feel like I was just growing into my identity for the time being, and maybe that was enough. I’ve just turned twenty, and I think this year I’m going to own my identity, on my own terms. Today, “Boys Will Be Bugs” features on every other Spotify playlist in my library. So, just as Cavetown put it: “Don’t mess with me - I’m a big boy now and I’m very scary!”

Jacqueline Kaskel: “You Make Me Feel So Young,” sung by Frank Sinatra, is my cure-all, my remedy for anything and everything that comes my way. When I listen to this track — whether I’m surrounded by people on my way to class or by myself taking a hot shower — I can’t help but smile and sing along. When I hear that bouncy brass opening, all my troubles seem to melt away, leaving me with the sensations of bliss and comfort.

I remember the exact moment I first heard this song — it was in the classic 2003 film “Elf.” It plays in the background as Buddy and Jovie go out on their first date around New York City and find themselves ice skating at Rockefeller Center. I remember worshiping that scene as a kid, wishing I could capture that happiness and keep it forever close to my heart. Each time I listen to “You Make Me Feel So Young,” it reminds me of simpler times with my family at Christmas, when we would eat too much chocolate peppermint bark and watch “Elf” together for the umpteenth time. I am reminded of my own memorable trips to New York over the years — singing in Carnegie Hall, seeing Broadway shows, going to the Metropolitan Opera and seeing the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in real life — all special experiences shared with the people I care about. I’m no Frank Sinatra, but if you listen to me sing along with “You Make Me Feel So Young,” you will hear my pure joy and peace of mind.

And in my last week as a teenager, this song feels especially apt: youth doesn’t last forever, but the feeling of it can. Surround yourself with people who make time stop, who make you savor each and every moment. Still young myself, I can only hope that when I’m older, I’ll have people in my life who make me feel the euphoria of youth.

Elizabeth Watson: It’s the summer between freshman and sophomore year of high school, sometime around 1 a.m., and I’m sitting crosslegged on my bed with my laptop. The Word document I have open is nearing 60 pages — single-spaced, to my absolute pride. I scroll through it from the start, fast enough to make the pages blur, and grin. I’d been making up characters and stories since middle school, but this was the furthest I’d gotten in a writing project that was really, truly mine. Some of the characters that existed in that flurry of pages are still here, although a little different five years later, while others persist in fragments — but still perfectly alive in the sentences my 14-year-old self wrote after midnight.

Songs can be bookmarks for memories. They seep into thoughts and ideas if you listen to them enough, and so whenever you hear that opening chord, all of the memories your mind folded inside it come rushing back. That’s how I found this memory again. I was digging through my music library in search of a song when I stumbled across a playlist from around my first year of high school. It was filled with music I listened to towards the end of middle school, which provided plenty of nostalgia on its own, but it was significant for another reason too. This was a playlist I’d created specifically for my first major creative writing project, a piecemealed soundtrack of my own design. As I listened to it again, writing not in my childhood bedroom but in my college dorm, I remembered all the details of that first project — all of the places I’d imagined so vividly and the characters who made their homes there. The story I’m writing now is different from the one back then but that doesn’t mean that my old characters stopped living. They’re with me every time I write, and every time I listen to that playlist.

Rena Lin: There are moments you know are going to last forever as you’re living them.

They’re the moments you think would make it onto a movie screen, complete with background music and slow-dancing montages.

During the winter break of my junior year at Yale, a few of my suitemates flew to my hometown, Los Angeles, for a week. I hesitate to say that we did a lot of things, but one thing we sure as hell did was make a playlist for the very short road trip that we planned to take to San Diego.

It was my first time driving longer than an hour on my own, so the approximately fivehour round trip to and from San Diego was new to me. In the middle, I said to my suitemate, “I’ve been driving for so long that the road doesn’t feel like a road anymore.”

The soundtrack for our winter break getaway ranged from Taylor Swift to Kenshi Yonezu to Bleachers, so diverse that we played a guessing game of who had added it every time we shuffled the playlist. Each of us contributed fifty songs, counting two hundred in total. But no matter how many genres littered this soundtrack, all the songs that we played felt strangely and distinctly ours.

In the two and a half hour drive back from San Diego, I was thinking that if this were a movie, it would actually be pretty boring. We’re not exactly a crazy and spontaneous group; the trip consisted of sleeping in more than we would like to admit.

But here, in this tiny car, at 11:00 pm, there were moments of silence, when we were just enjoying whatever song had been newly shuffled. Occasionally, someone would say something like, “This is definitely a Brandon song.” Some laughter. More silence.

“I think this was mine, actually. You’ll get it when it gets to the chorus.” Another silent moment, and more waiting. More anticipation.

Then, when the chorus played: “Oh, right. It makes sense now.”

We have a word for love for a reason, which is lucky because it’s the only one I’d use to describe that moment and those people that I feel so strongly for.

But if we did not have a word for love, I would say, “I know you added this song because it just feels like you.”

If we did not have a word for love, I would say, “Put the playlist on shuffle again. Let’s drive until the road doesn’t feel like a road.” h t t p s : //o p e n . s p o t i f y. c o m /p l a y l i s t / 6 B A F J W D O g q Vx b q U w S U g z rM?si=28e5d07ecf7b4330

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND DOWNHILL

SKI

TRIP

// ELLIE HUH

// BY LAILA DELPUPPO MESSARI Smack in the middle of midterm season? Hundreds of pages of readings to do? Papers to write? Quizzes to study for? Need to figure out summer plans?

An email pops up in your inbox: [insert college name here] Ski Trip.

Never been skiing before? Doesn’t matter. One of your friends calls you in the middle of class, and another sends three texts.

It reads: ski trip sign up is out. it fills up fast. lets go nowww.

Why not? Sign up for waking up at 5 a.m. — after going to bed at 2 a.m. the night before — to go skiing. You’ve only been skiing once before but that shouldn’t really matter right? You’re fine. Magically you have cash lying around.

It was meant to be Woad’s money, but it’s fine, you can always withdraw from the bank some other time. After all, $40 for a day pass for all the lifts and renting all the equip-

ment you need–really, that’s a steal. Thank goodness Yale is a billion dollar institution and can subsidize these ski trips for its students. You fill out all the forms and leave the college office.

The ski trip consists of a lot of falling down, getting back up, going down slopes that are way too hard for you, eating a packed dining hall lunch while sitting on the snow — you will never be more thankful for snow pants — struggling off of ski lifts — lift your tips — and bonding with your fellow college mates — or whatever they’re called.

At the end of the day when you’re on your way back home, whether that is [insert your college name here], or another — less good — resco, it feels like it was an exciting day. Maybe you learned how to ski for the first time, maybe you learned you shouldn’t be going down the black slopes, maybe you learned that you have a really really good friend who will wait for you at the bottom and make sure you’re okay after you

fell face first in the snow, maybe you never want to go skiing again, and maybe you’re already planning your next ski trip.

But what could almost go unnoticed, as a result of being part of one of the most elite institutions in the world, is that skiing isn’t as accessible as walking over to the [insert your residential college here] College Office, signing up, and paying a $40 fee. The entire reason the ski trip is a tradition at Yale at all is because it is a tradition of elites, and at this elite institution, it’s the sort of activity its students “should” be partaking in.

Don’t get me wrong, the resco ski trips are amazing — not only accessible for all Yalies, rescos do provide financial aid for those who cannot pay the fee, but also a bonding experience and just plain fun — yet they also reflect a portion of what Yale continues to be, at its core, an elite.

Contact LAILA DELUPPO MESSARI at laila.delpuppomessari@yale.edu .

Yale’s Tiny Love Stories // BY MIRANDA WOLLEN Last month, some intrepid soul left a note seeking a missed connection on the outer wall of Blue State’s Wall Street location. If that were you, that was incredibly cute and I love you and thank god you didn’t leave your phone number because you’d probably have been McKinseygated.

If not, please enjoy what I imagine Yale’s version of the New York Times’s “Tiny Love Stories” column would look like:

HE MENTIONED IT WAS A DINGLE, AND I KNEW HE WAS THE ONE When? Three days after move-in. Where? The four-milelong line outside the Student Receiving Center. I was picking up the seventh floor fan we were installing in our 92-degree common room, in which two of my suitemates had been lying catatonic and dehydrated since night one of Camp Yale. He was picking up a super sick and unique poster of this underground band called The Strokes for his room. He mentioned it was a dingle, and I knew he was the one.

We locked eyes over the pulsating Abrahamic beats of the AEPi dance floor. He grabbed my hand and twirled me into a spinning circle of horah-ing pledges in metallic booty-shorts. He tried to whisper his name in my ear, but the sweat which had begun cascading down my face four minutes into the party had formed a liquid blockade against his oral advances. All I know is… I think it started with a J??

I contracted a disease at SOADS – the love bug! Also COVID, and maybe syphilis…

I needed someone to fuck my way down the Stacks with; so did she. Could I make it any more obvious? We became

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official on floor eleven, said “I love you” on floor seven, and I proposed to her in the women’s bathroom by the Periodical Reading Room. It was so romantic, especially with someone sobbing heavingly in the stall next door!

First semester, we both had non-COVID hacking coughs.

Branded as social pariahs for our oral emissions, we formed an Outsiders-esque clan, the two Holden Caulfields of Old Campus. “I just tested negative!” we would shout in vain at disgusted passerby as we hawked globules of mucus into paper towels in the Bass bathrooms. Post-Omicron, we’ve been welcomed back into civil society, but our phlegmy bond will never be broken.

I NEEDED SOMEONE TO FUCK MY WAY DOWN THE STACKS WITH; SO DID SHE We met at a meeting for the Party of the Right … our names aren’t in this, right?

We were both subjected to surprise a cappella concerts on different parts of Old Campus. Fleeing the hypnotic harmonizing of a dozen quirky teenage boys in suits, we found refuge in the annals of the Vanderbilt courtyard, where few dare to venture. Now we’re choosing a wedding band — we’ve agreed it has to be one with instruments.

Stranded in the alumni section of the tailgate for The Game, I stumbled through tables of forty-five year olds taking fluorescent Jell-O shots, searching in vain for someone

who had attended Yale in the past two decades. There she was, cowering in a corner as a man with a bald spot offered her a White Claw Surge and asked her if the men in JE were still the sexiest on campus. I asked her to go to the Port-APotties with me, and we’ve been attending games together ever since.

We were both barred from entering Zeta’s “Summer in Winter on the Beach in the Mountains but It’s a Little Cloudy so Think About Maybe Bringing a Cardigan or Like a Warm Sweatshirt” party for not adhering to the theme closely enough. We bought a romantic dinner at the gas station next door and wandered the neighborhood, stopping to throw little pieces of bread to the starving inhabitants of Arnold Hall like we were at a duck pond.

MAYBE JUST DRUNK TEXT ONE OF YOUR DATAMATCHES; I DON’T CARE Dear reader, Yale can be a cold, harsh, difficult place. I hope you’ll take just a little bit of time while you’re here to search for love and that you’ll make or adopt beautiful elitist bulldog babies twenty years down the line.

Or maybe just drunk text one of your DataMatches; I don’t care.

Contact MIRANDA WOLLEN at miranda.wollen@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B3

WEEKEND MITSKI

Laurel Hell: Mitski’s 32-minute goodbye letter // BY KYLIE VOLAVONGSA “How do you keep writing pop songs when you stop having popsong feelings?”

This is the first question singer-songwriter Mitski Miyawaki asks of pop rock band Weezer in her 2017 review of their album “Pacific Daydream,” where she reflects on our culture’s obsession with youth in contrast to the aging Rivers Cuomo’s songwriting. At the same time, Mitski also tries to negotiate her position as someone soon to exit “the island of young adulthood,” someone who can no longer creatively rely on the impulses and emotions that buzz through our early twenties. Someone who doesn’t really have pop-song feelings anymore.

Mitski’s music doesn’t quite exist in the realm of pop. But after the release of “Be the Cowboy” in 2018, an originally permanent hiatus and the unexpected release of “Laurel Hell” this year, I can’t help but ask her that same question from five years ago: How do you keep writing pop songs when you stop having pop-song feelings?

I believe Mitski’s answer can be found in the recent release of her sixth unexpected album, right in the undergrowth of “Laurel Hell.”

If there’s anything listeners should first know about Mitski, it’s that she is incredibly convincing, which is the result of her masterful sense of delivery. Her voice can curse rosy, kazoo-embellished tunes like “Strawberry Blond” with the dull ache of unrequited love. Meanwhile, her employment of even the smallest details renders her music with emotional inten-

sity and vivid storytelling, like the wistful breath at the beginning of “Once More to See You” and the tense sigh at the beginning of “Me and My Husband.” In effect, she’s skillfully disguised past songs about her relationship with her career with pop-song narratives of romance and romance gone wrong.

The songs of “Laurel Hell”, meanwhile, are much more direct in their delivery. This comes clearest with the album’s first released single “Working for the Knife.” Written shortly after the beginning of Mitski’s hiatus in 2019, the song laments her exhaustion from seeing her aspirations come to life at the great expense of her wellbeing. In the song’s opening, Mitksi saunters back onto the stage regardless. The rise and fall of deep synths slowly lifts the curtains, while flashes of guitar fix the spotlight once again on her.

“I cry at the start of every movie.

I guess ‘cause I wish I was making things too,” Mitski admits wearily, “but I’m working for the knife.”

This taste of the new Mitski does well to foreshadow the almost resigned tone that permeates the rest of “Laurel Hell” — named after an Appalachian plant known for its beautiful flower yet deadly thorns.

“Working for the Knife’s” end captures this idea with a vocal delivery rising in strength and volume, only to drift back down as Mitski realizes that she is “dying for the knife.” Howls of a lone guitar accent the background, reflecting the heartbreak of this realization, and the noise soon fades to silence.

Mitski submerges into the thorns.

doesn’t reach the same expressive heights, going only as far as a Forever 21 dressing room.

“Everyone” and “Heat Lightning” return the album to its darker tonal atmosphere, both songs driven by drum machines and lyrical themes of surrender. They are slow and simple, with brief moments in which piano would emerge like dappled sunlight. Still, I didn’t find either song particularly memorable, instead feeling an absence of feeling on Mitski’s part.

The album shifts gears dramatically with “Love Me More,” which employs the quintessential sounds of 80s synthpop and light, galloping drums. There is something relentless and addicting about the pre-chorus, where one line melts rhythmically into the next — “Something else to keep me / Here’s my hand” — after which Mitski explodes into the chorus with a frantic call to be loved, fulfilled and drowned.

The lyrics here do the important work of expressing Mitski’s desire to be revealed by her music rather than using her music as a tool to reveal herself. She pleads with the listener to put in the effort of loving her in a way that feels meaningful, which can only be done if Mitski first gives the effort of offering something meaningful to love. Instead of creating “Love Me More” from the forced idea of a feeling, Mitski thus seeks a feeling to build on through the simple spontaneity of whatever sounds good to her at the moment.

From there on, Mitski takes us through “Laurel Hell’s” goodbyes.

“I Guess” is the more earnest of these goodbyes. To the background of a watery piano, Mitski’s voice is distant and otherworldly: “I guess this is the end,” she croons. “Without you, I don’t yet know quite how to live.”

A ghostly string cuts in, airy and just a bit quirky. Brief and bittersweet. Sitting in “the quiet after” of her audience, Mitski stares into a pond. She has long departed that island of young adulthood; she is perhaps departing a nearly ten year career as a musician. Either way, she’s set her distance and she intends on keeping it. But she knows who she owes this longawaited peace to.

“Thank you,” she sings with a soft sincerity, “thank you.”

Finally, “That’s Our Lamp” is the cheery end credits song to really send us — and Mitski — on our separate ways. A celebratory crowd accompanies Mitski’s last chorus, repeating “That’s where you loved me.” They fade out together, the energy of the track still going strong despite its diminishing volume. No longer one to leave us with the youthful angst of “Last Words of a Shooting Star” or “Class of 2013,” Mitski invites us to remember this album not as some unreachable indie sad girl’s lamentation but instead as a work of art, as her answer to the challenge of creating what feels true to her.

Even while she continues to outgrow her emotional landscape.

Contact KYLIE VOLAVONGSA at kylie.volavongsa@yale.edu .

Picking A Personality

// BY ANASTASIA IBRAHIM Last week I was in the shower, and I was thinking about what my personality should be. I was like, “Oh shit — I’m back at Yale,” you know. I can seem way cooler to the people back home. How should I dress? What should my facial expressions be in my mirror selfies? Instagram is my fucking oyster. Should I opt for those fartsy boys (not gassy — faux-artsy) who stand in the middle of an open field staring intensely at the ground like they’re watching fire ants perform Cirque du Soleil? Hair in front of their eyes, droopy head, all of it. Kinda like the “I put my whole life on the internet, and everyone knows I’m not like this in real life, but I am mysterious because I look like a serial killer.” That kinda thing.

I was also thinking about being, like, the really put together, “I’m super rich and live in a penthouse in New York City which is why I can afford to dye my hair the platinumest platinum blonde” girl. Also the “I wear matching Louis Vuitton outfits, sometimes Chanel, and I use an Hermes Birkin bag for a backpack. I don’t have a Canada Goose jacket that I wear in public — because I’m very environmentally conscious and my dad has press conferences with PETA — so I opt for a slick Burberry and take the Acela — the MetroNorth is disgusting — to NYC to have dinner at Cecconi’s Dumbo on a Thursday night — you don’t know what that is, but I do because I am rich and from New York City.” You know, the ones that don’t wait until Friday to go out because that’s what all the regular people do, and elitism’s holy day is any Thursday ever? Do you know what I’m talking about?

Like the “Thursday nights are a status symbol” folk. If you don’t have to work on Thursday nights and you somehow have time to take a train to NYC to go to Cecconi’s Dumbo, you play an elevated game. That kind of beat.

Another one I ran through my head is, like, the Yale University schoolgirl before Yale University let in schoolgirls, you know? Like the thick high socks, the round

The remaining impression leaves listeners wondering how Mitski will re-enter the musical world and speak with the burden of this realization. The listeners too are burdened with a sense of guilt as they realize that they are tied to the knife cutting away at the artist.

Still, Mitski extends her hand and pulls you in anyway with the introduction of “Valentine, Texas.” Its abrupt swell of strings, accompanied by an uncertain cymbal in 6/8 time reveals a sense of apprehension, just after Mitski asks in a ghostly echo, “Who will I become tonight?” The ensuing storm of sound, with strong gushes of piano and its ascending scales, gives a feeling of hope for the album and this new stage of Mitski’s art — even if her voice remains heavy and almost lethargic against the current. It is a calculated show of weariness that shows how far Mitski’s come from her days of pop-song feelings, the effort it now takes to conjure a raw, seemingly authentic self.

The overt feelings of reluctance and worry melt away with “Stay Soft,” an upbeat track featuring cowbells and a bouncy disco bassline that call back to the sound of her previous album “Be the Cowboy.” Its lyrics are more tongue-incheek as Mitski calls herself a “sex god,” singing also about “opening up” and naturally hardening after getting beaten. As fun as this is, the wordplay doesn’t particularly add much to a very commercial-sounding pop song. While “Working for the Knife” and “Valentine, Texas” uniquely explore Mitski’s current position as an artist, “Stay Soft”

Harry Potter glasses, the plaid skirts, the button-downs. Like Yale in the 50s when it was all male. The hot girl in the men’s club, sitting under the stained-glass windows reading Plato at 10 p.m. and shooting the shit with the white humor magazine trust fund boys who are all secretly conservative at 1 a.m. on production nights. That one.

I also thought about being the outdoorsy granola girl, but I went outside once this semester and it was 11 degrees, so I never went back out again.

Another one I briefly considered was the edgy writer chic chick. You know, like the one that gets published in the New York Times at 14 years old and becomes the most feared film critic in America at 21 and wears like a weird 2-inch pump heel as if to say you could never brand me a whore but I will stomp you to the ground? You know those?

They sport the New Yorker tote bag and stuff. But I realized that would never work out for me when I got a B on a humor essay that the professor claims “everyone gets an A or A- on since it’s the first one.” I also don’t want to pay the $6 for a membership with the New Yorker. So, that means no tote bag for me. Also, this writer lady is perpetually stressed out which results in her being hard-nosed with everyone.

She takes no shit. I, on the other hand, take all the shit. Your dog could pee on my 2-inch pump I’m-not-a-whore shoes, and I’d apologize to you. I am perpetually apologizing. Apparently it really bothered my first-year roommate that I said sorry so much, so she made me pay her one cent for every apology, and by the end of the month, I had paid her $5. We struck this deal on Feb.15.

Anyways, that’s all to say, these three bozo fuckers at SNL stole my personality idea. After I got out of my shower last week, I started my nighttime ritual of watching 600 hours of Saturday Night Live so that I hate myself in the morning, and I found ‘Please Don’t Destroy — New Person-

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// SOPHIE HENRY alities’ by Ben, Martin and John — please take a wild guess at the racial composition of this group.

And they decided to experiment with new personalities on national television — to ensure I couldn’t write a piece about personalities for my college newspaper without getting sued in the circuit court for copyright infringement, fraud and my outstanding warrant for accidentally parking in the handicap spot at Rite Aid — ripped off of my original process that took place in the shower. Like where do you think they got the idea for the guy that lost all his research? That is lit-

erally my father all the time.

Between the ages of six and 12, I got accused 13 times of stealing his groundbreaking biostatistics research. Between 13 and 18, it was 57 times. Not for ripping off his ideas or anything — he knew I couldn’t do basic algebra — but somehow misplacing the papers that he intentionally placed so high that they were only accessible with a professional construction crane. The raised eyebrows personality? That is every aunt in my extended family ever.

And once I turn 40, it will be me too. Instead of doing arranged marriages, in my culture, we

do coerced eyebrow tattooings because we’re dramatic and want to outdo each other by looking like clowns at the yearly wedding ceremony where the next set of cousins are marrying each other.

Essentially, if I tried to pick a personality, people would think I’m unoriginal and stealing an SNL sketch idea. So I ended up sticking with my default — no personality. At least that’s what my mom said about me when she started following me on Instagram this year.

Contact ANASTASIA IBRAHIM at anastasia.ibrahim@yale.edu .

PAGE B4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND SPRING

CLEANING

WHEN ROMANCES GET MESSY Dear Sex on The Weekend, I’ve somehow found myself inside and inbetween multiple partners, ranging from once-a-month hookups to genuine romanic engagements. How do I widdle down my options???

-TooSexedUp So you avoided the so-called “cuffing season” and went with the complete opposite. I appreciate the rebellion! Monogamy is a rigid establishment that not everyone is ready for. Let’s be real, we’re college students.

We don’t need someone to take home and show our parents.

What we’re looking for is someone to keep us company when the party’s over.

But as numbers rise, it can get overwhelming. Sure, you’re not committed to anyone (I hope), but lines can easily be blurred.

You show up to the wrong apartment and make an only child joke when the person you’re about to share a pillow (and much more) with has four siblings. God forbid, you mistakenly yell out the wrong name during sex. If this mixing-and-matching of details

hasn’t happened yet, it will. And it’ll be awkward.

I’ll admit, I’ve found myself in this sticky situation before.

During the winter of my first year at Yale, in the midst of meeting loads of new people and figuring out my type, I got caught between a YSIGxSigNu bro, a polisci section asshole, and an ethereal bisexual. Each of them served their own purpose. I got into High Street parties consistently; I learned what mansplaining was; and I discovered that if I find rose quartz under my pillow, it’s because the universe wants me to fall in love! Despite these obvious benefits of “playing the game,” my involvement began to eat me alive. In the bad way. And so, as the sun began to peek through the clouds once again, I made my decision.

It was time for some spring cleaning.

Like the famous cleansing-connoisseur Marie Kondo says, we must throw away anything that does not spark joy. It’s okay if you have a hard time with this. I also can’t detach my sentimentality

// SOPHIE HENRY

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from things that need to be thrown away–I find myself justifying keeping things like my my full set of baby teeth. Throwing things out signifies the end of an era. It connotes moving on from the sweet indulgence of memories. It implies growth. In the case of romantic relations, that’s exactly what we need.

Spring is the season of reevaluation. It gives us time to reflect on why we bought certain items, detach ourselves from them, and decide how to move forward. Need I explain the connection to our love-lives? Whether a partner is a milk-drinker, enjoys the movie “Wolf of Wall Street,” or prefers a vacuum-seal suck to a kiss, reassessment is necessary. However, there are always going to be some redeeming qualities to consider; otherwise, you would not have been hooking up in the first place.

This complicates decisions. And so, we revert to the classic game of choice: Fuck, Marry, Kill. Well, not exactly. In this case, we’ll still group people into three categories, just with slightly different (and more socially acceptable) names: one pile to keep, one to alter, and one to discard. While downsizing

is typically an absolute negative in romantic settings, it holds legitimate value in this case. Here’s how to sort: 1. The keep pile. This is reserved for the best of the best. It’s fine if no one fits into this category at this moment; it takes time to find the right one. The keep pile requires someone to be empathetic, generous, and has never failed to make you orgasm. It’s a tough job to land yourself here! If someone checks all these boxes, you’ve found a real winner. However, you also need to ask yourself if you’re ready for the commitment this pile implies. If things begin to wither before next spring, would they still be a keeper?

2. The alter pile. This is for the people you find defending to your friends: “They can change!!! I swear!!!” Unlikely, but it does happen! Maybe they’re really vanilla, but you’re into the whole “training” thing. Maybe they exclusively reach out to you at 2am, but you’re 100% positive it’s only because they’ve been busy.

By any means, you’re sure their flaws are just a fluke. Give them a chance! *Econ, CS, and Philos-

ophy majors (and any other lost causes) are automatically ineligible from this pile.

3. The discard pile. This is what spring cleaning is all about. It is the time to take stock of the person you are, redefine expectations, and work towards a neater future by letting things go. To be completely honest, this pile is where most people belong. Nobody is worth your time if they are helplessly into League of Legends, still keep Snapchat streaks, or unironically play table tennis. And, more often than not, that’s the demographic we’re talking about. Yale students—at their core—are walking red flags.

Ultimately, spring cleaning is not just about getting rid of clutter. It’s an excuse to ask yourself which relationships you love and why, what you can salvage, and what isn’t worth the stress. But before you say your last goodbyes, feel free to enjoy one last “hurrah!” Bang them all. Release your inhibitions. Let your winter woes take you to places your spring self will be ashamed to go. Then, time to get to work.