T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 116 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY SUNNY
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CROSS CAMPUS Welcome. The University
announced on Monday the names of the 16 Yale World Fellows for 2012. This year’s class is the program’s 11th, bringing the total number of World Fellows to 221, representing 79 countries. China, India, Morocco, Switzerland, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Chile, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Argentina are all represented in this year’s class.
CHOCOLATE NO LONGER A GUILTY PLEASURE?
POLICING
CONNECTICUT
W. TENNIS
NHPD may see help from expansion of Downtown Ambassadors
STATE RANKED BEST IN NATION FOR WORKING WOMEN
Yale expects to move back into top 25 after rolling past Rutgers
PAGES 6-7 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 5 CITY
PAGE 12 SPORTS
Prof school gifts underway GRAPH CLASS GIFT DONATION AMOUNTS BY SCHOOL, YEAR $250000
Yale School Management School ofofManagement
Yale School YaleDivinity Drama School
Yale School YaleLaw Law School
Yale YaleCollege College
$200000
BY GAVAN GIDEON STAFF REPORTER
$150000
time when their futures are still somewhat uncertain and their earnings are nowhere near what their peak will be,” said Joel Getz, SOM senior associate dean for development and alumni relations. “It’s hopefully the beginning of 50 or more gifts that these people will be giving.” Every member of the SOM class of 2011 donated to the school, raising a total of $225,393. The Divinity School raised $10,356 with 72 percent student
Roughly 100 faculty gathered Thursday to discuss a March report on how Yale’s faculty resources are allocated. University President Richard Levin said professors at the meeting were “unanimously receptive” to the recommendations in the report and expressed support for their implementation by the Provost’s Office. He said faculty spent much of the 90-minute meeting discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the report’s proposal for tenure ratio guidelines, which are intended to help control a rising ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty at the University. “The faculty present asked many penetrating questions and had numerous helpful observations,” Provost Peter Salovey, who released the report last month and chaired Thursday’s meeting, said in a Monday email. “Overall, there was strong support for the report’s recommendations.” In the report, a committee chaired by economics professor William Nordhaus ’63 examines the processes by which faculty positions are allocated to departments and appointments are made. As part of its discussion,
SEE CLASS GIFTS PAGE 4
SEE REPORT PAGE 8
Unwelcome. In a six-day
nationwide sweep of illegal immigrants that ended Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 145 New England residents, including one in New Haven. The 32 Connecticut arrests were part of 3,100 arrests ICE has made since last Wednesday.
Human rights. A Yale postdoc
and her partner are among five couples who filed suit on Monday to protest the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s provision preventing gay and lesbian citizens from sponsoring their partners for green cards. Lucy Truman, a native of the United Kingdom and Yale postdoc, married her American partner, Kelli Ryan, in Connecticut in 2010.
A reprieve. Students in Prof.
William Honeychurch’s “Great Hoaxes and Fantasies in Archaeology” course received an email on Monday reminding them that, despite a sudden surge in questions, a paper originally slated for this week is not due until April 12, so students can “chill.”
Our very own Lebron? An article published in the Harvard Crimson declared Yale’s football team the Miami Heat of the Ivy League. The article compares former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt ’12 to Heat star Lebron James. Call for submissions.
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill is asking college students in Connecticut to submit videos explaining why people should vote. Log onto www.sots.ct.gov for more info.
America’s Next Top Professor.
Paul Bracken, a professor of management and political science at the School of Management, and Karen von Kunes, a senior lector in the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department, made the a list of the nation’s 300 top professors published today by The Princeton Review. “The Best 300 Professors” selects professors based on reviews from RateMyProfessors.com.
Faculty budgeting report proceeds
$100000
$50000
$0
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012 SOURCE: YALE UNIVERSITY
Class gift campaigns are in their initial stages at Yale’s professional schools. Yale College’s senior class gift broke a participation record this year, though the total amount raised dropped from 2011. BY DANIEL SISGOREO STAFF REPORTER Though Yale College’s senior class gift campaign ended in late February, similar campaigns at the University’s professional schools are only beginning, and will last until Commencement. Yale College’s class of 2012 beat the class gift participation record for the fourth consecutive year by collecting donations from 97.5 percent of students to raise more than $31,000. While Yale College’s class gift campaigns
have seen high student participation in recent years, student involvement in campaigns at other Yale schools has historically varied, with some receiving 100 percent participation and others struggling to maintain 60 percent. Development administrators and student coordinators of gift campaigns said the ultimate goal of the class gifts is to encourage students to think about donating before they leave the University. “You want the classmates … to make gifts that they feel comfortable with at a
YCC expands summer storage program BY MADELINE MCMAHON STAFF REPORTER The Yale College Council plans to expand its summer storage program in light of tighter summer storage regulations announced last fall. In a pilot program last year, the YCC brought a trailer to campus and subsidized the cost of storing two boxes, one large item and one small item per student. Through a collaboration between YCC and the Council of Masters, this spring students will be able to drop off one couch and six boxes in three trailers parked in Lot 51, which is behind Hendrie Hall. YCC members leading the initiative and Frank Keil, chair of the Council of Masters, said the expansion comes in response to a revision of the Undergraduate Regulations that allowed students to store only one couch and one chair per student in suites, though the YCC has since worked to amend the rules to include one lamp and one bookshelf per student. “Summer storage is a concern that
is fairly universal to students, and it’s an especially important issue to address now, as the Council of Masters is restricting summer storage more and more,” Nathan Kohrman ’15, a YCC member who helped coordinate the initiative. During the renovations of many residential colleges, Keil said, the amount of storage space in the residential colleges has been significantly reduced. Ezra Stiles is not providing any additional storage space for its students, Kohrman said. As the YCC began looking to expand last year’s pilot program, The Council of Masters proposed that the YCC use the storage company Collegeboxes, which is cheaper than most alternative options in New Haven, Kohrman said. However, the YCC found that it would be cheaper to rent trailers and hire professional movers from a New Haven moving company, he said. Students will pay $12.50 per box and $35 per couch, and the rest of the cost will YCC
SEE STORAGE PAGE 4
The YCC plans to expand its summer storage program in light of new storage restrictions.
Support. Glowsticks and
balloons in hand, members of the Yale community braved the wind on Cross Campus Thursday night to support autism awareness.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1967 C. Mahlon Kline, the donor behind Yale’s science center, dies at age 86. Submit tips to Cross Campus
crosscampus@yaledailynews.com
ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com
Aldermen give ex-offenders boost BY CASEY SUMNER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Thanks to a unanimous vote by the Board of Aldermen Monday night, it will soon be easier for ex-offenders to obtain street vendor licenses from the city. Known as the Collateral Consequences Ordinance, the legislation made the rules for obtaining city permits more
consistent with the procedures outlined in the state’s 2009’s “Ban the Box” law, which placed tighter restrictions on the ways in which a criminal background check can be used in employment decisions. Proponents say the ordinance will help combat employment discrimination and recidivism in New Haven. “This complements recent efforts to help those with pre-
vious criminal convictions to reenter the community,” said Ward 9 Alderwoman Jessica Holmes, the chair of the Board’s legislation committee. “Instead of immediate disqualification, applicants will be considered on a case-bycase basis. It’s extra important to those who face other barriers to gainful employment.” Amy Meek LAW ’09, coordinator of the New Haven Prison
Re-entry Initiative, said the ordinance attempts to address the issue of the collateral consequences of criminal convictions — a broad array of legal penalties that result from a conviction but are not part of the sentence for the crime — which often hinder employment and housing searches. Harold Williams, who was denied a vending permit three times after being released
from prison in 2009, was also present at the meeting. He expressed frustration with the lack of options available to many people in his situation. “A lot of people need a second chance, and they often don’t know where they’re going to get one,” he said. “After waiting for this, to get it is overwhelming.” SEE EX-OFFENDERS PAGE 8
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “So disappointed to be a member of the class of 2012 right now.” yaledailynews.com/opinion
GUEST COLUMNIST HARRISON REED
S
tragedy that demands stronger government justice simultaneously obliterates our trust in it. One night in Sanford perfectly highlighted both the destructive stupidity of vigilante justice and the gross incompetency of established local law enforcement. Any agency can make a mistake, but failing to correct this botched investigation hints at a systemic problem. Now, racial tensions that barely existed in Sanford threaten to boil over. Angry — but mostly peaceful — crowds fill the streets from central Florida to Washington, D.C. The Black Panthers, the new posterchildren for irony, have placed a bounty on Zimmerman’s head. The Sanford police would love to say “stand down, citizens, we have this under control,” but these days the department would be hard-pressed to find a believer. This is how a city that once celebrated its diversity will, in the eyes of the nation, forever be stained by the filth of racism and injustice. Whether he is racist or not, George Zimmerman is only one man in a city of tens of thousands. Taken in isolation, he is an anomaly. However, the Sanford Police Department and the government that runs it have betrayed the trust of their citizens and forever sullied their names. If Zimmerman is a bad apple, the Sanford Police Department is a rotten tree. So where do mourning friends and family turn? The unauthorized violence that has torn lives apart now, ironically, seems more tempting than ever. The media and national discussion will continue to focus on the most titillating aspects of the story. They will debate Zimmerman’s ethnicity and the role of race in his motives that night. They will dissect Martin’s character and dispute the fairness of public perception. TVs will tune in, newspapers will sell and blogs will get millions of hits. Someone will get a book deal. But the kinetic emotion flowing across the country may achieve something else. Maybe, people won’t have to choose between uncontrolled street justice and laughable law enforcement. Maybe a third option will emerge: fair and effective policing. True, nothing the police could have done would have brought Martin back to life. Tragedy will always happen. But the least we can do is hold back the added insult of injustice. HARRISON REED is a secondyear student in the Yale Physician Associate Program.
A global education W
hen I arrived at Yale from India in the fall of 1982, I felt distinctly unprepared. I had gone to a first rate, rigorous high school in Mumbai but, like many entering freshmen, I found that Yale operated at a different level. In one sense, though, I had an advantage. I had studied, in depth, a whole different civilization, and that background in Indian history, politics and culture gave me a broader context in which to place my Yale education. If Yale’s collaboration with the National University of Singapore succeeds, it will create on a much grander and more sophisticated scale a global education, a unique blend of East and West, which would be a vital asset in an increasingly connected world. Criticisms of the Yale-NUS venture have centered on Singapore’s politics. This has obscured the fact that Yale-NUS is, above all, a pioneering educational experiment. Yale and NUS hope to create a new model for liberal arts education in Asia — with lessons for all of us all over the world. Imagine a curriculum in which students read Aristotle but also Confucius, who was his contemporary, and ask whether culture or politics explains each thinker’s concerns. Imagine studying the rule of Charles V, the Hapsburg monarch, but then comparing him to Akbar, who ruled more peo-
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ple in India contemporaneously. Imagine an introduction to science that focused on solving problems rather than memorizing a body of material. The goal of the project is to create a liberal arts curriculum that spans Western, Asian and other traditions, that trains rigorously in science and social science and that will, as a result, provide inspiration for Asia’s burgeoning universities and societies. A few years ago, the previous Minister of Education of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who played a key role in the proposal to bring the liberal arts to his country, compared the Singaporean and American systems: “We both have meritocracies. Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. We know how to train people to take exams. You know how to use people’s talents to the fullest. Both are important, but there are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well — like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority.” This is the impressive and appropriate source of the Singaporean government’s interest in liberal arts education. And Yale, more than any other institution I know, has “a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom.” That is the kind of cul-
ture that Yale hopes to see develop on the Singapore campus. Many top Singaporean and other Asian students already come to the United States to get this kind of education, but ultimately, for critical pedagogy of this type to spread throughout Asia, there need to be functioning models of high-quality, engaged and creative teaching in Asia itself. That is what Yale-NUS College will provide — a model for conducting residential liberal arts education in Asia. In talking with the faculty and administrators who have been involved in planning, I have been impressed with three facets of the College: the commitment to critical and creative thinking, the efforts to link residential life ambitiously to the educational missions of the college and the effort to reinvigorate traditional liberal arts curricula for the needs of contemporary students in Asia. By testing our ideas in a very different context, however, we will surely learn things that will be helpful in enhancing the educational experience at Yale. Singapore is not a liberal democracy, though it is not so different from many Western democracies at earlier stages of development. It is not the caricature one sometimes reads about. Singapore is open to the world, embraces free markets and is routinely ranked as one of the least corrupt countries
in the world. It has also become more open over the last ten years. In fact, it is to enhance and enrich this process that Singapore has invited Yale to help create a liberal arts college. There will be differences in perspectives among students and faculty, foreigners and locals, but that makes it an ideal place to engage with issues of democracy and liberalism. I can imagine a fascinating seminar on democracy that would be much feistier in Singapore than at Yale precisely because there will be those who take positions quite critical of what is received wisdom in the West. Singapore has a great deal to learn from America, and NUS has a great deal to learn from Yale. That’s why they have engaged in this collaboration with us. But it is a form of parochialism bordering on chauvinism — on the part of supposedly liberal and openminded intellectuals — not to see that we too, in America and at Yale, can learn something from Singapore. In fact, together, Yale and the National University of Singapore can teach the world a new way to think about education in a globalized world. FAREED ZAKARIA is a 1986 graduate of Berkeley College, the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, editor-atlarge of Time magazine and a successor trustee of the Yale Corporation.
Admissions and empty pride T
he front page of last Friday’s News trumpeted “Admit rate hits all-time low.” A year ago, the News’ front-page headline blared “Class of 2015 admit rate lowest ever.” For most Yalies, these are not mere statements of fact; these are badges of pride. And therein lies the problem. Yale, like its peer institutions, has seen acceptance rates steadily decline in the past few decades. No doubt this is due to both increasing population and a tremendous easing of the application process— inner city recruiting, an online process and the common application. And although birth rates hit their peak in 1990, heavy recruiting has resulted in continued increases in the number of applications Yale receives. All of this is well and good. The fact that Yale is now more accessible to a broader swath of the population indicates that we are getting ever closer to the meritocratic ideal that governs American college admissions. But there is a problem with the glee that often accompanies our super-selectivity. As my friends and I flipped
through the News at breakfast last week, I heard not an insignificant number of relieved sighs: “Whew! YISHAI We got back SCHWARTZ under Columbia! Last year The Gadfly was embarrassing.” Pride in the unprecedented accessibility of our application system is warranted, but smug satisfaction with our own exclusivity is as unattractive as it is unhealthy. There is no doubt that exclusivity is an important part of what makes Yale a spectacular university. The buildings and resources are lovely, but most of us — faculty and students — come here because we want to be surrounded by peers who are among the most talented of our generation. Certainly, our acceptance rates are an important indicator — and guardian — of that standard. But there is something twisted about measuring our worth by the number of people rejected. The
very fact that there are hundreds of students who are accepted and rejected by different schools of comparable academic caliber and admissions rates testifies to the fact that college admissions at many of these schools is largely a crapshoot. So measuring institutions’ worth by the miniscule drops in admissions rates simply seems infantile. Five months ago, I used my space here to express distaste with Harvard’s “We are the 6%” t-shirt for the Harvard-Yale game. It was pathetic when Harvard students trumpeted their admissions statistics then, and it is equally pathetic that we follow suit now. Selectivity is not a value in and of itself; it is merely a reflection of a wide array of gifts that will hopefully be put to use for the advancement of knowledge and the bettering of the world. So what if the News chose to trumpet the talents of those accepted rather than the number rejected? Of course, the basic acceptance rate is a nice, clean, easy statistic, but what if we emphasized the number of artists, athletes or musicians in the incoming class — or even the
weekly hours they devoted to service or their SAT scores? Any of these would at least reflect something substantive and positive. We are not here to pat ourselves on the back for beating out the Joneses. It is precisely the pretentiousness of trumpeted admissions statistics that provides the context for Rick Santorum’s dismissal of college snobbery. A college community that sees the diminishing percentage of admitted students and congratulates itself on its own greatness has forgotten its purpose. Santorum is right; there is nothing wrong with attending a trade-school or becoming a carpenter or a plumber. Most of us will not go into those sorts of professions, but we if we derive any superiority from that fact, then we deserve all of Santorum’s vitriol. Our self-worth should have nothing to do with those the 93.2 percent who don’t enter Yale’s gates, but with what we build with what we’ve been given. YISHAI SCHWARTZ is a junior in Branford College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at yishai.schwartz@yale.edu .
Next year in space
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ON ‘BARBARA WALTERS TO SPEAK AT CLASS DAY’
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T FA R E E D Z A K A R I A
The Sanford I know
anford, Fla., is a part of me. My hometown shaped me as much as my mother’s guidance and my father’s genes. Like any city with enough history, Sanford has its flaws. It has more poverty and crime than most of the bordering Orlando suburbs, and the high school dropout rates are embarrassing. But Sanford taught me to accept people. It gave me friends of every color, race and income level. It molded the attitude I carried out of Florida and into my academic career at Yale. My best friend once said: “Sanford is the only place where any Ivy Leaguer has a beer with a convicted felon.” Unfortunately, Sanford now stands as an icon of prejudice and discrimination. With the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, my hometown is ground zero for a debate that many hoped was no longer necessary. The city that taught me race doesn’t matter has proven to many Americans that it still does. Our founding fathers cherished a fair court and a free press, but I doubt they wanted to merge the two. So let’s avoid a trial by the media and focus on what we know: George Zimmerman initiated an altercation with Trayvon Martin during which Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed teen. Zimmerman was a hypervigilant citizen with a concealed weapon and a self-assigned mission to stop crime in his community. The Sanford police did not charge Zimmerman with any crime, nor did they completely investigate the event before absolving him. I don’t want to guess Zimmerman’s views on different races. I’ve never met the guy. But it is clear that he felt like his community was not well enough protected by the established law enforcement system, specifically the Sanford Police Department. That perception of inadequacy may have, in part, motivated him the night he shot Martin. The same police failures may have also ensured his freedom. Supporters of Trayvon Martin should condemn vigilante justice, especially cowboy tactics that have armed men chasing their fellow civilians at night for little or no reason. They should argue that no one can take the law into his own hands and that doing so will, more often than not, result in tragedy. They should implore others to have patience and allow the justice system to do its work. They should suggest that Trayvon’s death illustrates the need for less street justice and more trust in police investigators. But they would be wrong. The
‘BRANFOIL’
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his Friday, the world’s Jews begin Passover, the perennially relevant celebration of exodus from Egyptian bondage. Every year provides an array of potential connections, and this season of protests and immolations seems particularly rife with resonance. But rather than addressing these divisive concerns, I’m interested in the exodus itself — the search for promised land. From the narrative of a people risen up from slavery to the symbolic egg and herbs on the Seder plate to the eternal hope invoked in “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim” — “Next year in Jerusalem” — the holiday uses millennia-old rituals to inspire an ardent dedication to future arrival in a different place. Desires to attain a different world have fueled faiths and fantasies, metaphysical exploration and scientific quests. They have sent monks to hermetic cells and oceanographers to abyssal trenches. They account for the imperial scramble to the North and South Poles and the Space Race, both of which achieved far more symbolic importance than practical benefits. Most recently, last week wit-
nessed the results of a groundbreaking astronomical survey. An international team of astronomers working SAM at an observaLASMAN tory in Chile announced that the numBeartrap ber of superEarths — planets one to 10 times the size of our own — in our galaxy is much higher than previously expected. Surveying 102 red dwarf stars, the researchers concluded that about 40 percent of these stars have roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone, that elusive sliver of space in which liquid water might exist on the surface. With about 160 billion red dwarves in our galaxy, the scientists’ results suggest that we are one of billions of planets that fall into this admittedly nonrigorous but still significant category. Around 100 of these super-Earths orbit less than 30 light-years away from us. Never mind that the furthest-
traveled man-made object in the universe, the Voyager 1 probe, won’t be crossing that distance for another 420,000 years — twice as long as the entire existence of the humanity thus far. And some scientists continue to invoke everything from evolutionary biology to the presence of Jupiter as proof of our planet’s uniqueness. But I wonder instead about the relationship between the search for new worlds and our convoluted relationship to our own. The desire for terra incognita has always indicated deep dissatisfaction with terra cognita and the proposal that the solution lies in moving on rather than improving our lot. That is why so much longing for the future manifests as a longing for no future, for the promise of end times that nearly every culture and religion, from Vikings to Mormons, has envisioned. As Roland Emmerich and New Age conspiracy theorists will tell you, our current year has long been a favorite countdown target. The arcane Mayan calendar provides the excuse; grim litanies of disaster, disease, climate change and war provide the justification. Despite compelling evidence that humans are more able and
willing to coexist peacefully than ever before in our history, we have an almost stunning apathy about the future. The word “sustainability” has been bandied about our public discourse for three decades, but at nearly every level, from the political to the economic to the environmental, our culture has come to reject long-term vision for immediate gain. We are increasingly commitmentshy, whether because we hold out hope or because we fear the vagaries of what is to come. This schizophrenic relationship to the future is nothing new. But erring so definitively toward a collective blindness to consequences is an unprecedented — and terrifying — solution. So on this year’s Passover, I plan to remind myself of an alternative approach: striving forward while reconciling myself to the imperfection of exile. In our lifetimes, it is unlikely that the world will either end or be superseded by an attractive extraterrestrial planet. We would do well to work with what we have. SAM LASMAN is a senior in Berkeley College. Contact him at samuel.lasman@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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PAGE THREE TODAY’S EVENTS TUESDAY, APRIL 3 11:00 AM “Endangered Alphabets.” Tim Brookes of the Endangered Alphabets Project will show examples of his endangered alphabet woodcarvings. Sterling Memorial Library (120 High St.), lecture hall. 6:00 PM “Wrap Your Wenzel!!” Want to win a free Wenzel and learn more about condoms, female condoms, dental dams and lubrication? Come to one of four mini-programs at 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. for a chance to win one of many free Wenzel vouchers through an interactive safer sex demonstration and sexpert trivia. Dwight Hall (67 High St.), common room.
CORRECTION MONDAY, APRIL 2
Due to an editing error, the graph in the article “Prospective Yalies unfazed by crime” was mislabeled. It should read “Crimes on campus per 1,000 students,” not “Crimes on campus per student.”
After shooting, three officers put on leave
The number of pistols new NYPD officers can choose between when they take their jobs. The three models are the SIG P226 DAO, the Smith & Wesson model 5946, and the Glock 19. All three models are 9mm service pistols.
Police may get help from ‘ambassadors’ BY JAMES LU STAFF REPORTER New Haven’s blue and yellowclad Downtown Ambassadors could soon help patrol neighborhoods throughout the city as part of a new crime-fighting idea discussed at a March 20 meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s public safety committee. Ward 7 Alderman Doug Hausladen ’04, who pitched the idea, said adding “ambassadors” — non-sworn individuals charged with assisting locals and tourists — could provide a cost-effective means of increasing patrols and community engagement in the policing districts beyond downtown. While Hausladen, who sits on the public safety and finance committees, has not formally proposed the measure to the Board, business owners said they would welcome the expansion of the ambassador program. Other city officials, however, said the idea should be scrutinized further before it is implemented. “What everybody wants is the ability to walk up to an officer and interact with them as a human, and so the shorthand for that is they want walking beats, which are very expensive,” Hausladen said. “But if we deploy our ambassadors on a neighborhood level, and give them appropriate training and radios to get in touch with the police dispatch, we’ll have
another way of reaching out and protecting the community at much lower cost.” Currently the Town Green Special Services District hires 15 Downtown Ambassadors. The ambassadors secure the city center and provide “hospitality and safety” services, said Town Green Special Services District head Win Davis. Together, the ambassadors and New Haven Police Department officers on the downtown walking beat — rolled out in December under the supervision of district manager Lt. Rebecca Sweeney — have provided a “very visible” presence in the area, Hausladen said.
What everybody wants is the ability to walk up to an officer and interact with them as a human. DOUG HAUSLADEN ’04 Ward 7 Alderman On March 8, the Chapel West Special Services District contracted to have ambassadors farther west on Chapel Street six days a week, he added. By expanding the program out to the city’s neighborhoods beyond the downtown area and equipping the ambassadors with
radios connected to the police department, Hausladen said the police could enhance its relationship with the community at a relatively low cost. The Downtown Ambassadors are currently paid a starting wage of $9.75 an hour, Davis said. Hausladen said he hoped the expansion would be considered alongside Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s budget proposals for additional police funding. In his March 1 budget proposal, DeStefano asked for an extra $2.7 million in the city’s budget for the next fiscal year to finance NHPD Chief Dean Esserman’s strategic plan for the department — which calls for 40 walking beats throughout the city’s neighborhoods, fully staffs car patrols and increases personnel numbers — as he seeks to revive community policing in the Elm City. Hausladen and Ward 29 Alderman Brian Wingate, chair of the Board’s public safety committee, said they were still not entirely sure where the money for DeStefano’s proposed police budget would come from. The initial expansion to 467 officers is already budgeted by the city, while DeStefano said the addition of 30 officers over the next three years would be possible thanks to the city’s projected $7.5 million increase in property tax revenue and other savings in administrative expenses. Wingate said he would also
have to “take a very close look at” Hausladen’s idea to ensure that it balances cost-savings with public safety. “I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t have some reservations about the idea,” Wingate said, explaining that ambassadors in the city’s neighborhoods might encounter “safety issues.” Six downtown business owners interviewed Monday said they believe the ambassadors play a useful role in the area and that expanding their presence to other neighborhoods would help to improve public safety throughout the city. “Even though the ambassadors don’t really have the authority to do anything like the police do, it’s good to have another set of eyes,” said Rob Muller, the owner of Merwin’s Art Shop on Chapel Street. “I’m not sure what it would cost to [deploy the ambassadors around the city], but it’s good to have a foot presence on the ground, and it makes a big difference to give and take with the community.” While 20 NHPD officers are currently on walking beats citywide, that number will double to 40 by the end of the year under the strategic plan Esserman announced late last month. Diana Li contributed reporting. Contact JAMES LU at james.q.lu@yale.edu .
Clyburn urges action on civil rights
JAMES LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The NHPD put three officers on leave after an off-duty shooting incident. BY JAMES LU STAFF REPORTER Three New Haven Police Department officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an off-duty shooting incident outside the State Street bar Christopher Martin’s Sunday morning. NHPD Chief Dean Esserman said at a Sunday evening press conference that he asked the three officers to surrender their guns, badges and police identification Sunday afternoon after the department launched an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident. “No one was shot at, no one was hit, no property was damaged,” Esserman said. “The actions of the few do not speak for the many. The New Haven Police Department holds itself accountable.”
The actions of the few do not speak for the many. The New Haven Police Department holds itself accountable. DEAN ESSERMAN Chief, New Haven Police Department Officers responded to a report of gunshots around State and Pearl streets at 2:27 a.m. Sunday and found evidence of gunfire, said City Hall spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton ’04, who is serving as acting police spokesperson in David Hartman’s absence. After the gunmen were determined to be off-duty officers, supervisors, assistant chiefs and Internal Affairs agents were notified and took over the investigation, Benton said. Sunday evening, Esser-
man said the investigation had been going “all day” and was expected to continue “all day” Monday. While Esserman declined to give details about the incident, the New Haven Register reported that two officers, Charles Kim and Larry Burns, fired their guns into the air while the third officer did not fire his gun. Esserman told the Register he did not believe Sunday’s undermined his efforts to revive community policing in the Elm City. Since he took office in November, Esserman has embarked upon an ambitious effort to revive community policing in New Haven, implementing a series of changes that emphasize improving community-police relations such as the reintroduction of walking beats in the city’s 10 policing districts. Ward 29 Alderman Brian Wingate, who chairs the Board of Aldermen’s public safety committee said “it’s all accusations right now” and declined to comment on the off-duty shooting incident until the NHPD releases more information. If anything, he said, the NHPD has demonstrated its professionalism and accountability throughout the past few days in its response to the incident. “What I can say is that the chief has moved swiftly,” Wingate said. “And if the accusations are true, I’m confident [Esserman] will deal with the situation as it should be dealt with, because that’s the sort of chief I am confident he is.” Esserman said he intends to “move rapidly” and expects to be “making some decisions this week” in response to the incident. Contact JAMES LU at james.q.lu@yale.edu .
JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
At a Branford College Master’s Tea, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn urged activists to engage in respectful civic discourse as they pursue reform. BY JIMMITTI TEYSIR CONTRIBUTING REPORTER James Clyburn, the thirdranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, told a crowd of roughly 30 students Monday afternoon that meaningful political reform requires dedication and persistence. At the Branford College Master’s Tea, co-sponsored by the Yale College Democrats and the Black Students Alliance at Yale, Clyburn discussed how his childhood in Sumter, South Carolina and his first-hand experiences with civil rights movements motivated him to enter politics. In pushing for social change, he said it is important to discuss issues with others respectfully and “endear yourself to people.” When Clyburn was 10 years old, he said he experienced one of the first waves of desegregation that occurred in South Carolina’s public school system.
Two years later, he became president of a local youth chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. During his time as a student at South Carolina State University, he said he was arrested along with hundreds of fellow students for his role in a civil rights demonstration. During his incarceration, a woman who also participated in the sit-in handed him half of a hamburger, and one year later, he said he “repaid her by marrying her.” Clyburn said through his interactions with his wife, Emily, he learned that all people come from different backgrounds and thus approach issues differently, adding that this mind-set has shaped his work in politics. “No two people will have the same exact two experiences,” Clyburn said, “and therefore no two people will see the world the same way.” In the House of Representatives, Clyburn has addressed
issues such as healthcare reformation and funding for higher education. Clyburn said it is unrealistic to expect that lawmakers can find an effective solution to a significant issue at the first attempt. He pointed out that the current civil rights laws did not come from the first Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he said only accounted for discrimination by employers in the public sector. Instead, it took four distinct bills over the course of eight years to add other measures, such as ensuring voting rights for all citizens. “If you think you’re going to do it all in one big scoop, it’s not going to happen,” he said, adding that policy makers accept that they will never achieve a “perfect” solution to any problem. Zak Newman ’13, the president of the Yale College Democrats, said he appreciated that Clyburn recognized that civil rights can still be strengthened
and is actively working to stop racial profiling. Several other attendees interviewed said they were encouraged by Clyburn’s optimistic outlook. Sterling Johnson ’15 said he appreciated that Clyburn is able to garner funding for projects in his district, adding that he was able to effectively connect with the college students in the audience. But Emily Briskin ’15 said she wished Clyburn had talked more about his stances on specific issues. “I’m kind of disappointed,” she said. “I wanted to his hear his views on the syringe exchange program and to hear more of an adamant stance on Congress’s repeal of the ban on federal funding for syringes.” Clyburn was first elected to represent South Carolina’s sixth congressional district in 1993. Contact JIMMITTI TEYSIR at jimmitti.teysir@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT Summer storage program expands COLLEGE SUMMER STORAGE PER STUDENT BERKELEY COLLEGE
Six boxes. BRANFORD COLLEGE
Five boxes. CALHOUN COLLEGE
Four boxes. DAVENPORT COLLEGE Three boxes. TIMOTHY DWIGHT COLLEGE
Six boxes. JONATHAN EDWARDS COLLEGE YCC
After storage regulations were tightened this year, the Yale College Council plans to expand its summer storage program. STORAGE FROM PAGE 1 be covered by the YCC, he said, adding that the trailers will be stored on West Campus over the summer. Deborah Bellmore, the executive assistant to the Council of Masters who helped coordinate the effort, said students will be able on May 5 to drop off their belongings in the trailers, which hold around 750 boxes, and will collect their items on Aug. 25. Dan Stein ’14, who is in charge of YCC’s summer storage initiatives, said the program is based on one piloted at Princeton University. Stein is a staff reporter for the News. Though the Council of Masters has helped coordinate the moving and trailer services, it has not provided any financial support, Keil said.
YCC Vice President Omar Njie ’13 said he does not think the YCC will able to subsidize the entire project every year, so he hopes to be able find institutional support, perhaps from the Office of Sustainability. Nabila Chitalwala ’14 said she would consider using the YCC’s expanded summer storage program, but she currently stores her belongings at a family friend’s house nearby New Haven for free. Silliman College student Martin Shapiro ’14 said because his college allows students to store up to six boxes, he does not need any extra space. Last year’s YCC summer storage program was a winner of the YCC’s annual 10k Initiative. Contact MADELINE MCMAHON at madeline.mcmahon@yale.edu .
All storage handled off-site. MORSE COLLEGE
Two boxes. PIERSON COLLEGE
Two boxes. SAYBROOK COLLEGE
Six boxes, a TV and two valuable items. SILLIMAN COLLEGE
Six boxes. EZRA STILES COLLEGE
Zero boxes TRUMBULL COLLEGE
Three boxes in regular storage and one in valuable storage.
“You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.” GEORGE W. BUSH FORMER PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES
Gifts vary at prof schools CLASS GIFTS FROM PAGE 1 participation, while the Law School brought in $16,143 from 80 percent of last year’s graduating class. Gail Briggs, director of alumni relations at the Divinity School, said she thought the differences in participation and funds raised could be attributed to variability in students’ expected postgraduation income. “We’re creating different populations of people,” Briggs said. “Under a half of our graduates go into some sort of parish ministry so that plays some part in the size of the gifts and the means of people.” Though professional school students donate to class gift campaigns prior to beginning their professional careers, Briggs said students in some schools have saved money from internships or previous work experience, which allows them to donate. Even so, the professional schools are working to raise participation and increase donations from graduating classes. Briggs said part of the challenge in structuring a successful campaign is finding student leaders who can mobilize the student body. Julie Duncan LAW ’12, who is co-chairing this year’s Law School class gift campaign, said she feels many graduate and professional school students could be averse to donating to gift campaigns because they pay their own tuition. Undergraduates, she said, are more likely to have their tuition paid by parents and thus more inclined to donate to the class gift. “A lot of people that we talk
to will say things like, ‘I already made my $150,000 donation to Yale,’” Duncan said. “It’s hard to work past comments like that sometimes.” Duncan said her team is using several incentives to draw in donations this spring. For example, the campaign organizers are challenging Law School students’ small groups — faculty-led groups of roughly 16 students — to register 100 percent participation, she said. Any group that meets this target will be allowed to determine the use of $1,000 of the Law School’s operating budget as a reward. Bryce Hall SOM ’12, a chair of SOM’s class gift campaign and the president of the school’s student government, said he thinks the class can top the donations record set by the class of 2011. The 2011-’12 academic year has been “transformative” for the school, Hall said, with the arrival of SOM Dean Edward Snyder and the ongoing construction of the school’s new campus generating excitement about the future of SOM and encouraging people to donate. Hall said several SOM firstyears are involved in his campaign, which will help ensure that they can lead a successful gift drive the following year. He added that the current campaign aims to raise enough money from graduating students to name a foyer in front of the school’s new auditorium. Students who donate to class gift campaigns may earmark their donations for specific uses, or leave their funds unrestricted. Contact DANIEL SISGOREO at daniel.sisgoreo@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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NEWS
“What’s best for women is best for babies.” JENNIFER BLOCK AUTHOR
French architect discusses hybridization BY KIRSTEN ADAIR CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In front of a full house at Hastings Hall, French architect Francois Roche delivered a Monday night talk entitled “The Risks of Hiring Me.” While the title of the School of Architecture talk suggested it would focus on architects’ job prospects in the current economic climate, Roche’s comments instead delved into the intersection of nature and technology, as well as the conceptions of art and artifice he incorporates into his work. Roche, who began the lecture by declaring that he would speak in “Frenglish,” supplemented his talk with animated renderings of his whimsical, organic designs. In one instance, Roche focused on an image of a penguin with a harness attached to it, meant to represent the power gained from harnessing nature.
One of Roche’s most fascinating points was his conception of the ‘posthuman.’ ARIANE HARRISON Critic, Yale School of Architecture Roche, co-founder of the architecture firm R&Sie with Stephanie Lavaux, said that three of the most significant aspects of architectural thinking are “unachievement, uncertainty and work in progress.” His creations are constantly evolving, responding to external factors and changing as he and his colleagues generate new ideas, he said. Also central to Roche’s work is his idea of having a personal, intimate connection with architectural creations. “When I work, it is as if I
KELLY HSU/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
At a School of Architecture talk at Hastings Hall, French architect Francois Roche discussed what he sees as the friction between nature and technology. desire something, and something appears through my desire. Your personal reaction to the space is also of the utmost importance,” Roche said. Citing the concepts of hybrid species, robotic forms and creatures attached to mechanical apparatuses, Roche emphasized the tension between artifice and nature that is central to his work and stressed that one of the main purposes of his work is to make this conflict visible. Known as one of the most pro-
vocative, forward-thinking forces in French architecture, Roche has taught architecture in France and the United States, at schools such as the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Several audience members asked probing questions and even presented controversial commentary after Roche concluded his comments. One audience member called Roche “crazy” and proceeded to ask the architect to elaborate on how his focus on nature and technology might relate to the
green revolution sweeping through modern architecture. Ariane Harrison, a critic at the School of Architecture, said she was particularly interested in Roche’s focus on bringing environmental awareness to the field. “One of Roche’s most fascinating points was his conception of the ‘post-human.’ The hybrid species he so skillfully, architecturally creates ascribes an ecoconsciousness to the field that is quite rare. The notions of human engagement with technology, and
the sometimes toxic nature of this engagement, are points I took away from his talk today,” she said. The talk was organized as the 28th annual Paul Rudolph Lecture series, which was begun in celebration of renowned architect and professor Paul Rudolph, who served as the Chair of the Architecture Department from 1958 to 1965. Contact KIRSTEN ADAIR at kirsten.adair@yale.edu .
Report ranks Connecticut ‘best for women’ BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER According to an April 2 report, Connecticut is the best state in the country for women to live and work. iVillage, a website dedicated to women’s issues, recently released an analysis of each of the 50 states in terms of living and working conditions for women. The study was based on six categories: health and wellness, economic well-being, what helps and hinders working mothers, the number of women in elected office, reproductive rights and education. Connecticut won first place, followed by Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and California rounding out the top five. “In a dismal time for gender
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equality, marked by constant and relentless attacks on rights of women, Connecticut leads by impressive example,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 said in an April 2 press release. Connecticut posted strong numbers in several categories. Under health and wellness, the report found that more than 81 percent of women received regular pap smears and mammograms and 46.8 percent of women were at a healthy weight. Connecticut was a leader in economic well-being as well — only 10.4 percent of the female population is below the poverty line, 34.8 percent of women in the state had 4 or more years of college and 28.1 percent of businesses are owned by women. After it was published by iVillage, the report has been circu-
lated in press releases by Connecticut women’s advocacy organizations like the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW). Teresa Younger, executive director of PCSW, attributed Connecticut’s first place finish to a variety of factors including advocacy groups like her own, state legislative action and congressional leadership in Washington D.C., among others. The gap between Connecticut and the lowest-ranking state, Mississippi, was substantial. In Mississippi, 22 percent of women are below the poverty line, the median woman earns an annual $28,879 — compared with $46,004 in Connecticut — and 68 percent of women are overweight or obese, according to the iVillage website. Addi-
tionally, Mississippi, along with Delaware, Iowa and Vermont, has never elected a woman to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Diane Whitney, a partner at the Connecticut-based law firm
Pullman, said the poor conditions in some of the lowestranked states surprised her. She said it is easy for women living in states like Connecticut to take for granted their educational and career opportunities, calling the status of women in some of the other states “bleak.” Still, there remains room for improvement in Connecticut, according to Younger, Whitney and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat who represents New Haven in Congress. “[W]e still have a long way to go when even in a state like ours women still make 77 cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts in the same job,” said DeLauro, in PCSW’s April 2 press release. Younger said the report comes at a time when women’s
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Attacks on women are letting [them] understand that their voice and role are needed now more than ever. TERESA YOUNGER Executive Director, Permanent Comission on the Status of Women
rights are in the national spotlight. “This study is 100 percent relevant because there is an attack on women’s issues,” Younger said. She added that this “attack” includes setbacks to reproductive health and a women’s ability to make her own reproductive decisions. “I think women are going to play a significant role in the election coming up and the attacks on women are letting [them] understand that their voice and role are needed now more than ever.” According to the report, only 10.36 percent of Connecticut women lack health insurance. Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Regrowing a natural heart BY SARAH SWONG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A Yale doctor’s innovative stem cell procedure may change the field of regenerative medicine. 4-year old Angela Irizarry was born with a single pumping chamber in her heart, a congenital birth defect that causes the heart to overwork itself trying to pump sufficient amounts of blood to the body. Six months ago, Christopher Breuer, associate professor of surgery and pediatrics and director of tissue engineering at the Yale School of Medicine, led a procedure to implant a bio-absorbable tube with bone marrow stem cells into her heart. On March 20, the Wall Street Journal reported that the tube has dissolved and Irizarry’s cells have begun to grow a conduit that functions like a normal blood vessel, the first successful procedure of its kind. In a healthy heart, the left ventricle pumps blood around the body, while the right one pumps it to the lungs. But Irizarry’s left ventricle was non-functional, so her right had to do double duty. Her new blood vessel is now directing deoxygenated blood to her lungs, preventing the right ventricle from straining itself. “It’s positive example of how research in the lab can be brought to the bedside,” said Sally Temple, Scientific Director at the Neural Stem Cell Institute, a nonprofit that supports stem cell research. Current procedures use adult or bovine tissue or synthetic grafts made of Gore-Tex, both of which can lead to infection or clotting and require frequent replacement as the child outgrows them, said Peter Johnston, an assistant professor and cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. A natural conduit that functions like a natural blood vessel would eliminate these complications and the need for surgical replacements, he said. Breuer’s research has “incredible potential” for developing fully biological grafts that behave like a natural blood vessel one is born with, which would be “ideal” since it could grow over time, Johnston said.
Yale physician and professor Christopher Breuer repaired the single pumping chamber of Angela Irizarry’s heart using a stem cell tube. “[If successful], it would be truly replacing the blood vessel as opposed to being a temporary fix,” he said. Previous attempts to mimic normal blood vessels successfully implanted scaffolds with stem cells, but the engineered tissue eventually broke down, Temple said. Breuer’s procedure shows that a biodegradable tube with bone marrow cells significantly reduces the chance of shutting down, she said, making her optimistic that this trial would succeed where others have failed. Kevin Whittlesey, science officer at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said that the bone marrow stem cells do not themselves grow into the replacement blood vessel. Instead, the three-dimensional structure and stem cells together enable the heart tissue to regenerate itself. This means that the implanted cells are not permanently necessary, as long as they are present initially to mod-
ulate the environment, allowing host cells grow appropriately, Temple said. Now Breuer is researching these growth factors, which are key to understanding how these cells allow host cells to grow for a long time, she added. Breuer’s approach was still a risky one, because tissue-engineered version can cause complications, such as blockages, Breuer said in the WSJ article. Stem cell therapy can also sometimes lead to cancer or a bad immune-system reaction. Breuer could not be reached for comment. Breuer plans to repeat the procedure in a six-patient study to test the safety and see if the blood vessels in fact grow with the child, according to the article. 70 percent of newborns with Irizarry’s condition, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, die before their first birthday. Contact SARAH SWONG at sarah.swong@yale.edu .
Rich in antioxidants, chocolate may be more than a sinful sweet. Over the last few years, evidence has been piling up in support of chocolate, touting its ability to decrease the risk of heart disease, improve blood flow and lower body mass index (BMI). Recent scientific studies by Yale
professors suggest that limited doses of chocolate may confer significant health benefits. “I do think it is a health food, I think it’s a food you can love that loves you back and I think if you get the dose right, you can get the pleasure of eating chocolate and the health benefits,” said David Katz, associate professor of public health at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale
CREATIVE COMMONS
Is chocolate healthy? Recent studies by Yale professors suggest so.
Prevention Research Center. Katz has focused his research largely on chocolate’s cardiovascular effects. He conducted several intervention studies looking at solid dark chocolate and liquid cocoa and studied their effect on the endothelium, an inner lining of blood vessels that determines blood flow, as well as on blood pressure and lipid levels. Chocolate, he discovered, had a “potent” beneficial effect on blood flow, noticeable both immediately and over a span of six weeks. The long term effects of chocolate are not yet clear, he added. Within chocolate, it appears that the miracle workers may be compounds called flavonoids, said Mary Savoye, research dietician at Yale University’s Pediatric Clinic. Flavonoids, also present to a larger extent in many vegetables, contribute to chocolate’s bitter taste and are found in chocolates with higher cocoa concentrations. “All chocolates are not created equal,” Savoye said. When combined with other foods, such as milk, chocolate loses much of its health benefits, Savoye said. Chocolate cake, therefore, is far less healthy than a dark chocolate bar. Dutch processing, a chemical alkalizing process to smooth flavor, destroys many nutrients as well, Katz added. Currently, Katz is conducting another trial to discover the therapeutic dose of chocolate. He estimates that roughly an ounce a day of dark chocolate that is at least 60 percent cocoa is probably optimal. “I think it’s really quite convincing that eating the
right kind of chocolate in reasonable doses at regular frequencies confers a meaningful net health benefit,” Katz said. Outside of the heart, chocolate has also been proven to have favorable metabolic effects. Last week, Beatrice Golomb, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, published a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggesting that chocolate may assist in weight loss. After surveying over 1,000 adults about their weekly food intake, Golomb discovered that more frequent chocolate consumption was correlated with lower BMI, a a relationship not explained by any other health factors. The chocolate-eaters did not exercise more frequently or eat more fruits and vegetables, in fact, they ate more calories than other subjects. Despite that, they weighed less, she said. “There are reasonable prospects for this association to be causal, but I would fall short on generating recommendations based on this,” Golomb said. “What I would say for people who eat modest amounts of chocolate regularly is that they can feel less guilty about it.”
The study did not inquire about type or amount of chocolate consumed, though Golomb added that eating excessive amounts of chocolate is probably not a good idea. Golomb said her interest in studying chocolate began at a heart association meeting. She was sitting next to a chocolate researcher, who looked at the confection for dessert forlornly and bemoaned the number of calories in chocolate. Golomb “opined” that perhaps chocolate’s metabolic benefits might offset its calories. “She looked at me thoughtfully for about a minute, nodded and then we both tucked in,” Golomb said. Savoye said the next frontier of chocolate research is neurological. Showing people images of chocolates and other high calorie food images triggers the reward regions of the brain, which releases dopamine, said Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center. Chocolate also contains endocannabinoids, compounds found also in marijuana that reduce pain, and various reports suggest it may be an aphrodisiac. Chocolate is not the first food to prove itself to be healthy, against conventional wisdom. Several years ago, Katz said, Americans were “fat-phobic” and shied away from nuts. But now, nutritionists realize that nuts a re concentrated sources of calories that are extremely nutritious and contain healthy
fats. Similarly, eggs were off the menu for years because they were seen to raise cholesterol. Katz said this is almost certainly wrong. When researching the net health effects of particular foods, it is important to also consider how people’s diets would change with the food’s inclusion or exclusion, Katz said. When eggs were excluded, for example, people turned instead to unhealthy donuts, bagels and Danish as breakfast alternatives. He said the same thing holds true for chocolate: eating chocolate instead of potato chips would be a good thing, but eating chocolate instead of broccoli would be a bad thing. There are plenty of chocolates on the market that can satisfy consumers’ cravings and diets, Katz said. He recommends Ghi-
does the YCSC offer for chilQWhat dren?
A
The 30th annual National Pesticide Forum was hosted in Connecticut in part due to the state’s reputation for banning pesticide use.
The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies hosted several organic farming and public health leaders at the 30th annual National Pesticide Forum last weekend. Held in Kroon Hall, the conference aimed to support the efforts of regional grassroots organizations focused on organic land care and organic food, said conference organizer John Kepner, who is the project director of the nonprofit organization Beyond Pesticides. The secondary goal of the conference, Kepner added, was to educate the estimated 250 audience members — ranging from students from the environment school to members of the general public — on the effects of pesticides. Part of the decision to host
the forum in Connecticut, he added, resulted from the state’s role as a leader in protecting the environment and the public from toxins through policies banning pesticides. Some of those policies, he added, are currently threatened by draft legislation that would lift the ban on pesticides on school grounds. Vanessa Lamers FES ’13, said the conference helped her meet people who are implementing urban agricultural initiatives similar to those in New Haven across the United States, and learn from their experiences. Lamers, who led a panel on organic worker fairness, said the conference provided opportunities for interdisciplinary discussion between fields such as environmental and social justice, among others. Featured conference speak-
ers, Kepner said, included United States Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg, author and ecologist Sandra Steingraber, and Yale professor of environmental policy John Wargo FES ’81 GRD ’84, Lamers said keynote speakers Steingraber and Hirshberg were highlights of the forum. “Steingraber absolutely blew me away,” Lamers said. “She did an amazing and intricate analysis of the US energy, agricultural and organic systems and natural gas production.” Kepner said the conference was particularly successful in its goal of engaging the community about the effects of pesticide exposure. Hody Nemes ’13, co-leader of the advocacy wing of the Yale Student Environmen-
tal Coalition, said he attended the conference because of his interest in pesticide policy. He said he feels many students are unaware of the issues regarding pesticide use, and that it was “reassuring” to meet several people who think pesticides and chemicals in the environment pose a problem to human and environmental health. “They definitely woke me up to the fact that as young people, this is an issue we shouldn’t ignore since we’re in our childbearing years, and pesticides and other chemicals can affect young people who are going to have children,” Nemes said. Beyond Pesticides, which sponsored the conference, was established in 1981. Contact LILIANA VARMAN at liliana.varman@yale.edu .
Q ter?
What project are you currently working on at the child study cen-
A
Among the projects that I am currently working on is the randomized trial of IICAPS, which stands for Intensive In-home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service. It is a program that we developed here at the child study center a number of years ago. It is a homebased treatment service for children who are either being discharged from psychiatric hospitals or who can be prevented from going into psychiat-
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The Yale Child Study Center studies children’s mental health problems through inpatient and outpatient care programs. ric hospitals. We do this by working with the child and their family within their own homes and communities. The program has been implemented across the state and is provided at more than 20 different locations in Connecticut. I am one of the initial developers of IICAP, along with Dr. Joseph Wooslton and Dr. Steven Burkowitz.
QWhat is the goal of the project?
A
To maintain kids with psychiatric disorders in the community in their schools and within their families (in normative community activities). We work with 4-5 year olds through adolescents. We were initially funded by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF). We have been a fee for service program paid
for by Medicaid or the families. Our referrals come primarily from hospitals and other clinics, and also from the Court Supported Services Division of the superior court. It’s the arm of the court in Connecticut that deals with community programs for children and adults. We look at children that have both a mental health disorder — carry a diagnosis — and that are also involved with the juvenile justice system. In all instances we are committed to working with the various systems with the community in which these children interact. does your project FBR focus QWhat on?
A
FBR is Family-Based Recovery. It is one of the very few programs in which substance abuse treatment is combined with parent child inter-
vention and provided in the home. We developed it with the help of DCF in large part because those children who come into the child welfare system particularly for reasons for neglect or abuse were often coming from homes in which there is significant substance use or abuse. FBR is also aimed at maintaining children within their own homes and communities as much as possible. The drug treatment follows a model that was developed at Johns Hopkins. It uses the reinforcement approach with a parent-child relationship based approach. This program has been replicated at five additional sites in Connecticut. We are currently preparing for an eventual trial of FBR, [but] we are not ready for it yet. Contact ADLON ADAMS at adlon.adams@yale.edu .
LAB Drug shows antimalaria promise
An antibiotic developed to treat bacterial infections has demonstrated an ability to halt the growth of the parasite which causes malaria. The drug has potential for treating strains of malaria that are currently resistent to other treatments, according to the press release. “This compound can wipe out strains that are currently resistant to drugs such as chloroquine and pyrimethamine,” said Sidney Altman, head of the research team and Sterling professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology.
rardelli’s 60 percent cacao dark chocolate bars for their short ingredient list and high cacao concentration. New products are available that go a step further, such as raw cocoa beans themselves. “I joke to my patients that chocolate is my favorite vegetable, and it’s only half a joke,” Golomb said. “It is a plant-based food. We tend to forget because it’s usually eaten as a sweet and we think of sweets as purely bad for people. But things look favorable from the chocolate and health standpoint.” According to other studies, chocolate can defend skin against UV damage, quiet coughs and improve vision. Contact MASON KROLL at mason.kroll@yale.edu .
A new Yale study, published this month in the journal Indoor Air, calculated that an individual’s presence in a room increased the number of bacteria in the room by 37 million each hour. The vast majority of the bacteria was not emitted from the humans, but stirred up from the dust on the floor by their motions. The study’s authors cautioned that only a tiny percentage of microorganisms are dangerous to humans.
Yale prof develops model for measuring biodiversity A team of researchers including Walter Jetz, Yale professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, developed a model to compare relative biodiversity of terrestrial vertebrates between areas. They controlled for factors such as latitude, temperature, years of evolution and availability of food energy.
Trying to GAIN an edge on ‘superbugs’ D
Jean Adnopoz is the Director of InHome Clinical Services at the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), which studies children’s mental health problems. Adnopoz’s focus revolves around creating programs and policies that address the needs of children severely at risk for mental disorders while keeping them involved in normal community activities.
CREATIVE COMMONS
FROM THE
Yale study counts bacteria, up to 37 million
BY ADLON ADAMS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
The study center offers a continuum of care that ranges from the inpatient unit (a 15 bed unit called the Children’s Psychiatric Inpatient Service) to in-home services that often serve as a transition from the hospital to the community and to the outpatient care. We do various kinds of specialized evaluations and assessments, psychological testing, neurosociological testing. We treat young children from birth to five years old at the Young Child clinic. We have a world-class autism clinic. We offer a full array of treatment services for children who present a mental health disorder of any kind. We have very strong research programs that correlate with the clinical programs that inform them. We also have a number of programs that are actually delivered in the community to schools. The work at the YCSC ranges from the most intensive models to community based preventive services, all designed to improve the mental health of children and families.
L E A KS
YALE NEWS
Child study center helps at-risk children
FES hosts anti-pesticides conference
BY LILIANA VARMAN STAFF REPORTER
Of those, 46.7 percent are female and 46 percent are male. Disorders are most common among 17 and 18-year-olds, who account for 54.5 percent of severe disorders among children.
A chocolate a day keeps the doctor away BY MASON KROLL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
CLAUDIA IRIZARRY
21.4
The percentage of children who have or have had a severe mental disorder.
uring a hockey game last Saturday, the Boston Bruins defenseman, Dennis Seidenberg, took a skate blade to his leg, slicing it open. By Thursday, the cut was infected, sidelining Seidenberg, who was now on a course of antibiotics. Three days later, Seidenberg was good as new, even scoring a goal in a win over the New York Rangers. But imagine if the antibiotics hadn’t worked — if the bacteria infecting Seidenberg’s wound kept right on multiplying despite being plied with drug after drug. Seidenberg would be lucky to survive, and almost certainly would no longer play for the NHL. The scenario, while morbid, isn’t all that far-fetched given the increase in infections with drug resistant bacteria, or ‘superbugs,’ and the slowing trickle of new antibiotics being developed to fight them. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 100,000 people die from hospital-acquired infections per year — many of them resistant to at least one drug — like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or vancomycinresistant Enterococci (WRE). A piddling two new antibiotics were approved between 2008-2011. The problem is both a scientific and economic one. We need creative thinkers to design drugs that halt nasty microbes in new ways, especially for hardy gramnegative bacteria, like Klebsiella pneumoniae. Gram-negative bacteria have an extra outer membrane that can act as an endotoxin and is also pretty darn good at preventing most antibiotics from getting inside to disrupt their basic structure. Often, the only remaining antibiotics that work for many drug-resistant gramnegative infections are holdovers from the 1940s that are also fairly toxic to patients. Resistance to even these rarely used older antibiotics is also spreading, meaning patients aren’t even given the choice between risking kidney failure and dying from an infection — there simply are no existing antibiotics to cure them. But few pharmaceutical com-
panies are filling the demand for new antibiotics, which won’t command the high re t u r n s of decades-long daily lifestyle JESSICA drugs, such as MCDONALD c h o l e s te ro l lowering medications. How Qwerty are companies Thoughts expected to recoup a $1 billion investment on a new antibiotic that when used properly will be taken in short bursts and used sparingly? Legislators decided to remedy the situation by trying to correct the market imbalance, and make it more attractive for pharmaceutical companies to finance the development of novel antibiotics. Last June, the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) Act was introduced to the House of Representatives, and in October, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced the companion bill in the Senate.
UNLESS WE TAKE ACTION, WE’LL LOSE THE ARMS RACE AGAINST BACTERIA. The GAIN Act shifts the calculus slightly: it provides an extra five years of patent exclusivity for the new drug, with an extra six months on top of that if a diagnostic is also developed. The Act also intends to lessen hardship for companies during the approval process by promising a fasttracked review, and more vaguely, requires a review of the guidelines for the clinical trials. Since any important drugs are going to be fast-tracked anyway, the bolus of the bill is the exclusivity extension. The main question is whether five extra years
before going to generic is enough of a bonus to motivate companies to commit to some serious bacterial ass-kicking. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, the two largest pharmaceutical companies, dropped their antibiotic divisions in 2011, leaving antibiotic innovation for the smaller companies (often start-ups) that have already committed to the niche. Thus, while the GAIN Act has high aspirations, it’s debatable whether the economic incentives are pushing any businesses toward antibiotic R&D or are merely increasing the bottom line of those already pursuing it. Nonetheless, it’s important for the government to recognize that resistant bacteria are a serious health threat that cannot be solved on its own with just patient education and careful conservation of our current antibiotics. Last Thursday, after little action in Congress on the Act for many months, a senate committee included the GAIN Act in a discussion draft of a bill that changes how the Food and Drug Administration would regulate medical devices. It remains to be seen whether or not it will stay there, but it’s clear Blumenthal won’t let the legislation die without a fight. Blumenthal will be in New Haven this Thursday to discuss the GAIN Act along with Thomas Steitz, Yale’s own Nobel Laureate, and several higher-ups of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a small Massachusetts-based company that bills itself as the “go-to folks for new acute care therapies.” Since the development of mass antibiotics following World War II, Americans have learned to take these miracle drugs for granted. In the years to come, we’ll no doubt have a superior Siri on our iPhones ready to decipher our every command, but we may not have something as simple as effective antibiotics. Congress, let’s pass the GAIN Act, but please, don’t stop there. Jessica McDonald is a sixth-year graduate student in the Department of Immunology. Contact her at jessica. mcdonald@yale.edu.
PAGE 6
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Regrowing a natural heart BY SARAH SWONG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A Yale doctor’s innovative stem cell procedure may change the field of regenerative medicine. 4-year old Angela Irizarry was born with a single pumping chamber in her heart, a congenital birth defect that causes the heart to overwork itself trying to pump sufficient amounts of blood to the body. Six months ago, Christopher Breuer, associate professor of surgery and pediatrics and director of tissue engineering at the Yale School of Medicine, led a procedure to implant a bio-absorbable tube with bone marrow stem cells into her heart. On March 20, the Wall Street Journal reported that the tube has dissolved and Irizarry’s cells have begun to grow a conduit that functions like a normal blood vessel, the first successful procedure of its kind. In a healthy heart, the left ventricle pumps blood around the body, while the right one pumps it to the lungs. But Irizarry’s left ventricle was non-functional, so her right had to do double duty. Her new blood vessel is now directing deoxygenated blood to her lungs, preventing the right ventricle from straining itself. “It’s positive example of how research in the lab can be brought to the bedside,” said Sally Temple, Scientific Director at the Neural Stem Cell Institute, a nonprofit that supports stem cell research. Current procedures use adult or bovine tissue or synthetic grafts made of Gore-Tex, both of which can lead to infection or clotting and require frequent replacement as the child outgrows them, said Peter Johnston, an assistant professor and cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. A natural conduit that functions like a natural blood vessel would eliminate these complications and the need for surgical replacements, he said. Breuer’s research has “incredible potential” for developing fully biological grafts that behave like a natural blood vessel one is born with, which would be “ideal” since it could grow over time, Johnston said.
Yale physician and professor Christopher Breuer repaired the single pumping chamber of Angela Irizarry’s heart using a stem cell tube. “[If successful], it would be truly replacing the blood vessel as opposed to being a temporary fix,” he said. Previous attempts to mimic normal blood vessels successfully implanted scaffolds with stem cells, but the engineered tissue eventually broke down, Temple said. Breuer’s procedure shows that a biodegradable tube with bone marrow cells significantly reduces the chance of shutting down, she said, making her optimistic that this trial would succeed where others have failed. Kevin Whittlesey, science officer at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said that the bone marrow stem cells do not themselves grow into the replacement blood vessel. Instead, the three-dimensional structure and stem cells together enable the heart tissue to regenerate itself. This means that the implanted cells are not permanently necessary, as long as they are present initially to mod-
ulate the environment, allowing host cells grow appropriately, Temple said. Now Breuer is researching these growth factors, which are key to understanding how these cells allow host cells to grow for a long time, she added. Breuer’s approach was still a risky one, because tissue-engineered version can cause complications, such as blockages, Breuer said in the WSJ article. Stem cell therapy can also sometimes lead to cancer or a bad immune-system reaction. Breuer could not be reached for comment. Breuer plans to repeat the procedure in a six-patient study to test the safety and see if the blood vessels in fact grow with the child, according to the article. 70 percent of newborns with Irizarry’s condition, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, die before their first birthday. Contact SARAH SWONG at sarah.swong@yale.edu .
Rich in antioxidants, chocolate may be more than a sinful sweet. Over the last few years, evidence has been piling up in support of chocolate, touting its ability to decrease the risk of heart disease, improve blood flow and lower body mass index (BMI). Recent scientific studies by Yale
professors suggest that limited doses of chocolate may confer significant health benefits. “I do think it is a health food, I think it’s a food you can love that loves you back and I think if you get the dose right, you can get the pleasure of eating chocolate and the health benefits,” said David Katz, associate professor of public health at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale
CREATIVE COMMONS
Is chocolate healthy? Recent studies by Yale professors suggest so.
Prevention Research Center. Katz has focused his research largely on chocolate’s cardiovascular effects. He conducted several intervention studies looking at solid dark chocolate and liquid cocoa and studied their effect on the endothelium, an inner lining of blood vessels that determines blood flow, as well as on blood pressure and lipid levels. Chocolate, he discovered, had a “potent” beneficial effect on blood flow, noticeable both immediately and over a span of six weeks. The long term effects of chocolate are not yet clear, he added. Within chocolate, it appears that the miracle workers may be compounds called flavonoids, said Mary Savoye, research dietician at Yale University’s Pediatric Clinic. Flavonoids, also present to a larger extent in many vegetables, contribute to chocolate’s bitter taste and are found in chocolates with higher cocoa concentrations. “All chocolates are not created equal,” Savoye said. When combined with other foods, such as milk, chocolate loses much of its health benefits, Savoye said. Chocolate cake, therefore, is far less healthy than a dark chocolate bar. Dutch processing, a chemical alkalizing process to smooth flavor, destroys many nutrients as well, Katz added. Currently, Katz is conducting another trial to discover the therapeutic dose of chocolate. He estimates that roughly an ounce a day of dark chocolate that is at least 60 percent cocoa is probably optimal. “I think it’s really quite convincing that eating the
right kind of chocolate in reasonable doses at regular frequencies confers a meaningful net health benefit,” Katz said. Outside of the heart, chocolate has also been proven to have favorable metabolic effects. Last week, Beatrice Golomb, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, published a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggesting that chocolate may assist in weight loss. After surveying over 1,000 adults about their weekly food intake, Golomb discovered that more frequent chocolate consumption was correlated with lower BMI, a a relationship not explained by any other health factors. The chocolate-eaters did not exercise more frequently or eat more fruits and vegetables, in fact, they ate more calories than other subjects. Despite that, they weighed less, she said. “There are reasonable prospects for this association to be causal, but I would fall short on generating recommendations based on this,” Golomb said. “What I would say for people who eat modest amounts of chocolate regularly is that they can feel less guilty about it.”
The study did not inquire about type or amount of chocolate consumed, though Golomb added that eating excessive amounts of chocolate is probably not a good idea. Golomb said her interest in studying chocolate began at a heart association meeting. She was sitting next to a chocolate researcher, who looked at the confection for dessert forlornly and bemoaned the number of calories in chocolate. Golomb “opined” that perhaps chocolate’s metabolic benefits might offset its calories. “She looked at me thoughtfully for about a minute, nodded and then we both tucked in,” Golomb said. Savoye said the next frontier of chocolate research is neurological. Showing people images of chocolates and other high calorie food images triggers the reward regions of the brain, which releases dopamine, said Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center. Chocolate also contains endocannabinoids, compounds found also in marijuana that reduce pain, and various reports suggest it may be an aphrodisiac. Chocolate is not the first food to prove itself to be healthy, against conventional wisdom. Several years ago, Katz said, Americans were “fat-phobic” and shied away from nuts. But now, nutritionists realize that nuts a re concentrated sources of calories that are extremely nutritious and contain healthy
fats. Similarly, eggs were off the menu for years because they were seen to raise cholesterol. Katz said this is almost certainly wrong. When researching the net health effects of particular foods, it is important to also consider how people’s diets would change with the food’s inclusion or exclusion, Katz said. When eggs were excluded, for example, people turned instead to unhealthy donuts, bagels and Danish as breakfast alternatives. He said the same thing holds true for chocolate: eating chocolate instead of potato chips would be a good thing, but eating chocolate instead of broccoli would be a bad thing. There are plenty of chocolates on the market that can satisfy consumers’ cravings and diets, Katz said. He recommends Ghi-
does the YCSC offer for chilQWhat dren?
A
The 30th annual National Pesticide Forum was hosted in Connecticut in part due to the state’s reputation for banning pesticide use.
The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies hosted several organic farming and public health leaders at the 30th annual National Pesticide Forum last weekend. Held in Kroon Hall, the conference aimed to support the efforts of regional grassroots organizations focused on organic land care and organic food, said conference organizer John Kepner, who is the project director of the nonprofit organization Beyond Pesticides. The secondary goal of the conference, Kepner added, was to educate the estimated 250 audience members — ranging from students from the environment school to members of the general public — on the effects of pesticides. Part of the decision to host
the forum in Connecticut, he added, resulted from the state’s role as a leader in protecting the environment and the public from toxins through policies banning pesticides. Some of those policies, he added, are currently threatened by draft legislation that would lift the ban on pesticides on school grounds. Vanessa Lamers FES ’13, said the conference helped her meet people who are implementing urban agricultural initiatives similar to those in New Haven across the United States, and learn from their experiences. Lamers, who led a panel on organic worker fairness, said the conference provided opportunities for interdisciplinary discussion between fields such as environmental and social justice, among others. Featured conference speak-
ers, Kepner said, included United States Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg, author and ecologist Sandra Steingraber, and Yale professor of environmental policy John Wargo FES ’81 GRD ’84, Lamers said keynote speakers Steingraber and Hirshberg were highlights of the forum. “Steingraber absolutely blew me away,” Lamers said. “She did an amazing and intricate analysis of the US energy, agricultural and organic systems and natural gas production.” Kepner said the conference was particularly successful in its goal of engaging the community about the effects of pesticide exposure. Hody Nemes ’13, co-leader of the advocacy wing of the Yale Student Environmen-
tal Coalition, said he attended the conference because of his interest in pesticide policy. He said he feels many students are unaware of the issues regarding pesticide use, and that it was “reassuring” to meet several people who think pesticides and chemicals in the environment pose a problem to human and environmental health. “They definitely woke me up to the fact that as young people, this is an issue we shouldn’t ignore since we’re in our childbearing years, and pesticides and other chemicals can affect young people who are going to have children,” Nemes said. Beyond Pesticides, which sponsored the conference, was established in 1981. Contact LILIANA VARMAN at liliana.varman@yale.edu .
Q ter?
What project are you currently working on at the child study cen-
A
Among the projects that I am currently working on is the randomized trial of IICAPS, which stands for Intensive In-home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service. It is a program that we developed here at the child study center a number of years ago. It is a homebased treatment service for children who are either being discharged from psychiatric hospitals or who can be prevented from going into psychiat-
CREATIVE COMMONS
The Yale Child Study Center studies children’s mental health problems through inpatient and outpatient care programs. ric hospitals. We do this by working with the child and their family within their own homes and communities. The program has been implemented across the state and is provided at more than 20 different locations in Connecticut. I am one of the initial developers of IICAP, along with Dr. Joseph Wooslton and Dr. Steven Burkowitz.
QWhat is the goal of the project?
A
To maintain kids with psychiatric disorders in the community in their schools and within their families (in normative community activities). We work with 4-5 year olds through adolescents. We were initially funded by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF). We have been a fee for service program paid
for by Medicaid or the families. Our referrals come primarily from hospitals and other clinics, and also from the Court Supported Services Division of the superior court. It’s the arm of the court in Connecticut that deals with community programs for children and adults. We look at children that have both a mental health disorder — carry a diagnosis — and that are also involved with the juvenile justice system. In all instances we are committed to working with the various systems with the community in which these children interact. does your project FBR focus QWhat on?
A
FBR is Family-Based Recovery. It is one of the very few programs in which substance abuse treatment is combined with parent child inter-
vention and provided in the home. We developed it with the help of DCF in large part because those children who come into the child welfare system particularly for reasons for neglect or abuse were often coming from homes in which there is significant substance use or abuse. FBR is also aimed at maintaining children within their own homes and communities as much as possible. The drug treatment follows a model that was developed at Johns Hopkins. It uses the reinforcement approach with a parent-child relationship based approach. This program has been replicated at five additional sites in Connecticut. We are currently preparing for an eventual trial of FBR, [but] we are not ready for it yet. Contact ADLON ADAMS at adlon.adams@yale.edu .
LAB Drug shows antimalaria promise
An antibiotic developed to treat bacterial infections has demonstrated an ability to halt the growth of the parasite which causes malaria. The drug has potential for treating strains of malaria that are currently resistent to other treatments, according to the press release. “This compound can wipe out strains that are currently resistant to drugs such as chloroquine and pyrimethamine,” said Sidney Altman, head of the research team and Sterling professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology.
rardelli’s 60 percent cacao dark chocolate bars for their short ingredient list and high cacao concentration. New products are available that go a step further, such as raw cocoa beans themselves. “I joke to my patients that chocolate is my favorite vegetable, and it’s only half a joke,” Golomb said. “It is a plant-based food. We tend to forget because it’s usually eaten as a sweet and we think of sweets as purely bad for people. But things look favorable from the chocolate and health standpoint.” According to other studies, chocolate can defend skin against UV damage, quiet coughs and improve vision. Contact MASON KROLL at mason.kroll@yale.edu .
A new Yale study, published this month in the journal Indoor Air, calculated that an individual’s presence in a room increased the number of bacteria in the room by 37 million each hour. The vast majority of the bacteria was not emitted from the humans, but stirred up from the dust on the floor by their motions. The study’s authors cautioned that only a tiny percentage of microorganisms are dangerous to humans.
Yale prof develops model for measuring biodiversity A team of researchers including Walter Jetz, Yale professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, developed a model to compare relative biodiversity of terrestrial vertebrates between areas. They controlled for factors such as latitude, temperature, years of evolution and availability of food energy.
Trying to GAIN an edge on ‘superbugs’ D
Jean Adnopoz is the Director of InHome Clinical Services at the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), which studies children’s mental health problems. Adnopoz’s focus revolves around creating programs and policies that address the needs of children severely at risk for mental disorders while keeping them involved in normal community activities.
CREATIVE COMMONS
FROM THE
Yale study counts bacteria, up to 37 million
BY ADLON ADAMS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
The study center offers a continuum of care that ranges from the inpatient unit (a 15 bed unit called the Children’s Psychiatric Inpatient Service) to in-home services that often serve as a transition from the hospital to the community and to the outpatient care. We do various kinds of specialized evaluations and assessments, psychological testing, neurosociological testing. We treat young children from birth to five years old at the Young Child clinic. We have a world-class autism clinic. We offer a full array of treatment services for children who present a mental health disorder of any kind. We have very strong research programs that correlate with the clinical programs that inform them. We also have a number of programs that are actually delivered in the community to schools. The work at the YCSC ranges from the most intensive models to community based preventive services, all designed to improve the mental health of children and families.
L E A KS
YALE NEWS
Child study center helps at-risk children
FES hosts anti-pesticides conference
BY LILIANA VARMAN STAFF REPORTER
Of those, 46.7 percent are female and 46 percent are male. Disorders are most common among 17 and 18-year-olds, who account for 54.5 percent of severe disorders among children.
A chocolate a day keeps the doctor away BY MASON KROLL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
CLAUDIA IRIZARRY
21.4
The percentage of children who have or have had a severe mental disorder.
uring a hockey game last Saturday, the Boston Bruins defenseman, Dennis Seidenberg, took a skate blade to his leg, slicing it open. By Thursday, the cut was infected, sidelining Seidenberg, who was now on a course of antibiotics. Three days later, Seidenberg was good as new, even scoring a goal in a win over the New York Rangers. But imagine if the antibiotics hadn’t worked — if the bacteria infecting Seidenberg’s wound kept right on multiplying despite being plied with drug after drug. Seidenberg would be lucky to survive, and almost certainly would no longer play for the NHL. The scenario, while morbid, isn’t all that far-fetched given the increase in infections with drug resistant bacteria, or ‘superbugs,’ and the slowing trickle of new antibiotics being developed to fight them. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 100,000 people die from hospital-acquired infections per year — many of them resistant to at least one drug — like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or vancomycinresistant Enterococci (WRE). A piddling two new antibiotics were approved between 2008-2011. The problem is both a scientific and economic one. We need creative thinkers to design drugs that halt nasty microbes in new ways, especially for hardy gramnegative bacteria, like Klebsiella pneumoniae. Gram-negative bacteria have an extra outer membrane that can act as an endotoxin and is also pretty darn good at preventing most antibiotics from getting inside to disrupt their basic structure. Often, the only remaining antibiotics that work for many drug-resistant gramnegative infections are holdovers from the 1940s that are also fairly toxic to patients. Resistance to even these rarely used older antibiotics is also spreading, meaning patients aren’t even given the choice between risking kidney failure and dying from an infection — there simply are no existing antibiotics to cure them. But few pharmaceutical com-
panies are filling the demand for new antibiotics, which won’t command the high re t u r n s of decades-long daily lifestyle JESSICA drugs, such as MCDONALD c h o l e s te ro l lowering medications. How Qwerty are companies Thoughts expected to recoup a $1 billion investment on a new antibiotic that when used properly will be taken in short bursts and used sparingly? Legislators decided to remedy the situation by trying to correct the market imbalance, and make it more attractive for pharmaceutical companies to finance the development of novel antibiotics. Last June, the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) Act was introduced to the House of Representatives, and in October, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced the companion bill in the Senate.
UNLESS WE TAKE ACTION, WE’LL LOSE THE ARMS RACE AGAINST BACTERIA. The GAIN Act shifts the calculus slightly: it provides an extra five years of patent exclusivity for the new drug, with an extra six months on top of that if a diagnostic is also developed. The Act also intends to lessen hardship for companies during the approval process by promising a fasttracked review, and more vaguely, requires a review of the guidelines for the clinical trials. Since any important drugs are going to be fast-tracked anyway, the bolus of the bill is the exclusivity extension. The main question is whether five extra years
before going to generic is enough of a bonus to motivate companies to commit to some serious bacterial ass-kicking. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, the two largest pharmaceutical companies, dropped their antibiotic divisions in 2011, leaving antibiotic innovation for the smaller companies (often start-ups) that have already committed to the niche. Thus, while the GAIN Act has high aspirations, it’s debatable whether the economic incentives are pushing any businesses toward antibiotic R&D or are merely increasing the bottom line of those already pursuing it. Nonetheless, it’s important for the government to recognize that resistant bacteria are a serious health threat that cannot be solved on its own with just patient education and careful conservation of our current antibiotics. Last Thursday, after little action in Congress on the Act for many months, a senate committee included the GAIN Act in a discussion draft of a bill that changes how the Food and Drug Administration would regulate medical devices. It remains to be seen whether or not it will stay there, but it’s clear Blumenthal won’t let the legislation die without a fight. Blumenthal will be in New Haven this Thursday to discuss the GAIN Act along with Thomas Steitz, Yale’s own Nobel Laureate, and several higher-ups of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a small Massachusetts-based company that bills itself as the “go-to folks for new acute care therapies.” Since the development of mass antibiotics following World War II, Americans have learned to take these miracle drugs for granted. In the years to come, we’ll no doubt have a superior Siri on our iPhones ready to decipher our every command, but we may not have something as simple as effective antibiotics. Congress, let’s pass the GAIN Act, but please, don’t stop there. Jessica McDonald is a sixth-year graduate student in the Department of Immunology. Contact her at jessica. mcdonald@yale.edu.
PAGE 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT Ex-offenders get boost from city
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS WILLIAM NORDHAUS ’63 Born in Albuquerque, Nordhaus has been on the Yale faculty since 1967. He is now Sterling Professor of Economics, with a joint appointment in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His textbook “Economics” has been published in 19 editions.
Report received positively, Levin says REPORT FROM PAGE 1
JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
At a Board of Aldermen meeting Monday night, an ordinance making it easier for ex-offenders to get vendor permits passed unanimously. EX-OFFENDERS FROM PAGE 1 Meek, who helped draft the ordinance, said about one in seven people who applied for vendor permits in 2011 were denied because of a criminal background. People who have been convicted of a crime often seek food cart permits and vendor licenses because “the costs to entry are low, and it’s a good entrepreneurial activity for someone who’s just getting started,” she said. Holmes said the background check is still a part of the application for the permit, but it would account for the specific nature and severity of the crime, as well as potential rehabilitation. Ward 3 Alderwoman Jacqueline James-Evans proposed a successful amendment to the ordinance that requires the city to create an appeals
process for applications it rejects. She said she wanted applicants to have legal recourse if city officials did not comply with the spirit of the ordinance.
This complements recent efforts to help those with previous criminal convictions to reenter the community. JESSICA HOLMES Ward 9 Alderwoman According to Meek, the proposal comes at a time of growing national attention to issues of criminal recidi-
vism and collateral consequences. She said many ex-offenders wished they knew more about the legal difficulties they will face after their actual sentences expire. A 2010 study by the American Bar Association found that Connecticut had as many as 633 statutes that detailed collateral consequences for ex-offenders. The ordinance passed on Monday night also requires the city to identify and post all such statutes online — an effort Meek said is the first of its kind in the country. Ward 25 Alderman Adam Marchand said the measure will now head to Mayor John DeStefano Jr. for his signature. Contact CASEY SUMNER at casey.sumner@yale.edu .
the committee expresses concern over the growing ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty at Yale. Fifty-two percent of faculty were tenured in 1979, but that number has increased in recent decades and reached 66 percent in 2011. To address this rising ratio, the committee recommends establishing tenure ratio guidelines for departments. If departments exceeded their guidelines, they would be required to focus on faculty searches at the non-tenured level. The report also takes into consideration how these guidelines could impact smaller departments, where each change can have a significant effect. Levin said faculty at the meeting spent time discussing whether ratio guidelines should be implemented. Though discussion was “generally positive,” Physics Department chair Meg Urry said not everyone could agree on the tenure ratio guidelines. “There was some disagreement about what the “right” tenure ratio was, and a sense that no onesize-fits-all approach would work for all departments,” Urry said. “But the main ideas were wellaccepted.” While the report also proposes implementing a new faculty accounting system, the committee notes that this system could exacerbate the rising tenure ratio. Under the current accounting system — based on junior-faculty equivalents, or JFEs — tenured faculty count as two JFEs while nontenured faculty equal one JFE. The system, which reflects a roughly 2-to-1 salary ratio between senior and junior faculty, has become less relevant since a new tenuretrack system was implemented three years ago. While the old system awarded tenure to professors partly based on the availability of faculty slots in their departments, professors now earn tenure according to their qualifications. The new system proposed in the
report would use full-time equivalents, or FTEs, which would not weight senior faculty more heavily than junior faculty. If the University implements this system, departments will not face any additional cost in making tenure promotions, as the newly tenured professor will still count as one FTE. Faculty also discussed the gap between the total positions allotted to departments and the number the budget has allowed them to fill — termed a “slot overhang” in the report. The committee estimates that 77 of these vacancies, which are not caused by routine turnover, currently exist in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The openings have placed stress on departments that have had searches placed on hold. The committee recommends that any decrease in the number of authorized faculty positions should take place through an Academic Review — a reallocation of faculty resources roughly once a decade by faculty and administrators that accounts for emerging academic fields. The report also stresses the importance of increasing departmental control, which has shifted toward administrators since the University tightened its finances in the wake of the recession, over the faculty search and hiring processes in the faculty. Nordhaus said the implementation of the report will move forward to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Executive Committee, which consists of Levin, Salovey, Yale College Dean Mary Miller and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Thomas Pollard. Levin said Salovey will be ultimately responsible for deciding how to implement the recommendations. Salovey requested a review of the faculty budget and accounting system last May. Thursday’s meeting was held in Luce Hall. Contact GAVAN GIDEON at gavan.gideon@yale.edu .
CROSS CAMPUS THE BLOG. THE BUZZ AROUND YALE THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST Sunny, with a high near 59. North wind between 9 and 16 mph.
TOMORROW
THURSDAY
High of 64, low of 36.
High of 56, low of 34.
ZERO LIKE ME BY REUXBEN BARRIENTES
ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4 3:30 P.M. “When Mosquitoes Monkey Around: Prospects for Emergence of Sylvatic Dengue Virus.” Kathryn Hanley of New Mexico State University will speak. Sponsored by the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Fund and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Class of 1954 Environmental Sciences Center (21 Sachem St.), room 110. 4:00 P.M. “Journeys to the West: Buddhism and the Japanese World Map.” Max Moerman of Barnard College will give a talk analyzing the earliest Japanese map of the world, painted by a 14th-century monk and based on fifth-century Indian and seventh-century Chinese Buddhist texts. Hall of Graduate Studies (320 York St.), room 217A.
SATURDAY MORNING BREAKFAST CEREAL BY ZACH WEINER
THURSDAY, APRIL 5 4:00 P.M. Susan Howe poetry reading and performance with musician David Grubbs. Poet Susan Howe, winner of the 2011 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and musician David Grubbs will perform a collaborative piece based on Howe’s volume “That This.” Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (121 Wall St.). 6:00 P.M. A Different Drum Dance Company presents: “Synesthesia.” Join A Different Drum Dance company for its jam-packed hour-and-a-half spring show. There will be two performances on Saturday, at 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students and $8 for adults ($5 for adults in groups of five or more). Reserve tickets at yaledramacoalition.org/synesthesia. Off-Broadway Theater (41 Broadway).
WATSON BY JIM HORWITZ
FRIDAY, APRIL 6 12:00 P.M. “Suicide, Mental Resilience and Meaning in Life in Japan.” Emory University anthropology professor Chikako Ozawa-de Silva will speak about how ethnographic research can help prevent suicide by contributing to positive mental health and subjective well-being. Anthropology Department (10 Sachem St.), room 105.
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CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Word before dark or hours 6 Black Friday event 10 Prefix with fall 14 Where towels are the usual attire 15 Nice price? 16 Rob of “Parks and Recreation” 17 *Ten times the seller’s cost, say 19 Actor McGregor 20 “All My __ Live in Texas”: George Strait song 21 Pre-A.D. 22 Waiters take them 24 Comes down hard 27 Come to terms 28 Tin alloy 31 “__-ho!” 33 Homeric war epic 34 *Green labyrinth 38 Dynasty known for porcelain 39 Sleepiness inducers 40 Draft animals 41 *Groundbreaking desktop publishing software 43 Golfer Sam 44 Less than zero 45 Competes in a bee 46 Where dos are done 49 How the rain in Spain falls on the plain 51 Warning to a pest 53 Once named 54 Slangy morning drink 57 Provo’s state 58 Some buried treasure, or what are literally found in the answers to starred clues 62 Top-notch 63 Lake near Lake Ontario 64 College big shots 65 Ivan IV, for one 66 “Das Kapital” author 67 “The King” of golf, to fans
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DOWN 1 1968 U.S. Open champ 2 Imitation 3 Harbor towers 4 Hydrocarbon suffix 5 Spoke absentmindedly 6 Spending outing 7 Genesis craft 8 Actress Lucy 9 Former Montreal player 10 *Fundraising receipts 11 Dinghy propeller 12 Conscious (of) 13 Uptight 18 Excellent server 23 All-night party 24 *Child star’s parent 25 Maria __, former queen of Hungary 26 Passover meal 28 MTV’s “__ My Ride” 29 Director Kazan 30 Chicken morsel 32 Justice Dept. heads
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34 Hooey 35 It may follow a Salchow 36 Intensity 37 Conclusions 39 Prohibition 42 Revealing skirt 43 Dieter’s sweetener 45 Dagger of yore 46 Powerlifter’s move 47 Roadsters, e.g.
4/3/12
48 Rainforest vine 50 Back-of-thebook reference section 52 The opposition 54 Stapleton who played Edith Bunker 55 Luxury hotel 56 In __: actually 59 Nest egg letters 60 Movie set VIP 61 Pol. neighbor
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
NATION
Dow Jones 13,264.49, +0.40%
S NASDAQ 3,119.70, +0.91% S
Romney halfway to nomination
T
Oil $104.92, -0.29%
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Cops: 7 dead, 3 hurt in shooting
BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney is halfway to clinching the Republican nomination for president. The former Massachusetts governor inched up to 572 delegates on Monday - exactly half the 1,144 needed - after the Tennessee Republican Party finalized delegate totals from its March 6 primary. Results in several congressional districts were too close to call on election night, leaving three delegates unallocated. Romney got all three delegates. He also picked up an endorsement from a New Hampshire delegate who had been awarded to former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Huntsman dropped out of the race in January and endorsed Romney. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, meanwhile, won a Minnesota delegate over the weekend that had been allocated to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Santorum won two delegates and Paul won one at Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District convention. Santorum had been projected to win all three delegates, based on the results of local caucuses in February. Romney and Santorum have been sparring over the delegate count for weeks. Romney’s campaign says there is no way for Santorum to reach the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination, portraying the race as all but over. Santorum’s campaign says Romney’s numbers are inflated, raising the prospect of a contested convention in August. According to the Associated Press tally, Romney has more than twice as many delegates as Santorum. Santorum has 272 delegates, followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 135 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 51. Romney has won 54 percent of the primary and caucus delegates so far, putting him on pace to clinch the nomination in June. Romney could substantially add to his lead Tuesday, when 95 delegates will be at stake in three primaries, in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Tuesday’s contests mark the midway point in the race for delegates. A total of 2,286 delegates are slated to attend the party’s national convention in Tampa, Fla. - 2,169 will be selected through primaries, caucuses and state conventions, while 117 are members of the Republican National Committee, free to support any candidate they choose. Santorum, who has won 27 percent of the primary and caucus delegates so far, would need 74 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination before the national convention. Gingrich would need 86 percent and Paul would have to win nearly all of them, which won’t happen because most states award delegates proportionally.
NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A sheriff’s deputy removes a body from outside Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. on Monday after a gunman opened fire at the university. BY TERRY COLLINS ASSOCIATED PRESS OAKLAND, Calif. — A gunman opened fire Monday at a Christian university in California, killing at least seven people, wounding three more and setting off an intense, chaotic manhunt that ended hours later with his capture at a shopping center, authorities said. The gunfire erupted around midmorning at Oikos University. Heavily armed officers swarmed the school in a large industrial park near the Oakland airport and, for at least an hour, believed the gunman could still be inside. Tashi Wangchuk, whose wife attended the school and witnessed the shooting, said he was told by police that the gunman first shot a woman at the front desk, then continued shooting randomly in classrooms. Wangchuk said his wife, Dechen Wangzom, was in her vocational nursing class when she heard gunshots. She locked the door and turned off the lights, Wangchuk said he was told by his wife, who was still being questioned by police Monday afternoon. The gunman “banged on the door
several times and started shooting outside and left,” he said. Wangchuk said no one was hurt inside his wife’s classroom, but that the gunman shot out the glass in the door. He said she did not know the man. “She’s a hero,” he said. Television footage showed bloodied victims on stretchers being loaded into ambulances. Several bodies covered in sheets were laid out on a patch of grass at the school. One body was loaded into a van. Police spokeswoman Cynthia Perkins said seven people were dead. She did not release any other details about the victims. Myung Soon Ma, the school’s secretary, said she could not provide any details about what happened at the small private school, which serves the Korean community with courses from theology to Asian medicine. “I feel really sad, so I cannot talk right now,” she said, speaking from her home. Police believe the shooter acted alone, though they have not discussed a possible motive. Those connected to the school, including the founder and several students, described the gunman as a former nursing student, though
there were conflicting reports about his current status. Officer Johnna Watson said the suspect is an Asian male in his 40s and was taken into custody at a shopping center in the neighboring city of Alameda. Watson said most of the wounded or dead were shot inside the building. The industrial park in which the school is located also includes the county food bank and a local Girl Scouts headquarters. “It’s a very fluid situation,” Watson said, declining to discuss details of the arrest or a possible motive. KTVU-TV reported that the shooter opened fire in a classroom. Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune that he did not know if the shooter was expelled or dropped out. Kim said he heard about 30 rapidfire gunshots in the building. “I stayed in my office,” he said. Deborah Lee, who was in an English language class, said she heard five to six gunshots at first. “The teacher said, `Run,’ and we run,” she said. “I was OK, because I know God protects me. I’m not afraid of him.” Angie Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle that she saw a young
woman leave the building with blood coming from her arm and crying: “I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot.” The injured woman said the shooter was a man in her nursing class who got up and shot one person at point-blank range in the chest before spraying the room with bullets, Johnson said. “She said he looked crazy all the time,” she said the victim told her, “but they never knew how far he would go.” According to its website, Oikos University also offers studies in music and nursing. A telephone message left on the university’s main voicemail was not immediately returned. Jerry Sung, the university’s accountant, said the school offers courses in both Korean and English to less than 100 students. He said the campus consisted of one building. Sung said many of its students went on to work in nursing and ministry. “The founder felt there was a need for theology and nursing courses for Korean-Americans who were newer to the community,” Sung said. “He felt they would feed more comfortable if they had Korean-American professors.”
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YOUR YDN DAILY
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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SPORTS Elis expect return to top 25 W. TENNIS FROM PAGE 12 set victory. Sullivan said her momentum helped her secure the match. “I was super focused and kind of confident after pulling out the doubles coming back from behind,” Sullivan said. Brook and Li secured the match win for Yale at No. 4 and No. 6, respectively. Utilizing her big serve, Brook powered her way to a 6–4, 6–4 sweep, while Li confidently dispatched her opponent 6–4, 6–1. Those two wins, which occurred within moments of each other, gave the Elis the third and fourth points they needed to win. At No. 1, Epstein dealt with hard-hitting Vanessa Petrini, 6–3, 6–3. Although Petrini jumped out to an early lead, Epstein tweaked her own game to take control of the match. “I knew her game going into the match because I played against her in the fall season at regionals,” Epstein said. “I got off to a slow start at 2–0 and had to make an adjustment to get more balls back on the court and make the points longer.” The Scarlet Knights received some consolation at No. 3. Kent lost a match-deciding tiebreaker 10–6 after splitting the first two sets. Opponent Morgan Ivey used her superior height to serve her way to a 6–3 first set win. But in the second set, Kent figured out Ivey’s game and used
Joey Votto and Cincinnati Reds reach agreement Votto, a first baseman for the Reds, came to an agreement with the team yesterday for a 10-year, $225 million extension. Votto helped the Reds claim the NL Central Title in 2010 and took the NL MVP award that year. Last season, his 28 homers and 103 RBIs were good for a spot for the second consecutive year on the All-Star Team. Votto has a $9.5 million base salary this year.
Singles sink Yale vs. St. John’s
well-placed groundstokes and speed to her advantage to dominate the second set 6–2. But in the tiebreaker, Ivey held strong and Kent hit a bad patch to take the loss.
I got off to a slow start at 2–0 and had to make an adjustment to get more balls back on the court and make the points longer. ELIZABETH EPSTEIN ’13 Women’s tennis No. 2 Seideman was the last to finish. In the first set, Seideman dominated on her way to a 6–3 win, often using the topspin on her forehand to draw her opponent off the court and then stepping into her backhand on the short balls to finish points. In the second set, Rutgers’ Jennifer Holzberg battled back admirably, fighting to a 7–6(5) victory with her teammates looking on. Seideman’s intensity clinched the match deciding tiebreaker 10–6. Yale begins Ivy League play at home against Penn at 2 p.m. Friday and continues at noon Saturday against Princeton. Contact JOEY ROSENBERG at joseph.rosenberg@yale.edu .
MARIA ZEPEDA/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The men’s tennis team is looking to go back to its winning ways when it begins Ivy League play this weekend against Penn and Princeton. M. TENNIS FROM PAGE 12 well and returned decently. There is room for improvement though.” In the singles round, both teams won two matches apiece. The Elis’ first victory came at No. 3, when Huang broke his opponent early on and came out with an easy 6–4, 6–2 win. Zach Krumholz ’15 also won at No. 6, defeating his opponent 7–5 in a close first set
and finishing the match 6–2 in the second. The final match left on the court was the No. 2 contest between Hoffman and St. John’s Milo Hauk. After a tough doubles match earlier on, a mentally strained Hoffman pulled out a win in the first set 7–5. In a close battle he lost the next two sets 6–4, ending the entire match. Hoffman said he was more upset that
he did not win than with the way he played. Yale’s head coach Alex Dorato added Hoffman is one of the toughest opponents to play. At No. 1 doubles and No. 2 singles, Hoffman is the kind of player that is able to return any ball. The Bulldogs will finish off their season playing against the other Ivies. This coming weekend they will travel to Princeton and Penn
Women’s sailing takes third in Providence
Contact ADLON ADAMS at adlon.adams@yale.edu .
Middle distance leads Elis
SAILING FROM PAGE 12 through everything with our coach after each race and also made efforts to stay lighthearted [after a loss].” Crew Heather May ’13 said the team recognized that prior losses were due to increasing physical and mental fatigue over the course of the regattas. She said the team consciously made efforts to sustain its concentration throughout this weekend’s taxing regatta to attain consistent execution. The Elis clinched the victory in the Southern New England Team Race on their final contest against Hobart William Smith. The victory placed them two points ahead of the Statesmen.
TRACK FROM PAGE 12
We stayed very level-headed for the most part and kept most of our emotions in check. We also took risks at the right time. MARLENA FAUER ’14 Skipper, women’s sailing At the Mystic Lake team race, Skipper Max Nickbarg ’14 said he was satisfied with Yale’s close result, adding that they competed in many close rounds and encountered rapidly shifting and unpredictable winds from one to nine knots throughout the weekend. In fleet racing, where each school is represented by a single boat, the coed team had a disappointing showing in Boston. The Charles River’s notoriously unpredictable and shifting sailing conditions, with breezes from six to 10 knots on Saturday and near still air on Sunday, did not serve well for the Elis. They earned sixth place in both the A and B divisions, which resulted in an ultimate fifth place at the Boston University Trophy. However, the women’s team won the A division in the 17-boat fleet race in Dellenbaugh. Skipper Marlena Fauer ’14, who earned the division victory with Eugenia Greig ’14 by eight points, attributed their success to consistency as they adapted to the shifting sailing conditions. Although they never won an individual race, they also never placed out of the top ten, unlike all of their competitors. “We stayed very level-headed for the most part and kept most of our emotions in check,” Fauer said. “We also took risks at the right time and
for the start of the Ivy League season. Both Hoffman and Dorato said they are expecting to come out with wins this weekend. Princeton is 10-8 in non-Ivy play this season, while Penn is 8-6. Neither team is currently ranked.
YDN
The sailing teams had mixed results this past weekend with a first-place finish, two third-place finishes, and a fifth-place finish. didn’t try to win the race right from the start. We waited for our competitors to make mistakes and then picked off boats [until] we were in the top group.” Fauer said she views the overall third place finish as a success, though she added that the team is still focus-
ing on improving its consistency and execution, and looking to improve its results in later regattas. The coed team will hone both team racing and fleet racing skills in preparation for next weekend’s Marchiando Friis Team Race at Tufts and MIT, and the Admiral Alymers Trophy at Mas-
sachusetts Maritime. The women’s team will compete at the President’s Trophy Regatta in Boston, Mass. Contact CLINTON WANG at clinton.wang@yale.edu .
’12 led the Bulldog pack in fifth place. (Raymond is a former city editor for the News.) While these runners competed in Raleigh, the rest of the women’s track team competed at the University of Connecticut Invitational, where they were earned 16 medals, including five first place finishes. Emily Urciuoli ’14 cleared 3.60 meters to win the pole vault. Adele Jackson-Gibson ’13 next won the 100-meter dash by .02 seconds, just beating out captain Alexa Monti ’12. Jackson-Gibson also placed second in the long jump. The flow of gold medals continued with Sarah Barry ’14 who won her race, the 800-meter dash, by .02 seconds. Allison Rue ’13 was a close third in this race, with Melissa Chapman ’14 in fourth. Chapman had taken the 1500-meter run earlier in the day for Yale’s fourth gold medal. In the 4 x 100-meter relay, the Bulldogs edged out eight other venerable squads to earn their fifth and final first place finish. Dakota McCoy ’13 was second in the 400-meter hurdles, followed closely by Jenna Poggi ’13 in third. “I was happy with my performance in the hurdles,” McCoy said. “I felt strong, and the final result was a really good starting point for the outdoor season.” The men’s team was able to pick up seven medals, including three golds at the UConn Invitational. Captain Matthew Bieszard ’12 ran to a first place finish in the 200-meter dash. Timothy Hillas ’13 matched Bieszard with a gold medal in the 1500meter run. Sam Kirtner ’13, John McGowan ’15 and Jacob Sandry ’15, took second through fifth places in the 1500-meter. Contact JORDAN KONELL at jordan.konell@yale.edu .
IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES
NHL Kentucky 67 Kansas 59
NHL Tampa Bay 4 Washington 2
SPORTS QUICK HITS
ALECA HUGHES ’12 GIVEN SARAH DEVENS AWARD Hughes, a forward and captain on the women’s hockey team, won the award which goes to a student-athlete who has shown leadership on and off the ice. ECAC Hockey and Hockey East jointly give the award. It includes a post-graduate $10,000 scholarship.
NBA L.A. Clippers 94 Dallas 75
y
HYWEL ROBINSON ’13 ELECTED MEN’S SQUASH CAPTAIN Robinson, who played at the No. 1 and No. 2 spot this past season, will take over the leadershp position of the 201112 captain Ryan Dowd ’12. Robinson had an 8-5 record this year, including a 3–0 victory during Yale’s historic defeat of Trinity in January.
NBA Milwaukee 112 Washington 98
NBA Memphis 94 Oklahoma City 88
FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports
“We volleyed well and returned decently. There is room for improvement though.” DANIEL FAIERMAN ’15 MEN’S TENNIS YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
Elis slay Scarlet Knights
Bulldogs fall at home BY ADLON ADAMS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The men’s tennis team suffered its first loss at home in the spring season this past Saturday to No. 58 St. John’s, 4-3.
M. TENNIS
Amber Li ’14 secured the doubles point by battling to a 9–8(2) tiebreaker triumph. At No. 2, the 61st-ranked pair of Elizabeth Epstein ’13 and Annie Sullivan ’14 edged to a 9–7 victory to close out doubles play. In singles, the Bulldogs bullied their way to success. Playing at No. 5, Sullivan made quickest work of her opponent and cruised to a 6–2, 6–1 straight-
Yale (11-6, 0-0 Ivy) swept the doubles matches but could not carry the momentum to the singles round for the win. Both teams won two singles matches each, placing the pressure of the entire match on the outcome of the No. 2 spot. “I thought we played well, but St. John’s is very good,” Daniel Hoffman ’13 said. “They play at the level of the top Ivy League teams. We were pretty close. If we had just broken at the other spots we would’ve won.” Hoffman added that a win against St. John’s would have given Yale a national ranking. The Bulldogs started off the match with a win at No. 2 doubles. The pair of Patrick Chase ’14 and John Huang ’13 easily defeated its opponents 8–2. Hoffman and his partner Marc Powers ’13 struggled at No. 1 but managed to pull off a 9–7 victory due to Powers’ dominance at the net and Hoffman’s tremendous serves. At the No. 3 doubles spot, Daniel Faierman ’15 played in his first competitive team match with partner and team captain Erik Blumenkranz ’12. They defeated their opponents in a close 8–7 match through consistent play. “There were a lot of momentum swings, but we stayed calm mentally,” Faierman said. “We volleyed
SEE W. TENNIS PAGE 11
SEE M. TENNIS PAGE 11
HOON PYO JEON/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Vicky Brook ’12 swept her Scarlet Knight opponent 6–4, 6–4 at the No. 4 spot Friday as the No. 26 Elis rolled past Rutgers, 6–1. BY JOEY ROSENBERG STAFF REPORTER On Friday, the No. 26 Bulldogs (12–3) stroked their way to a 6–1 victory over Rutgers (8–8, 2–2 Big East) and moved to 6–0 at home this season.
W. TENNIS Coming off the win, the team is expected to move back into the top 25 in
the April 3 Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings. Coach Danielle McNamara, recently named 2011 USTA New England College Coach of the Year, said aggressive play helped the team to excel. “Certain people performed better than others, but the people that played really well, what they did is they were aggressive, they took the ball on the rise and they were really dictating play,” McNamara said. “The most successful people did those things.”
Coed sailing takes first on the Thames BY CLINTON WANG STAFF REPORTER The No. 1 coed sailing team captured the Southern New England Team Race last weekend and had positive outcomes for the coed and No. 2 women’s teams at other races.
SAILING The coed team competed in two team racing regattas, winning 13-3 at the Southern New England Team Race Intersectional hosted by Connecticut College on the Thames River and coming in third with a score of 10-4 at the Mystic Lake Team Racing Invitational at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. The third place finish was just one win short of tying for first. The Bulldogs came in fifth at the Boston University Trophy, a fleet race regatta on the Charles River. Boston University took first. Women’s sailing finished third at the Brad Dellenbaugh Women’s Interconference Regatta, hosted by Brown University in Providence, R.I. The host claimed the win. “I was happy with the team at the Southern New England Team Race,” sailing head coach Zachary Leonard
Considering Yale has lost the doubles point in only one match so far this season, the Bulldogs’ doubles effort against the unranked Scarlet Knights began shakily. Two matches were close, but Yale eventually secured the doubles point 3–0. At No. 3, captain Stephanie Kent ’12 and Blair Seideman ’14 were first off the court, romping to an 8–2 win. (Seideman is a staff photographer for the News.) At No. 1, Vicky Brook ’12 and
Elis open outdoor season strong BY JORDAN KONELL STAFF REPORTER After a two-week hiatus, both the men’s and women’s track teams were back in action this weekend for their first full team outdoor competition of the season.
’89 said in an email to the News. “I thought we learned a lot this weekend, that I hope can make [our results] even better next time.” In team races, three boats from a school, each with a skipper and crew, race against three boats from another school, trying to prevent the other team from advancing as they traverse a course. The result of a round is determined by the sum of a team’s places, and teams must implement specific strategies against the opponent to earn a winning combination of places. On the Thames, the Bulldogs tackled spotty winds on Saturday to win 10 of their 11 races in a round robin, then attained a 3-2 record on Sunday in races with the top five other teams amidst light breezes. Crew Genoa Warner ’12 said the key factor in the team’s victory was its communication off the water, which allowed them to remain focused throughout the two-day regatta. “In our last team race regatta at St. Mary’s, a bad race got us down … and then we lost a few more after that,” Warner said. “[This time,] we talked
The Bulldogs competed at the University of Connecticut Invitational this weekend, and the women’s team ran an additional meet, the Raleigh Relays at North Carolina State University. The women’s team took home 17 medals for the weekend and the men picked up seven. “It was my first time I’ve run the 1500, so I didn’t really know what to expect, but I stuck with the pack and then just tied to push through that last 400 [meters],” said Annelies Gamble ’13, who finished in fifth place in the 1500-meter run just behind Nihal Kayali ’13, who placed third. The two runners matched their success Saturday, when Gamble placed eighth and Kayali 12th in the 800-meter run. Eli runners also fared well in the 10,000-meter run. For that event, Lindsey Raymond
SEE SAILING PAGE 11
SEE TRACK PAGE 11
STAT OF THE DAY 14
TRACK & FIELD
YDN
The men’s track and field team took home five victories from UConn Saturday, while the women captured five of their own.
THE NUMBER OF DOUBLES POINTS OUT OF FIFTEEN PLAYED THIS SEASON THAT THE NO. 26 WOMEN’S TENNIS TEAM HAS WON. THE ELIS CONTINUED THEIR WINNING WAYS AGAINST RUTGERS THIS PAST WEEKEND. Their one doubles loss was to No. 5 Miami on March 17.