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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 · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 117 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY SUNNY

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CROSS CAMPUS

In a column published to Bloomberg Tuesday, Clare Malone lays out the ways in which Yale can construct a campus in Singapore that does not violate academic freedom, based on her experience working for Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

AUTISM

BASEBALL

Fiscal proposals by Democrats, Republicans duke it out in Hartford

ACTIVIST SHARES PERSONAL STORY, URGES REFORMS

Elis can’t recover from first-inning hiccups and fall to Sacred Heart, 6–3

PAGES 8-9 CULTURE

PAGE 3 CITY

PAGE 5 NEWS

PAGE 16 SPORTS

YCC faces ‘short-term mindset’

GRAPH How big of an impact do you think the YCC Executive Board, in general, has on student life at Yale?

GRAPH HOW BIG OF AN IMPACT DO YOU THINK THE YCC EXECUTIVE BOARD, IN GENERAL, HAS ON STUDENT LIFE AT YALE?

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BY ANTONIA WOODFORD STAFF REPORTER

“Maybe YCCs in the past have done just as much, but the newsletter and promotion in general [and] cooperating with various groups on campus to put the YCC logo on everything they can has made people more aware of YCC,” he said.

In its first-ever mid-year report emailed to the student body in January, this year’s YCC listed over ten policy improvements it had achieved, such as sending students email notifications when their final grades have been posted, extending residential college dining hours over Thanksgiving break and bringing mixed-gender housing options to juniors.

Levin said one of his goals for the year was to create “a more visible and

Yale has given tenure to significantly more men than women over the past decade, according to data collected by the Women’s Faculty Forum this spring.

The WFF found that women comprise 29 percent of faculty who received tenure since 2000 and remain at Yale, and this percentage rises to 37 percent among the humanities divisions and falls to 19 percent within science departments. Eight tenured female professors interviewed said they think factors such as unconscious discrimination against women have contributed to the gender disparity in tenured positions. “[Yale] is pretty close in hiring [equal numbers of men and women] at the junior level, but when it comes time to recognize the women’s achievements as outstanding enough for the University to make a tenured commitment, it looks to me like unconscious bias kicks in,” said Laura Wexler, former chair of the WFF and a professor of American studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. “For whatever reason, women are not seen as fully equal, tenurable colleagues.”

While women hold 38 percent of junior faculty positions across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, they hold 23 percent of tenured faculty positions, according to the data. Still, the data shows gradual increases in the number of women hired to both junior faculty and tenured positions between 2000 and 2012, the period covered by the analysis.

Frances Rosenbluth, deputy provost for social sciences and faculty development, said she thinks the data indicates that women are “disproportionately” leaving academia before they reach higher positions, adding that “women often face negative stereotypes and sometimes even denigrating behavior.” She said the problem of women “dropping out” of academia is particularly evident nationally in the biological sciences, where women earn 53 percent of doctoral degrees but go on to hold only a quarter of assistant

SEE YCC PAGE 4

SEE WFF REPORT PAGE 7

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10 On the other hand. A column

published to The Kent Ridge Common, a student publication focused on Singaporean affairs, questions whether a Singaporean university should want to partner with a university like Yale, which comes from a country in which corporations are people and government is the enemy.

Promise in effect. The

deadline for high school seniors to apply for New Haven Promise scholarships passed Monday night, and preliminary numbers indicate that over 340 students applied. The final count will be announced at the end of the week.

No more $4 gallons? Gov. Dannel Malloy on Tuesday signed into law a bill that caps the wholesale gas tax in Connecticut. The cap will not significantly change gas prices, though — based on last week’s prices, the new cap will cut consumer costs by a little more than 1 cent per gallon.

Beginning of the end?

Connecticut’s Senate will begin debating a bill on Wednesday that would repeal the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without parole. Connecticut is one of two states in New England that has not repealed the death penalty.

New frontiers. The Yale Center

for British Art will become one of six university museums to partner with Google in a user-friendly international art database, Google announced Tuesday. Launched as a 17-museum-archive in February 2011, Google Art Project will now include art from 150 museums around the world, including the YCBA.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1965 Investigations continue into the mass death of 150 pigeons on the New Haven Green. Poisoned bread crumbs are the main suspect.

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Women lag in reaching tenure

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Bloomberg takes on NUS.

DUELING BUDGETS

STUDENT G OVERNMENT

PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS

Getting famous. Allison Williams ’10 made an appearance on the David Letterman Show Tuesday night to promote her upcoming HBO series, the Lena Dunhamdirected “Girls.” Letterman briefly called her performance in “Girls” “tremendous,” but then spent the bulk of the interview discussing Williams’ childhood and experiences as the daughter of TV news anchor Brian Williams. “It’s actually been very cool to have him as a dad,” she observed.

‘CABARET’ SHOW CONFRONTS DARK HISTORY

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ith one week remaining before the next Yale College Council executive board is elected, the work of current members is not over — rather, the success of next year’s Council to engage students and enact policy change may rely on the upcoming transition period. MADELINE MCMAHON reports.

By Thursday, the candidates for the new Yale College Council executive board will have submitted their petitions to enter the race for next year’s council. The following Thursday marks the beginning of elections for this new board — and also signals the end of the 2011–’12 board’s tenure.

Though current board members,

led by YCC President Brandon Levin ’13, do not officially step down from their positions until the end of the year, their work is largely done.

With a new logo, a weekly newsletter and a new website, this year’s council has worked to become a more transparent and well-known body among the student population, YCC Representative Bryan Epps ’14 said.

City budget process kicks into gear

BY NICK DEFIESTA STAFF REPORTER At Tuesday night’s finance committee meeting, the Board of Aldermen’s budgeting process for the next fiscal year gained momentum.

Aldermen heard testimony from representatives of various city departments at the meeting regarding their 2012-’13 budgets and considered the best way to allocate New Haven’s budget in the wake of an economic recession. While most departments came before the committee with budgets similar to years past, those that proposed increases in funding faced increased scrutiny from aldermen.

The budget Mayor John DeStefano Jr. proposed last month — which spends $486.8 million, up 2.4 percent from last year’s total — served as a blueprint for the committee. DeStefano’s budget includes a $2.7 million increase in police department funding and a $1.2 million increase in education funding, which would be the first such increase in four years.

When he released his budget proposal, DeStefano said these increases are possible in large part because of a $7.5 million increase in property tax revenue.

With DeStefano’s budget as a starting point, the finance committee will continue to hear testimony from officials and city residents before drafting and voting on its own proposal. The

full Board of Aldermen will likely vote on a final budget in May. In the past, the board has been considered a rubber stamp for the mayor’s fiscal policies. But last fall, aldermanic candidates endorsed by Yale and city employee labor unions defeated many DeStefano-backed candidates to win a controlling majority on the board, which may allow them to set the tone of this year’s budget discussions.

The budget for the mayor’s office decreased $2,000 from previous years in DeStefano’s proposal, in part because of layoffs in the department over the course of the past decade, said Rebecca Bombero, DeStefano’s legislative director.

During her testimony, Sally Brown, a representative from the town clerk’s office, explained that the $1,000 increase in their budget — which has been denied for a few years — would go toward nonvital office supplies.

Like the groups that preceded her, Brown sailed through the committee with few questions from aldermen.

But when acting city assessor Alexander Pullen asked the board for an increase from what DeStefano had allotted him, he faced resistance and increased questioning from the committee. Pullen said his department needed more money in order to cover costs for property revaluation as well as to print legally required documents SEE CITY BUDGET PAGE 7

Stiles juniors struggle for space at Swing

SARAH ECKINGER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

After Ezta Stiles allowed annexed juniors to “opt in” to Swing Space, more rooms were requested than were available.

BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER Rising juniors in Ezra Stiles College scrambled to reorganize suite configurations after more members of their class volunteered to live in Swing Space than could be accommodated.

Swing Space has suites of two singles, a common room, a private bathroom and a kitchenette, and serves as the annex for Stiles, Morse, Trumbull and Berkeley Colleges. Beginning last year, rising juniors in Stiles were allowed to “opt in” to Swing Space before the housing lottery took place, and current sophomores said opting in was popular this year because living in Swing Space would guarantee them a single and allow them to avoid the stress of the housing process. But as many students began signing up to live in

Swing Space, Ezra Stiles Dean Camille Lizarribar warned the class of 2014 in a March 25 email that if the system proved ineffective, the college could need to reevaluate its opt-in policy in the future.

“I have received numerous requests for Swing Space, and we may or may not have too many students who have asked to opt in,” Lizarribar wrote in the email, sent before the number of available rooms in Swing Space had been determined. “The point of opting into Swing was to make being annexed less anxiety-provoking, not more, and if this system doesn’t work then we may need to rethink the option of opting in.”

Lizarribar declined to comment for this article.

Stiles students who opted in to Swing Space were told that housing requests SEE SWING SPACE PAGE 4

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

“This might just be the most useless, inaccurate, and ineffective ‘ranking’ .COMMENT that PR, or any similar institution, has ever pushed out.” ‘INYCEPOO’ ON yaledailynews.com/opinion ‘PRINCETON REVIEW RANKS TOP 300 U.S. PROFESSORS’

Toning down Giving Yale a bad rap our rhetoric L

A

finger presses down over lips without a face, directing you to stay silent. Streets are deserted.

Ominous, masked medical professionals handle syringes and a man points a gas pump into his head as if it were a gun.

If you think this sounds like a trailer for a bad horror movie, you’re only part right — Rick Santorum’s campaign ad “Obamaville” has the horror part down but does not preview any movie that will actually be produced.

(If you haven’t yet seen Obamaville, watch it. It’s worth it.)

Santorum’s campaign is rapidly turning from a not-sopotent political force into an increasingly desperate plea for continued attention. Moreover, offensive, misleading and patently false attack ads have been produced and run by politicians of both parties for years, so why should we notice this one?

Well, for one thing, it’s very weird. Are we to believe that reelecting Obama will make playgrounds really, exceptionally creepy or cause our towns to become infested with crows?

But what’s truly noteworthy is the video’s apocalyptic tone.

Reelect Obama, it seems to say, and America will turn into a collection of ghost towns taken right out of the Hunger Games.

America won’t just be poorer, less powerful, more dangerous or less free; it will (all of it) be New Orleans right after Katrina or any city after Ghenghis Khan.

Maybe Santorum believes in the Apocalypse, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt about when it will happen and what or who will precipitate it. What concerns me is that this sort of hyperbole is not so uncommon.

And I’m not talking about death panels either — I’m talking about the exaggerated and histrionic language students use on Yale’s campus.

Thus the proclamation by Kenneth Reveiz ’12 in an interview with the News before the production of his OSAMA PLAY: “I think [other] Yale theater [productions], even the Control Group, reproduces the hegemony of which Yale is a part, whether they like it or not, whether they think so or not.”

The play may have been great — I didn’t see it. But isn’t it a tiny bit self-important to think sticking it to the Yale theater scene, its values or the hegemony of which it apparently is a part, is worth creating a play about Osama Bin Laden? A play which, according to Nicholas Leingang ’14, who played Osama, “play[s] down the amount of terrorism Osama has done in history?”

Doubtless several Yale students and employees knew friends or relatives who died

in the 9/11 attacks — couldn’t an effective challenge to current power structures and the capiHARRY talist system LARSON be mounted w i t h o u t Nothing in Osama as a characParticular ter, let alone a humanized one? Doesn’t humanizing the now-dead terrorist – whose family made billions off the international capitalist system – dilute valid critiques of our society with needless provocation and false equivalencies?

Maybe the play found a way to avoid these traps, but the message the cast and crew delivered in this newspaper fell right into them. Exaggeration not only demonizes our opponents; it undermines legitimate debate.

Throughout the Yale-NUS controversy, proponents of the venture have taken a measured approach, emphasizing Yale’s ability to pull out of Singapore as well as the tangible benefits they foresee from expanding Yale’s international footprint or helping to spread the liberal arts to Asia. This is not to say they haven’t addressed values — their valuing of the liberal arts is the basis of nearly all their arguments — but even their valuesbased arguments have tended to be modest in scope.

Opponents of Yale-NUS have, on the other hand, spoken in far broader terms, emphasizing the damage to Yale’s credibility that could come from partnering with an authoritarian regime. Their objections are perfectly valid — they may even be right — but their hyperbole isn’t.

Whether Yale-NUS is right or wrong, Yale in New Haven will continue to be a bastion of academic excellence and free speech. Its reputation may suffer, but the notion that its own faculty could see its freedom of speech infringed upon or that it will somehow be irreversibly polluted is, frankly, ridiculous. The overflowing of public criticism of the project is evidence that debate and dissenting opinions are not only tolerated but allowed to flourish in New Haven.

Strongly held opinions are good. Sometimes one side is more right than the other and is justified in feeling that way.

But apart from some once-ina-generation cases, the world won’t end if the other side wins out. So let’s cool down our rhetoric.

HARRY LARSON is a sophomore in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact him at harry.larson@yale.edu .

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celled.

So either Cohen made the decision to cancel and foisted responsibility onto the big, bad YPD or he COLIN ROSS i n t e r p r e t e d their recomGangbuster mendation as an order that the police do not have the authority to give.

Cohen did not respond to a request for comment for the News’ Monday story and did not answer the question in a comment for this column.

In his email to the News explaining the decision, Assistant Chief Patten first cited the fact that the event was advertised, free and open to the public — heaven forbid! — and the overcrowding and loitering it might cause. If you think this was the real reason for the cancellation, I’ve got a residential college to sell you. The real reason, as Awachie told me Patten made clear in his call to her, was increased gang activity in the city and the potential for violence at the event. The YPD judged the presence of four local rappers at an on-campus event so chaotic that it would spark a violent incident that the presence of Yale Security and police officers would be powerless to deter. Highly improbable? Yes.

But not without reason.

One of the New Haven rappers scheduled to appear was shot at a rap showcase at Toad’s a year ago. But there were no official security personnel at Toad’s that night. Yale Security was already planning to monitor the Af-Am House showcase. According to Alan Sage ’14, Middleman’s president, YPD Chief Ronnell Higgins only found out about the planned event the day before — and was very unhappy that he had not been told about it sooner.

Judging from his reaction, he did not trust Yale Security to be able to contain the violence that the local rappers and their entourages might unleash, and didn’t want to use YPD resources to do so.

Police never suggested an alternative date, venue or that certain rappers should be uninvited. The YPD’s knee-jerk decision to quash an event trying to build bonds between Yale and New Haven speaks ill of its attempts to follow a model of community policing. We should expect better, and we usually receive it.

Still, the YPD’s officers’ primary mission is to provide a safe and secure campus environment. If they feel an event carries a chance for violence, they are not inclined to weigh that danger against any potential artistic merit. They may have exhibited poor judgment, but they were still

only trying to do their job.

The same is not true for administrators such as Dean Cohen, whose job is to maintain Yale as a place where intellectual and artistic expression can be safely expressed. That means protecting it both from violence and from overzealous protection that turns into a form of censorship. Cohen seemed to be on board as late as March 19, when he let Awachie use his name to request Yale Security for the event. But when police came to him with the message that a rap showcase was too dangerous an art form for Yale University, he did not challenge them and stand up for the hard work of the students who organized the event or were planning to perform.

The event’s organizers are reasonable people. As Sage told me, they just wished that there had been more communication from the administration so that security concerns could have been addressed without needlessly indicting the whole event. Cohen said in an email to the News on Tuesday that “the decision to cancel this recent event is not a reflection on the New Haven community or its residents.” Actions speak louder than words, Dean.

COLIN ROSS is a senior in Berkeley College. His column runs on Wednesdays. Contact him at colin.ross@yale. edu .

GUEST COLUMNIST SEYLA BENHABIB

What’s at stake at Yale-NUS At its monthly meeting tomorrow, the Yale College faculty will debate and probably vote on a resolution that means a lot more for the future of Yale University than its wording alone suggests.

I introduced the resolution concerning the planned Yale-NUS College in Singapore to express faculty dissatisfaction not only with Yale’s collaboration with a government that severely constricts human rights, civil liberties and academic freedom but also with the administration’s decision-making process about curricular and pedagogical matters that should have been decided by a vote of the Yale faculty — if indeed Yale’s name is to be attached to the college in Singapore at all.

While the body of a university must be administered by a corporation, its living constitution — some would say its soul — flourishes only in its scholars’ and students’ freedom to follow reason and open inquiry in directions that are not foreclosed by government or market pressures. Yet the Yale faculty has slowly awakened to the virtual fait accomplit of a new college that will be in part governed and fully funded by Singapore and its National University. Yale’s

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THIS ISSUE COPY STAFF: Katharine Pincus COPY ASSISTANT: Melinda Becker PRODUCTION STAFF: Jacob Allen Rebecca Levinsky, Annie Schweikert PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS: Allie Krause, Michelle Korte, Katy Osborne, Clinton Wang EDITORIALS & ADS

ux, veritas … and securitas?

Perhaps that should be the University’s new motto if the recent actions of the Yale Police Department and administrators are any indication. In their cancellation of a rap event at the Af-Am House, Yale administrators and police officials allowed tentative security concerns to trump all else and seemed to lack any willingness to work with the event’s organizers to find a middle ground between safety and free expression.

As the News reported on Monday, the Af-Am Center, WYBC and the undergraduate organization Middleman had invited nine area rappers, four of them Yale students, to perform at a showcase at the Af-Am House this past Saturday night. The event, which organizers started planning in February, seemed to be proceeding smoothly until Saturday, when Assistant YPD Chief Michael Patten called one of the organizers, Ifeanyi Awachie ’14, to tell her that the event’s request to use the House had been denied. Fifty minutes later, Af-Am Center Director and assistant Yale College Dean Rodney Cohen emailed organizers to tell them that the event had been cancelled “by order of the Yale Police.”

That was untrue. Patten told the News that police only recommended that the event be can-

collaboration in this venture was conceived partly by some members of the Yale Corporation who have also served on the Government of Singapore’s investment corporation. While the new college will not technically grant Yale degrees, its graduates will be fully integrated into the Yale Alumni Association Network.

My resolution addresses explicitly only one dimension of these strange and troubling arrangements. It reads: “We, the Yale College Faculty, express our concern regarding the recent history of lack of respect for civil and political rights in the state of Singapore, host of the proposed YaleNational University of Singapore College.

“We urge Yale-NUS to respect, protect and further principles of non-discrimination for all, including sexual minorities and migrant workers; to uphold civil liberty and political freedom on campus and in the broader society.

“These ideals lie at the heart of liberal arts education as well as of our civic sense as citizens, and they ought not to be compromised in any dealings or negotiations with the Singaporean authorities.”

Gays still persecuted in Singapore I am glad that Austin Shiner, as an admissions officer of Yale-NUS and a new public face of that emerging institution, is so gayfriendly (“Gay night in Singapore,” April 2). It is also nice to see him concede the value of civil liberties. Such a stance cannot be taken for granted in Singapore.

Mr Shiner’s complains of a “mischaracteriz[ation] of Singapore as a place exceptionally intolerant of homosexuality.”

But before making statements on the matter, Shiner should read the essays by Professors Audrey Yue and Michael Hor available on the “Yale and Singapore” Classes.v2 page.

If Shiner is by his own admission “no expert on gay life in Singapore,” these professors are.

Professor Yue points out that Singapore’s Section 377A, banning male homosexual conduct, “is retained as an ambivalent but pragmatic tool for minimising risk and instigating fear.” Professor Hor, who teaches law at NUS, demonstrates that 377A is still being enforced, without any “legitimate or sensible reason.”

The Attorney General of Singapore said in 2008 — after a new “compromise” on homosexuality — “It is still against the law and we still prosecute if there’s a need…” That remains the stated policy.

The point has never been the mere presence on the books of Section 377A but rather that the law, enforced in a wider context of censorship, self-censorship and intimidation, makes Singapore unsuitable, for now.

Many of us need no lessons on homophobia in the United States. But specious, nonsensical

At Thursday’s faculty meeting, amendments may be introduced with the intent to get the Yale faculty on record supporting the establishment of Yale-NUS, even though the faculty never formally debated or voted on the project before it was signed and sealed. But any such support would require a new resolution and cannot be adopted before the full terms of the agreement between the Yale Corporation, the Government of Singapore and the NUS administration are made public. How can we be asked to endorse an arrangement the terms of which have not been disclosed?

Furthermore, it is only in ad hoc fashion that the cooperation expected of the Yale-New Haven faculty with Yale-NUS comes to light: We are expected to host and train the new faculty members of Yale-NUS here in New Haven as early as this fall, the president of Yale-NUS writes that classrooms will be equipped for teleconferencing with classes that we teach in New Haven, and the first students admitted by Yale-NUS will come to New Haven in summer 2013 and attend our classes, where special focus will be placed on encouraging them to participate freely and learn to speak

their minds. When have we been asked whether or not we agree with all this?

The argument by Yale-NUS defenders that puzzles me most is that we in New Haven live in departmental silos, while YaleNUS will set a dazzling example of the interdisciplinary future of liberal arts for us here in the U.S. Leaving aside this venture’s naïve missionary sentiment, one must ask: Do we need to go to Singapore to advance interdisciplinarity and a revival of the liberal arts?

I understand well the challenges of achieving a genuine interdisciplinarity. A Universitywide conversation about such programs would be welcome.

But where has that discussion been? What exactly have been the obstacles to holding it here in New Haven?

We, the faculty of Yale College, have the responsibility and obligation to deliberate and vote on these arrangements. Nothing less than our honor and judgment is at stake.

equivalencies — Rick Santorum’s bigotry in the US means that Yale should be in Singapore — serve no purpose.

America is far ahead of Singapore on LGBT rights, again, pointing to Santorum and his supporters, whose statements on gay rights, women’s rights, and basic civil liberties horrifies me and many Yalies. But even GOP primary voters — who are more intolerant than the typical American — are rejecting Santorum. We can openly reject these positions and this behavior and advocate for a more reasonable and progressive alternative, unlike the system in Singapore.

In the past ten years we’ve seen eight states approve gay marriage. We’ve seen DADT repealed.

The Obama Administration has refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. Openly gay men serve in Congress. Though we still have a long way to go, there has been significant progress in the United States. Singapore, in contrast, did not even allow gays to rally in public until 2009 and does not have the political infrastructure to support meaningful political action in support of more progressive policies. I fail to see how the two countries are equally regressive on gay rights or civil liberties more broadly.

CHRISTOPHER MILLER April 2 The writer is the Frederick Clifford professor of African American Studies and French.

On gay rights, America is exceptional While I share Austin Shiner’s satisfaction with Singapore’s progress on gay rights in recent years (“Gay night in Singapore,” April 2), I reject the notion that Singapore is no more regressive than the United States.

Shiner contrasts Rick Santorum’s candidacy with the lack of an equivalent in Singapore. This could very well be because dissent and opposition candidates in Singapore are marginalized and blocked by the ruling party — not because an intolerant candidate wouldn’t be viable. It is unclear what would happen if truly democratic elections were held.

Through an elaborate system of gerrymandering, media influence, and restrictive legislation, the Singaporean government erects a number of barriers to open political conversation.

Shiner also doubts the fact that

SEYLA BENHABIB is Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy .

THOMAS DEC April 2 The writer is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College.

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

PAGE THREE TODAY’S EVENTS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4

“One morning he awoke in a green hotel with a strange creature groaning beside him. Sweat oozed from its shining skin.” “CELEBRATION OF THE LIZARD” THE DOORS

Democrats pass revised budget

12:00 PM “The Problem of Yankeeland: Southern Images of the North, 1865-1920.” History graduate student Sarah K. Bowman will give this brown bag lecture. Bring lunch; drinks and dessert will be provided. Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. 230 Prospect St., room 101.

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.

State engages in reptile conservation

BY LILIANA VARMAN STAFF REPORTER This year, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is out to protect the state’s only native lizard species, the five-lined skink.

DEEP’s efforts to protect these lizards — which are currently on the state’s threatened species list — are in conjunction with the nonprofit Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s 2012 “Year of the Lizard” campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to educate people on the diversity of lizard species nationwide and worldwide in an effort to increase awareness about lizard conservation efforts, said Valorie Titus, co-chair of the Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation.

“There are serious problems in North America regarding reptiles and amphibians, and most people don’t even realize it,” said Terry Riley, federal agencies coordinator for the U.S. National Parks Service.

The campaign aims to inform public and private land managers of habitat management guidelines that can be used to protect the environments on which reptiles and lizards depend for survival, Riley added. Partner organizations also plan activities and provide the public with educational information about local lizard species, he said. The importance of the 2012 campaign, he said, is to teach the general public, including farmers and ranchers, the impact of agriculture and grazing on lizard habitats.

PARC’S goal, he said, is to cooperate with its partners to increase awareness on a wide variety of lizard species — from endangered iguanas in the Caribbean to the Gila Monsters of the American southwest deserts. PARC conducted a similar campaign in 2011 with its “Year of the Turtle” initiative.

Priya Nanjappa, amphibian, reptile and invasive species coordinator at the North American Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, said she thinks lizard conservation efforts do not receive enough

attention from the public.

Some lizards, she added, can be difficult to find and research because they exist in hyperspecific regions. One goal of PARC’s campaign, she said, is to clear up misconceptions regarding lizard species, and she added that she feels many people assume lizards are aggressive, venomous and dull-colored.

There are serious problems in North America regarding reptiles and amphibians, and most people don’t even realize it.

TERRY RILEY Federal Agencies Coordinator, National Parks Service Riley said that while the campaign’s success can be difficult to measure due to the diversity of lizard species across the continent, he has seen PARC’s efforts make steady gains. Last month, he said, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced a new program that would focus on protecting seven species of wildlife, including two species of turtles. The program, Riley added, marks the first instance that the money from the 2008 Farm Bill, which provides billions of dollars to support conservation programs, will be used towards conserving amphibian or reptile species.

“Most of us grew up thinking ‘Oh, we can pick up this turtle and take it home’ or ‘We can pick up this frog,’ ” Riley said.

“Most people in the United States and Canada have no idea that turtles and amphibians and frogs are in trouble.”

T h e No r t h ea s t Pa r t ners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s annual meeting begins on July 24 in New Hampshire.

Contact LILIANA VARMAN at liliana.varman@yale.edu .

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gov. Dannel Malloy’s fiscal proposals sparked a budgeting process that resulted in the Appropriations Committee in Hartford passing a budget for the next fiscal year that garnered mostly Democratic votes.

BY MASON KROLL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Following a proposal by Gov. Dannel Malloy to adjust the state’s budget in support of education reforms, the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee passed a revised budget that calls for a $1 million decrease in state spending.

Though Democratic leaders said Republican ranking members routinely participated in drafting the budget proposal, Thursday’s 34–15 vote in support of the measure was largely partisan. Republican lawmakers suggested their own budget, which they estimated spends $342 million less than Malloy’s original proposal, but it was voted down in committee in favor of its Democratic counterpart on Thursday. The Democratic proposal, which calls for $20 billion in state spending, reflects several substantial policy changes, including reforms to the state’s public education system.

“It is a fair, transparent budget that includes ideas from the governor, Republicans and Democrats,” said state Rep. Toni Walker, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee and a Democrat whose district includes New Haven. “We worked hard to produce a budget that was under the governor’s spending level and under the spending cap.”

State Sen. Toni Harp, the other co-chair of the Appropriations Committee whose district also includes New Haven, said Malloy’s proposed adjustment to the biennial budget was one of the most “sweeping” she has seen in her 10 terms in office. She said she will begin

negotiating with Malloy today to see if they can reconcile the differences between his proposal and the budget passed by her committee.

Malloy’s proposals, Harp said, were motivated in part by his initiative to reform Connecticut’s public schools. The Appropriations Committee kept several of Malloy’s education proposals, including $50 million in Education Cost Sharing grants, which help fund municipal school districts. While many of Malloy’s proposals relating to the funding and creation of charter schools were cut or diminished, the committee doubled funding for preschools in “priority” districts — those deemed the 15 worstperforming in the state — and added $2.8 million for agricultural schools, such as New Haven’s Sound School.

“The governor and many of the members of the General Assembly have talked about education and education reform,” Walker said. “We wanted to make sure we maintained that conversation in this bill.”

The budget proposal fell $700,000 below the spending cap, which limits appropriations growth based on either inflation or average personal income. In addition to eliminating a 4 percent increase in bus and rail fares, Walker said the committee added “transparency” to the budget by including Medicaid expenses and cost of living adjustments for private providers as line items. She added that several Republican ideas, including a restoration of culture and tourism funding for economic development, were included in the proposal.

Much of the spending cuts Republicans said their package achieves stem from a focus on fraud prevention. Pat O’Neill, a spokesman for the House Republicans, said the Republican leadership met with Connecticut’s branch of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which said the state could save $7 million in fraud prevention for each employee added to the unit’s budget. By doubling the staff within the unit and adding workers to the social services fraud prevention unit, they conservatively estimated savings of $102 million, O’Neill said.

There’s a lot being written in pencil right now and miles to go before we sleep.

DANNEL MALLOY Governor of Connecticut “Ultimately, [the Democrats’] proposal and our proposal are widely divergent,” O’Neill said. “We’d like to think a number of our programs will be included in the final budget, but the bottom line may not change much.”

Walker said Republicans in committee meetings never mentioned these fraud suggestions, and Harp added that their staff could not verify the savings they purported to achieve.

Harp, however, said she plans on following up with Kevin Kane, the chief state’s attorney, about the possibility of including fraud protection in the bud-

get’s final form.

Additional Republican proposals to eliminate the Earned Income Tax Credit and restore the sales tax exemption on clothing and footwear under $50 would save $116.5 million and $141.7 million respectively, O’Neil said.

“Once again, Republicans have proven there is a better way to balance a budget,” Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, Republican of Fairfield, said in a press release last Thursday. “We have found a way to deliver these reforms while simultaneously reducing spending and providing tax relief.”

Before the end of the state legislature session May 9, a budget must be passed by the House and Senate and signed by the governor. Harp said she thought lawmakers would complete the process before that deadline.

In a Thursday press conference, Malloy said the current Democratic proposal, which decreased the education budget by $23 million, resulted from a “difference in priorities.” Still, he said, the budget is not in its eventual final form.

“We’re in that situation where committees do what committees do and five weeks out, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Malloy said in the release.

“That won’t be the final budget and we’ll go from there. There’s a lot being written in pencil right now and miles to go before we sleep.”

Malloy’s original proposal called for overall state spending of $19.3 billion.

Contact MASON KROLL at mason.kroll@yale.edu .

Chaplaincy fellows begin training

BY JANE DARBY MENTON STAFF REPORTER Student “chaplaincy fellows” recently selected by the Chaplain’s Office have begun training to organize activities and promote reflective conversations in the residential colleges next year.

The initiative, funded by a $50,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, will provide each of the fellows with a $500 stipend to sponsor activities that foster interfaith dialogue and raise awareness about spiritual resources available on campus, said Nat DeLuca GRD ’06, program coordinator for the Chaplain’s Office. The newly selected fellows, all members of the class of 2014, spent spring break with DeLuca in Washington, D.C.,

learning about different religions and building leadership abilities to help them implement the pilot program in the fall.

“The fellows will create spaces where students can be more vulnerable and doubtful than other places at Yale,” DeLuca said. “They will help us make Yale a more tender, caring place.”

Though the original plans called for two fellows in each college, four colleges — Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, Davenport and Trumbull Colleges — will not have fellows specific to them, DeLuca said, adding that the program is still “in pilot mode” and he hopes it will extend in the future. Still, DeLuca said fellows will hold events in each of the residential colleges.

To teach the fellows about hospitality and different spiritual practices, DeLuca said he brought them to different religious centers in Washington, D.C., over spring break, including a Jain Society, a temple of the Latter-day Saints and the National Cathedral.

Beata Fiszer ’14, a chaplaincy fellow for Morse College, said she thinks the exposure to different religious practices helped prepared her to be open to students from different religious traditions, adding that she hopes to help people start conversations they may be afraid to have.

“A lot of people struggle with things they’re not comfortable talking about,” Fiszer said. “I want to help the class of 2015 find themselves in more than just academia.”

Grace Bang ’14, a chaplaincy fellow for Ezra Stiles, said the trip made her better understand an “underlying continuity” between people of different religious backgrounds, and that this knowledge will likely help her to connect with students.

They will help us make Yale a more tender, caring place.

NAT DELUCA GRD ’06 Program Coordinator, Chaplain’s Office DeLuca said the fellows will use activities such as study breaks, journaling exercises and artistic projects to create a “meaningful” opportunity for

students to grapple with difficult life questions. While the program will primarily focus on sophomores, who have recently lost the support bases available to freshmen, DeLuca said he hopes all classes will benefit from increased access to religious and spiritual resources.

Cheryl Tupper, program coordinator for the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, which awarded the Chaplain’s Office the grant, said the foundation thought the program was an “imaginative and creative” way to foster dialogue within student communities and was consistent with the foundation’s goal of strengthening America’s future through education.

Benjamin VanGelder ’13, a member of Yale Students for Christ, said he thinks the new

fellows will increase the use of Chaplain’s Office programs and integrate students into religious life on campus.

But Pim-orn Wacharaprapapong ’12 said she is not sure if the fellows will be able to effectively initiate conversations about such “sensitive” personal issues.

“I don’t think I would go to a person I don’t know, even in my college, to talk about religious or spiritual questions,” Wacharaprapapong said. “I would probably rather talk to my close friends.”

The Yale Chaplain’s office is located in the basement of Bingham Hall’s entryway D. Contact JANE DARBY MENTON at jane.menton@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

Swing Space Swing Space was built in 1998 to serve as annex housing for colleges under renovations. Offering perks such as air conditioning, guaranteed singles and a kitchenette, Swing Space has become a popular housing option for upperclassmen.

Approaching turnover, council reflects on year present YCC that is more reactive to student needs.” He added that one of his “metrics of success” is receiving a few emails a week from students raising concerns or offering suggestions about particular issues.

Still, while YCC’s weekly meeting is open to all Yale undergraduates, YCC member Josh Ackerman ’14 said few ever attend. In a survey distributed by the News to randomly selected Yale undergraduates, 51 percent of the 740 respondents said this year’s YCC Executive Board has had a “moderate” effect on student life at Yale.

TIME CRUNCH

Of the 157 seniors who participated in the survey, 71 said they did not know which of the past four Councils was most effective both in generating and implementing initiatives. Of those who did have an opinion, a majority classified this year’s YCC board as the most effective group.

But because the term of a YCC member lasts only a year, passing major initiatives within that year

can be difficult, Levin said.

This year’s YCC, for example, struggled to achieve results in two main areas of focus: mental health and Credit/D/Fail reform.

In September, the YCC announced the creation of a mental health fellows program, which places mental health professionals from Yale Health in each of the residential colleges to meet with students and host workshops.

Names of the mental health fellows were announced in January, and the event did not take place until March.

“We spoke to the right people, but it took too long for us to work with Yale Health’s Mental Health & Counseling Department to achieve the goals we wanted,” Ackerman said of the time frame.

The Credit/D/Fail proposal has been put on hold by the Yale College Dean’s Office. By the time the YCC Academics Committee finalized its proposal for Credit/D/Fail reform in November, the Committee on Honors and Academic Standing, based in the Dean’s Office, had already set its agenda for the year. As such, the Committee could not consider the pro-

VICTOR KANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The terms of YCC President Brandon Levin ’13 and Vice President Omar Njie ’13 will end following next week’s 2012-’13 YCC board elections.

posal, Levin said.

Levin said he and Yale College Dean Mary Miller have discussed holding a joint meeting between the Dean’s Office committee and the new YCC committee members to discuss the issue at the beginning of next year.

YCC Vice President Omar Njie ’13, who chairs the YCC mental health committee, said the council’s inability to implement the mental health fellows program quickly points to a larger issue the YCC faces each year: Though the YCC operates on a one-year basis, the University is often much slower to adapt to change.

“YCC has long suffered from a lack of institutional memory,” Njie said.

Former YCC President Jeff Gordon ’12 said he found the “shortterm mindset” to be a major obstacle for the efficiency of the organization, since many members tend to start work at “square one” rather than pick up where the Council before left off.

Gordon said his executive board and council from 2010-’11 were unable to see their efforts to push the University to offer language certificates through to completion. While the initiative made traction last spring, shortly before Gordon left his position, Levin said it was ultimately “not the priority” for this year’s YCC, and has not been acted upon this year.

Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry, who meets with the YCC president and vice president weekly, said the extension of mixed-gender housing privileges to juniors, announced on Feb. 26, is an example of multiple YCC executive boards working together successfully. For the last four years, he said, each consecutive YCC has worked toward that common, concrete goal.

Some current YCC members also expressed frustration that

they could not see the results of their work sooner.

“I felt like this year we were in one of two places: We were either finishing projects that had already been started from years past,” Ackerman said, “Or we were starting brand new initiatives that we couldn’t bring to fruition.”

Rustin Fakheri ’12, who was a YCC member for three years and opposed Levin for President, said the passage of multi-year initiatives like gender-neutral housing may be a result of campus-wide sentiment rather than the work of YCC members.

“Sometimes you wonder if the YCC hadn’t been there, would it have happened anyway?” Fakheri said.

would be granted based on the order in which they were received.

Lizarribar wrote in her email that the number of slots available in Swing Space depended on how many seniors chose to live on campus in the coming academic year.

Two students said they preferred Swing Space for its apartment-style setup, and all nine interviewed said students “opted in” to the annex because they wanted an assured single, which the housing lottery would not guarantee.

“I think most people figured, ‘Well, this way I’ll be guaranteed a single and can avoid the housing draw, so here goes,’” Julie Aust ’14 said. “The problem was that everyone was thinking the same thing.”

Once the number of rooms in Swing Space was set, Lizarribar notified students by email the night before the lottery if they had “opted in” but did not receive one of the 28 spots. These students

had until 5 p.m. the next day — Wednesday of last week — to reorganize themselves into groups, as singles were not guaranteed.

Grace Bang ’14 said students found the quick turnaround stressful, since they had less than 24 hours to determine their housing configurations.

“A bunch of people were denied and initially very disappointed,” said Bang, who received a room in Swing Space. “They were trying to reconfigure their whole rooming situation, and they weren’t given much of a time frame to do it.”

Nathaniel Dolquist ’14, who did not get a place in Swing Space, said mixed-gender housing helped students reshuffle by giving them more options for creating groups or joining existing arrangements before the lottery.

Lucy Arthur-Paratley ’14 said the Stiles housing draw, held last Thursday, seemed to work out for most students.

Though Morse, Trumbull and Berkeley also send large contingents to live in Swing Space, their policies — which differ from

Stiles’s “opt-in” one — did not cause similar problems.

Morse College opened Swing Space to rising seniors in addition to rising juniors this year, according to a March 18 email from the Morse housing committee. A March 22 email said Swing Space would not be able to accommodate most interested rising juniors, and encouraged them to make alternate plans.

“Swing Space has proved very popular among the members of the Morse Class of 2013 this year,” the March 18 email said. “They are consequently being allowed to enter the Swing draw for next year, and will be given priority over members of the Class of 2014.”

Morse conducted a “Swing draw” on March 27, the week before the senior and junior draws.

Rising juniors and rising seniors entered the draw in pairs, and nearly all of the spots were filled by rising seniors. After the Swing Space draw, Morse Dean Joel Silverman postponed the senior and junior housing draws by one day in response to students’ requests

50 40 30 20 10 0

Board of 2008-’09 2008-’09: YCC Board President

Board of 2009-’10 2009-’10: YCC Board President

Rich Tao

Jon Wu

Board of 2010-’11 2010-’11: YCC Board President Jeff Gordon

SOURCE: YALE DAILY

Board of 2011-’12 2011-’12: YCC Board President

I don’t know

Brandon NEWS SURVEY Levin

OF CLASS OF 2012

I don’t know

ENGAGING STUDENTS

The entire Council meets for an hour once a week, and executive members also gather twice weekly to discuss ongoing projects. Levin said he thinks the YCC’s increased “transparency” about these discussions is successfully engaging more students in YCC affairs and allowing the Council to better understand student needs.

As a result of these promotional efforts, Njie said the YCC has collaborated with more student groups.

“I think people noticed those smaller differences coupled with the work we’ve been doing, and students felt more confidence in our ability to change things, and to accurately represent the sentiment of the student body,” he said.

But according to the News’ survey, only three students ranked the revamped YCC website as one of the three most important YCC initiatives to them personally. The most popular of the YCC’s efforts were email grade notifications and the online bluebook app.

Of five undergraduates interviewed, all said while they felt

Demand for Swing outstrips supply SWING SPACE FROM PAGE 1

GRAPH IN YOUR MEMORY, WHICH YCC EXECUTIVE BOARD DO YOU THINK WAS MOST EFFECTIVE IN TERMS OF IMPLEMENTING INITIATIVES? PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS

YCC FROM PAGE 1

for additional time to reorganize, the housing committee wrote in a March 29 email.

In Berkeley, rising juniors who wanted to be in Swing Space registered on the housing website whiteboard as “doubles.” Students then picked their suites — in Swing Space or otherwise — in the order of their lottery numbers, but were told that students in Swing Space would be “reconfigured back” into Berkeley if the college did not reach capacity.

In Trumbull, Swing Space rooms were allocated the same way as any other suites. Trumbull Dean Jasmina Besirevic-Regan said the college “in general” has no issues with Swing Space.

Silverman and Berkeley Dean Mia Genoni did not respond to requests for comment.

In the 2010-’11 academic year, Berkeley, Trumbull, Morse, Ezra Stiles, Saybrook, Timothy Dwight and Silliman all annexed students to Swing Space.

Contact SOPHIE GOULD at sophie.gould@yale.edu .

the YCC has communicated well with students this year, it has not increased their interest in the organization’s activities.

“It’s nice because students can figure out what’s going on. I’m just not involved,” Keilor Gilbert ’14 said. “If they could get rid of my midterms, maybe I would be.”

A current associate member, Eli Rivkin ’15, said his decision to join the Council was not influenced by outreach tools like the YCC newsletter. Instead, he said that because he had several friends on the Council and was interested in several YCC initiatives, he decided to get involved.

77 percent of the students surveyed reported no communication via email or in person about student life, student government or campus-wide initiatives with members of the YCC executive board in the last six months.

Whether or not students become engaged, Levin said he remains optimistic that the body of YCC is adapting to a structure with more long term goals in

mind, as evidenced by the campaign strategies of the new YCC candidates.

“This year, more than most, we’re seeing in the campaigns less reinventing the wheel and more continuing the projects that have generated some pretty substantial traction,” Levin said.

Contact MADELINE MCMAHON at madeline.mcmahon@yale.edu .

M E T H O D O L O GY The News conducted a survey to gauge student opinion about the Yale College Council. On Monday evening, 3,000 randomly selected students were sent email invitations to take the online survey.

A total of 740 students completed the survey.

r e c y c l e y o u r y d n d a i l y

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“I know of nobody who is purely autistic, or purely neurotypical. Even God has some autistic moments, which is why the planets spin.” JERRY NEWPORT AUTHOR

Autism advocate explains need for healthcare reform

HARRY SIMPERINGHAM/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Judith Ursitti, an autism advocate, spoke at a Tuesday Master’s Tea about the need for legislation addressing the needs of autistic individuals.

BY ANISHA SUTERWALA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Judith Ursitti, director of state government affairs for Autism Speaks, discussed what drew her to autism advocacy and the health care reforms her group is pushing for at a Tuesday Master’s Tea..

Eight students gathered in the Pierson Master’s House Tuesday afternoon to hear Ursitti speak about her experiences as a mother of two autis-

tic children and her work with Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy group based in New York City. Though little is known about the causes of autism, the disorder affects one in 88 children, according to a March 30 report released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ursitti focused her discussion on the challenges faced by the families of autistic individuals — particularly in finding health coverage — and recent developments in government policies

regarding the disorder.

Ursitti became involved with autism advocacy when her son, Jack, was diagnosed with the disorder at age 2 after a routine checkup in 2005. The diagnosis was distressing, Ursitti said, and she at first denied that her son’s delayed speech — one early sign of autism, along with aversion to social interaction — indicated that he had the disorder.

“I remember vividly the pediatrician asking me, ‘How many two-word phrases does he

have?’” she said. “And he didn’t have any. I just assumed he was a late talker.”

Cases of autism range in severity, making them broadly known as autism spectrum disorders, and Ursitti said her son was diagnosed with a severe type of autism that requires extensive therapy. Her pediatrician initially suggested the family try applied behavior analysis, a type of therapy for autistic behaviors that, at the time, was not covered by any

insurance plans. Her pediatrician also suggested the family turn to its local school district in Southlake, Texas, an affluent city with a highly-ranked school system, for support.

Ursitti said she consulted with the school district, which offered to put Jack in a preschool classroom with other students — assuming that he would learn, academically and socially, from them. But Ursitti said she argued that Jack had been entirely nonverbal as a toddler and possessed minimal communication skills, and thus would not be able to attend preschool without attentive care and support, which the school refused to provide.

“I asked, ‘What if he just ran out the door?’ and the teachers responded that they would put Vaseline on all the doors to prevent that,” Ursitti said. “It was absurd.”

With few other resources available, Ursitti began paying for applied behavior analysis treatments out of pocket.

Insurance providers would not cover autism treatment, Ursitti said, because it classified as habilitative services — care designed to help patients acquire skills they never previously possessed. By contrast, rehabilitative care helps patients recover skills they have lost.

At the time, Ursitti said most insurance companies only covered rehabilitative care, which she felt was unjust.

“Only people with large bank accounts can care for their kids with autism,” she said. “I asked my husband how I could fix it, and he said, ‘You need a federal mandate.’”

Shortly after, Ursitti began working with advocates in Texas to persuade Gov. Rick Perry to sign into law an early intervention bill that would cover diag-

nosis and treatment of early autism. Perry signed the bill in 2007. Several days earlier, the South Carolina legislature had overruled then-Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto to pass a similar bill.

Ursitti joined Autism Speaks in 2008 and began focusing on federal legislation, in particular dealing with insurance coverage. Through Autism Speaks, Ursitti said she drafts legislation that requires insurance policies to cover early autism diagnosis and treatment, and then works to persuade state governments to pass the proposed legislation.

More than 30 states currently have laws that mandate such coverage. Still, many of those mandates place an age cap on coverage, sometimes as early as age 6.

Ursitti noted that higherfunctioning children with autism spectrum disorders are often not diagnosed until later, such as Ursitti’s daughter Amy, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at age 8.

Ursitti said she is pushing for state governments to remove the caps entirely, as “autism does not end at a certain age.”

“I have a piece of legislation [for Vermont] I’ve been working on that expands the age to 21,” she said. “My eventual goal is no age gaps.”

Emily Anderberg ’13, a psychology major who plans to focus her career on autism research, said she enjoyed “hearing different perspectives on autism and advocacy” at the talk.

The event was organized

by Yale for Autism Awareness as part of its Autism Awareness week at Yale, which ends Thursday.

Contact ANISHA SUTERWALA at anisha.suterwala@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS 路 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 路 yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

FROM THE FRONT

73

Percent of non-tenured female professors in America in 2003

According to a poll conducted by the American Association of University Professors, 73 percent of female faculty members at higher institutions in the U.S. were not tenured in 2003.

Some faculty suggest subtle discrimination at play 80%

GRAPH YALE FAS PIPELINE DATA (2000-’12)

80%

Men Women

70%

60% 40%

60%

20%

50%

0

40%

Junior majors

Undergrad Degrees

Ph.D. Ph.D. Enrollment Completion

Term Faculty

Tenured Faculty

GRAPH BIOLOGICAL & PHYSICAL SCIENCES, AGGREGATE PIPELINE DATA (2000-’12)

30%

60%

20%

40%

Men Women

50%

30%

10% 0

Men Women

GRAPH HUMANITIES, AGGREGATE PIPELINE DATA (2000-’12)

20%

Junior majors

Term Ph.D. Ph.D. Undergrad Degrees Enrollment Completion Faculty

Tenured Faculty

10% 0%

Junior majors

Undergrad Degrees

Ph.D. Enrollment

Ph.D. Completion

Term Faculty

Tenured Faculty SOURCE: WOMEN’S FACULTY FORUM

WFF REPORT FROM PAGE 1 professorships in those fields.

A 2010 study for the National Academy of Sciences, chaired by Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity co-director Sally Shaywitz, found that many fewer women in science, engineering and mathematics apply for tenure-track positions than men, Shaywitz told the News.

Rosenbluth said expanding childcare options, particularly for women in the sciences and engineering, and improving the “climate” toward women on campus would help Yale retain female professors. She said in February that the University currently has five childcare facilities, which are filled to capacity, and would like to open an additional one near Science Hill.

Yale College Dean Mary Miller said Yale has made efforts to

diversify its faculty, such as allowing deans to “press for the inclusion and consideration” of more diverse candidates when they review shortlists of candidates for faculty positions.

The University launched a faculty diversity initiative in 2006 that set targets for hiring at least 30 new female professors in the sciences and economics by June 2013, though as of earlier this year it lagged behind its goals. In an effort to provide junior faculty with additional support, the WFF began a mentoring group in January, which matches female junior faculty members with senior female faculty, said Allison Tait, a gender equity and policy postdoctoral associate at the WFF. Tait added that about 40 junior faculty signed up and received mentors.

Art history professor Carol Armstrong said she believes improved mentoring for junior

faculty is particularly important since mentors can help young women perceive their potential as leaders and learn to “publish boldly.”

WFF chair Priya Natarajan, who collected the WFF data with Tait, said her analysis centered around the female faculty “pipeline,” which refers to how women progress from an undergraduate degree to a doctorate, a junior faculty position, and eventually a tenured faculty position.

If Yale had perfect gender parity, the pipeline would be flat, with equal numbers of men and women moving through the ranks of academia. The WFF found that the pipeline is nearly flat in Yale’s humanities departments until it reaches tenured positions.

The pipeline diverges sooner in the social sciences and sciences, with a drop-off in the number of women hired to junior faculty

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JOIN@YALEDAILYNEWS.COM

positions and a second drop-off between junior and tenured positions.

There is a natural … expectation that great scientists will be white males.

MEG URRY Chair, Yale Physics Department Natarajan, Tait and female professors interviewed said they think unconscious biases in hiring and promotions processes, as well as issues that can lead women to drop out of academia such as inadequate childcare, currently inhibit Yale and other universities from achieving gender parity in

the pipeline. They said the roughly equal numbers of men and women completing doctoral degrees represent progress from several years ago, particularly in the sciences, where women have traditionally been underrepresented. But they said the divergence in the number of tenured women relative to men is still disappointing.

Natarajan said Yale does fairly well in hiring male and female junior faculty members but that tenure remains a “pressure point.”

“However you cut it, it’s very clear that the tenure rate for men and women is not the same at Yale,” she said.

Physics Department chair Meg Urry, along with several other female professors interviewed, referenced studies that have documented the existence of unconscious biases among both men and women that can cause hiring committees to judge male

candidates more positively than females.

She added that efforts to educate people on hiring committees about unconscious biases can help achieve gender parity in the future. For example, she said, studies have shown that having a discussion about what qualities a hiring committee is looking for in a candidate before conducting interviews can lead the committee to make a less biased assessment.

“There is a natural, well-documented, well-measured expectation that great scientists will be white males, because that’s who great scientists currently are,” Urry said.

The WFF collects comprehensive data on female faculty at Yale every five years.

Contact ANTONIA WOODFORD at antonia.woodford@yale.edu .

Aldermen continue budget talks CITY BUDGET FROM PAGE 1 his office had been unaware it needed to have in hard copy.

Yet DeStefano’s budget proposal denied him these increases, keeping the assessor’s funds near past years’ levels. “[The cut] will impact us greatly because the assessor’s office requires a lot of technically skilled positions — in addition to having to generate revenue for the city we have to be in state compliance,” he said. “The more that we have to focus on state stuff, the less we can focus on generating revenue.”

After hearing from city attorney Victor Bolden and Michelle Duprey, director of the city’s

Department of Disability Services, both of whom said their departments have faced drastic cuts in recent years — Duprey is the only employee in her department — acting comptroller Michael O’Neill testified for the city’s Department of Finance.

When he announced his budget, DeStefano emphasized that the largest increases in city expenditures came from growing pension and health care costs for city employees — both of which are handled by the Department of Finance. Despite O’Neill’s department only requesting an increase of only 1 percent in its budget, the finance committee spent nearly two hours ques-

tioning O’Neill about the costeffectiveness of Department of Finance initiatives. Ward 10 Alderman Justin Elicker, Ward 9 Alderwoman Jessica Holmes, Ward 7 Alderman Doug Hausladen ’04, and Ward 5 Alderman and Board President Jorge Perez encouraged O’Neill to find additional savings for the city in health care and debt service costs.

The next meeting of the finance committee, where testimony from city departments will continue, will take place Thursday at City Hall.

Contact NICK DEFIESTA at nicholas.defiesta@yale.edu .

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

ARTS & CULTURE THIS WEEK IN THE ARTS 12:30 P.M. WED. APR. 4

Pokémon There are 649 species of Pokémon, which is a romanized contraction of “Poketto Monsuta,” which is Japanese for “Pocket Monsters.” Two 9-year-olds sued Nintendo in 1999 because, they said, the Pokémon trading card game got them addicted to gambling.

In ‘Cabaret,’ taking an unfiltered approach

‘Pokémon Musical’ writer describes process

BY ROBERT PECK STAFF REPORTER Ryan Bowers ’14 is the director of “The Pokémon Musical,” an original show based on the popular television program and Nintendo game franchise that will open Thursday. Bowers and Gabe Greenspan ’14, the show’s composer and co-creator, have been working with the show’s crew throughout the academic year, preparing for its opening night in the Davenport/Pierson Theater. According to the event’s Facebook page, all four showings of the musical sold out almost immediately after tickets became available. The News sat down with Bowers, a self-professed “Pokémaniac,” to discuss his feelings about the upcoming performance and about his passion for Pokémon.

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON Visiting artist in painting Matthew Day Jackson will offer a lecture at the Yale School of Art. Yale School of Art, 1156 Chapel St.

2 P.M. WED. APR. 4 BAKING WITH THE BARD The Yale Sustainable Food Project will host an interactive baking workshop, in which participants will make honeyglazed fig pastries according to a true Elizabethan recipe.

Davenport College Kitchen, 248 York St.

6 P.M. WED. APR. 4

Q

A SLIDE SHOW AND TALK BY DIANE ARBUS A panel discussion with Art History professor Alexander Nemerov, Metropolitan Museum of Art Curator of Photographs Jeff L. Rosenheim and photographer and printer for The Estate of Diane Arbus Neil Selkirk.

What inspired you to direct a musical about Pokémon?

A

Pokémon was kind of my childhood, and the same goes for Gabe, who had the idea in the first place. Gabe started writing this in high school, and then when we met here and both happened to have an absurd level of recall about the original generation, we started talking about seriously doing this. We had this intense love for the Pokémon world that never really died, and that’s what the show was born of.

Q

How long has the show been in rehearsal?

A

We’ve had the cast (mostly) since December, and we started rehearsing in February.

did you look for when QWhat you were trying to cast the ideal Pikachu, one of the musical’s leads?

A

Pikachu was something we really had to feel out in the audition room. The draft we had then left a lot of ways for the character to go, and so it was just a matter of finding someone like Jen Mulrow ’14, our Pikachu, who could capture the simultaneous cuteness and spunk of Pikachu that we remembered from the show. Jen’s all of 12 pounds, but she came in and auditioned with the Nicki Minaj rap from Bottoms Up. That just about did it.

you have to deal with QDid copyright problems from the

television show before you could produce the show?

A

If we were making money off of it, we definitely would, but we’re not, so we’re skating by on fair use.

many hours of Pokémon QHow did you and Greenspan watch and play to prepare for this show?

A

I think you mean “how many years”. Gabe and I are not casual fans. We found that we didn’t have to do much research in the writing room, because we had all of these bizarre details stored away from when we were 9 years old. Die hard fans can expect some deep cut references.

is your favorite PokéQWhat mon?

A

I know he’s everyone’s least favorite starter, but I’m a Bulbasaur man all the way. He totally rivals Pikachu in attitude, and without his vine whips, Ash would have been stuck in about 700 Team Rocket pit traps.

Contact ROBERT PECK at robert.peck@yale.edu .

Senior director brings race issues to the stage

Yale University Art Gallery, 1156 Chapel St.

BY SHIRA TELUSHKIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

FRI. APR. 6 - SAT. APR. 7 THE POKÉMON MUSICAL Ryan Bowers and Gabe Greenspan (both ‘14) bring to the stage an original musical based loosely on the popular children’s cartoon that motivated a generation “to be the best / Like no one ever was.”

Davenport/Pierson Theater, 248 York St.

THURS. APR. 5 SAT. APR. 7 TITUS ANDRONICUS In this Studio Series production, students at the School of Drama tackles Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus,” directed by Jack Tamburri DRA ‘13.

Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St.

THURS. APR. 5 SAT. APR. 7 CABARET The classic Broadway musical depicting Berlin’s descent into Nazi Germany takes to the intimate stage of the Morse Crescent Theater, Morse College Crescent Underground Theater, 302 York St.

FRI. APR. 6 - SAT. APR. 7 A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY Religion and faith come to the forefront in Simon Bent’s adaptation of the novel by John Irving. “A Prayer for Owen Meany” is the 2012 Dramat Freshman Show.

MAX POMMIER

The upcoming production of “Cabaret” at the Morse-Stiles Crescent Underground Theater confronts dark issues such as the Holocaust.

Set in a darkening 1930s Berlin and rife with references to homosexuality and the Holocaust, the musical “Cabaret” does not shy away from heavy subject matter.

For Ethan Karetsky ’14, the director of a new production of the show opening Thursday in the Morse-Stiles Crescent Underground Theater, “Cabaret” is above all a show about change.

“This is about the darkness that seeps into this show, how a culture is destroyed,” Karetsky said. “It is about watching a society change, and people living in a world that is changing.”

His hope, he said, is to present the show in the most direct way possible. With the goal of honest rendering in mind, Karetsky said he chose to take cues from the most recent version of “Cabaret,” which opened on Broadway in 1998. The show premiered on Broadway in 1966, and in its revivals in 1987 and 1998, aspects of the script and plot were tweaked to reflect an increasingly open society. In the original version, Karetsky said, the production could not portray sexuality as openly and was more cautious in its treatment of the Holocaust and the male lead’s homosexuality. He added that the 1998 production starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson took the material more seriously.

Cole Florey, the producer, said he felt that “Cabaret” goes beyond its historical place and time.

“The show doesn’t have to be limited by its place in Germany,” he said. “The issue here is what happens to your culture when people aren’t looking, showing the shift in society, and how society can completely change, despite that very culture.”

With intertwining plots that involve sexuality, music, art, dance, expats and writers, “Cabaret” engages directly with the presentation of culture.

Michael Rosen ’14, the show’s choreographer, said that dance plays a critical role in developing the musical’s plot and characters.

“I didn’t want the numbers to be overtly self-aware, but to convey the sense of revelry and darkness,” Rosen said. “Sometimes the dance sequences accomplish what a scene could, but in a more interesting and unex-

pected way.”

He cited “Mein Herr” as a number that expresses the anger and disappointment of Sally Bowles, the main female character, to particularly brilliant effect.

Karetsky noted that had he felt his team couldn’t pull off large-scale dance numbers, he wouldn’t have even considered directing the show at Yale.

“I think that the dancing in ‘Cabaret’ characterizes the whole show. There is so much riding on the dance, and the actors have more than risen to the challenge,” Rosen said.

The issue here is what happens to your culture when people aren’t looking.

COLE FLOREY Producer, “Cabaret” The Crescent Theater, an intimate space without a raised stage, allows for lessdefined boundaries between the performers and the audience, as in a typical cabaret. The intimate setting means that while the audience is not literally part of the production, the action is pushed into their space in a theatrical sense, Rosen said.

Both Karetsky and Florey said they are excited to bring “Cabaret” back onto the radar of many Yale students.

“It’s surprising how many people don’t know the show, though a lot of students will recognize the music and some of the songs,” Karetsky said.

Florey said he believes that because the last revival took place in 1998, “our generation just missed it,” and said he looks forward to having students come who have never seen “Cabaret” performed before.

“Ultimately though, it’s a good production of a good show with good dance numbers, and that’s what it is all about,” Karetsky says.

“Cabaret” will run from April 5-7.

Contact SHIRA TELUSHKIN at shira.telushkin@yale.edu .

Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St.

MAR. 16 - APR. 7 THE WINTER’S TALE The Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s classic tale of redemption and love concludes its run on Saturday.

University Theater, 222 York St.

British Art Center pairs with Google on archive

BY URVI NOPANY STAFF REPORTER The Yale Center for British Art announced Tuesday morning that, along with six other university museums, it will partner with Google to create a user-friendly international art database.

Launched as a small 17-museum archive in February 2011, Google Art Project will now expand to include artworks from 150 museums around the globe online, including the Yale Center for British Art. The British Art Center currently has over 5,500 images uploaded onto the database, more than any other museum participating, said Head of Collections Information and Access Matthew Hargraves, the British Art Center’s lead coordinator on the project.

The archive will augment the British Art Center’s existing online resources by allowing the user to

browse through its online collections alongside works from 149 other museums around the world, Hargraves said.

“It lets people see our objects in a way beyond just the physical museum, which only a limited number of people around the world will be able to get to, but also beyond the confines of our own website and the limitations of that,” Hargraves said.

The new database will make browsing through the British Art Center’s vast collection easier for the average user, Hargraves said, adding that the creation of the current online collection was directed more toward art students and scholars. Through Google Art Project, users will be able to create and share their own virtual collections of art, Hargraves said, adding that advanced technology developed

by Google, such as Google Goggle, will even allow viewers to take pho-

tographs of artwork and perform visual searches for information on the pieces through the database.

By allowing people virtual access to the museum’s collections, the British Art Center hopes to stimulate more interest in its numerous outreach and education programs, said Kaci Bayless, public relations coordinator for the Yale Center for British Art. “In imagining how our [outreach] programs might be affected, one can envision school groups accessing the collections online now prior to a visit or immediately following,” Bayless said.

Participating in the Google database is part of the British Art Center’s larger scheme to increase accessibility to its collections, Yale Center for British Art Director Amy Meyers said. The British Art Center hopes to utilize Google’s national and international dissemination of

information to attract more visitors, Meyers said.

“For the last year, in concert with Yale’s other collections of art and natural history, we have been engaged in developing a free and open-access program online,” Meyers said. “This is just one of the facets of that much broader University-wide endeavor.”

Since its initial launch, Google Art Project has gained over 20 million visitors to the site and 180,000 personal collections have been created, Piotr Adamczyk, head of data collection for the Google Art Project, said in an email.

“The key reason to continue is to further expand on the issue of access to art and museums, for those who currently cannot see all these amazing artworks,” Adamczyk said.

Other museums featured on Google Art Project include The

VICTOR KANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Two cast members of “The Shipment” rehearse for a mainstage production by the Heritage Theatre Ensemble.

BY AKBAR AHMED STAFF REPORTER Audiences that go to watch this weekend’s production of “The Shipment” will enter the basement of Green Hall, a venue the show’s director chose so that viewers feel as if they are in “a white dungeon.”

“This show is about being at Yale and being bombarded by media [stereotypes],” said Timmia Hearn Feldman ’12, the play’s director. “I want people to come to this show because it allows you to laugh at yourself.”

The play, which is this year’s mainstage production by the Heritage Theatre Ensemble, a student organization that promotes black theater on campus, centers around the way blackness is depicted, how expectations are made on the basis of race and issues of privilege, Hearn Feldman said. Leonard Thomas ’14, the ensemble’s president, said the production “focuses on race in a way that is not really talked about at Yale [ … and … ] has the potential to make a lot of people uncomfortable.”

Nicky Davis ’13, one of the five actors in the production, said she thinks the play, written by OBIE award-winning playwright and director Young Jean Lee, highlights the assumptions white people make about black lifestyles.

“Because it’s so grounded in stereotypes of blackness as received by a white audience, it can be understood by Yale [audiences],” Davis said.

The play incorporates stereotypes prevalent in pop culture, she added — one character is named “Record Company Executive,” while another is dubbed “Video Hoe.” Hearn Feldman said the play comprises a prologue and three scenes: a stand-up comedy and two micro-dramas.

Hearn Feldman said the play comprises a prologue and three scenes, including a comedian’s sketch, the story of a young black man aspiring to be a rapper and a dinner party that ends with a racist joke.

Mitra Yazdi ’15, the only nonblack member of the cast, argued that societal assumptions reflect the idea that the level of fame a young black person can achieve is tied to “drugs, money and hos,” while white people live out their success in “a nice living room.”

The show’s poster depicts a white mouth with black lipstick, all inside a television set, which Hearn Feldman said highlights how media outlets present a white perception of blackness.

Davis said she finds these stereotypes “fun to work with” because of what she sees as a common feeling that Yale is home

to few “real” black people, but a number of individuals are seen as “white black people.”

“Where I am from, that means you’re on the honor roll, you took AP classes in high school … you eat salad on a regular basis,” she said. “There are these weird things that are considered white stereotypes and things that make you ‘not black.’”

Davis said that some black Yalies who come to college from high schools at which they were no other “white black kids” identify more strongly as black on campus than at home because “there are black people here that are like [them].”

“Blackness at Yale is a hybrid between what we’re used to at home and the person we are in the classroom, where we want to seem intelligent,” said Yazdi, who added that she thought she was half-black until she was a teenager and mainly had black friends growing up.

Yazdi said that she has noticed she acts differently with her white friends from Yale than she does with her friends back home, which has caused her to re-evaluate the way she treats people, including local New Haven residents to whom she feels she can relate more than the average Yale student.

Thomas said he does not believe students talk about race

YDN

The Yale Center for British Art is partnering with Google on Google Art Project, a user-friendly international database of images.

Metropolitan Museum of art, Palace of Versailles and Tate Britain.

Contact URVI NOPANY at urvi.nopany@yale.edu .

VICTOR KANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The play “The Shipment” seeks to spark discussions about the experience of race that are not often had at Yale.

very frequently, except during class — and even then, they avoid the uncomfortable topics discussed in “The Shipment.” In recent years, the topic of race has risen to the campus consciousness, he said, citing a Black Student Alliance at Yale project last year about blackness at Yale, a controversy over the concept of “colorblindness” on campus and racist graffiti found in a residential college two years ago.

As part of minority groups, Hearn Feldman said, she feels that both she and the playwrightdirector Young Jean Lee are able to identify with the problems that African-Americans face, and therefore work with black actors to give “a very authentic” portrayal of these issues, even though they may not have faced the racism their cast members have.

For audience members not part of minority groups, it may be particularly hard to appreciate issues of racial stereotyping, Hearn Feldman said.

Actress Carol Crouch ’14 noted that “The Shipment” is in fact a comedy, allowing the production to explore stereotypes in a way that is not serious to the point of causing people to feel attacked.

“In the brochure, members of the production team are all identified by the minority we belong to,” Hearn Feldman said. “We’re making fun of the fact that we like to identify ourselves by these simple, monolithic, one-sided identities.”

Hearn Feldman, who has previously directed five shows at Yale and said that “The Shipment” will be her last, said that the theater canon in which most Yale productions are rooted does not provide opportunities to explore the back experience, or even give sufficient casting opportunities to black actors.

“This is not something you’re going see at Yale again,” she added. “I really like the idea that you’re not just being entertained — you’re getting something that’s really, really new, and about this moment in time.”

“The Shipment” runs at Green Hall from Thursday to Saturday.

Contact AKBAR AHMED at akbar.ahmed@yale.edu .

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

ARTS & CULTURE THIS WEEK IN THE ARTS 12:30 P.M. WED. APR. 4

Pokémon There are 649 species of Pokémon, which is a romanized contraction of “Poketto Monsuta,” which is Japanese for “Pocket Monsters.” Two 9-year-olds sued Nintendo in 1999 because, they said, the Pokémon trading card game got them addicted to gambling.

In ‘Cabaret,’ taking an unfiltered approach

‘Pokémon Musical’ writer describes process

BY ROBERT PECK STAFF REPORTER Ryan Bowers ’14 is the director of “The Pokémon Musical,” an original show based on the popular television program and Nintendo game franchise that will open Thursday. Bowers and Gabe Greenspan ’14, the show’s composer and co-creator, have been working with the show’s crew throughout the academic year, preparing for its opening night in the Davenport/Pierson Theater. According to the event’s Facebook page, all four showings of the musical sold out almost immediately after tickets became available. The News sat down with Bowers, a self-professed “Pokémaniac,” to discuss his feelings about the upcoming performance and about his passion for Pokémon.

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON Visiting artist in painting Matthew Day Jackson will offer a lecture at the Yale School of Art. Yale School of Art, 1156 Chapel St.

2 P.M. WED. APR. 4 BAKING WITH THE BARD The Yale Sustainable Food Project will host an interactive baking workshop, in which participants will make honeyglazed fig pastries according to a true Elizabethan recipe.

Davenport College Kitchen, 248 York St.

6 P.M. WED. APR. 4

Q

A SLIDE SHOW AND TALK BY DIANE ARBUS A panel discussion with Art History professor Alexander Nemerov, Metropolitan Museum of Art Curator of Photographs Jeff L. Rosenheim and photographer and printer for The Estate of Diane Arbus Neil Selkirk.

What inspired you to direct a musical about Pokémon?

A

Pokémon was kind of my childhood, and the same goes for Gabe, who had the idea in the first place. Gabe started writing this in high school, and then when we met here and both happened to have an absurd level of recall about the original generation, we started talking about seriously doing this. We had this intense love for the Pokémon world that never really died, and that’s what the show was born of.

Q

How long has the show been in rehearsal?

A

We’ve had the cast (mostly) since December, and we started rehearsing in February.

did you look for when QWhat you were trying to cast the ideal Pikachu, one of the musical’s leads?

A

Pikachu was something we really had to feel out in the audition room. The draft we had then left a lot of ways for the character to go, and so it was just a matter of finding someone like Jen Mulrow ’14, our Pikachu, who could capture the simultaneous cuteness and spunk of Pikachu that we remembered from the show. Jen’s all of 12 pounds, but she came in and auditioned with the Nicki Minaj rap from Bottoms Up. That just about did it.

you have to deal with QDid copyright problems from the

television show before you could produce the show?

A

If we were making money off of it, we definitely would, but we’re not, so we’re skating by on fair use.

many hours of Pokémon QHow did you and Greenspan watch and play to prepare for this show?

A

I think you mean “how many years”. Gabe and I are not casual fans. We found that we didn’t have to do much research in the writing room, because we had all of these bizarre details stored away from when we were 9 years old. Die hard fans can expect some deep cut references.

is your favorite PokéQWhat mon?

A

I know he’s everyone’s least favorite starter, but I’m a Bulbasaur man all the way. He totally rivals Pikachu in attitude, and without his vine whips, Ash would have been stuck in about 700 Team Rocket pit traps.

Contact ROBERT PECK at robert.peck@yale.edu .

Senior director brings race issues to the stage

Yale University Art Gallery, 1156 Chapel St.

BY SHIRA TELUSHKIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

FRI. APR. 6 - SAT. APR. 7 THE POKÉMON MUSICAL Ryan Bowers and Gabe Greenspan (both ‘14) bring to the stage an original musical based loosely on the popular children’s cartoon that motivated a generation “to be the best / Like no one ever was.”

Davenport/Pierson Theater, 248 York St.

THURS. APR. 5 SAT. APR. 7 TITUS ANDRONICUS In this Studio Series production, students at the School of Drama tackles Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus,” directed by Jack Tamburri DRA ‘13.

Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St.

THURS. APR. 5 SAT. APR. 7 CABARET The classic Broadway musical depicting Berlin’s descent into Nazi Germany takes to the intimate stage of the Morse Crescent Theater, Morse College Crescent Underground Theater, 302 York St.

FRI. APR. 6 - SAT. APR. 7 A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY Religion and faith come to the forefront in Simon Bent’s adaptation of the novel by John Irving. “A Prayer for Owen Meany” is the 2012 Dramat Freshman Show.

MAX POMMIER

The upcoming production of “Cabaret” at the Morse-Stiles Crescent Underground Theater confronts dark issues such as the Holocaust.

Set in a darkening 1930s Berlin and rife with references to homosexuality and the Holocaust, the musical “Cabaret” does not shy away from heavy subject matter.

For Ethan Karetsky ’14, the director of a new production of the show opening Thursday in the Morse-Stiles Crescent Underground Theater, “Cabaret” is above all a show about change.

“This is about the darkness that seeps into this show, how a culture is destroyed,” Karetsky said. “It is about watching a society change, and people living in a world that is changing.”

His hope, he said, is to present the show in the most direct way possible. With the goal of honest rendering in mind, Karetsky said he chose to take cues from the most recent version of “Cabaret,” which opened on Broadway in 1998. The show premiered on Broadway in 1966, and in its revivals in 1987 and 1998, aspects of the script and plot were tweaked to reflect an increasingly open society. In the original version, Karetsky said, the production could not portray sexuality as openly and was more cautious in its treatment of the Holocaust and the male lead’s homosexuality. He added that the 1998 production starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson took the material more seriously.

Cole Florey, the producer, said he felt that “Cabaret” goes beyond its historical place and time.

“The show doesn’t have to be limited by its place in Germany,” he said. “The issue here is what happens to your culture when people aren’t looking, showing the shift in society, and how society can completely change, despite that very culture.”

With intertwining plots that involve sexuality, music, art, dance, expats and writers, “Cabaret” engages directly with the presentation of culture.

Michael Rosen ’14, the show’s choreographer, said that dance plays a critical role in developing the musical’s plot and characters.

“I didn’t want the numbers to be overtly self-aware, but to convey the sense of revelry and darkness,” Rosen said. “Sometimes the dance sequences accomplish what a scene could, but in a more interesting and unex-

pected way.”

He cited “Mein Herr” as a number that expresses the anger and disappointment of Sally Bowles, the main female character, to particularly brilliant effect.

Karetsky noted that had he felt his team couldn’t pull off large-scale dance numbers, he wouldn’t have even considered directing the show at Yale.

“I think that the dancing in ‘Cabaret’ characterizes the whole show. There is so much riding on the dance, and the actors have more than risen to the challenge,” Rosen said.

The issue here is what happens to your culture when people aren’t looking.

COLE FLOREY Producer, “Cabaret” The Crescent Theater, an intimate space without a raised stage, allows for lessdefined boundaries between the performers and the audience, as in a typical cabaret. The intimate setting means that while the audience is not literally part of the production, the action is pushed into their space in a theatrical sense, Rosen said.

Both Karetsky and Florey said they are excited to bring “Cabaret” back onto the radar of many Yale students.

“It’s surprising how many people don’t know the show, though a lot of students will recognize the music and some of the songs,” Karetsky said.

Florey said he believes that because the last revival took place in 1998, “our generation just missed it,” and said he looks forward to having students come who have never seen “Cabaret” performed before.

“Ultimately though, it’s a good production of a good show with good dance numbers, and that’s what it is all about,” Karetsky says.

“Cabaret” will run from April 5-7.

Contact SHIRA TELUSHKIN at shira.telushkin@yale.edu .

Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St.

MAR. 16 - APR. 7 THE WINTER’S TALE The Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s classic tale of redemption and love concludes its run on Saturday.

University Theater, 222 York St.

British Art Center pairs with Google on archive

BY URVI NOPANY STAFF REPORTER The Yale Center for British Art announced Tuesday morning that, along with six other university museums, it will partner with Google to create a user-friendly international art database.

Launched as a small 17-museum archive in February 2011, Google Art Project will now expand to include artworks from 150 museums around the globe online, including the Yale Center for British Art. The British Art Center currently has over 5,500 images uploaded onto the database, more than any other museum participating, said Head of Collections Information and Access Matthew Hargraves, the British Art Center’s lead coordinator on the project.

The archive will augment the British Art Center’s existing online resources by allowing the user to

browse through its online collections alongside works from 149 other museums around the world, Hargraves said.

“It lets people see our objects in a way beyond just the physical museum, which only a limited number of people around the world will be able to get to, but also beyond the confines of our own website and the limitations of that,” Hargraves said.

The new database will make browsing through the British Art Center’s vast collection easier for the average user, Hargraves said, adding that the creation of the current online collection was directed more toward art students and scholars. Through Google Art Project, users will be able to create and share their own virtual collections of art, Hargraves said, adding that advanced technology developed

by Google, such as Google Goggle, will even allow viewers to take pho-

tographs of artwork and perform visual searches for information on the pieces through the database.

By allowing people virtual access to the museum’s collections, the British Art Center hopes to stimulate more interest in its numerous outreach and education programs, said Kaci Bayless, public relations coordinator for the Yale Center for British Art. “In imagining how our [outreach] programs might be affected, one can envision school groups accessing the collections online now prior to a visit or immediately following,” Bayless said.

Participating in the Google database is part of the British Art Center’s larger scheme to increase accessibility to its collections, Yale Center for British Art Director Amy Meyers said. The British Art Center hopes to utilize Google’s national and international dissemination of

information to attract more visitors, Meyers said.

“For the last year, in concert with Yale’s other collections of art and natural history, we have been engaged in developing a free and open-access program online,” Meyers said. “This is just one of the facets of that much broader University-wide endeavor.”

Since its initial launch, Google Art Project has gained over 20 million visitors to the site and 180,000 personal collections have been created, Piotr Adamczyk, head of data collection for the Google Art Project, said in an email.

“The key reason to continue is to further expand on the issue of access to art and museums, for those who currently cannot see all these amazing artworks,” Adamczyk said.

Other museums featured on Google Art Project include The

VICTOR KANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Two cast members of “The Shipment” rehearse for a mainstage production by the Heritage Theatre Ensemble.

BY AKBAR AHMED STAFF REPORTER Audiences that go to watch this weekend’s production of “The Shipment” will enter the basement of Green Hall, a venue the show’s director chose so that viewers feel as if they are in “a white dungeon.”

“This show is about being at Yale and being bombarded by media [stereotypes],” said Timmia Hearn Feldman ’12, the play’s director. “I want people to come to this show because it allows you to laugh at yourself.”

The play, which is this year’s mainstage production by the Heritage Theatre Ensemble, a student organization that promotes black theater on campus, centers around the way blackness is depicted, how expectations are made on the basis of race and issues of privilege, Hearn Feldman said. Leonard Thomas ’14, the ensemble’s president, said the production “focuses on race in a way that is not really talked about at Yale [ … and … ] has the potential to make a lot of people uncomfortable.”

Nicky Davis ’13, one of the five actors in the production, said she thinks the play, written by OBIE award-winning playwright and director Young Jean Lee, highlights the assumptions white people make about black lifestyles.

“Because it’s so grounded in stereotypes of blackness as received by a white audience, it can be understood by Yale [audiences],” Davis said.

The play incorporates stereotypes prevalent in pop culture, she added — one character is named “Record Company Executive,” while another is dubbed “Video Hoe.” Hearn Feldman said the play comprises a prologue and three scenes: a stand-up comedy and two micro-dramas.

Hearn Feldman said the play comprises a prologue and three scenes, including a comedian’s sketch, the story of a young black man aspiring to be a rapper and a dinner party that ends with a racist joke.

Mitra Yazdi ’15, the only nonblack member of the cast, argued that societal assumptions reflect the idea that the level of fame a young black person can achieve is tied to “drugs, money and hos,” while white people live out their success in “a nice living room.”

The show’s poster depicts a white mouth with black lipstick, all inside a television set, which Hearn Feldman said highlights how media outlets present a white perception of blackness.

Davis said she finds these stereotypes “fun to work with” because of what she sees as a common feeling that Yale is home

to few “real” black people, but a number of individuals are seen as “white black people.”

“Where I am from, that means you’re on the honor roll, you took AP classes in high school … you eat salad on a regular basis,” she said. “There are these weird things that are considered white stereotypes and things that make you ‘not black.’”

Davis said that some black Yalies who come to college from high schools at which they were no other “white black kids” identify more strongly as black on campus than at home because “there are black people here that are like [them].”

“Blackness at Yale is a hybrid between what we’re used to at home and the person we are in the classroom, where we want to seem intelligent,” said Yazdi, who added that she thought she was half-black until she was a teenager and mainly had black friends growing up.

Yazdi said that she has noticed she acts differently with her white friends from Yale than she does with her friends back home, which has caused her to re-evaluate the way she treats people, including local New Haven residents to whom she feels she can relate more than the average Yale student.

Thomas said he does not believe students talk about race

YDN

The Yale Center for British Art is partnering with Google on Google Art Project, a user-friendly international database of images.

Metropolitan Museum of art, Palace of Versailles and Tate Britain.

Contact URVI NOPANY at urvi.nopany@yale.edu .

VICTOR KANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The play “The Shipment” seeks to spark discussions about the experience of race that are not often had at Yale.

very frequently, except during class — and even then, they avoid the uncomfortable topics discussed in “The Shipment.” In recent years, the topic of race has risen to the campus consciousness, he said, citing a Black Student Alliance at Yale project last year about blackness at Yale, a controversy over the concept of “colorblindness” on campus and racist graffiti found in a residential college two years ago.

As part of minority groups, Hearn Feldman said, she feels that both she and the playwrightdirector Young Jean Lee are able to identify with the problems that African-Americans face, and therefore work with black actors to give “a very authentic” portrayal of these issues, even though they may not have faced the racism their cast members have.

For audience members not part of minority groups, it may be particularly hard to appreciate issues of racial stereotyping, Hearn Feldman said.

Actress Carol Crouch ’14 noted that “The Shipment” is in fact a comedy, allowing the production to explore stereotypes in a way that is not serious to the point of causing people to feel attacked.

“In the brochure, members of the production team are all identified by the minority we belong to,” Hearn Feldman said. “We’re making fun of the fact that we like to identify ourselves by these simple, monolithic, one-sided identities.”

Hearn Feldman, who has previously directed five shows at Yale and said that “The Shipment” will be her last, said that the theater canon in which most Yale productions are rooted does not provide opportunities to explore the back experience, or even give sufficient casting opportunities to black actors.

“This is not something you’re going see at Yale again,” she added. “I really like the idea that you’re not just being entertained — you’re getting something that’s really, really new, and about this moment in time.”

“The Shipment” runs at Green Hall from Thursday to Saturday.

Contact AKBAR AHMED at akbar.ahmed@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

NATION

T

Dow Jones 13,199.55, +0.00%

S NASDAQ 3,113.57, +0.00% Oil $103.69, -0.29%

S S&P 500 1,413.38, +0.00% T

10-yr. Bond 2.28%, +0.00

T Euro $1.32, -0.26

S

Romney sweeps 3 primaries Obama: GOP to right of Reagan

BY BEN FELLER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — In combative campaign form, President Barack Obama accused Republican leaders on Tuesday of becoming so radical and dangerously rigid that even the late Ronald Reagan, one of their most cherished heroes, could not win a GOP primary if he were running today.

Obama, in a stinging speech to an audience of news executives, had unsparing words for Republicans on Capitol Hill as well as the man he is most likely to face off against in November, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The president depicted the election as a choice between a Democratic candidate who wants to use government to help people succeed and Republicans who would abandon a basic compact with society and let most people struggle at the expense of the rich.

He framed his address around a new House Republican budget plan, saying it represents a bleak, backward “radical vision.”

“It is thinly veiled social Darwinism,” Obama said to the annual meeting of The Associated Press. “It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it … It is a prescription for decline.”

Republicans shot back that the president had offered a deeply partisan speech devoid of accountability.

Campaigning outside Milwaukee just before Obama spoke, Romney said that the president “of course will look for someone else to blame.” The Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus, said Obama had abandoned his hope-and-change campaign slogan of four years ago. Said Priebus: “All along, he’s been a cold, calculating, big-spending politician.”

Obama’s speech removed any

doubt that the general election was under way for the president, despite his professed reluctance to weigh in before Republicans settle on a nominee.

He took a couple of digs at Romney, playing up the Republican presidential front-runner’s support for a budget-slashing plan the House has approved.

That plan is doomed to die in the Senate, but Obama held it up as a sign of the disaster that would come if Republicans got their way: poor children not getting food, grandparents unable to afford nursing homes, more airline flights getting canceled and weather forecasts becoming less reliable.

For Obama, it was the latest in a string of efforts to get his message out just as voters were going to the polls to help pick his opponent, this time in primaries Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Romney campaign volunteer Deborah Edattel hands out flyers after the primary in Washington.

BY DAVID ESPO AND KASIE HUNT ASSOCIATED PRESS MILWAUKEE — Mitt Romney tightened his grip on the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night, sweeping primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington D.C., with time left over to swap charges with President Barack Obama.

“Four more years?” Romney asked sarcastically of the president as supporters cheered in Milwaukee.

He said Obama was “a little out of touch” after spending four years surrounded by the trappings of power and had presided over near-record job losses as well as increases in poverty, home foreclosures, government debt and gaso-

line prices. In Washington, Obama said things could be worse — and he predicted they would be if Romney and the Republicans got their way.

The victories enabled Romney to pad his alreadywide delegate lead over Republican rival Rick Santorum, who flashed defiance in the face of pressure to abandon his own candidacy in the name of party unity.

Wisconsin was the marquee contest of the night, the only place of the three on the ballot where Santorum mounted a significant effort. Romney’s victory there marked his fourth in little more than a month in a belt of industrial states that also included Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Returns from 15 per-

cent of the state’s precincts showed Romney with 43 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Santorum, 11 percent for Ron Paul and 6 percent for Newt Gingrich.

Returns from 25 percent of Maryland’s precincts showed Romney with 48 percent of the vote to 30 percent for Santorum, 11 percent for Gingrich and 9 percent for Ron Paul.

With 43 percent precincts counted in Washington, Romney had 68 percent of the vote to 13 percent for Paul and 11 percent for Gingrich. Santorum was not on the ballot.

“We won `em all,” Romney declared, a former Massachusetts governor now the nominee-in-waiting for a party eager to reclaim the White House.

Ethics case worries defense attorneys

BY STEVE LEBLANC ASSOCIATED PRESS BOSTON — A couple of months before Election Day in 2010, the Massachusetts lottery began running a TV commercial in which it pronounced itself “the most successful state lottery in America” and boasted of providing a bounty of money for roads, schools, police and firefighters.

The ad did not mention that the lottery was overseen by then-state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, who was running for governor. Cahill did not appear in the commercial. It did not even mention his name.

This week, though, Cahill was indicted along with two aides on charges they illegally used the taxpayer-funded ad to promote his campaign for governor.

The case represents the first test of a 2009 Massachusetts ethics law that is considered one of the toughest such measures in the nation.

While state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who brought the charges, portrayed the episode as a clear-cut misuse of office by Cahill, defense attorneys warned that the case could open up politicians to prosecution for just about any act that could enhance their careers.

“Don’t all elected officials calculate the politics whenever they take actions or not take actions?” said Max Stern, president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“It seems to me they do that all the time. They’re political animals.”

In announcing the charges Monday, Coakley said text messages and other evidence showed that the ad was

crafted in consultation with Cahill’s election staff after focus groups for the campaign found that promoting his management of the lottery could help him get elected. Coakley said the $1.5 million ad campaign represented the bulk of the lottery’s $2 million advertising budget for the year.

“The timing, amount budgeted and coordinated messages of the lottery ads all point to a decision made

by Treasurer Cahill to abuse his position of trust and put his own political ambitions over the best interests of the taxpayers,” Coakley said.

Cahill, a former Democrat who ran for governor as an independent and came in a distant third, said Tuesday that he did nothing wrong. If convicted, he could get up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine on the ethics charge.

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

WORLD

“We all want to change the world/But when you talk about destruction/Don’t you know that you can count me out … ” LYRICS FROM THE SONG ‘REVOLUTION’ WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY THE BEATLES

Mali coup defies sanctions Syrian troops start pull out

BY RUKMINI CALLIMACHI ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAROUNA TRAORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo speaks to the press at junta headquarters in Kati.

BAMAKO, Mali — The day after an embargo was placed on Mali, the soldier who led a recent coup said Tuesday that he agrees with restoring constitutional order, but first Mali’s ills need to be addressed by holding a national convention which will decide on the best way forward.

With Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo refusing to step down, surrounding nations have imposed severe financial sanctions on Mali, including the closing of the country’s borders and the freezing of its account at the regional central bank.

The embargo went into effect overnight Monday, after Sanogo failed to meet the 72-hour deadline imposed by the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, which had demanded he hand power to civilians immediately.

In his first comments since the sanctions were imposed, Sanogo invited Malians to join him at a convention Thursday — a convention he had earlier announced would decide on the type of transitional body will govern Mali, before new elections are held.

“Yes to the return to a constitutional order, but with a new Mali. Our Mali is sick in the depths of her being … To this effect, we invite the entire political class and all the actors of society to come without exception to the national convention,” Sanogo said.

Europe sees anemic growth

BY DAVID MCHUGH ASSOCIATED PRESS FRANKFURT, Germany — Europe is searching for something to get growth going again and pull the eurozone’s heavily indebted countries out of their troubles — but with little luck.

Unemployment and manufacturing indicators suggest the 17 countries that use the euro are headed for an official recession.

Adding to these worrying signs is the realization that many of the traditional tools to give growth a shove — government spending, tax cuts and lower central bank interest rates — are off the table.

The absence of growth will be

a big concern for European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and the bank’s governing council when they meet Wednesday to decide the eurozone’s benchmark refinancing rate. No change in the rate — which is at a record low of 1 percent — is expected this time around.

A recent round of economic indicators will be prominent in the governing council’s minds when it meets. On Monday, the Markit index of industrial activity for the eurozone strongly suggested that the region’s economy is still contracting after shrinking 0.3 percent in the last three months of 2011.

Two straight quarters of falling output are a common definition of

recession. Meanwhile, unemployment across the 17-country group crept up to a record 10.8 percent, official figures also released on Monday showed. And national jobless rates paint an even more disturbing picture — especially among the countries hit worst by the debt crisis: Spain at 23.6 percent unemployed, Greece 21.0 percent, Ireland 14.7 percent.

The European Union’s executive commission estimates that the eurozone economy will shrink by 0.3 percent this year, while Greece faces shrinkage of 4.4 percent in the fifth year of a deep recession.

Italy faces a 1.3 drop in output according to commission forecasts while Spain will fall 1.0 percent.

BY BEN HUBBARD AND ALBERT AJI ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIRUT — Syrian troops began pulling out Tuesday from some calm cities and headed back to their bases a week ahead of a deadline to implement an international cease-fire plan, a government official said.

The claim could not immediately be verified and activists near the capital Damascus denied troops were leaving their area.

They said the day regime forces withdraw from streets, Syria will witness massive protests that will overthrow the government.

“Forces began withdrawing to outside calm cities and are returning to their bases, while in tense areas, they are pulling out to the outskirts,” the government official told The Associated Press in Damascus without saying when the withdrawal began. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

President Bashar Assad agreed just days ago to an April 10 deadline to implement international envoy Kofi Annan’s truce plan.

It requires regime forces to withdraw from towns and cities and observe a cease-fire. Rebel fighters are to immediately follow by ceasing violence.

Khaled al-Omar, an activist in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, denied that any withdrawal was under way in his area.

“This is impossible. I can see a checkpoint from my window,” he said via Skype, adding the regime forces were still in the main square.

Earlier in the day, opposition activists charged that the regime was racing to crush opponents ahead of the cease-fire deadline by carrying out intense raids, arrests and shelling on Tuesday.

Opposition activists have blasted Annan’s plan as too lit-

tle, too late and are particularly angry that it does not call for Assad to leave power - the central demand of the uprising.

They suspect Assad will manipulate the plan and use it to stall for time while his forces continue to crack down.

“He thinks he can win more time to take control of all Syrian cities,” activist Adel al-Omari said by phone from the southern town of Dael, where regime forces have been torching activists’ homes since they raided on Monday. “This won’t happen, because as soon as he withdraws his tanks from the cities, the people will come out and push to topple the regime.”

Western leaders have cautiously accepted the April 10 deadline while pointing out that Assad has broken previous promises and insisting the regime must be judged by its actions.

Also Tuesday, Amnesty International said people are still being arrested across Syria, including 13 students who were beaten at their school in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.

The organization said it received the names of 232 individuals, including 17 children, who were reported to have been killed since Syria agreed to the plan on March 27.

“The evidence shows that Assad’s supposed agreement to the Annan plan is having no impact on the ground,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA. She said the government must released thousands of prisoners, stop arrests and halt violence “Otherwise, the only conclusion we can draw is that Syria has made empty promises once more,” Nossel said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Syria had informed its close ally Moscow that it has

started implementing the plan.

The ministry’s statement did not say which troops — if any — had been withdrawn or provide further details. It called on rebel forces to follow suit.

The Syrian government has not commented publicly on the April 10 deadline. It has accepted other peace plans in recent months only to ignore them on the ground. An Arab League effort that included sending in monitors to promote a cease-fire collapsed in violence in November.

It also remains unclear whether rebel forces fighting government troops under the banner of the Free Syrian Army would respect a cease-fire. Dozens of local militias in different parts of the country have only loose links to each other and to their official leadership in Turkey.

One activist in the central Homs region said Tuesday that the area’s biggest rebel group, the Farouq Brigade, would cease its attacks on government targets if the government stopped shelling towns and cities.

“They will continue to resist until they see that there is a positive step from the regime,” Mahmoud Orabi said via Skype from the town of Qusair. “If the regime withdraws and carries out the plan, the Free Army will respect it, too.”

Activists said Syrian forces shelled rebellious neighborhoods in the central city of Homs and the nearby towns Qusair and Rastan Tuesday and carried out raid and arrest campaigns elsewhere.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least two civilians were killed in clashes between rebels and government forces that stormed the town of Taftanaz and torched a number of homes.

PAGE 12

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 13

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

TOMORROW

Sunny, with a high near 64. Light wind between 11 and 14 mph.

FRIDAY

High of 57, low of 31.

High of 61, low of 35.

SCIENCE HILL BY SPENCER KATZ

ON CAMPUS 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).

SATURDAY MORNING BREAKFAST CEREAL BY ZACH WEINER

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.

5:00 P.M. Vietnamese Cultural Dinner. Is pho the only Vietnamese meal you’ve ever heard of? Expand your horizons and try some other authentic Vietnamese dishes like bun thit nuong, banh xeo, banh mi and more. Tickets are $5 pre-order and $6 at the door. Asian American Cultural Center (295 Crown St.).

DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU

SATURDAY, APRIL 7 7:30 P.M. Yale Anjali presents “MAYA: South Asian Dance Showcase.” Explore the traditional and modern cultures of South Asia through Yale Anjali’s spring showcase. The showcase includes traditional pieces that portray the ancient stories and mythologies of India, as well as semiclassical and Bollywood pieces which highlight South Asia’s evolving culture. Free admission. Co-Op High School (177 College St.), Mainstage Theater.

y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.)

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Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Max de La Bruyère, Editor in Chief, at (203) 432-2418.

Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.

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CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 “Survivor” host Probst 5 Dan Patrick’s former employer 9 Treble and tenor 14 Leap on skates 15 By way of, in verse 16 “Groundhog Day” director Harold 17 *Stand to reason 20 Product design dept.

21 Lace place 22 *Show with Sharks 26 Sunset feature 27 Frigid 28 Maritime military org.

29 Liver, for one 31 Part of MoMA 32 Move like a bee 36 *Immature 40 On a clipper, say 41 “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” video game console 42 Salk vaccine target 43 Aleppo’s land: Abbr.

44 It may precede a treaty 46 Swiss river 47 *”The Impossible Dream” musical 51 Speedily 53 __ male 54 19th-century American doctrine suggested by the phrase formed by the first words of the answers to starred clues 59 Turn __ ear 60 Place with slips and sloops 61 Juggle conflicting demands 62 Word before bad news 63 Canadian singer Murray 64 Offended DOWN 1 Binge 2 Prefix with -thermic

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By Julian Lim

3 Chosen number?

4 Use a line, perhaps 5 Like some cuisine 6 Poor, as craftsmanship 7 Excessively proper type 8 “Kidding!”

9 Preschooler’s writing tool 10 Coating 11 Poet Dickinson 12 “Okay” 13 Army NCO 18 Subduing with a shock 19 Begins 22 “__ gonna call?

Ghostbusters!”

23 Bicolor coins 24 Smooth transition 25 Go from blog to blog, say 30 Santa __ winds 31 Many craigslist postings 32 Mel’s Diner waitress 33 Purple shade 34 Former hoops star Thomas 35 Birch of “Ghost World”

Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved

4/4/12

SUDOKU HARD

2 8 4 3

8 3 2 7 1

(c)2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

37 “__ else?”

38 Soft ball 39 __ Book Club 43 Big Bird’s mammoth friend, familiarly 44 Thoreau memoir 45 Unit of current 47 Like lions and horses 48 Helvetica alternative

2 3

4/4/12

49 Like about half of American states’ mottos 50 “You bet!”

51 Basic 49-Down word 52 “I did it!”

55 Massage locale 56 Debtor’s letters 57 “Morning Edition” airer 58 Thus far

7 8 9 1 5 4 3 8

6

7

9 6 7 2 1

PAGE 14

YALE DAILY NEWS 路 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 路 yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 15

SPORTS

Baylor women’s basketball wins national championship

The Lady Bears capped a 40–0 season Tuesday night with an 80–61 rout of Notre Dame. Baylor star Brittney Griner had 26 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks as the No. 1 seed cruised to victory. It was the second consecutive season in which Notre Dame has lost in the title game; last year, it fell to Texas A&M with the ultiate prize on the line.

Pioneers hold on to early lead

Elis take eighth GOLF FROM PAGE 16 trol the ball in the air.

Despite an unsatisfactory overall score, the first day did contain some bright spots for the Elis.

Moon began the day with the best first round score for Yale, 78, which placed her sixth in the standings. This score was propelled by an impressive eagle on the 17th hole from 142 yards away, which Ghei called the highlight of the tournament. Park finished the day 20th in the individual standings with a two round score of 162. After the first round of competition, Yale placed eighth as a team.

Tuesday brought better results for the Bulldogs, but this was not enough to raise their place in the standings. Even their improved score of 315 was disappointing, Kim said. But the team now has a better idea of what it needs to improve on for its upcoming season and ultimately for Ivy League Championships, she added.

Team members said they hope for continued improvement. The team did not play to its full potential since it was the first tournament of the year, Kim said, adding that the team has a tendency to improve as the season goes on.

“We go into every tournament wanting to win, so the results were a little disappointing, but our team has a lot of room for improvement.” Kim said in an email to the News. “I have confidence that everything will begin clicking as our season progresses.”

The Hoya Invitational is part of the long windup to Ivy League Championships, the team’s ultimate goal, team captain Lily Boettcher ’12 said.

The team only has one tournament left before Ivy League Championships, which will take place April 27-29 in Galloway, N.J. Penn, the only other Ivy League team in this week’s tournament, topped the Bulldogs at Georgetown. But only one tournament determines the Ivy League Championship, Boettcher added.

BASEBALL FROM PAGE 16

YALE ATHLETICS

The women’s golf team placed eighth in the season opener at Georgetown.

Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .

Jacobson ’06 reflects on career JACOBSON FROM PAGE 16 and Yale head coach Henry Harutunian stayed at Jacobson’s house for the Atlanta Olympics to be held that year.

That fateful experience ultimately motivated her to step into the world of fencing, she said.

At the age of 14, accompanied by her sister Emily, Jacobson went to Atlanta to join Nellya Fencers and, before the sisters knew it, they were already immersed in serious training.

After a long period of training at Nellya, Jacobson went on to continue her fencing career at Yale.

“She is a symbol to us of the type of person that a Yale fencer can be — smart, hardworking, successful and independent, but also a good teammate,” Oliver said.

Although Jacobson said Yale may not have had the largest recruiting class or financial support, she considers herself lucky to have been a Bulldog for her family ties, Yale’s coach Henry Harutunian and the University’s academic opportunities.

Jacobson stressed that her experience at Yale had been simply unforgettable. She said that she was able to fence freely and hone her skills with all the support she needed from her teammates. She said she cannot forget Harutunian’s inexhaustible devotion and dedication and recalls eating pizza with him after practice.

It was during her time at Yale that Jacobson truly shined. She received numerous individual honors and was instrumental in winning the NCAA Championships in women’s saber for Yale in 2001 and 2002.

“She was already a top fencer when she came to Yale, so I just gave her small suggestions,” Harutunian said.

Yale had a weak saber squad back then, Harutunian said, so Jacobson had to practice at a lower level and had difficulties showing her full potential.

Harutunian added that Jacobson, who was a leader with dignity, was so busy with international, domestic and collegiate matches that she was considered “untouchable” among the team.

“I said if there is to be the first female U.S. president, it will be her in her law school recommendation letter,” Harutunian said.

In 2000, Jacobson won the Budapest World Championships. Soon after the 2002 NCAA Championships, she took a leave of absence from college to prepare for her first Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, also the first time women’s individual saber fencing was represented.

Everything I do, I relate to my fencing experience.

SADA JACOBSON ’06 Olympic medalist Because her sister Emily also qualified for the Olympics, people often called them the “Serena and Venus Williams of fencing.” Sada Jacobson had to concede defeat in a close 15–12 loss to Tan Xue of China in the semifinals, but she succeeded in taking the bronze by overwhelming Romania’s Catalina Gheorhitoaia 15–7.

Not long after the Games, Jacobson became the first U.S. woman saberist and second U.S. fencer to rank number one in the world. Only a year after her first Olympics, she again displayed her prowess by notching another gold medal at the Leipzig World Championships.

Fencing in two different major international contests gave her diverse perspectives on the sport, Jacobson said.

“In championships, you tend to

TABLE MEDALS WON BY SADA JACOBSON ’06 Medal

Competition

Event

Gold

2000 Budapest World Fencing Championships

Team sabre

Gold

2005 Leipzig World Fencing Championships

Team sabre

Gold

2003 Santo Domingo Pan American Games

Individual sabre

Silver

2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Individual sabre

Silver

2004 New York World Fencing Championships

Team sabre

Silver

2006 Turin World Fencing Championships

Team sabre

Bronze

2004 Athens Olympic Games

Individual sabre

Bronze

2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Team sabre

Bronze

2006 Turin World Fencing Championships

Individual sabre

meet strong field of fencers,” she said.

“Olympics is more high-pressured.

Since it is only once in four years and is more selective and competitive than the championships, it means so much.”

Despite the immense pressure, Jacobson said she felt no particular anxiety once the games got rolling and fenced as she had always fenced.

After graduating from Yale, Jacobson returned to Nellya Fencers and continued training full time to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

She started off as the top seed and defeated Russia’s Sofiya Velikaya 15–11 in the semifinals to secure the silver. In the finals, Jacobson lost 15–8 to fellow American and defending gold medalist Mariel Zagunis.

But Jacobson she did not stop there.

She competed with rival Zagunis in the team saber round to bring home the bronze medal for the United States.

Living in the Olympics village was another memorable experience, Jacobson said, because she was surrounded by athletes and had the opportunity to learn about other sports.

“I still remember I could not go to the opening ceremony since we had a match the next day, and what was amazing to me was that I could see the famous athletes that I saw on television right next to me,” Jacobson said.

Back in Jacobson’s time at Yale, the Elis had been an especially formidable team with about seven recruits, roughly the same number the team has now. She said Columbia, a team which continues to best Yale at meets, was always a looming threat. Jacobson’s sister Emily fenced for Columbia.

When asked to give some advice to the current Eli fencers, Jacobson emphasized hard work. She encouraged the players to push themselves past their preconceived capabilities.

“Do not put any limits on yourself. Then you will be very surprised at yourself,” Jacobson said.

Two years ago, she competed with fellow Yalies at a fencing alumni event, although she retired from fencing at age 25.

Looking back on her career, Jacobson said fencing gave her many opportunities to meet people from around the world and to forge friendships she has kept.

“Everything I do, I relate to [my] fencing experience, since it is such an important part of my life,” she said.

Jacobson even married a fencer, épéeist Brendan Brunelle Baby, a member of three NCAA championship teams. And like her father before her, she hopes to continue the family legacy.

“I hope that my children will fence one day, too,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2011 and passed her bar exam in July that year.

Contact EUGENE JUNG at eugene.jung@yale.edu .

walked right fielder Zach Grandee with a full count and then walked third baseman Billy McDonough to give the Pioneers a 4–0 advantage after one frame.

The Elis threatened several times before finally getting on the scoreboard thanks to designated hitter Josh Scharff’s ’13 solo blast to lead off the fourth inning.

“Scharff has always been one of our best hitters, and that was a shot,” shortstop Cale Hanson ’14 said. “It definitely gave us a jolt.”

Hanson hit a two-out single in the top of the first and advanced to second when Brenner walked, but they were stranded on base. Right fielder Joe Lubanski ’15 started another two-out rally in the second with a single to center, but he was forced out at second.

Yale’s greatest threat came with yet another two-out hit — a double by Hanson — and it seemed that he would score when Brenner socked a single through the left side of the infield. Instead Hanson was gunned down at the plate by Pioneer left fielder Matt Charmello.

The shot to center by Scharff made the score 6–1 in the fourth, as Sacred Heart had added two runs off of Becker in the bottom of the third. Southpaw Eric Hsieh ’15 then entered in the fifth and pitched two scoreless innings to keep Yale within striking distance.

The Elis began chipping away at the lead again with two runs in the top of the sixth.

After walks to outfielder Charlie Neil ’12 and

first baseman Kevin Fortunato ’14 to start the frame, center fielder Cam Squires ’13 drove home a run with a grounder to first.

Third baseman Chris Piwinski ’13 drove the second run with a single, but that was the extent of the scoring in the inning and in the game.

Hurlers Chris O’Hare ’13 and Eric Schultz ’13 kept Sacred Heart off of the board, but the Pioneer pitching staff did the same to Yale.

Although yesterday was one of the better days this season for Yale’s hitters, it was just another day at the park for Hanson. Hanson went 3–4 with a walk to raise his team high average to .378. “[Hanson] is a great guy to feed off of,” Piwinski said. “You’re just confident that every time he gets up [to the plate] that he’s going to get a hit.”

The Bulldogs will try and take the momentum from this game into Ivy League play this weekend, when they host Princeton (9–11, 3–1 Ivy) for a doubleheader on Saturday, April 7.

Contact CHARLES CONDRO at charles.condro@yale.edu .

SACRED HEART 6, YALE 3 SACRED HEART

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Four years of reflection COLUMN FROM PAGE 16 never forget Chad Ziegler’s ’12 miraculous game-winning, overtime goal in the NCAA regional against Air Force in 2011, nor how the crowd at Brady Squash Center grew as this year’s match against Trinity went on, and how I, standing out of sight of the final match, still knew exactly what had happened when John Roberts ’12 closed it out. I’ll remember men’s soccer and men’s swimming’s inspiring turnarounds this season, and Yale field hockey finally getting an Ivy title after coming agonizingly close previously.

But I could get four years of wins and losses anywhere. The magic of Yale athletics, for me, lies in the experiences you can’t see from Woodbridge Hall … or even from the stands. The magic is walking up the stairs to the weight room in Payne Whitney Gym, passing memorials and lists of Olympic medalists that took a similar walk decades before. The magic is in heated training room discussions distracting from painful treatment, hours spent listening to the dialogue between coaches in the Ray Tompkins house, in days in the weight room being pushed to your limit (and then beyond) with teammates around you doing the same. The common denominator? The people, past and present, and their enduring determination for success.

One of those people is Director of Athletics Tom Beckett. Always publicly composed and stoic, Mr. Beckett’s Yale athletics fandom could best be described as powerful but professional — far from the rabid fandom I’ve fallen into on occasion. But with the Bulldogs down against Dartmouth at Ingalls earlier this winter, Kenny Agostino ’14 found the net with a miraculous, game-tying goal with 30 seconds to go. I jumped, yelled, fist pumped and turned … only to see Mr. Beckett doing the same. Sports here are not something clinically administrated from afar in Ray Tomkins House. They’re a constant battle against the odds that requires emotional investment, concerted commitment and mental toughness from all in the face of adversity, created by the very institution these sports seek to honor.

When any Yale team wins that battle in spite of the odds facing this athletics department, everyone in the building jumps with pride.

I love Yale athletics because I see what can’t be seen from the outside: I see that joy after grueling hours of work put in the weight room, painful hours in the training room and late nights in the library after long practices, pay off with a win. When all that work for the “Yale” on the front of a jersey is justified in one or two memorable moments that tie this generation to those who came before, those who are battling now and those who will come after. While outsiders and Yale administrators see that we, like any athletic department, have our share of bumps and bruises, they

don’t see how much goes in to patching them up. For that reason, they will never understand the agony of a loss that is, for them, nothing more than a game.

Nor will they ever feel the importance of a win that, to them, is evidence that what they are doing is not hindering our program at all.

I’ve seen it all: the good, the bad and the inspiring of Yale athletics. From this experience, I’ve become sure of two things: one — that no one outside of Yale athletics will ever be able to understand just how valuable sports here are and what people in the department put into them. And two — that for all the struggles and difficulties that come with being a Yale athlete, there’s something magical about putting on that Yale jersey and being a part of the tradition.

From its people, to its places, to its past, this program has a mystique that can’t be allowed to fade.

THE MAGIC OF YALE ATHLETICS LIES IN THE EXPERIENCE YOU CAN’T SEE FROM WOODBRDIGE HALL Sure, you can get memorable wins and losses anywhere. But here, you get people as invested in an increasingly futile battle as anyone anywhere. Here, everyone must work harder; here, mental toughness grows from an unwillingness to make excuses despite the administration’s creating them. I care about Yale athletics because being a part of Yale athletics requires an emotional investment unlike many others, and yet every single person in a Yale jersey makes it. Their efforts are all the evidence I’ll ever need that there’s value in athletics: if that many people through the years here have put so much of their heart and soul into them, it’s nearly impossible to think there’s not something important there. No, Yale’s administration will never completely understand. But if they take advice from experts on other administrative decisions in areas where they lack experience, I hope they’ll take some advice on this one: speaking as someone who would know, who’s experienced the very bad as well as the triumphantly good, I can say for certain that Yale athletics are something special, something to be supported and something to be admired. Yale athletics and all they entail embody everything this school should hope to be, and their calculated demise, everything it should not.

Contact CHELSEA JANES at chelsea.janes@yale.edu .

IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

MLB N.Y. Mets 7 N.Y. Yankees 6

SOCCER Barcelona 3 Milan 1

SPORTS QUICK HITS

MARROW DONOR REGISTRATION DRIVE TO HONOR MANDI SCHWARTZ ’10 The Yale athletic department will host a drive to honor the memory of Schwartz on April 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Commons. Schwartz was a member of the women’s hockey team at Yale. The drives at Yale have contributed 2,500 donors to the Be The Match Registry®.

NBA San Antonio 125 Cleveland 90

MLB Boston 8 Washington 7

y

MEN’S LACROSSE SECOND STRAIGHT WIN FOR ELIS Providence scored first, but it was all Yale from there as the Bulldogs(4–4) beat the Friars (1–8) on the road, 9–6.

A game after scoring the game-winner against Penn, Deron Dempster ’13, right, netted four goals to lead his team. Matt Gibson ’12 added three tallies.

SOCCER Bayern 2 Marseille 0

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports

“That’s the sign of a great team – the ability to come back against adversity.”

RYAN BRENNER ’12 CAPTAIN, BASEBALL YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

Pioneers walk away with win

Disappointing start for Bulldogs

BASEBALL

BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER It was a disappointing season opener at Georgetown’s Hoya Invitational for the women’s golf team.

GOLF The Bulldogs competed in their season debut earlier this week at Georgetown, against 12 teams, including Eastern Michigan, Seton Hall, St. John’s and University of Pennsylvania. The Elis finished in eighth place and scored 315 in their final round, about three strokes above the team’s average score this season. Of five golfers that competed for the team, Alexandra Lipa ’13, Shreya Ghei ’15, Seo Hee Moon ’14, Sun Gyoung Park ’14 and Joy Kim ’13, the top individual finisher was Park with scores of 84 78 78, in her three rounds.

I have confidence that everything will begin clicking as our season progresses.

JOY KIM ’13 Women’s golf

YDN

Josh Scharff ’13 hit a solo home run, his first of the season, against Sacred Heart Tuesday, but it wasn’t enough as Yale lost to the Pioneers, 6–3.

BY CHARLES CONDRO STAFF REPORTER The baseball team put together a solid all-around performance in the last eight innings against Sacred Heart University yesterday, but they could not overcome a rough first inning.

The Pioneers (10–16, 6–2

Northeast Conference) put up four runs in the bottom of the first inning as they won 6–3 to defend their home field against the Elis (6–18–1, 0–4 Ivy).

“The pitchers and our team as a whole were especially resilient today,” catcher and captain Ryan Brenner ’12 said. “That’s the sign of a great team — the ability to come

CHELSEA JANES

back against adversity.”

Lefthander Ben Joseph ’15, making his first appearance since the second game of the season, was unable to get an out in the first inning before head coach John Stuper replaced him with Nolan Becker ’13. Joseph led off the inning by hitting the first two batters and then surrendered an RBI double to

Sacred Heart shortstop John Murphy. He walked the next two batters, forcing in another run, before Becker relieved him.

Becker struck out his first two opponents, and Yale appeared to be on its way out of the jam, down only 2–0, when Becker

“We all feel like we could have done a lot better,” Ghei said. “We played better today than yesterday.”

The team had a particularly difficult first day of competition on Monday. Yale’s score was a 659 for 36 holes, more than 16 strokes above the team’s average score. The weather may have been a factor in the team’s poor score, Ghei said, as it was extremely windy and difficult to con-

SEE BASEBALL PAGE 15

SEE GOLF PAGE 15

FENCING

Olympic fencer inspires Elis

Four years in Yale Athletics (Preface: I’m always a bit unsure of exactly what my readership for these columns is, but I operate on the assumption that the only devout weekly readers of my columns are the YDN editors, my grandparents and whichever one of my mother and father drew the short straw that week.

For those of you outside that esteemed group, I’ll sum up my message of the past few weeks in three quick words: “Save Yale athletics.”)

I’ve talked about the tradition, the divide created by current policies and the place of Yale athletics in the community, all with the (admittedly optimistic and so-far disappointed) hope of changing a mind or two in Woodbridge Hall.

But with a new month came the realization that I’ve only got a few more weeks here. Maybe it’s some senior sentimentality getting the

best of me, but I think it’s time to explain why I care so much in the first place.

Over the past four years, I’ve worked at hundreds of Yale sporting events on the staff of the Yale Sports Publicity office and for the Yale Daily News, and have been a part of countless more in playing four seasons of varsity softball.

I’ve seen fencing to football, balance beam to basketball, history and heartbreak. With that painful exception of a win against Harvard in The Game, I’ve seen it all.

I’ll always remember the women’s basketball team’s huge upset win against Florida State in December 2010, or the DJ playing the other version of Cee-Lo Green’s “Forget You” for Harvard fans after men’s basketball’s epic senior day upset last season. I’ll SEE COLUMN PAGE 15

STAT OF THE DAY 3

SADA JACOBSON

Sada Jacobson ’06 was the first U.S. saberist, the first American woman and second American fencer to rank No. 1 in the world.

BY EUGENE JUNG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER “As one of Yale’s best athletes and best fencer, she is a true inspiration to the team,” fencing team captain Shiv Kachru ’12 said of Sada Jacobson ’06, who took home the silver medal in saber from the

2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Jacobson, the first U.S. woman, the first U.S. saberist and the second U.S. fencer to rank number one in the world, has won two world championships and an additional Olympic bronze medal.

At Yale, the history major is remembered for her dedication to the sport and

her ability to balance academics and athletics.

“She had a very positive influence on me because she was the truly classy fencer, and I learned how to act on strip by following her example,” saberist Maddie Oliver ’13 said.

Oliver, who has fenced with Jacobson in her hometown of Atlanta, said Jacobson was a strong technical fencer who worked hard and never gave up. She added that by watching Jacobson, she wanted to be able to execute effective combination of technique and drive just like her.

During her time at Yale, Jacobson’s daily schedule moved like clockwork: she went to the seventh floor of Payne Whitney at 7:30 a.m. for morning practice and returned to the very same spot in the afternoon at 3:30 p.m. for regular workout.

Every weekend, she made pilgrimages to New York to keep herself in the game by practicing at the Fencers Club, a bigger club with national-level male fencers.

“It was definitely a challenge to balance with academics, but everybody in the team enjoyed fencing and was very dedicated,” Jacobson said.

Becoming an accomplished saberist was in the works for Jacobson from birth. Her father, David Jacobson ’78, was a member of the U.S. national saber team back in 1974. In 1996, foilist Peter Devine ’99 SEE JACOBSON PAGE 15

THE NUMBER EACH OF GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE MEDALS SADA JACOBSON ’06 HAS WON IN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES, WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS AND PAN OLYMPIC GAMES COLLECTIVELY. Jacobson has won two world championships but not Olympic gold.