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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 118 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY SUNNY
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CROSS CAMPUS
SOFTBALL R. I. TAKES TWO FROM BULLDOGS
STREETCAR WOES
JOBS, JOBS, JOBS
U.S. EDUCATION
Yet again, aldermen reject proposal to study potential system
YOUTH PLEAD WITH ALDERMEN TO EXPAND OPTIONS
Charter school network founder encourages Yalies to teach
PAGE 12 SPORTS
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 5 NEWS
Yale-NUS debate to continue
Senate OKs death penalty repeal
Ladies and gentlemen, Yale.
During a talk examining how Watergate would unfold in the digital era, fabled journalist Bob Woodward ’65 recalled a story in which Yale journalism students had to write a onepage paper on what coverage of a Watergate scandal would look like today. Woodward told the annual conference of the American Society of News Editors that he “came as close as I ever have to having an aneurysm” because one of the students wrote “‘Oh, you would just use the Internet and you’d go to “Nixon’s secret fund” and it would be there.’”
RESOLUTION ON PRINCIPLES LIKELY TO BE VOTED ON TODAY BY GAVAN GIDEON AND ANTONIA WOODFORD STAFF REPORTERS
prison without parole by a vote of 20 to 16. The measure now heads to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass within the next few weeks. Gov. Dannel Malloy has said he would sign the bill. Senate Democrats, whose amendment toughening sentences
A resolution urging Yale-NUS College to uphold principles of non-discrimination and civil liberties will likely be brought to a vote at today’s Yale College faculty meeting. Professors voted to suspend the rules of the meetings to introduce and debate the resolution, written by political science and philosophy professor Seyla Benhabib GRD ’77, at their monthly meeting in March, but they postponed a decision on it until their April meeting. After the last two faculty meetings drew high attendance, administrators decided to move today’s meeting from Connecticut Hall to Davies Auditorium in the Becton Center. Faculty members interviewed — including those who have worked on the college — said they have appreciated the active discussion of Yale-NUS and look forward to continuing the debate. “The underlying principle [of Benhabib’s resolution] — that Yale-NUS College should abide by academic freedom, non-discrim-
SEE DEATH PENALTY PAGE 6
SEE YALE-NUS PAGE 4
Flying high. Red Bull, famous
for giving you wings, held a paper airplane contest in Commons Wednesday afternoon in which students could enter to win an allexpenses-paid trip to Austria to represent the United States at the Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals.
They’re back. Remember the freshman “Whaling Crew” that started selling shirts last fall in honor of the start of hockey season? They’re back with a tank-top design that costs $10 during pre-sale. The big leagues. In an article
published today, the New York Times takes its own look at faculty dissent on campus in New Haven, calling it “a whiff of a Yale Spring” in which professors are feeling “disempowered,” as political science professor Seyla Benhabib says in the article.
More time in the Times.
Yale Law School professor Linda Greenhouse published a column on the Times’ Opinionator blog Wednesday evening in which she claims that the case currently facing the Supreme Court — whether the Affordable Care Act violates the Constitution — is an easy case, but the Court has made it look difficult.
JESSICA HILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Religious leaders opposed to the death penalty marched at the State Capitol in Hartford as the State Senate began deliberations that ended in an early morning vote for a bill that would repeal capital punishment in the state.
WITH 20–16 VOTE, REPEAL OF DEATH PENALTY CLEARS KEY HURDLE; HOUSE LIKELY TO APPROVE BILL BY CASEY SUMNER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER HARTFORD — Early this morning, Connecticut took a critical step toward making the state’s
death penalty a thing of the past. After nearly 12 hours of debate in a session that began Wednesday afternoon, the state Senate passed a bill that would eliminate capital punishment in favor of life in
UOFC redefines responsibilities BY MADELINE MCMAHON STAFF REPORTER Just one week before the Yale College Council elections, administrators approved a proposal Wednesday that formalizes additional responsibilities of the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee and renames it the Undergraduate Organizations Committee. A subsidiary of the YCC, the UOFC mainly oversees funding for registered undergrad-
uate organizations, but will begin handling policy issues concerning student groups in the 2012-’13 academic year under the title of the UOC. Current UOFC chair Allen Granzberg ’13 said the change will formally recognize duties the UOFC already performs in Yale College: providing information about the processes of registering with the Yale College Dean’s Office and obtaining funding, and allocating resources such as room space and equipment to student
groups. The UOC also intends to work more closely with the administration to represent the interests of student groups.
We can give undergraduate organizations the support they need. ALLEN GRANZBERG ’13 UOFC Chair
“We realized we can give undergraduate organizations the support they need with our resources, and it felt like a natural progression,” Granzberg said. John Meeske, associate dean for student organizations and physical resources and a member of the committee that approved the UOC proposal, said administrators are considering putting the UOC in charge of approving applications of student groups that want to register. Meeske said
he and a colleague currently run this process, but Granzberg said shifting the responsibility to the UOC would further the effort to “integrate information” for both registered and unregistered student organizations. The UOC could serve as a particularly useful resource for unregistered student groups, Granzberg added, as they are not overseen much by administrators. The YCC and the UOFC are SEE UOFC PAGE 6
Seussical the Hospital.
Thanks to a generous donation from Theodor Geisel — popularly known as the famed children’s author Dr. Seuss — Dartmouth’s medical school will now be known as the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Big cash, first cash.
Jamestown, The First Town in America, a band whose members mostly include Yale undergrads, raised more than $3,000 via a campaign on Kickstarter — that’s double their original goal of $1,500.
Watch for black robes. Pretap for senior societies starts tonight at 8 p.m., starting a weeklong process that ends with tap night next Thursday. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1981 Recognizing an area of weakness in Judaic studies, the University starts raising $6.2 million to make the program into a “great asset.” Submit tips to Cross Campus
crosscampus@yaledailynews.com
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New ward lines begin to emerge BY NICK DEFIESTA STAFF REPORTER The city’s future political map began to take shape at a meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s special redistricting committee Wednesday. By city charter, aldermen must redraw the lines that define the city’s wards by a May deadline, and the special redistricting committee took public testimony Wednesday night on its first draft of a new ward map. While the current proposal brings the populations closer to the balance required by the charter, ensuring equal representation for each voter, the Board still has work to do before reaching its final plan. In creating the proposed ward map, aldermen sought to balance the number of voters in each ward, which have shifted in the 10 years since the last census. By law, aldermen had to negotiate ward boundaries with one another until they could each represent a population within 5
percent of the target 4,326 people, the legally allowed deviation. According to city corporation counsel Victor Bolden and former alderwoman Nancy Ahern, the city charter requires the Board of Aldermen to keep each ward within a single state legislative district “to the maximum extent feasible.” If the Board were to do so — given the recent movement of state legislative district boundaries — it would split Sarah Eidelson’s ’12 Ward 1, a change that would threaten to alter the character of the traditionally “Yale ward.” Made up almost entirely of Yale students, the current Ward 1 houses Old Campus and eight of Yale’s residential colleges. Concern that Ward 1 would no longer be a Yale student-majority ward drove four members of the Yale College Democrats to testify before the special redistricting committee. Dems event coordinator Rebecca Ellison ’15, SEE REDISTRICTING PAGE 6
TOURISM
As visitors surge, Yale serves as anchor
W
ith the arrival of spring, prospective students and their families are flocking to Yale for campus tours. As they descend on New Haven, they contribute to the rise in tourism the city has seen in recent years. CYNTHIA HUA reports. The past few weeks have marked the start of the college visit tour season that will last through the summer. Still, apart from the typical summer surge soon to follow, tourism in New Haven and Yale has been growing over the past several years, said Ginny Kozlowski, executive director of REX Development, a group that helps market businesses in the greater New Haven area. From 2010 to 2011, hotel occupancy rates in New Haven increased by 4.4 percent and average daily rate per room increased by 3.3 percent. Both measurements are indicators of growth in New Haven’s tourism industry over the last several years, Kozlowski said, adding that both Tweed New Haven Regional Airport and Union Station have also seen increased traffic. “We can see the rise just by the noticeably increased foot traffic and the opening of
businesses that cater to travelers,” she said. The city has built on its relationship with Yale to market New Haven as a tourist destination, especially its culinary and cultural offerings. Universities in the greater New Haven area — including Yale, Quinnipiac and the University of New Haven — attract a “natural base” of visitors that the city can rely on, Kozlowki added. “We’re here all for Yale,” said one tourist from Michigan, Patricia Sundman, on a visit with her husband and three children. “For the Yale buildings, the Yale architecture and … the Yale gear.”
‘PRIMARY DRAW’?
When the economy dipped in 2007, New Haven did not experience the same SEE TOURISM PAGE 4