T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 129 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY SUNNY
59 62
CROSS CAMPUS
INTERNET TROLLS FROM CYBERSPACE TO YOUR SPACE
YALE-NUS
DOLLARS AND SENSE
M. LACROSSE
Singaporean student panel discusses new liberal arts college
RESIDENTS GIVE ALDERMAN EARFUL ABOUT BUDGET
No. 20 Elis look to stretch winning streak at red-hot No. 19 Bryant
PAGE B3 WEEKEND
PAGE 5 NEWS
PAGE 5 CITY
PAGE 12 SPORTS
Campus mourns Brunt ’15
Hope. The annual Mandi
Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive came to Commons on Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During those six hours, over 500 potential marrow donors were added to the national Be The Match Registry. The University has held four such marrow drives in honor of former women’s hockey player Mandi Schwartz ’11, who died last April after a battle with leukemia. During those four drives, Yale has added 3,000 potential donors to the national registry.
It’s official. The Yale
College Council officially announced the lineup for next Tuesday’s Spring Fling concert, launching a website and YouTube video for the event. As the News reported in March, the lineup will feature rap artist T-Pain, indie superstar Passion Pit and fratmusic.com DJ 3LAU. The winners of Tuesday night’s Battle of the Bands competition — Jamestown, A Streetcar Named Funk and 9 Tigers — will open.
JAMES LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A vigil held in the Davenport courtyard Thursday night honored the life of Zachary Brunt ’15, who was found dead in a physics lab Wednesday afternoon.
AT DAVENPORT VIGIL, BRUNT’S FATHER URGES CAMPUS: ‘DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN’ BY GAVAN GIDEON AND JAMES LU STAFF REPORTERS The Yale community came together Thursday to commemorate the life of Zachary Brunt ’15, a student who shone as a
musician and a scientist, and who engaged all kinds of people. The grief that gripped campus after students and faculty learned of Brunt’s death Wednesday was apparent at a candlelit vigil in the Davenport
College courtyard Thursday night. Davenport Master Richard Schottenfeld ’71 MED ’76, Dean Ryan Brasseaux GRD ’11 and Brunt’s family and friends described Brunt as a student who was committed to the communities and friends that shaped him. His death, Schottenfeld said, reminds the Yale community that “we don’t live in a per-
fect world.” “Zach Brunt was such a vibrant, visible part of the Davenport-Yale community,” Schottenfeld said. “It’s just not possible yet to comprehend fully and believe that we won’t see him again tomorrow or soon.” Brunt was found dead in a physics lab on the sixth floor of Josiah Willard Gibbs Laborato-
ries Wednesday afternoon. His body was taken for an autopsy at the state medical examiner’s office, which said Thursday afternoon that Brunt died by “asphyxia due to exclusion of oxygen” and ruled his death a suicide. After Schottenfeld opened SEE VIGIL PAGE 4
Yaliens Among Us. On
Tuesday night, a group of Yale alums took over East Village Tavern in New York City for a performance called “barplay.” The show featured performances by four Yalies — William Alden ’10, Cory Finley ’11, Charles Gariepy ’09 and Sophia Lear ’08 — and was directed by Maggie Burrows ’09 and Cordelia Istel ’10.
Welcome to Panem. Students
at the Yale School of Medicine put out a YouTube video parodying the Suzanne Collins blockbuster “The Hunger Games” called “The Haven Games.” The video features Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark as they sing the School of Medicine’s praises. It was designed to welcome members of the Medical School’s class of 2016 to Yale.
More “Hunger Games.” Posters for this Sunday’s Mr. Yale pageant have popped up all over Facebook. They, too, are “Hunger Games”-themed, featuring a mockingjay pin and the ubiquitous slogan, “May the odds be ever in your favor.” Relay for the cause. The Lanman Center at Payne Whitney Gym will be closed today and through midday tomorrow for Relay for Life. Remembrance. The fraternity
Alpha Epsilon Pi partnered with the Slifka Center Thursday afternoon to host the second annual “Walk to Remember,” in which a dozen students dressed in dark colors and bore stickers on shirts reading “Never forget.” The students walked in single file, staying silent throughout the march in remembrance of the Holocaust.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1963 Campus mourns the death of University President A. Whitney Griswold, who died April 19 after a battle with colon cancer. He was 56. Submit tips to Cross Campus
ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com
Influencing policy, or ‘wasting time’? Committee on Undergraduate Organizations, Cultural Houses, Dean’s Advisory Committee, Dean’s Advisory on Student Grievances, Financial Aid Committee, Fraternities and Sororities, Freshman Year Advisory Committee, Global Health Studies Advisory Committee, LGBTQ Co-op, Provost’s Undergraduate Advisory Committee, Student Advisory Committee on Science and QR, Yale College Council BY MADELINE MCMAHON STAFF REPORTER On March 1, Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry called a meeting of all fraternity and sorority leaders to inform them that their rush procedures would change. Beginning next year, he said, they would no longer be able to hold freshman rush activities during the fall.
UPCLOSE The Greek leaders in the room said they were shocked. “This rule came as a 100 percent surprise to every fraternity,” said Ben Singleton, vice president of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. “We didn’t have an inkling that this was coming.” Greek leaders and students across campus claimed the policy was misguided, and many felt that administrators made the decision before students could offer input. Administrators offer multiple channels for students to present their ideas — including committees with the Yale College Dean’s Office and other University offices, cultural centers, the Yale College Council and individual meetings — and they said they feel these mechanisms allow them to accurately gauge student sentiment. John Meeske, associate dean of student organizations
and physical resources, added that he meets with students nearly every day about issues pertaining to undergraduate organizations. Four of five members of Dean’s Office committees interviewed, along with many YCC members, said they play important roles in discussing specific issues when administrators seek their input. But in terms of influencing actual policy, student leaders said they are unsure to what extent they can affect change.
It’s not profitable for us to form a committee to talk about [a policy change] if we’re convinced of what needs to be done.
Gender imbalances found at Law School BY DANIEL SISGOREO STAFF REPORTER Men are 16 percent more likely to speak in class than women in Yale Law School courses, according findings in a study released by a Law School student group last week. The group, Yale Law Women, replicated a study of gender dynamics it conducted at the school in 2002. The 93-page study — which included interviews with 54 of 83 non-visiting faculty members, observations of student participation in 113 sessions of 21 Law
School courses and a survey of 62 percent of the student body — found that women are 1.5 percent more likely to speak up in class now than they were 10 years ago, among several other observations. The majority of students and faculty interviewed by the News said gender imbalances are an endemic problem in the legal profession and are not unique to the Law School, though many were disappointed by the lack of substantial improvement over the decade. SEE LAW SCHOOL PAGE 4
Ward 1 likely to expand eastward BY NICK DEFIESTA STAFF REPORTER Aldermen are struggling to determine the shape of New Haven’s wards ahead of a fast approaching deadline. A special committee of the Board of Aldermen considered three different ward maps at a Thursday evening meeting at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy, the latest in a series of meetings held in an effort to equalize populations across the city’s wards.
The committee was unable to come to a consensus during the meeting, and if they do not agree upon a final ward map by May, the redistricting project will be taken out of their hands — and into Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s. By city charter, the Board must redraw lines between the city’s 30 wards every decade, based on updated U.S. Census population figures. In redrawing the wards, aldermen must SEE REDISTRICTING PAGE 4
JOHN MEESKE Associate Dean of Student Organizations and Physical Resources, Yale College Meeske said administrators can often predict how students will react before a policy is announced. In cases when administrators know a decision will be “unpopular” but still feel it is a “necessary step” — such as the fall SEE POLICY PAGE 6
NICK DEFIESTA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
At a special committee meeting Thursday evening, aldermen failed to achieve consensus on changes to ward boundaries necessitated by the city charter.
PAGE 2
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “He left a Zach-shaped hole in all of our lives.” yaledailynews.com/opinion
‘JSIMON’ ON ‘ZACHARY
BRUNT ’15 DIES, CAUSE NOT YET KNOWN’
G U E ST C O LU M N I ST T E O S OA R E S
Clever headline goes here
NEWS’
VIEW
T
Remembering Zach Brunt ’15
I
t’s time not to draw easy lessons but to remember, to ask questions and to
accept there are things we don’t know.
A
t the candlelight vigil for Zach Brunt ’15, one friend remembered Brunt sitting on a bench outside of Welch Hall Sunday night. As Brunt sat there, more and more people gathered around to talk. As they gradually drifted away to go to bed, Zach stayed, talking to friends and enjoying the evening. That was Zach: creating community and enjoying the company of others. Brunt’s death on Wednesday was one of too many Yale has seen in the last three years. It’s tempting to count this as just another one. We’ve come to know the response to such tragedies: an announcement from Yale College Dean Mary Miller, emails from college deans offering support, a candlelight vigil. But when tragedy strikes again, none of that helps. We don’t know how to mourn Zach, nor should we. We cannot be acclimated to tragedy. Death shocks the whole Yale community, but a different segment of people is hit hardest with each death. We can talk all we want about the strength of our community and our ability to mourn together, but for Zach’s family and closest friends, this is not another Yale death. This is Zach’s death. Zach was a freshman. He liked physics and playing the guitar. Most of us didn’t know him. We never got to admire his bowties, to hear him laugh or to see him burst into a room and introduce himself with a story. We don’t know why he died.
His death was a suicide. His friends, his family and his professors are probably asking themselves where things went wrong. None of us will likely ever have an answer. It’s important to ask that question, but it’s wrong for the living to blame themselves. It would be wrong to gloss over the fact that this wasn’t an accident, but it would also be wrong to lose sight of Zach’s life in the confusion of his death. We won’t ever know what he was thinking. We won’t know how, if at all, any of us failed him, or why he chose to send so many of us reeling. What we will know, always, is how he changed the lives of his friends when he was with them. We will know that everyone who knew him said he built communities and was constantly surrounded by friends. He held doors open for people he didn’t know. He introduced himself to everyone he met in Davenport and at the Native American Cultural Center. None of that will ever change. At the end of last night’s vigil, Zach’s father spoke. “Don’t let this happen again,” he said. We wish we knew precisely how to do that, but we know it’s our job to try. We can start by remembering the friendlier, more open world Zach built for everyone he met. Remember those moments that death does not change. They, more than a vigil or our unanswered questions, are Zach’s legacy.
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floors my readers, so I begin this paragraph with the word “Indeed,” which has no real meaning but serves as a buffer that allows readers to get back on their feet. This is important because they must be standing to fully understand the moralistic diatribe that follows. I believe my cause to be so immediate that it flaunts the need for structure, so this paragraph meanders without apparent logic. I cite a personal anecdote and a theory from seminar. No comma stands between them. I use words that sound impressive but are actually meaningless, like “structures” and “society.” I also mention “agency.” Descartes makes a cameo. I begin this sentence with the word “however,” which means I’m contradicting something. I may or may not know what this is, but I believe “however” to be an elegant construction. In subsequent paragraphs I’ll use the words “despite” and “although” to similar ends. I avoid “but” because coordinating conjunctions are never used in
the beginning of a sentence. I’m no simpleton. At this point I’m running low on permutations of the aforementioned bold claim. I know only so many synonyms for “outrageous,” so I reach for the thesaurus. I settle for “horrendous.” I also stumble upon “hobgoblin,” which I use. The fact that I’m writing about Passover is irrelevant. I should, at some point, acknowledge dissenting views. Here’s good. These sentences may begin with, “One would argue,” or “Some may say,” because indefinite pronouns allow me to refer to theantiyale and River_Tam without writing their names. Nuanced arguments are hard to dismiss, so I reduce them to simple sentences. The sentence that follows begins with “however.” Dialogue is important, so I mention it here. I label it as “constructive,” which means nothing. I make a reference to moving forward and advancing the best interests of the community. I align these with my own. Throughout I
imply that I value others’ opinions. This is a lie. Lest you forget it, I reiterate my outrage. I’m no longer sure of its target, but my fingers keep on punching angrily at my keyboard. They are passionate. I’m leading up to the conclusion and use big words, which I saved for the occasion. By this point it becomes apparent that I’m actually clueless about my topic, but I know I’m right, so I type in a period before you think too hard. I rush into an ending, which is circular because a column may take any shape but must have a good reason to avoid the circle. I reiterate the aforementioned bold claim and shift words in an attempt at cleverness. This may or may not succeed. To conclude, I throw in a one-sentence paragraph. It’s pithy. TEO SOARES is a junior in Silliman College. Contact him at teo.soares@yale.edu .
G U E ST C O LU M N I ST K AT H L E E N P OW E R S
The assault on Old Campus T
wo years ago, the Ying Yang Twins were paid to perform at Spring Fling. At the time, I was on the Yale Women’s Center Board. I spent that week bristling at the Spring Fling Committee’s decision to invite them, putting up signs in protest, writing an incendiary column for the News and bitterly realizing that the Ying Yang Twins, those beloved identical spouts of rapist rallying tunes would — without question — come to my school. In the days before the Twins’ arrival, I became powerfully aware of my own impotence: I could do very little to prevent the Twins and their euphoric, carnivalesque brand of patriarchy from coming to Yale, short of physically barring them entry, which would have been a comedic occasion for all parties. (Hint: I would have lost that game.) Effluvia poured forth in a place where we learn. The Ying Yang Twins came, and your money, classes of 2012 and 2013, paid them. Fueled by the dues we all pay to the Yale College Student Activities Fund, with the majority of Yalies blithely carousing before them, the Ying Yang Twins unloaded their hateful speech — “you screamin’ you can’t take it no more. Beat the pussy so bad we done fell on the flo” — on Old
Campus. The Twins’ performance would not be the only misogynistic act between High Street and Phelps Gate that year. In October, the brothers of Delta Kappa Epsilon paraded around Old Campus, chanting “no means yes, yes means anal.”
T-PAIN’S OFFENSIVE LYRICS RECALL LAST YEAR’S DKE CHANT T-Pain is coming to Spring Fling this year. Get ready to be dazzled. Known for crooning “couple more shots you open up like a book” in that ditty “Blame it on the Alcohol,” which the Washington City Paper included in a list of the top 5 Rape Anthems, T-Pain will sing his songs and marginalize half of Yale’s student body, and we will pay him to do so. T-Pain’s tunes neutralize sexual assault: “Baby let me rope you up / Tie you down / No matter how hard you buck / Gonna get wild all night.” According to his lyrics, any woman is worth only as much as the pleasure she provides to the male population: “Take your
motherf---ing shirt off, hey!” T-Pain’s lyrics relegate the female sex to an infantile status: “Back breaker, put you over my knee woo / Put you on punishment woman and I’ll spank you.” Good, T-Pain. Good, that’s what all Yale women want. Oh, and let me take my shirt off while I’m at it. If you think I speak derisively, you’re right; I’m tired of writing dour, anti-Spring Fling columns. But lest my choleric voice cause you to ignore me, know that I want to save something you and I both love: Yale University. Events like the Ying Yang Twins’ performance, DKE’s parade and T-Pain’s impending arrival have a common source. Our culture deems this rhetoric acceptable. Only diction differentiates lyrics like “I’m going to f--- you til you cry” from the equally violent, equally terrorizing “no means yes, yes means anal.” These events reveal the toxic, subterranean aspects of a culture that is on the surface beneficent and smiling. These events tear us apart. In recent months, our campus has undergone a revitalizing exfoliation in the attempt to change the sexual culture at this school. Gender is oft-discussed on this page, Yale has created a University-Wide Committee to manage
sexual assault claims and Yale has created a position to manage Title IX complaints and policy integration. Administrative discussion is not mere institutional cant. Even if it progresses rheumatically, Yale is not failing us. Administrative action is the best chance we have. After Title IX, Yale’s administration is moving. But there’s much to be done. The Spring Fling Committee is importing a discourse that degrades and threatens members of our community. Yale women will to go to Spring Fling, and they will have to listen to someone disparage them. The decision to invite T-Pain is cavalier and disregards any progress we’ve made. Such a decision assaults our convalescent culture. T-Pain’s unresisted authorized arrival is not an exception but an exemplar of the times: It shows us as we are and what — apparently — we want. We’ve made strides in my years here, but sexism at Yale remains a severe problem. Our space is not T-Pain’s to desecrate. The adjustments we’ve made are fragile. They must be fortified. T-Pain is not going to protect what we’ve built. Will you? KATHLEEN POWERS is a senior in Branford College. Contact her at kathleen.powers@yale.edu .
A grammarian’s manifesto
YALE DAILY NEWS PUBLISHING CO., INC. 202 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 432-2400 Editorial: (203) 432-2418 editor@yaledailynews.com Business: (203) 432-2424 business@yaledailynews.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Max de La Bruyère
his is called a lede because it’s supposed to lead readers into my column. It succeeds despite the odds. Here I introduce my topic. Gender-neutral housing. Singapore. My grievances about the Levin administration. Syria is important and I believe we should do something about it, but that column has already been written. I write about sex instead. Sexual climate sells. This paragraph explains why the topic matters. This is difficult because most topics don’t. I feign outrage at an event (e.g., Occupy, Meatless Monday) and concern for a slighted group (e.g., New Haveners, carnivores). The fact that I’m neither a New Havener nor a carnivore is irrelevant. By now punctuation runs amok, and it will continue to do so throughout the piece. I know the MLA handbook lists rules on the use of em-dashes, but I don’t heed them. I also throw in a semi-colon; I’m feeling fancy. Here I make a claim. It’s bold. It gets its own paragraph. The aforementioned bold claim
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COPYRIGHT 2012 — VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 129
T
his column is going to be about grammar. Don’t get too excited, now. Today I will discuss a national emergency — the complete deterioration of our ability to write well. Even at Yale I have experienced disdain for my love of grammar. When I told people of my interest in the freshman seminar “Grammatical Diversity in U.S. English,” I received blank or often disgusted stares in return. When I found a typo in a headline (a headline!) in an issue of Time magazine, many of my classmates told me, “So what? It’s just grammar.” We have lost our way, but I am determined to correct that. So I am writing to promulgate a new code of grammar, just as the great Strunk and White have done before me. I have been told grammar is a highly subjective field, but there are certainly some tenets about which we can all agree. When writing a proper article or essay, make sure not a have a spelling errore, a punctuation error; or an stylistic error. Spellcheck has been the law of the land for decades, so I truly don’t understand how people still make typos. It is awful, bad, terrible and horrible to be redundant. If I was using the imperfect subjunctive correctly, this sentence would not
be here. Contractions aren’t terrible in writing, but use them sparingly in academic essays. Other things that should be used SCOTT sparingly: the STERN word “things,” pretentious A Stern Latin words Perspective (like “datum” or “terminus”), semicolons and ellipses. And it is acceptable to start a sentence with a conjunction, but don’t go overboard. As distinguished grammarian Winston Churchill told us, ending a sentence with a preposition is something “up with which I will not put.” I’m reasonably sure he was trying to be funny (in a, well, British way), but he makes two important points: ending a sentence with a preposition is never acceptable … except when it is. This same tricky rule applies to the passive voice. I was appalled, saddened and angered during my very first shift on the News’ copy desk when I learned that this otherwise unparalleled newspaper does not employ the Oxford comma. I was gratified, though, when the copy
desk taught me that the correct way to express that a Taser was used on someone is that he was “Tasered,” not “tased” (apparently because it’s a brand name, like Kleenex or Frisbee, which have achieved similar levels of ubiquity). Above all, there’s a time and a place for everything. Would I use many contractions or informal sentences in an essay for English class? No. (I also would not use a one-word sentence.) But would I use them in an informal column? If you’ve been paying attention, then you already know. I hope I have made clear to you how to avoid many basic grammatical pitfalls. As Molière wrote, grammar “knows how to control even kings.” At this point, many of you — fed up by my sad attempt to be both funny and educational — will ask, “What’s the point? Who cares? Does this really matter?” In a word: yes. The argument can be made that we need grammar to be able to understand everyone around us, and a deterioration of grammar will start us down the truly slippery slope to idiolectal anarchy. Grammar governs the way we speak, so we couldn’t communicate without it. And that’s absolutely true. But a more powerful argument
can be made by appealing to people’s self-interest. It goes without saying that those who don’t understand proper grammar will do worse on English assignments. But did you know that, according to founder of National Grammar Day Martha Brockenbrough, “In one survey of hiring managers, 75 percent said it was worse for an applicant to have a spelling or grammar error on his application than for him to show up late or — get this — swear during an interview.” Even worse, “A utility company in Canada had to pay an extra $2.13 million in 2006 to lease power poles because someone stuck a comma in the wrong spot.” Grammar matters. Inevitably, some will dismiss this column for its tone or apparently narrow message. But to those of you who will glean anything from it at all, please let it be this: For years our grammatical awareness has been declining. (Remember that typo in the Time magazine headline?) Let’s fix that, starting down a road not toward grammatical uniformity, but simply grammatical carefulness. SCOTT STERN is a freshman in Branford College. His column runs on alternate Fridays. Contact him at scott.tern@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
FRIDAY FORUM
“America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.”
GUEST COLUMNIST DANIEL ARIAS
G U E ST C O LU M N I ST E T H A N R O D R I G U E Z -T O R R E N T
Razed and unfazed
Preoccupied
‘S
hame! Shame! Shame!” The words that woke me up Wednesday morning were unforgiving and loud. They were carried over a megaphone blaring from what was, for the last six months, the grounds of Occupy New Haven. I opened my bedroom window in Bingham and heard the sounds of demolition. The grinding of the bulldozers made it clear what was happening: The home of Occupy was being leveled to the ground. Soon, there would be nothing left of the encampment that had resisted rain, snow and cold weather to become one of the last holdouts of a national movement. I am by no means an Occupier; although I share the protestors’ frustration towards the fiscal irresponsibility of Wall Street and the pass it got from our politicians, and I earnestly wish for reforms, I do not support the anarchistic rhetoric that seems to have become associated with Occupy in the final months of its campaign. Nor am I against the decision of the city to evict the protesters, as long as the law has been followed and due process has been respected.
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF OCCUPY CAN’T JUST BE FORGOTTEN However, in spite of all this, I am deeply troubled by the destruction of the Occupy camp. I watched as the workers labored to pick the ground clean and remove all traces of the movement. Gradually, the wooden planks and plastic tarps passed from sight, eaten up by the bulldozers and garbage heaps. The white banner of Occupy, the impromptu flag that had flown above the encampment like a sign of resistance, was strewn over the lip of a truck full of debris. The disturbance I felt that morning, though, cannot be ascribed to these sights and sounds of destruction. The sensation of dissonance I felt came not in seeing Occupy being removed, but in seeing the apparent indifference of those passing by; students went on along their way to class, couples chatted pleasantly and traffic continued to flow up and down College Street (albeit disrupted by the demolition process).
I
WOODROW WILSON
Even city officials seemed indifferent. I passed five police officers who were standing, chatting, next to boxes of Dunkin Donuts coffee. The coffee had been placed on top of the trunk of a police car, which had become a temporary water cooler where officers sipped java and traded stories. Behind them sounded the cacophony of wooden planks shattering and metal scraping against the ground. The contrast was hard to take in. As the minutes passed, I stood watching the bulldozers go to work while people hurried off to their jobs and their seminars, no one stopping to preserve even a moment’s memory of the forcible eviction and decline of a modern social movement. I have learned since coming to Yale that the history we leave behind is preserved not in events themselves, but in the individual and collective memories of contemporary observers, in the memories that linger far after the events have passed. These memories are both physical and intangible — the memory of Occupy, for example, is held in those dumpsters just as it is held in the minds of those who witnessed Occupy’s birth, development and decline. Between the rubble en route to the landfills and the indifference of the pedestrians, however, there are few places this memory has left to dwell in. It worries me how easily this day will fade out of memory. The few who bore witness to the removal of Occupy are among the last sources that hold onto the day’s events — the city’s efficiency in clearing the Green has left only the bare earth as a testament to its occupation. Even this token is transitory; soon the ground will be tilled, grass will grow back, the memories of each passerby will fade away and there will be nothing left of Occupy. Whether opposed, supportive or neutral to the movement, we cannot be indifferent to the history that is going on around us. Whether you hated the drum circles that kept you awake at night or joined in and raised your voice in protest, I urge you not to let this memory fade into oblivion. We all have a profound desire to leave a legacy; just as Occupy may vanish from recollection, everything, even our very existence as individuals, can one day be forgotten, too. If you do not stop to remember the stories of others, who will stop to remember yours? DANIEL ARIAS is a freshman in Calhoun College. Contact him at daniel.arias@yale.edu .
I
met Audrey by chance, while shooting a documentary that sought to portray arguments for and against the eviction of Occupy New Haven. Audrey has spent the last three years of her life on the streets. Until a month ago, she lived in a tent on the upper Green, close to the main Occupy encampment but about 100 feet from her nearest neighbor. Then, on the night of March 13, she was raped by a stranger; England Gamble, 53, a registered sex offender, has been charged with sexual assault. Audrey, whose words come out in a rasping whisper, was unable to even shout for help.
OCCUPY ISN’T WITHOUT FAULTS, BUT WHAT WAS ITS CRIME? When I met Audrey last Tuesday, I found her living within the main Occupy encampment, sharing a tent with two men whom she had gotten to know and trust during her time in the area. “I’m safer here,” she told me. “Nobody’s going to hurt me anymore.” That Audrey chose, after being raped, to move into the main Occupy encampment is more than a reminder of Occupy New Haven’s role as a refuge for the homeless and the vulnerable. It is also an indictment of the eviction proponents like Nate Zelinsky (“Occupy: a postmortem,” April 19) who claim that a humanitarian concern for safety is a major factor informing their stance. Does it really make sense to argue that the
homeless are safer in isolated living situations than in a small, tight-knit camp with a security detail? Turning to lesser offenses, some have cited increased police calls to the Green as evidence of the “dangerous situation” supposedly created by Occupy New Haven. Occupiers, however, claim that they are acting as a “block watch,” calling in crimes that would otherwise have gone unreported and sometimes even breaking up fights between nonOccupiers. It is impossible to say definitively that their characterization of the trend is accurate, but it is equally unreasonable to dismiss it out of hand. Having become the victim of an attempted mugging by a group of teenagers while crossing the Green at 7 p.m. during the winter of my freshman year, I would like to remind readers of what Zelinsky, who grew up in New Haven, should already know: the Green, poorly patrolled and a longtime haven for drug users and the homeless, did not suddenly become dangerous with the arrival of Occupy New Haven. So what other grave wrong was Occupy perpetrating upon the citizens of New Haven? The answer: taking up a small portion (less than 10 percent) of the Green, and suffocating its grass with their improvised flooring. Once Occupy had lost its battle in federal court, its members were given less than 24 hours’ notice to pack up and move out before the area was bulldozed. This was more humane than some would have liked: Zelinsky wishes the camp had been razed weeks ago, partly to avoid giving Occupiers the opportunity to work within the American justice system to challenge the eviction in court. Occupy New Haven has some
unmistakable black marks on its record: recall the incoherence of the movement, the diatribes against corporations large and small, and the aggressive way in which Occupiers taunted the police. At the same time, Occupy has refocused our discourse on America’s shameful level of income inequality and the paucity of our social safety net; the encampment has offered shelter to the homeless and the dispossessed; and the movement has brought local activists together to discuss and take action on a range of issues, from the role of corporate lobbying organizations like ALEC to the possible reopening of Dixwell’s “Q House” for local youth. More importantly, Occupy New Haven challenged the status quo. In response, Occupiers have been met with everything from harassment, apparently by Yale football players, to the theft of Occupy signs, in which members of the Yale College Republicans and Yale Tory Party were implicated. Imagine if the low bar for eviction proposed by commentators like Zelinsky were applied more broadly. Where would our humanitarian concern and our quest to improve New Haven lead us next? Given the aggression shown by Yale students toward Occupy New Haven, the number of crimes committed on Yale’s campus by Yale students (e.g., sexual assault), and Yale’s own record of appropriating public space for its own purposes (see, for example, parts of Wall Street), I am drawn to one inescapable conclusion: Evict Yale University. ETHAN RODRIGUEZ-TORRENT is a junior in Davenport College. Contact him at ethan.rodriguez-torrent@yale.edu .
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T TA O TA O H O L M E S
S TA F F I L L U S T R AT O R TA O TA O H O L M E S
The perks of a double
Spring breeze
got annexed. But that was hardly the concern. The concern was that tucked up away in the lofty fifth floor of Vanderbilt, my suitemates and I would all get singles. Sorry — what? Yeah, that’s usually the reaction I receive. I repeat: I was worried that I would get a single. At this point you probably think I’m a bit delusional, or, at the very least, missing some key social screws. The bane of housing is always deciding which two schmucks are going to get stuck in the double, doomed to breathe and fart in the same intimate air chamber, discover one another’s unforeseen yet extraordinarily irksome tics and play the hopefully only occasional sexile card. But by now, my fateful roommate — assigned to me in the mail almost two years ago — has grown quite accustomed to the fragrance of my personal winds, while I have been spared, as she is far less flatulent than I admit to being. Seventeen months together and counting, and we are acutely aware of one another’s habits, from her early mornings in the computer lab to my erratic midnight runs. Yet this awareness extends far beyond knowing who and when we Skype, how often we call home and what we eat at 2 a.m.; it is a deep and sensitive awareness of every aspect of the other’s life at Yale, from fears, anxieties and disappointments, to relationships, aspirations and those little daily victories. There is something unique to pillow time in that shared, enclosed space which nurtures the greatest honesty, trust and security that I have encountered at Yale. Perhaps I just lucked out. Perhaps not everyone’s pre-assigned roommate is, as Wedding Crasher’s legendary John Beckwith would coo, the soul’s recognition of a counterpoint in another. Perhaps not everyone will grow to love his or her roommate in the way I do. In that sense, maybe it’s better that the two new residential colleges, slated to go up within the new few years, will offer only singles. But I don’t think so. Having a roommate is one of the most valuable experiences I’ll take away from college. I can’t speak on behalf of those who’ve been cursed by the roommate from hell, but they must learn something from that blight, as miserable as it might be. At Yale, it’s easy for us to become wrapped up in ourselves, whining about this and that meeting (all voluntary, of course), fretting about how much we have or haven’t exercised, glorifying the extent of our sleep deprivation. Mid-February, we obsess over résumés. Some of us practically morph
into walking cover letters. Yalies excel at getting inside their own heads, and then forgetting to get out. Going back to a box all to yourself doesn’t help. It doesn’t remind you every day that your problems aren’t special, or that they hardly qualify as problems at all. It doesn’t remind you, in the form of another desk, another bed and another mess of laundry spilling onto the floor, to stop thinking about yourself and focus on someone else — someone who, no matter how much you drink, who you hook up with and how much you fart (within reasonable terms) will still be there when you wake up, an amorphous yet reassuring lump of comforter on the other side of the room. Every night you get to sleep with someone, but in this case, you don’t have to be glued together by sweat in a matchbox twin bed.
HAVING A ROOMMATE BUILDS AN INTIMATE FRIENDSHIP In our double, when a relationship with a guy sours, there will be flowers on the desk. On particularly bad days, there will be bright-eyed sticky notes on the door. On special nights out, there will be an outfit to borrow on the bed. And on any and every day, there will be an ear to listen and a hug of support. Maybe you still don’t buy it. Singles, of course, have their fair share of benefits. But when I read about the feelings of anxiety, loneliness and isolation which seem unsettlingly common among Yalies, I can’t help but wonder whether a roommate — one who knows too much about you ever to judge, who will remain a constant fixture among the maelstroms of stress — might ease the ills. My roommate and I were equally and joyfully relieved to find out that we’d have a double in our octet next year. Otherwise, I don’t know how we’d function. We keep each other sane. Next year, your suite might have a double. You probably won’t want to take it. But think about it — it could be the best, and healthiest, decision you make at Yale. TAO TAO HOLMES is a sophomore in Branford College. Contact her at taotao.holmes@yale.edu.
“Well, there go those 7 psets I was supposed to turn in for my friends”
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“Laws can discover sin, but not remove it.” JOHN MILTON POET
Brunt ’15 remembered at Davenport vigil VIGIL FROM PAGE 1 the vigil, Native American Cultural Center Director Ted Van Alst spoke about Brunt’s involvement at the center, as he was a citizen of the Potawatomi nation. Students then listened as a Mohegan elder sang a traditional Native American prayer song. Brasseaux said Brunt possessed a “kind of social intelligence that is rare” and an energetic character that extended far beyond his long, curly hair and love of vibrant, neon-colored clothing. “He had a personality that outshone his orange,” Brasseaux said. Davenport student Fabian Fernandez ’15, speaking on behalf of Brunt’s friends, said they were grateful for the time they were able to spend with him. Brunt was always willing to talk, even when busy with academics and extracurriculars, Fernandez said, and now his friends will have to take on that role for each other.
COMMEMORATION AT JEFFERSON
While the Yale community waited for the sun to set before holding a vigil, students at Brunt’s alma mater, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., commemorated Brunt’s life earlier on Thursday. More than 150 of his former peers gathered around a flagpole outside the school in the middle of the day, dressed in bright orange and neon colors. Jennifer Seavey, who teaches English and journalism at Jefferson, said the school has rallied in response to yesterday’s tragedy. Calling Brunt a “Renaissance man,” Seavey described him as an insightful and creative presence in her classroom, who was loved by
his peers. Timothy Tran, a freshman at Princeton who competed with Brunt on the track and cross country teams at Jefferson, said Wednesday’s news came as a “shock,” as he considered Brunt one of the happiest people he knew. Both Tran and Jeff James, head coach of the track and cross country teams, said Brunt always made a particular effort to reach out to younger students at the school.
SUPPORT SERVICES
In the wake of Brunt’s death, Yale College Dean Mary Miller highlighted the support services available to members of the Yale community. Yale Mental Health & Counseling at 55 Lock St. employs 25 clinicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, with at least one on call 24 hours a day, while the Chaplain’s Office on Old Campus is open from 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday for emotional and spiritual support. “Freshman counselors have been asked to check in with freshmen, and residential college deans and masters are all working to connect with any members of their communities who may be under particular stress or strain,” Miller said in a Thursday email to the News. University Chaplain Sharon Kugler said in a Thursday email that she and her staff are available to “offer comfort and a safe place to unburden in the midst of such sorrow, shock, confusion and deep, deep sadness.” She said there is “no one way, or right way” to feel in such a situation, but the most important thing to do is to
reach out the others and “remember that there are caring people all around.” “We are all broken by this sudden loss of Zach in profound and awful ways,” she said. “We need to come together to guide one another through this terrible time.” Yale Mental Health chief psychiatrist Lorraine Siggins said her department offers students support in cases of loss, grief and trauma, among other circumstances. In cases of crises, she added, students can drop into her department and be seen that day, as well as reach Acute Care around the clock. Approximately 20 percent of Yale students visit Mental Health each academic year, she said.
COPING WITH THE TRAGEDY
While Yale has made resources available to the entire community, the communities that Brunt was part of are also looking to each other for support. A member of the Yale Drop Team, Brunt had been slated to fly to Houston, Texas, with four other students and a faculty adviser, Stephen Irons, on Thursday to take part in a zero-gravity experiment sponsored by the NASA. Friends said Brunt had become increasingly stressed in recent weeks as the project took up large portions of his time. “After we learnt of Zach’s death, we all felt like maybe there was some way we could have known what was going on, but we didn’t,” Irons said. “[His death] shocked us all. We all felt a little numb.” Though the trip was cancelled in the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy, Irons said the team intends to continue the project and com-
HEATHER MURPHY
Hundreds of students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, from which Zachary Brunt ’15 graduated in 2011, dressed in neon colors on Thursday in Brunt’s memory. plete the zero-gravity flight over the summer or early next year as a way of honoring Brunt and his contribution to the team. Team leader Joe O’Rourke ’12 said the project was far ahead of where it normally would be prior to a flight, largely because of Brunt’s hard work. Irons said Brunt had spent “a lot of time” working on the project, and two team members interviewed said they felt the project had progressed well throughout this semester. Physics Department Chair Meg Urry said the physics community was “shocked and horri-
Study finds gender gaps persist LAW SCHOOL FROM PAGE 1 “What we found is that participation by women in the classroom has improved, but the rate is very slow,” said Fran Faircloth LAW ’12, a Yale Law Women co-chair for the study. “If we continue at the same rate, the gender gap won’t close until 2083.” The report, titled “Yale Law School Faculty and Students Speak Up about Gender: Ten Years Later,” assesses students’ interactions with faculty both in and out of the classroom, and compiled recommendations on how to minimize gender differences in the Law School community based on survey and interview responses. Recommendations to faculty include practicing more “conscientious classroom management” — for example, waiting for five seconds rather than calling on the first student to raise his or her hand — while recommendations to students include being more proactive in interacting with professors. Law School professor Lea Brilmayer, who has taught at Yale “off and on” for 30 years after becoming one of the first female professors at the Law School, said she found the study depressing because it contradicted her feeling that gender dynamics at the school have improved in recent years. Brilmayer pointed to several institutional changes she said contribute to her attitude, including the greater prevalence of women on the faculty, all of whom she described as “first-rate intellectual heavyweights.” For the 2011-’12 academic year, 22 out of 104 Yale Law School professors were women, according to the survey. The majority of students interviewed attributed the results of the study to historic gender inequalities within the legal
profession. Jennifer Skene LAW ’14, who served as a faculty interviewer for the report, said she feels legal education often perpetuates an “image of the dominant male lawyer.” Though she said the problem is systemic rather than created by a specific set of people at Yale, she added that the issue leads some women to feel insecure. Skene added that she feels some males at top law schools are likely to be more confident than their female counterparts — a reality she said is evident at Yale Law School. “There’s very much this male ingroup here,” Skene said. “And if you’re in that, you’re very much at the top of the world. This is true in the [first-year] class — I feel it’s very fratty and very insular, even more so than the Law School itself.” Some students and faculty interviewed by the News said the study highlights differences in temperament between the genders. Fiona Heckscher LAW ’14 said some women might be more inclined than their male counterparts to fully process their thoughts before speaking up in class. Rather than encourage women to participate more frequently in the classroom, she said, the report should prompt some male students to “step down a little bit.” Joshua Rosenthal LAW ’13 said in an email that the study made him realize that he sometimes finds himself perpetuating the gender gap. “There have been classes where I realize I have spoken every single session for weeks, where many of my (unbelievably brilliant) friends who are women haven’t,” he said in an email. “And I don’t consider myself to be much of a ‘gunner.’”
GRAPH STUDENT COMFORT LEVEL COMMUNICATING WITH PROFESSORS
Men Women
100%
80% 60% 40% 20% 0%
After class
Scheduled Office Hours
Outside Office Hours
SOURCE: YALE LAW WOMEN REPORT, APRIL 2012
Deputy Dean Douglas Kysar said in an email Wednesday that he thinks men more frequently subscribe to “the narrative of progress through failure.” He added that men can often overcome certain obstacles more quickly than women. “If a male student asks a question that is dismissed by the professor or gets turned down after seeking mentorship, the student can laugh it off and keep raising his hand and knocking on office doors,” Kysar said. “These rejections might culturally ‘encode’ differently when the student is female, and thus the student might be more deterred from making an initial overture.” Nafees Syed LAW ’14, who interviewed faculty for the survey, said she hopes the study will begin a broader dialogue in higher education and prompt other institutions to conduct similar studies. Of 629 registered J.D. students, 389 responded to the survey. Contact DANIEL SISGOREO at daniel.sisgoreo@yale.edu .
MENTORSHIP A T YA L E L AW SCHOOL Many students interviewed said they were struck by a component of the survey about faculty mentorship. According to the study, 51 percent of respondents of both genders said they do not consider any faculty member a mentor, and 44.9 percent of students reported that they were either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the mentorship opportunities available at the Law School. Several students interviewed said they felt more comfortable interacting with faculty in college than they do in law school — though they were all unable to point to a reason for the shift. The survey found that 56.2 percent of men and 44.5 percent of women have three or more professors they feel comfortable asking for a job reference, while 48.9 percent of men and 33.5 percent of women have three or more professors they feel they could ask for a letter of recommendation. Rosenthal said recommendations and faculty relationships more generally are the main ways students can differentiate themselves at Yale. A gender gap in those areas, he said, has significant ramifications for students’ future careers.
fied” to learn of Brunt’s death. She said professors in the department are working to help students cope with the tragedy. “Everyone is devastated,” Urry said. “Like everybody else, we’re trying to think of how we could have prevented this. It’s just an awful thing.” Those who were touched by Brunt’s life expressed hope that others would learn from his death. At the vigil, Schottenfeld recalled seeing Brunt hold the door open for his classmates at the start of the year while simultaneously introducing himself to all of them. Schottenfeld said he wishes
Brunt had “let us hold open the door for him too.” Though he said he had not planned to make a statement, Brunt’s father Charles spoke briefly about his son’s love of Davenport and Yale at the end of the vigil. He finished with an appeal to those gathered. “This is too good of a place, and you guys are too good,” Charles Brunt said. “Please don’t let this happen again.” Contact GAVAN GIDEON at gavan.gideon@yale.edu and JAMES LU at james.q.lu@yale.edu .
City ward map remains in flux REDISTRICTING FROM PAGE 1 keep each ward’s deviation from the target population within 5 percent, while taking into account factors like natural boundaries, “historical districts,” the racial and economic makeup of each ward and the locations of each alderman’s residence. The revised ward map will reflect a general population shift within the city toward the east, with the eastern neighborhoods of Fair Haven, Fair Haven Heights and Quinnipiac Meadows among those seeing the greatest population growth in the past decade. Wards in the western neighborhoods of Dwight, Westville and West River, meanwhile, will all need to increase in size to compensate for a decrease in their populations. For the past month, aldermen have tried to create a map that all 30 aldermen support while complying with all the legal constraints facing them. At the start of Thursday’s meeting, Priti Mathur of ARCBridge Consultants, the Virginiabased firm assisting the Board with its redistricting efforts, reported that the Board’s plan resulted in a population deviation of 30 percent, three times the legally allowed limit. “We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way left to go,” Mathur said. She stressed that the Board’s map was a “work in progress,” and aldermen set about making further changes to the map. After exchanging a few blocks between wards, the committee completed a map that complied with the deviation limit. But Ward 13 Alderwoman Brenda Jones-Barnes said she was unhappy with the Board’s final map because it separated her ward from parts of her neighborhood, Fair Haven Heights. But further negotiating failed to address her concerns, leading Ward 6 Alderman and committee co-chair Dolores Colón to plead with fellow aldermen to accept certain changes to their wards. “[During the fall campaign] you proved that you could meet people, talk to them and convince them to support you,” Colón said. “I have faith that you will knock on new doors and make new friends and everything will be kumbaya.”
Mathur then introduced two other possible maps to the Board. In one map, a new ward would be created in eastern New Haven while a ward in the western part of the city would be destroyed. The second plan, meanwhile, was created by computer to balance each ward’s population while ignoring certain aldermanic requests.
We’re running out of time. We gotta send something to the Board by [its] first meeting in May. JORGE PEREZ President, Board of Aldermen The first plan received little support from aldermen besides Ward 7 Alderman Doug Hausladen ’04 since it would involve destroying a ward, which would likely displace an alderman. The second plan received more support, since it tended to preserve the current shape of most wards. While early in the redistricting process, Yale’s Ward 1 appeared likely to be divided into three parts so that it did not straddle three different state legislative districts, all three plans currently under consideration maintain the core of the ward. Ward 1 will likely expand to the east, taking the block bordered by Elm and Orange Streets to raise its population to the legally permitted range. After over two hours, Board of Aldermen President and Ward 5 Alderman Jorge Perez suggested aldermen adjourn the meeting and take a closer look at the proposals at the special committee’s next meeting. Aldermen will have to work fast, he said, to create a final proposal before May, lest the mayor dictate the city’s new ward map. “We’re running out of time,” Perez said. “We gotta send something to the Board by [its] first meeting in May.” The population within each ward must be within 5 percent of 4,326, the target population which would exactly equalize the size of all 30 wards. Contact NICK DEFIESTA at nick.defiesta@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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NEWS
“The important thing is to excite the specatators. If that means plaing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.” ORSON WELLES DIRECTOR, WRITER AND PRODUCER
TODAY’S EVENTS FRIDAY, APRIL 20
DeStefano’s budget criticized
11:00 AM “Framing at the City’s Edge: Agrarian Dreams and the Politics of Dispossession in Cartagena, Colombia.” Roseann Cohen of the University of California-Santa Cruz will speak. Institution for Social and Policy Studies (77 Prospect St.), room B012. 11:30 AM “Early Childhood Policy in 15 Developing Countries: Communities Make the Difference.” Jan van Ravens of Yale’s Edward Zigler Center in Child Development & Social Policy will speak. William L. Harkness Hall (100 Wall St.), room 116. 4:00 PM “Zhang Chonghe, the Min-Guo Style, and Heritage of Historical Elegance.” Su Wei will give the first of a series of talks on Chinese culture, focusing on Zhang Chonghe, the style of the Min-Guo Period (1911-1949) and the heritage of “historical elegance” in Chinese culture. William L. Harkness (100 Wall St.), room 117. 4:00 PM “Bloom on Shakespeare.” Professor Harold Bloom, author of “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human,” will read passages from plays crucial to his view of the Bard’s achievement. Part of Shakespeare at Yale. Battell Chapel (400 College St.) 7:30 PM YBBS presents Closing the Gap: Women in Management. According to current statistics only 3 percent of women hold CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies. Join us for this enlightening talk if you find this gender inequality quite alarming. Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High St.), Room 102. 8:00 PM The Realistic Joneses. Dubbed a “Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation” by The New York Times, playwright Will Eno introduces us to two suburban couples who have more in common than their identical homes and the same last name on their mailboxes. Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel St.). 8:30 PM Yale Unity Spring Show. Traditional Korean drumming will be performed. Pierson College (231 Park St.), dining hall.
NICK DEFIESTA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Singaporean students discuss Yale-NUS BY TAPLEY STEPHENSON AND ANTONIA WOODFORD STAFF REPORTERS Seven Singaporean students and alumni from Yale and Columbia offered their perspectives on the liberal arts college Yale is planning with the National University of Singapore at a panel discussion Thursday. Speakers on the panel touched upon many issues typically raised with Yale-NUS — academic freedom, the liberal arts model in Asia and the Yale “brand” — and fielded questions from the roughly 60-person audience of students and professors in Luce Hall related to those topics. But the panelists also established at the start of the afternoon’s event that, as students, they did not feel comfortable questioning the University’s decision-making for the project. They asked that the conversation, which was open to the public, not be recorded because their comments were exclusively meant for the Yale community. Panelist E-Ching Ng ’01 GRD ’13 said she and the other student speakers wanted “to bring some nuance to the debate” on Yale-NUS. Though the project has been discussed heavily at both Yale and in the Singaporean media over the past few months, the panelists said they feel the current discourse has misunderstood the Singaporean government, people and culture. “The real goal was for us as people who, not to presume too much, but as people who have some understanding of both sides, to try to make sure students understand each other,” Tse Yang Lim ’11 FES ’13 said. “In a sense, [it was] a translation.” While critics of Yale-NUS have cited Singapore as having an authoritarian government, panelist Rayner Teo ’14 emphasized that the nation is not “monolithic,” and that in recent years the ruling party has become more responsive to public opinion. In discussing Yale-NUS, panelist Dana Miller ’12 said those who have not visited Singapore tend to underestimate how politically sensitive citizens of the country are about foreign presence. Though administrators at Yale-NUS have said they wish to make the college an internationally diverse institution, Miller said Singaporeans are also pushing for their universities to give more slots to Singaporeans. Panelists did not offer an opinion on how important they feel a diverse student body will be at Yale-NUS. Asked what they think Yale
stands to gain from the joint project — and whether it would help the University’s brand — Ng said Yale-NUS would raise Yale’s visibility in Asia. Many people in Asia have heard the Yale name, she said, but are not aware of its reputation as a top university. She added that YaleNUS can also serve as a “giant pedagogical laboratory” for Yale “to try lots of experiments.”
It was great to get the Singaporean perspective because that was lacking throughout the entire debate. JAHMAT MAHBUBANI ’14 The panelists also spoke about how the liberal arts are perceived in Singapore and how Yale-NUS might contribute to the spread of the liberal arts educational model. Miller said the creation of a liberal arts college has been a “strategic goal” of the Singaporean government for over 10 years, and noted that New York University has already established a performing arts school there. The heightened level of faculty concern over Yale-NUS in recent months and the resolution passed at the April Yale College faculty meeting were absent from the discussion. Four students interviewed after the panel commended the discussion for offering a unique perspective on the Yale-NUS debate. Deborah Ong ’15, a native of Singapore who attended the discussion, said she thought the event was important for clearing up misconceptions about Singapore. She said it “hurts” to hear people criticize the country when they are unfamiliar with it. “It was great to get the Singaporean perspective because that was lacking throughout the entire debate,” said Jahmat Mahbubani ’14, a Singaporean who did not appear on the panel. “Considering most of the criticism came from people who had never been to Singapore, and only saw it through a Western paradigm, it helped show the reality of the situation.” Plans for Yale-NUS were officially announced in September 2010. Contact TAPLEY STEPHENSON at preston.stephenson@yale.edu and ANTONIA WOODFORD at antonia.woodford@yale.edu .
At a finance commitee meeting, residents testified about their concerns regarding Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year. BY MICHELLE HACKMAN STAFF REPORTER At Thursday night’s finance committee meeting at a New Haven high school, residents came down hard against the city’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. At the meeting, held at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy on Columbus Avenue, aldermen heard testimony from more than 20 city residents about Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s proposed $486.8 million city budget, which would increase the city’s spending by 2.4 percent over last year. Ward 10 Alderman Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10 said Thursday’s testimony raised concerns about the budget that had previously not come to the finance committee’s attention. DeStefano’s budget rests on a $7.5 milion increase in property tax revenue. Property tax rates are based on real estate valuations conducted once every five years, and as a result, some neighborhoods will see increased taxes while others will pay less. The base tax rate, 40.6 percent of a home occupant’s property value, actually dropped 3.3 percent from last year, city spokeswoman Eliza-
beth Benton said. Bill Kaplan, an East Rock resident who would see his property taxes rise over 30 percent under the new budget, called the city’s property tax increases “unimaginably high.” In his testimony, Kaplan mentioned a neighbor who faced a 45 percent property tax increase. Though she lives in a large house, he said, she was recently widowed and her income is not in line with the property value of her home. Kaplan added that the “exorbitant” tax increase would hamper the contributions of East Rock residents to the city’s economy. “It’s like the city decides it needs to collect blood, so it opens a vein in its own arm,” Kaplan said. The city is also proposing to relocate Hyde Leadership Academy — currently in a temporary location — adjacent to Hillhouse High School in the Beaver Hills neighborhood, a $41 million construction project. Benton said the proposed location for Hyde Leadership Academy was a cost-effective decision because the two schools could share outdoor and athletic facilities. But at least six residents from Beaver Hills came forward to
testify against the new school, saying it would eliminate communal green space in the neighborhood.
It is past time for the residents of New Haven to wake up and speak up… The plan [to relocate Hyde Leadership Academy to Beaver Hills] is a burden on Beaver Hills that we will not tolerate. ROBERT GIBSON Former teacher, Hillhouse High School Robert Gibson, a retired teacher who worked at Hillhouse for 35 years, said the addition of another high school would also increase the traffic and police presence in his neighborhood. He said the city was pushing ahead with the proposal without consulting teachers, students or other members of the community. “It is past time for the res-
idents of New Haven to wake up and speak up,” Gibson said. “New Haven, for a city of its size, has too many schools. We think the plan is a burden on Beaver Hills that we will not tolerate.” Benton, though, said Hyde Leadership Academy would be located adjacent to Hillhouse, and therfore would not infringe on the green space across from the school. Ward 28 Alderwoman Claudette Robinson-Thorpe, whose ward is home to Hillhouse High School, said the proposal had not come to her attention until about two weeks ago, when she started receiving a flurry of calls from concerned residents. She invited them to speak during the meeting in order to inform other aldermen of the issue, she said. Elicker said the testimony will play an important role in the committee’s final decision. The finance committee is expected to release its own proposal for the city’s budget in May, at which point the full Board of Aldermen will vote on it. Contact MICHELLE HACKMAN at michelle.hackman@yale.edu .
Class takes ‘Hamlet’ to stage BY DANIELLE TRUBOW STAFF REPORTER As this semester’s Shakespeare at Yale festival draws to a close, a new production of “Hamlet” brings one of Shakespeare’s most iconic works to the Yale stage. The production is the culmination of the theater studies seminar production course “The Actor and the Text: Hamlet,” for which students have spent the semester studying “Hamlet” and preparing for this performance. Directed by the course’s professor, Deborah Margolin, the show is also the senior project of Justin Dobies ’12, Ella Dershowitz ’12 and Tom Sanchez ’12. Margolin said that the course functions as a dramaturgical laboratory, with students holding passionate discussions of the play and defending their theses by directing individual scenes to see how their staging ideas hold up. “The class gave us the luxury to spend a lot of time on this play and approach it from different angles: the intellectual, the physical and more,” Dershowitz, who plays Ophelia, said. “It meant that we were together as an entire group for at least four hours a week.” While the students spent
four hours a week in class, the production also involved daily rehearsals beginning in midFebruary. Sanchez, who plays Claudius, noted that while “Hamlet” has not required significantly more time than any other show he has acted in at Yale, he has considered it a bigger commitment in terms of examining the techinical aspects of the text because it is his senior project and the culmination of his time as a theater studies major.
My vision was clean-lined and has the investigation of Shakespeare’s text without peeing on it or marking the territory of a set era. DEBORAH MARGOLIN Director, “Hamlet” The cast spends the entirety of the show onstage, Margolin said, with the actors either playing within the circular set or sitting along its periphery. She added that the round stage was inspired by her memory of tak-
ing her children to the Big Apple Circus, adding that the circular platform rotates as the story progresses and scenes change. Margolin said that the “simple beauty of the circus’ breathtaking clarity” pushed her to want to tell a clean story without modernization or many sound cues. “My vision was clean-lined and has the investigation of Shakespeare’s text without peeing on it or marking the territory of a set era,” Margolin added. She noted that there are two exceptions to the show’s dedication to simplicity: a sword fight and a silent scene added to the original script that Margolin believes gives Ophelia’s character more fullness. The class elected to streamline the script, cutting the run time from its original four hours to a narrative two hours and 30 minutes long, Margolin said. In preparing to play the title character, Dobies said though he and Margolin sometimes had different opinions of how the role of Hamlet should be portrayed, they met in the middle to find what element of the story they wanted to reinforce and tell. Dobies said that for him, Hamlet is the ultimate role. As a comedy and tragedy that includes sword fights, laughter
and tears, there is very little the role does not cover, he said. “I wanted to go out with a bang and put everything I have into Hamlet. This is the role most like me and the role that matters the most, and I want to do it justice while I can,” Dobies said. Dershowitz added that each actor had an interesting take on their characters that did not rely on gimmicks and was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Because the official rehearsal process began in midFebruary, she said it was exciting to see how the show evolved as the actors did. “Deb [Margolin] always talks about finding your character in your scene partner’s eyes,” she added. Margolin, a passionate lover of Shakespeare, said it is a running joke within the theater studies department that she ‘wrote’ “Hamlet” because she loves the play so much. “This play has tortured me for 35 years,” she said. “I think maybe I’ve gotten it out of my system. Maybe not.” “Hamlet,” which opened last weekend, will run through Saturday, April 21. Contact DANIELLE TRUBOW at danielle.trubow@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
Apply to be on a University standing committee Current freshmen, sophomores and juniors are eligible to apply. Applications are due by Sunday, April 22 at 11:59 p.m. Information can be found at ycc.commons.yale. edu/files/2011/08/Standing-Committee-Descriptions.pdf, and application forms at ivy.yale.edu/committees/student_applications/new.
Students confused by pathways to policy change POLICY FROM PAGE 1 rush ban for freshmen — there is no reason to seek further input from students, he added. “It’s not profitable for us to form a committee to talk about ‘Should we do a rush ban’, if we’re convinced of what needs to be done,” he said. “It would just be frustrating to everyone [for students] to tell us not to do it, and we were determined to do it anyway.”
TOP-DOWN DECISION MAKING
Jamey Silveira ’13, president of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, said administrators did not contact him or other Greek organizations before deciding upon the new policy. After pledges from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity were caught shouting offensive chants on Old Campus in October 2010, Yale College Dean Mary Miller formed an ad hoc Committee on Hazing and Initiations. The committee issued a report in April 2011 that included a recommendation to ban fall rush for freshmen, and administrators announced the policy change in March. “It was a top-down decision, where [administrators said] this is the basic policy and what is going to happen,” Silveira said. After the rule was announced, Meeske formed an implementation committee composed of sorority and fraternity leaders to determine the details of the ban. Fraternity and sorority leaders began meeting weekly with administrators in March to determine definitions of a Greek organization, rush period and membership recruitment. But five Greek leaders interviewed said administrators’ efforts to communicate came too late, and they feel that their input will not meaningfully affect the final rules. “I don’t think you can craft intelligent policy without getting various perspectives,” Singleton said. “The fraternity perspective is pretty important for a policy that is going to exclusively affect fraternities.” Still, Gentry said the entire student body was invited to apply to serve on the Committee on Hazing and Initiations, which had three student members, so he said Greek leaders were given the option to affect the policy change earlier. Stephen Feigenbaum ’12 MUS ’13, a member of the Baker’s Dozen a cappella group who served on the Committee on Hazing and Initiations, noted he is as “close to the [Greek] scene” as anybody else who served on the committee, but still said he was “not the best person to represent their interests.” Administrators said there are certain cases when they must decide upon policy changes themselves, rather by collaborating extensively with students. One example is the recent change to regulations for athletic tailgates after the fatal crash at last November’s HarvardYale football tailgate, Miller said. Announced in January, the new rules banned kegs and box trucks, created a vehicle-free student tailgating area and mandated that tailgate activities end
by kickoff. After such crises, administrators may not have sufficient time to gauge student input, Miller said. Still, she noted that the Dean’s Advisory Committee, made up of 12 students, met in December to discuss the tailgating changes with Janet Lindner, associate vice president for administration. “Policy may need to be developed by professionals in order to be comprehensive,” Miller said, “and the policy may need to attend to the larger issues of safety — and do so quickly.”
COMMITTEES AS AVENUES FOR INPUT
Administrators said they receive most of their student input from the YCC and the several dozen advisory committees, including the Committee on Majors, the Financial Aid Committee, and the Teaching, Learning and Advising Committee. Each spring, the YCC requests applications from the student body to fill the openings on the committees, and YCC representatives review the applications and select students. There are currently 33 students serving on the 11 Dean’s Office committees that have student members. The YCC received a total of 97 applications for Dean’s Office committees last year, and students can also apply to committees in other areas of the administration. Miller said she values input from students on the Dean’s Advisory Committee, citing students’ awareness about the difficulty of academic requirements as an important perspective. Three students who sit on Dean’s Office committees said they feel their input is valued. The Global Health Studies Advisory Committee developed a set of potential frameworks through which students could pursue the study of global health, said Helen Jack ’12, a member of the committee. She said she has contributed some ideas that were included in the final proposal, adding that because administrators are designing the course of study for students, “people take a student perspective seriously.” Rustin Fakheri ’12, who serves on the Committee on Honors and Academic Standing, said serving on committees have given him confidence that administrators have students’ best interests in mind. “Having been on the committee, you feel a lot more confident that things are being handled well,” he said. Serving on one of the committees can help clarify the process behind forming policy, said Rachel Wilf ’12, who sat on the Course of Study Committee. She said she thinks administrators should make the policy-making process “more transparent” to students, explaining that her experience on the committee made her feel that administrators represent her interests well. But David Sack ’13, a student on the Committee on Undergraduate Organizations, said he is frustrated by the lack of influence students have within the committee, citing particular discontent that the committee did not discuss the ban on fall
rush for freshmen. He said he has stopped “wasting his time” attending meetings. “The CUO exists so that the administration can claim student input on decisions that affect the student body,” Sack said. Meeske said the CUO has met twice this semester, and he said “it did not occur” to him to review the new fall rush ban for freshmen with the committee. Levin said he thinks interest in serving on advisory committees is “small but reasonable” given that students have many other extracurricular responsibilities, adding that “not everyone here is interested in policymaking in the administration.” The Global Health Studies Advisory Committee considered attempting to connect with more students by sending emails to students asking them to write a paragraph about what they would want in a global health major, Jack said, but the committee decided against it because they felt students would be too busy to respond thoughtfully. “You have to really get them to care about the issue,” Jack said. She said students may only give real input when they are engaged on a committee, adding that if her committee included more students, it would take a “logistical toll” by slowing down “an already slow process.”
ROLE OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Fakheri, a former member of the YCC who currently sits on two standing committees, said student members of Dean’s committees and the YCC are similar in that their roles are “advisory” in nature, adding students do not often successfully spearhead initiatives. But it was not until recently that the YCC had such close ties with the administration, said Yale historian Gaddis Smith ’54 GRD ’61. The YCC was founded around the 1930s, Smith said, but he said the council did not have a significant influence on student policy on campus until the early 2000s. YCC representatives now meet weekly with Miller, Gentry and Nina Glickson, assistant to the University president, outgoing YCC President Brandon Levin said. Levin said part of the function of the YCC is to “be the voice of the students,” and the other part is to work on behalf of students to enact policy. He said because members of the YCC work with administrators on a regular basis, they have a strong understanding of ways to work with administrators effectively and pursue policy changes that are feasible. Levin acknowledged that he has received criticism that the YCC should try to address more significant policy issues. But he said small changes are often most important to students, pointing to the YCC’s recent success in expanding the number of items students can store in residential colleges over the summer. “Storage regulations aren’t the biggest thing in the world, but every residential college council made quite a big fit about
TIMELINE RECENT POLICY CHANGES FOR STUDENT LIFE BAN ON GREEK ORGANIZATION’S FALL RUSH
MIXED-GENDER HOUSING
TAILGATE RESTRICTIONS
OCTOBER 2010 Delta Kappa Epsilon pledges shout offensive chants on Old Campus.
2008 YCC forms a gender-neutral housing committee.
DECEMBER 2010 Committee on Hazing and Initiationsforms.
2009 Administrators rejects the YCC’s gender-neutral housing proposal for seniors.
AUGUST 2011 A committee of administrators announces a new set of tailgating rules that bans grills and requires all tailgates to be registered and all students to wear wristbands identifying whether they are over 21.
APRIL 2011 Committee on Hazing and Initiationsreleases its final report. MARCH 1, 2012 Administrators announce a ban on Greek organizations’ fall rush for freshmen beginning in fall 2012. MARCH 29, 2012 The Implementation Committee begins weekly meetings to determine the logistics of the ban.
2010 Gender-neutral housing is approved for seniors beginning in the 2010-’11 school year. 2011 Administrators reject the YCC’s proposal to extend gender-neutral housing to juniors. 2012 Administrators announce that mixed-gender housing will be offered to juniors starting with the Class of 2014.
NOV. 19, 2011 A U-Haul truck kills one woman and injures two at the Harvard-Yale football tailgate. Administrators form a review committee to revisit the tailgating policies. JANUARY 2012 New tailgating restrictions are announced that bans kegs and box trucks, establishes a vehicle-free tailgating zone and requires tailgating activities to stop by kickoff.
I think it’s very tough to have a conversation with the Yale administration. You need two to tango. AMALIA SKILTON ’13 LGBTQ CO-OP BOARD MEMBER
Policy may need to be developed by professionals in order to be comprehensive, and the policy may need to attend to the larger issues of safety — and do so quickly. MARY MILLER YALE COLLEGE DEAN
it,” he said. “That is an activist policy, and it’s dictated by what students want.” At other Ivy League universities, student governments face similar barriers in influencing policies more significant than minor changes. Amrita Sankar, the vice president of the Student Assembly at Dartmouth College, said she has a working relationship with Dartmouth administrators, but “the student body has really questioned [their] ability to affect change on campus” because the representatives are not always sure of what administrators are “willing to concede.” She added that she thinks administrators consider students as “one class each” who will soon leave the university, while faculty and alumni are there “for the long haul.” Danny Bicknell, president of Harvard’s Undergraduate Committee, said that the UC has been criticized by students for being ineffective in the past. He said the UC now hopes to help students approach administrators on their own, rather than only reporting to administrators on their behalf. “Any type of advocacy effort can happen if you mobilize your bases,” he said. “The student government is there to aid in that process and provide support.” But at some larger, public universities, there exists a system of where students and administrators work particularly closely in designing policies. Harrison Weber, president of Associated Students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said his university has a “strong emphasis” on shared governance. He said the student government has a committee that lobbies to the state legislature, which control the university’s budget, in order to enact change. Weber said UCSB’s student government tackles larger projects than many other universities, citing recent efforts to lower tuition and establish student “food banks.” He added that he feels that UCSB’s student government is able to represent the needs of students well because students vote on the council’s priorities when they elect candidates.
ROOM FOR GRASSROOTS IDEAS?
For students at Yale who are not members of student government or administrators’ advisory committees, Gentry said there are still many opportunities to communicate with administrators, such as through individual meetings and emails. He added that he often receives requests from students to meet oneon-one, adding that he usually accommodates them. “There are layers of student activity and activism that goes on with the way student life is run here,” Gentry said. But leaders of student organizations interviewed said they experienced difficulty making concrete progress towards policy changes. Amalia Skilton ’13, an LGBTQ Co-op board member, said students do not have enough access to administrators to have a meaningful impact on policy. “The administration is interested in listening to people who have been appointed through the YCC and committees and only talk to them,” she said. “I really think Yale seems to have a big problem with shared governance.” Before Yale reinstated Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) in May 2011 in response to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”
Skilton met with the Faculty Committee on ROTC last April to voice her concerns that the repeal of DADT does not eliminate discrimination against transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Because the meeting was optional, Skilton said, only two members of the committee attended, and the committee misstated her group’s affiliation in its final report. Skilton added that she left the meeting unsatisfied with administrators’ ability to listen to students’ concerns. Kenneth Reveiz ’12 said he and other students approached Caesar Storlazzi, director of financial aid for Yale College, in 2010 with “well-researched” reports arguing that Yale should lower student financial aid contributions. Storlazzi then told the students that “the Yale Corporation makes all of the decisions, and students don’t have much input,” according to Reveiz. Storlazzi did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Reveiz said his experience with administrators during this period has made him hesitate to engage with them further and suggest policy changes. “What I’ve learned about the rhetoric of Yale College is that they care a lot about student input, but they’re not actively seeking student input,” he said. “The student input they do see is as uncritical as possible.” Earlier this year, Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project Director Leah Sarna ’14 said she approached the Freshman Orientation Committee to propose including an educational program about homelessness in New Haven in freshman orientation. Sarna said both students and administrators on the committee told her that she “would have to get [her] act together extremely early, lobby really hard and probably fail.” YHHAP ultimately decided to stop pursuing the effort, she said. Ryan Mendias ’13, a former LGBTQ Co-op coordinator, pointed to recent extensions of gender-neutral housing as cases when policy changes have stemmed from student efforts. In early 2008, students from the YCC and the LGBTQ Co-op approached Meeske informing him that they were going to establish a gender-neutral housing committee and begin conducting research on the matter. Since that time, Mendias said, students from the YCC, LGBTQ Co-op and the Yale Women’s Center have presented administrators with protests, reports and survey data to work toward passing new mixed-gender housing initiatives. “This shows that one of the most successful pushes in terms of a student-lead gain,” he said. But Meeske said he and other administrators had been discussing the initiative for over a year before students first broached the topic because he had heard a “fair amount about gender-neutral housing at other campuses,” adding that he is “not positive it was 100 percent student-driven.” Silveira said he hopes that administrators take his voice into account, but he said he has never thought of his interactions with administrators as a “democratic relationship,” and administrators ultimately have the final say. “It’s not as if we elect the administration,” he said. “It’s not as if we have any say in who they are or what their goals are.” Contact MADELINE MCMAHON at madeline.mcmahon@yale.edu .
I have more faith in the system now that I’ve been in on it because I understand better what the administration does. RUSTIN FAKHERI ’12 DEAN’S OFFICE COMMITTEE MEMBER
COMMITTEES WITH STUDENT MEMBERS Advisory Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs Associated Student Agencies Calendar Standing Committee Career Services Advisory Committee Course of Study Dean’s Advisory Committee Dining Student Advisory Committee Students and Employees with Disabilities Committee Executive Committee Financial Aid Committee Global Health Studies Advisory Committee Deans Advisory Committee on Student Grievances Health Plan Member Advisory Committee Committee on Honors and Academic Standing Humans Subjects Committee Investor Responsibility Committee Library Policy Committee Committee on Majors Minority Advisory Committee Provost’s Undergraduate Advisory Committee President’s Committee on Racial/Ethnic Harassment The Committee of the Review Student Advisory Committee on Science and QR Teaching in Residential Colleges Committee Teaching, Learning and Advising Committee Undergraduate Organizations Committee University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct Eli Whitney Students Advisory Committee Freshman Year Advisory Committee Deans Advisory Committee on Student Grievances Health Studies Advisory Committee Housing Council Intercultural Affairs Council
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST Sunny, with a high near 69. A slight chance of showers after 10pm. Low of 52.
TOMORROW
SUNDAY
High of 71, low of 56.
High of 61, low of 45.
BEAR IN ANTARCTICA BY ILANA STRAUSS
ON CAMPUS SATURDAY, APRIL 21 7:00 PM “Give Me A Shot of Anything: House Calls to the Homeless.” This documentary follows a Boston street doctor as he delivers lifesaving medical care to his struggling patients, who must deal with their demons, disease and death. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session featuring the film’s director, the executive director of Care for the Homeless, and other experts on health care for the homeless. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), auditorium. 8:00 PM “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).” See all 37 comedies, histories and tragedies put onstage. Part of Shakespeare at Yale. Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High St.), Room 102.
PANCAKES AND BOOZE BY TAKUYA SAWAOKA
SUNDAY, APRIL 22 3:00 PM Handel’s “Messiah.” The Yale Camerata will give a fulllength performance of Handel’s oratorio. Free and open to the public. Woolsey Hall (500 College St.). 7:00 PM Phoenix Dance Troupe presents: “Wingspan.” Phoenix, Yale’s traditional Asian dance troupe, will showcase new choreography in its spring show. Featuring dances from a variety of East and Southeast Asian traditions from Xinjiang to modern China to Tibet to Indonesia, a special collaboration with the International Silat Federation, and guest performances by Bapak Waleed, JaSU, the Yale Raga Society and Wushu. Battell Chapel (400 College St.).
MONDAY, APRIL 23
DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
11:00 AM “Empire and Emancipation: Catholic Britons in the 19th Century.” This talk, by Beinecke visiting fellow S. Karly Kehoe, considers the role played by the religious periphery in the development of modern Britain by focusing on the extent to which the parliamentary union with Ireland in 1801 transformed Britain’s civil and religious landscape. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (121 Wall St.), room 38.
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CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Hidden drawback 6 “Hold your horses!” 10 Clean, as erasers 14 Like Cirque du Soleil performers 15 Takes outside 16 First name in country 17 Starting pitcher? 19 “__ Almighty”: Steve Carell sequel 20 Clothes line 21 CIO partner 22 Antioxidant-rich veggies 23 Strike zone? 27 __ Schwarz 30 Wahine’s strings 31 Ballot abbr. 32 Dispense in shares 34 Like some brides 39 Short stop? 42 Line through the middle 43 Matter makers 44 NL East city, on scoreboards 45 New Deal fig. 47 Eastern theater genre 48 Left field? 54 Crammer’s concerns 55 Over there, quaintly 56 Chianti, in Chianti 60 Year in Trajan’s reign? 61 Batter? 64 Go off 65 Fanny __ 66 Worth of the theater 67 CNBC topic 68 Easter celebration 69 When brunch may begin DOWN 1 Musical with Mungojerrie 2 Flu symptom 3 “Bossypants” writer Fey 4 Move up 5 Mother __
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Thursday’s Puzzle Solved
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41 Use one’s outside voice 45 Rushes (to) 46 Delany of “China Beach” 48 Get the hang of 49 “Negatory!” 50 Premarital posting 51 Hog the spotlight 52 Does a film editing job
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
NATION
T Dow Jones 12,964.10, -0.53% NASDAQ 3,007.56, -0.79%
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WASHINGTON — Republicans rammed an election-year, $46 billion tax cut for most of America’s employers through the House on Thursday, ignoring a White House veto threat in a debate both parties used to show voters how they would bolster the economy. The near party-line 235-173 vote moved the bill to the Senate, where Democrats controlling the chamber are sure to ignore it. But the measure’s inevitable demise was secondary to the chance it gave each side to offer its prescriptions for creating jobs, echoing the battle that seems certain to dominate this fall’s contest for the White House between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. “This is straight-up something to help small businesses keep more of their money while they’re having so much difficulty keeping the lights on, and instead giving them the ability to grow,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the measure’s sponsor. “This is not about mom and pop,” said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich. “It’s about popping the cork for wealthy taxpayers.” Eighteen Democrats and 10 Republicans defected from their party’s positions on the bill. The vote was the second partisan tax showdown in the Capitol this week, prompted by Tuesday’s deadline for filing tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service. On Monday Democrats failed to push a “Buffett Rule” tax on the rich through the Senate, another outcome that was preordained but served political purposes for both sides. The House GOP measure would let employers with fewer than 500 workers deduct 20 percent of their domestic earnings this year - a calculation that would let businesses show a smaller income before determining the taxes they owe. More than 99 percent of U.S. employers
have workforces that size, Census Bureau figures show, but that didn’t stop Republicans from naming the legislation the “Small Business Tax Cut Act.” Democrats argued that the bill was too unfocused, providing the tax cut if a company hired no new employees or even if it fired some. They also complained that it was too generous to wealthy individuals owning small firms and to extremely successful businesses. One estimate by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said 49 percent of its tax breaks would go to taxpayers with income exceeding $1 million. Using a narrower way of calculating earnings, the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ nonpartisan tax analyst, said 18 percent of the benefits would go those making over $1 million and 57 percent would go to taxpayers earning $250,000 and up. The White House cited both those arguments when it warned this week that aides would urge Obama to veto the legislation. Democrats tried taking advantage of the bill’s broad sweep, trying to embarrass Republicans by forcing a vote on language that would have forbidden the tax breaks from going to businesses including pornographers, prostitution, golf clubs that discriminate by race or sex, and companies that send U.S. jobs overseas. GOP lawmakers held together and defeated the proposal. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., called the Democratic effort “a political ploy” and added, “It’s time to stand up for small business and the people they employ.” Democrats also tried unsuccessfully to replace the GOP tax cuts with breaks for companies that invest in their plants or equipment. Cantor and others seemed sensitive to concerns by some rankand-file GOP lawmakers that the bill muddled the message of a higher priority for Republicans and many Democrats: Revamping the entire tax code by lowering rates and eras-
Scandals hamper Obama’s message
ing many tax breaks. They said that until that effort can start seriously - which many believe won’t happen until at least next year - a quick tax reduction for businesses made sense. Underscoring the political payoff they saw in the legislation, neither party waited long before unleashing email attacks on the others’ votes. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps guide House GOP campaigns, sent emails to dozens of districts represented by Democrats, accusing the local lawmaker of voting “for biggovernment instead of spurring small business job creation” along with the estimated number of small businesses in the state. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ campaign arm, emailed around 50 GOP-held districts accusing Republican legislators of voting for “more tax breaks for the `rich and famous’” and asserting that millionaire celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Larry Flynt would qualify for the GOP reductions. Obama has proposed a 10 percent tax credit - up to $500,000 - for firms that hire new workers or grant raises. Senate Democrats said they plan a May vote on their own plan, which will include a tax credit like Obama’s and let businesses write off the costs of major purchases this year. Democrats said the House GOP bill would do virtually nothing to spark the economy, citing an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation that said the bill’s economic impact would be “so small as to be incalculable.” They also complained that it was not paid for, meaning its $46 billion, one-year cost would make enormous budget deficits even bigger. “They have run up deficits in this country recklessly, and in the name of a political campaign they’re prepared to do it again,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass.
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T 10-yr. Bond 1.95%, -0.03 T Euro $1.3139, +0.0213
S Oil $102.51, +0.23%
GOP pushes tax cut through House BY ALAN FRAM ASSOCIATED PRESS
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CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A trio of scandals that have blown up almost simultaneously have given Republicans an opportunity to question President Barack Obama’s leadership. BY JIM KUHNHENN ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — It isn’t Mitt Romney who’s giving Barack Obama fits as the president pivots to re-election mode. It’s those federal bureaucrats carousing in Las Vegas, the Secret Service consorting with Columbian prostitutes and U.S. soldiers posing with bloody enemy corpses. The scandals are taking a toll. They are distracting embarrassments that are dominating public attention while Obama seeks to focus on difficulties abroad and jobs at home. And they are giving Republicans an opportunity to question his competence and leadership, an opening for Romney in a race so close that any advantage might make a difference. Even if the Democratic president escapes being defined by these flareups, they still feed a story line that can erode public confidence in Washington institutions, fuel a perception of fed-
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eral excess and frustrate Obama’s argument that government can be a force for good. The White House response has been textbook - a mix of outrage and deflection. “The president has been crystal clear since he was a candidate about the standards that he insists be met by those who work for the federal government and on behalf of the American people and for the American people,” says White House spokesman Jay Carney. But taken altogether, the events have overwhelmed the president’s agenda. The Secret Service scandal broke while Obama was in Cartagena last weekend for a Summit of the Americas with more than 30 Western hemisphere leaders. Back home the headlines and the news anchors were hardly focusing on the summit, instead playing up the fact that 11 Secret Service agents and uniformed officers had been sent home on accusations of misconduct.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
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AROUND THE IVIES
“A budget should reflect the values and priorities of our nation and its people.” MARY LANDRIEU U.S. SENATOR
T H E D A I L Y P E N N S Y L VA N I A N
T H E D A I LY P R I N C E T O N I A N
Online courses partnership in works
Budget cuts affect ROTC
BY KYLE HARDGRAVE STAFF WRITER In a move that will put Penn at the forefront of an online learning movement making waves throughout higher education, 12 Penn professors will open versions of their most popular courses to a global internet audience, the University announced Wednesday morning. The courses will be offered in partnership with Coursera, a fledgling startup created by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera is also the platform currently used to run Stanford’s popular online engineering courses, which have seen more than 350,000 enrolled students since their launch in fall 2011. Through the initiative, the 12 Penn classes will be available for free online to anybody with internet access. However, students who take the courses cannot receive Penn credit for them. By breaking lectures into smaller 15- to 20-minute chunks and interspersing them with quizzes and interactive prompts that test student learning, Cousera takes a somewhat different tack than previous approaches to online learning, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare. The software also features forums and auto-graded homework. Ng and Koller reached out to the Office of the Provost last year, and upon discussing the service with deans and faculty, Provost Vincent Price received a very positive response. According to Price, online classes hosted by Coursera present a win-win. “What I found exciting about this opportunity, and what colleagues found exciting, is that it would advance our interests in expanding access to higher education as well as a second,
intriguing possibility: that it could help us think deeply about how to improve teaching on PENN c a m p u s ,” Price said. This last point is something Ng and Koller emphasize — that students on campus stand to gain from online courses as well. “I’ve been giving the same lecture year after year, telling exactly the same jokes, and this has been shown in studies not to be the best model,” Ng said. He invokes the possibility of students watching lectures on their own time and professors using class time for more engaged, interactive learning, a model that has come to be known as the “flipped classroom,” and that has gained popularity in recent years with the success of online learning services like Khan Academy. However, Price was clear that the administration is not prescribing anything at this point, and that the initiative is still very much an experiment. Currently, Penn is offering the most courses of any of the five schools participating in Coursera — which, along with Stanford, include Princeton University, the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley. The University is also unique in offering the largest number of humanities and social science courses, breaking from the engineering course that have typified these previous “massively open online courses,” or MOOCs as they’ve come to be known. “When I talked with faculty, it became clear that there was strong interest in opening courses more broadly across the curriculum,” Price said. This prompted Koller and
Ng to prototype more innovative types of student assessment geared to less quantitative courses, including varieties of peer grading, which the pair say are still in development. Penn professors, at least, have seemed satisfied with the response. “I had a lot of skepticism initially about whether [Coursera] was ready for a humanities course,” said English professor Al Filreis, who will be offering his “Modern and Contemporary American Poetry” class this fall. “But they listened to my comments and they responded.” Filreis, who said he does not lecture and never has, plans to film actual class discussion during which students discuss poetry to use as the basis for his MOOC. Like Filreis, Classical Studies professor Peter Struck said while putting humanities courses online will ultimately be an experiment, he is confident in Coursera and its founders. “They are dedicated, with all the right kind of higher goals we might have,” Struck said. “If anyone can make it work, it’s this team.” Asked if online courses like these run the risk of undermining traditional higher education, many professors came back to this spirit of experimentation, and noted that it is better that Penn explore now rather than be left behind. “The changes that are going to come [in higher education] are not entirely foreseeable, and any action that we take now will undoubtedly have unintended consequences with great potential benefit and detriment,” said Mathematics professor Robert Ghrist, who will be offering the equivalent of Math 104 on Coursera. “But it’s very worthwhile to have the conversation about this and have faculty engaged moving forward.”
BY SHERENE AGAMA STAFF WRITER The Princeton Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program will be facing budget cuts and will strictly limit the number of contracted cadets this year, reflecting the funding problems and downsizing that ROTC programs have encountered nationwide. Of the 40 freshman cadets that began the year in the Princeton ROTC program — which includes students from The College of New Jersey, Rider University and Rowan University — only 17 will be contracted during their junior year, when the program usually grants contracts guaranteeing the cadet a job as an officer in the Army. The limit on contracted cadets in the Princeton ROTC program is due to the limited number of positions available in the United States Army, according to Michael Groff, the battalion scholarship and enrollment officer for Princeton ROTC. Princeton’s ROTC program is not recognized by the University. “We have a limited number of cadets we can contract with each graduating class, so not every cadet participating in the program will be able to serve in the Army; not all of them plan to,” Groff noted in an email. Groff explained in an interview that in the past ROTC had been able to surpass this quota. However, with the reduction of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army no longer has “the need or capacity to give all those extra lieutenants jobs in the Army,” Groff said. The large number of freshmen in the ROTC program indicates the general increase in membership of the ROTC program, he added, noting that the program has had almost 50 percent growth. “With that, though, comes this challenge. We only have so many people we can take,” he said. “It’s sort of like a varsity team — not everyone makes the cut.” Students tend to be assessed based on their grade point average, their Modified Army Physical Fitness Test, their officer potential and overall performance in the program, Groff said. Contracted cadets are com-
missioned by U.S. Army Cadet Command and serve in the Army as an officer for at least four years upon graduation from college. University students who received ROTC PRINCETON high school scholarships are guaranteed a contracted spot in the ROTC program. However, though the funding cuts have not played a role in the number of cadets they can commission, they have affected the number of four-year and three-year scholarships the ROTC Program offers each year, Peter Knight, Lieutenant Colonel and director of the Army Officer Education Program, explained in an email. The four-year and three-year scholarships are given to high school seniors and college freshmen, respectively, based on physical fitness, SAT scores and GPA. “Given the new budget guidance from the federal government, Army ROTC faces some budget cuts, as do most parts of the Army,” Knight said. “As a result the number of fouryear scholarship and three-year scholarship allocations will be fewer than in previous years. Here at Princeton we have a program to aid students who do not have national fouryear and three-year scholarships from the military services,” he explained. Students will still be able to earn scholarships through The Alumni and Friends of Princeton ROTC organization and the Guthrie Fund, which provides financial assistance to students without a scholarship who wish to be commissioned upon graduation, Knight said. Knight noted that the Guthrie Fund’s principal aim is to provide eligible students with a scholarship equivalent to the ROTC scholarship for the students’ service, which is traditionally full tuition plus a monthly stipend and book allowances. For now, Knight determines the amount of expendable funds to be distributed to each eligible student. Groff said the stricter limit on the number of cadets that can be contracted does not have anything to do with the budget cuts, however, and noted that a few students have already left the program for various reasons.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
SPORTS
Indianapolis Colts tell Andrew Luck he will be No. 1 Draft Pick Barring any outstanding incident, the Colts have confirmed that they will choose Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, making him the No. 1 draft pick of the 2012 NFL draft. Many predict that Luck will struggle in his first year, despite breaking records set at his alma mater by John Elway. The Colts went 2-14 last season.The Washington Redskins will likely take Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III at No. 2.
W. tennis to face Harvard, Dartmouth W. TENNIS FROM PAGE 12 “Harvard’s style is similar to Columbia’s,” said captain Steph Kent ’12. “They’re big hitters, not the most consistent players. They all hit pretty flat, and they’ve got good hard court games.” One match to watch on Friday will be at No. 2 in singles. Playing at positions No. 2 and No. 3, Harvard’s Camille Jania has lost just once this season, amassing a record of 10-1. However, Jania will most likely come up against one of the Bulldog’s hottest players at No. 2, Blair Seideman ’14, who is on a six-match winning streak. Seideman is a staff photographer for the News.
[Dartmouth is] a weaker team than last year, but we’re going to have to fight hard. They definitely have a lot more fight than most Ivy League teams. STEPH KENT Captain, women’s tennis Dartmouth is in somewhat of a rebuilding phase. According to team members, after splitting the Ivy League crown with Yale last year, the Big Green graduated several important seniors. Now, Dart-
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M. lax aims to keep streak alive M. LAX FROM PAGE 12 ning percentage at the X — good enough for fifth in Friday, 7 p.m. the nation — and his .692 vs. mark in Ivy competition is even better. Between the defense’s caused turnovers and Levings’ faceoff prowess, the Elis can always Bryant count on controlling their share of possessions. On the offensive side of the ball, Mahony has been aided by attackers Matt Gibson ’12 and Deron Dempster ’13. Dempster has been one of Yale’s key players during this five-game winning streak. In his first game back from injury against Penn, the junior scored five goals, including the game winner with 11.9 seconds left. He has scored 15 goals in the last five games and has been a major sparkplug for the Bulldogs’ offense. Gibson has been even hotter. He had two goals and four groundballs for Yale on Monday, only a few days after scoring a seasonhigh five goals against Brown last weekend. Gibson has totaled 14 goals in his last four games and shows no signs of slowing down as Harvard and the Ivy League Tournament approach. “We’ve been playing our best lacrosse of the season the last couple games,” Gibson said, “and we don’t want that to slip away. We’re going to try to use [these non-league games] to build up our momentum so we end up playing at our highest level in May.” The Bulldogs have clinched a spot in the Ivy League Tournament, although their season finale against Harvard could determine their seed. This will be head coach Andy Shay’s third straight trip to the Ivy League Tournament. Tonight’s game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Reese Stadium.
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mouth boasts only one senior on its roster. Nonetheless, the Bulldogs are ready for a fight. “They are a weaker team than last year, but we’re going to fight hard,” Ke n t said. “They definitely have a lot more fight than most Ivy
League teams.” So far this season, Dartmouth’s results have been consistent. All ten of the Big Green’s losses have come at the hands of ranked opponents. All eight of its victories have come against unranked teams. Still, the Elis can expect a difficult match at No. 3 against the Big Green’s Janet Liu. Liu has gone to three sets in four of her last six matches. If the Bulldogs were to beat Harvard on Friday, they would claim at least a share of the Ivy League title. Emerging from the weekend with two victories would clinch the title outright. The Bulldogs will take the court against Harvard tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Contact JOSEPH ROSENBERG at joseph.rosenberg@yale.edu .
YDN
Faceoff specialist Dylan Levings ’14 has helped the Elis control possession in games.
Contact JOHN SULLIVAN at john.j.sullivan@yale.edu .
With lockout over, NBA is flourishing COLUMN FROM PAGE 12 With his particular form of autocratic leadership, Stern sought to cultivate a family-friendly brand that would appeal not only to the corporations who purchase teams’ more expensive ticket packages, but also to the nation’s most important constituency, middle America. Events of recent years have shown, however, that the players’ brashness, a function of their youth, drives popular interest in the NBA. When LeBron James, arguably the greatest player to jump from high school to the pros, spurned his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers and signed with the Miami Heat in 2010, he proved that players, and not owners, control the league’s ultimate destiny. “LeBron James’ Decision,” a live ESPN special during which he announced he would be taking “his talents to South Beach,” shook up the NBA’s established hierarchy. James joined up with Dwy-
ane Wade, Miami’s longtime star, and Chris Bosh, a free agent signee and star in his own right, to form a veritable super-team. More significantly, the self-assured manner in which the “Big Three” conducted the proceedings suggested that they held more clout than the men who signed their paychecks. One might consider the protracted labor dispute that followed the 2010-’11 season as an attempt to refute this notion. As News columnist John Ettinger ’12 explained in an article last fall, the NBA lockout pitted team owners against the players’ labor union. According to team owners, they were hemorrhaging money because the labor union was making too much of it. In late October, on the eve of the scheduled beginning of the season, the NBA cancelled all games through Nov. 30. Until a new collective bargaining agreement was ratified on Dec. 8, a theme that pervaded the national discourse sur-
rounding the lockout echoed the sentiments of many following the 2004 brawl: The players, earning millions to shoot hoops amidst a worldwide economic crisis, were out of line. It will take a few years to determine which side came out of the battle on the victor. However, what remains clear is that the NBA is brimming with talent, not to mention a host of captivating storylines. Less than one week remains in this lockout-shortened season, and the league and its fans are poised for a championship race for the ages. In Miami, LeBron James and his running mates continue to struggle to forge an identity. Will King James be able to redeem himself for his fourth-quarter flameouts against the Dallas Mavericks in last year’s finals? Miami’s road to the title is littered with roadblocks. Despite having struggled with injuries throughout the season, reigning MVP Derrick Rose of the league-
leading Chicago Bulls looks hungry to reclaim Michael Jordan’s championship legacy. Four years removed from their own NBA championship, the Boston Celtics’ “Big Four” — Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen — have rounded into form as of late, thanks in part to Garnett’s late-career resurgence. With Garnett and Allen’s contracts’ expiring after this season, this very well could be the last time the Big Four — the group that restored glory to the NBA’s most storied franchise — suit up together. In the Western Conference, the ageless Kobe Bryant leads the league in points. Currently resting a shin injury, Bryant has been imparting his wisdom to firsttime All-Star Andrew Bynum, who came into the league seven years ago at the tender age of 17 and may soon unseat Bryant as the Los Angeles Lakers’ best player. Bynum’s youth, like that of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s core,
r e c y c l e y o u r y d n d a i l y
contrasts with Bryant and his counterparts in Boston and elsewhere and augurs well for the future of the NBA. The top players on the Thunder, a team with an average age of 26, embody the league’s youthful renaissance. Ever humble and unassuming, two-time scoring champ Kevin Durant can shoot from the nosebleed section. Durant took advantage of his free time during the lockout to sharpen his passing, dribbling and defensive skills. Point guard Russell Westbrook, much maligned during last year’s playoffs for not deferring to Durant, has experienced a breakthrough in 2011-2012. While Westbrook is quicker, stronger, and can jump higher than just about any opponent he faces, his tireless competitive spirit is perhaps his greatest asset. Likely Sixth Man of the Year winner James Harden possesses a sneaky agility and a deft shooting touch that confound defenses everywhere. The abbre-
viated schedule (a full season comprises 82 games over a five-anda-half-month stretch) has forced coaches of teams with older lineups, like the San Antonio Spurs, to limit their stars’ minutes in order to prevent injuries and exhaustion. The Thunder’s young legs, however, have allowed them to push the pace throughout. Durant, Westbrook and Harden, along with forward Serge Ibaka and center Kendrick Perkins, will vie for NBA supremacy in the years to come. Oklahoma City could take the title in June, but so could Miami or Chicago. Even the Spurs, currently fighting off the Thunder for the top record in the West, have a good chance at it. We all know Kobe has his eyes on another ring. For this uncertainty, for this wealth of possibilities, NBA fans should rejoice. Buckle up, we’re in for a bumpy ride. Contact DAVID NOBLE at david.noble@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
SPORTS
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS DWIGHT HOWARD The Orlando Magic star will undergod back season-ending back surgery in Los Angeles on Friday, ESPN.com and the Orlando Sentinel reported. The surgery will also prevent Howard, who has sat out the past six games with his inury, from playing in the Olympics.
Elis face Cornell in season finale
EUGENE JUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Defender Adrienne Tarver ’14 scored three goals against Cornell last year, but the Big Red routed Yale, 14–3. BY EUGENE JUNG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Elis will have a grand finale match to end the Ivy League season tomorrow by taking on No.13 Cornell. “They are an experienced team, but except for their advantage in experience, we can match-up fairly well with them,” head coach Anne Phillips said. After two comfortable victories against Columbia (13-9) and Brown (9-6) at home, Yale has succeeded in grabbing sixth place in the Ivies and with a win this weekend could jump to the third spot in the conference standings. The Elis (5-8, 2-4 Ivy) are one win behind Cornell, Harvard and Princeton, the three teams that currently share third place in the Ivies. In this some-
what complicated state of affairs, as the at best record that Yale could a c h i e ve is 3-4, if all the Cornell third-place teams fall in their remaining two matches, they will ended up tying with the Bulldogs. This is a plausible scenario, as the Elis are riding the momentum of their winning streak to Ithaca, while Harvard and Princeton will have to play very tough teams before the season ends. Yale’s offense has played well in its two recent wins, scoring a total of 22 goals. More of the same could help them clinch their third Ivy win. “Our team is carrying a lot of positive energy to Ithaca this
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weekend,” Phillips said. When they last met in Reese Stadium, not even a hat trick by defender Adrienne Tarver ’14 did enough for the Elis to avoid the huge 14-3 defeat against the visitors. Throughout the entire game, Cornell (8-4, 3-2 Ivy) went on a scoring rampage without slowing down. The Big Red outperformed the Bulldogs in almost all aspects despite Yale’s home field advantage. The Big Red tripled Yale in shots (34-11), had eight more groundballs (2416) and controlled 13 more draws (16-3). “We are a much more athletic team than we were last year and that will help us to compete with Cornell this year,” Phillips said. She added Cornell’s offense is their strength and defense is Yale’s strength.
“Player experience is on Cornell’s side, fearlessness is on ours,” she said.
We are a much more athletic team than we were last year and that will help us to compete with Cornell this year. ANNE PHILLIPS Head coach, women’s lacrosse Although Tarver is expected to return in tomorrow’s match, she has not scored any goals so far as she has been focusing more on the defensive aspect of
game. This may be good news for the Big Red because they could worry less about the only player who did any damage to them in the two team’s matchup last season. On top of that, Cornell may have more to smile about as it will again field its team captain Jessi Steinberg, a star player who was responsible for nearly a third of the goals scored against the Bulldogs. She is also the leading scorer for the Big Red, with 37 goals to her name so far this season. Her accolades include the All-Ivy first team and IWLCA Northeast Region second-team in 2011. Another key player to keep an eye on is attacker Caroline Salisbury, who also scored a goal against Yale last year. “We cannot afford them to have great games on Saturday and they will be marked tightly
all day,” Phillips said. Trailing closely behind Steinberg, she is currently Cornell’s second top scorer with 30 goals. With now only one Ivy League match remaining, the Bulldogs will be betting on their ability to keep their winning momentum. And with 123 goals scored so far and still going strong, they just might have what it takes to sink the Big Red and decorate their last Ivy game with a refreshing victory. Phillips said as more players are contributing offensively in goals and assists, a balanced offense should help the team against Cornell. The Elis will face Cornell at noon on Saturday. Contact EUGENE JUNG at eugene.jung@yale.edu .
Baseball takes swing at Big Green BY CHARLES CONDRO STAFF REPORTER The baseball team is travelling north to face its biggest rival, but it is not going to Cambridge. The Elis (9-26-1, 2-10 Ivy) head up to Dartmouth (13-15, 7-5 Ivy) for a four-game series beginning today. “Everyone sees Harvard as our big rival,” designated hitter Josh Scharff ’13 said. “But in terms of baseball, it’s Dartmouth.” The Big Green currently sits atop the Red Rolfe division of the Ivy League with a five-game lead over the Elis. The winner of the Red Rolfe division will face the winner of the Lou Gehrig division in a three-game series in May to determine the Ivy League champion. Catcher Ryan Brenner ’12 and outfielder David Toups ’15 said that although sweeping Dartmouth would be ideal, the team has to take the weekend one game at a time. Along with battling for the Ancient Eight crown this year, the rivalry has taken on added meaning in recent years, as Dartmouth swept Yale in New Hampshire two years ago before the Bulldogs returned the favor in New Haven last year, players said. “Last year we swept them, so they’ll be gunning for us,” Toups said. “Having a team gunning for you makes you play harder.” Dartmouth has had the edge over Yale in the rivalry recently, winning the Rolfe division each of the last four years. Brenner said that one reason for the Big Green’s success is its ability to throw strikes. Dartmouth has given out the fewest free passes in the Ivy League and is tied with the Col-
lege of Charleston for 14th in the nation by allowing at just 2.56 walks per game. “ [ D a r t mouth’s] pitchDartmouth ers are really good about throwing Saturday, 12 and 3 p.m. strikes,” Brenner at said. “They are going to make us beat them… they just fill the strike zone.” Darmouth Although the Bulldogs have been struggling at the plate all season, the slump appears to being ending. The Elis have scored an average of 4.8 runs over their past five games and won three of those contests. Starter Nolan Becker ’13 added that Yale’s struggles could actually be its secret weapon. “They’re going to look at our stats and not expect us to hit,” Becker said. More than just the Dartmouth baseball team stands to challenge the Elis in Hanover this weekend. The forecast is for rain at Dartmouth, according to the National Weather Service. As a result of the inclement weather, the games have been moved up by a day. Mother Nature will be accompanied by support from the Dartmouth student body, Brenner said. “When we go up to their place, their fans are crazy,” Scharff said. First pitch is scheduled for noon both Friday and Saturday
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Contact CHARLES CONDRO at charles.condro@yale.edu .
GRAHAM HARBOE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Shortstop Cale Hanson ’14 had two hits in Tuesday’s game against Sacred Heart.
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SPORTS
QUICK HITS
CREW REGATTAS THIS SATURDAY Women’s crew will race Harvard at home, and look to avenge last year’s loss. Men’s lightweight crew travels to Dartmouth to contest the Durand Cup, while men’s heavyweight will take on Cornell and Princeton in Ithaca. All races will take place this Saturday.
MLB Reds 6 Cardinals 3
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MEN’S TENNIS SET TO PLAY HARVARD, DARTMOUTH The Bulldogs travel to play Harvard today, and will take on Dartmouth at home this Sunday. Harvard leads the Ivy League, but Yale has beaten Columbia, the only Ivy team to have beaten the Crimson. Yale’s No. 1 singles player is currently undefeated in Ivy League play.
SOCCER Atletico 4 Valencia 2
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“Everyone sees Harvard as our big rival, but in terms of baseball it’s Dartmouth.” JOSH SCHARFF ’13 OUTFIELDER, BASEBALL
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
DAVID NOBLE
Yale prepares for dog fight BY JOHN SULLIVAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Exciting times for the NBA Though it pains me to admit it, laying waste to a conifer’s worth of wrapping paper on Christmas morning lost its charm once my favorite patterned jammies started to fit like yoga pants. Nevertheless, when the NBA opened its 66th season on Dec. 25, 2011, I was surprised to find myself once again taken by the holiday spirit. By packing 66 (there’s that number again) games into 120 days, the NBA’s powers-that-be have upped the drama and ensured that the league continues its rise from the proverbial ashes of the sports entertainment industry. In the mid-aughts, the NBA was fighting, among other things, a serious image problem. During the first month of the 2004 season, players and fans interrupted a game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons to trade punches on the court and in the stands. Following this incident, the national media proclaimed that league commissioner David Stern had lost control of his employees, whom media sources characterized as overgrown, boneheaded thugs. Moreover, analysts and armchair commentators alike believed that the recent influx of players who skipped college to head straight to the pros had eroded the quality of the game. So Stern instituted both a dress code and an age limit to set a standard of professionalism and salvage what was left of a business that had attained global prominence during Michael Jordan’s reign. SEE COLUMN PAGE 10
The No. 20 Bulldogs head into the penultimate game of their regular season riding a five-game winning streak and two straight overtime wins. But on Friday night at Reese Stadium they will go up against another one of the hottest teams in college lacrosse right now.
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Attackman Matt Gibson ’12 has scored 14 goals in the Bulldogs’ last four games. Against Stony Brook on Monday, he notched two goals and took 11 shots. No. 20 Yale faces No. 19 Bryant tonight.
Schwartz drive a success
The No. 19 Bryant Bulldogs have won ten games in a row and will be looking to improve their NCAA Tournament resume in their first game against another ranked opponent. Yale is coming off a thrilling overtime win over the Seawolves of Stony Brook. Midfielder Greg Mahony ’12 needed only one minute and six seconds of overtime to find the net and bring the small but energetic crowd of Yale supporters to its feet. Mahony had one of his best games of the season against Stony Brook and recorded his second hat trick of the year. But Bryant will be coming in with a sparking midfielder of its own. Brian Schlansker had three goals at Bryant’s most recent contest against Quinnipiac, and the freshman has scored seven goals in Bryant’s last four games. The Yale defense has been playing well, averaging 8.8 goals against during the current winning streak. The unit has been playing particularly well against opposing teams’ midfield units and has not conceded three goals in one game to a single midfielder in almost a month. One key to the defense’s effectiveness recently has been forcing turnovers. The Elis rank fifth in the nation in caused turnovers. Defensemen Michael McCormack ’13 and Peter Johnson ’13 are fifth and 17th, respectively, in the country at causing turnovers, and their stellar play has anchored the Bulldog defense. Also crucial to the Bulldogs’ success has been the dominance of faceoff specialist Dylan Levings ’14. Levings owns a .641 winSEE M. LAX PAGE 10
Elis look to clinch Ivy League title BY JOSEPH ROSENBERG STAFF REPORTER This weekend, No. 30 Yale (16-3, 4-0 Ivy) has a chance to claim the Ivy League championship outright. By beating Harvard (9-6, 2-2 Ivy) on Friday and Dartmouth (8-10, 2-2 Ivy) on Sunday, the Bulldogs would punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament with one match to spare.
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REGISTRATION DRIVE ADDS OVER 500 TO REGISTRY LIST Yesterday’s drive in memory of Mandi Schwartz ’11, the fourth of its kind, added an unofficial count of 516 people to the Be The Match Registry. The drives have contributed more than 3,000 potential donors to the registry list.The football and women’s ice hockey and field hockey teams helped run the drive.
STAT OF THE DAY 5
GRAHAM HARBOE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Steph Kent ’12 has led women’s tennis to a 4-0 Ivy record. Yale can clinch its second straight league title this weekend.
The Elis are in such a commanding position in the Ivy League standings due both to their own undefeated record in the league and also to No. 56 Brown’s stunning losses to Cornell (9-8, 1-4 Ivy) and No. 73 Columbia (125, 3-2 Ivy). Yale will host Brown on April 28 in both teams’ Ivy season finale. Before Ivy play began, team members said that they anticipated that date as the probable decider of the Ancient Eight crown. While the Elis are certainly favorites against the Crimson and the Big Green, both matches have hurdles to overcome. For one, the Cantabs are extremely aggressive. SEE W. TENNIS PAGE 10
THE NATIONAL RANKING OF LACROSSE PLAYER DYLAN LEVINGS ’14 IN FACEOFFS. The Bulldog’s faceoff specialist has won 0.641 percent of all his faceoffs, and 0.692 of all faceoffs in Ivy League play. The No. 1 faceoff specialist, Bobby Dattilo of Hobart College, has a faceoff percentage of 0.667.