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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 115 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

RAIN CLOUDY

56 36

SNEEZY-PEASY STUDY UNLOCKS ALLERGY PATHWAY

ARE WE HUMANISTS?

GOAL-ING GREEN

Yale Humanism Week facilitates discussion on nonreligious belief

YALE OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY DRAFTS NEW GOALS

PAGES 10-11 SCI-TECH

PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY

PAGE 3 CITY

ROCK TO ROCK Volunteers prepare the city for 8th annual “Rock to Rock” bike race PAGE 5 CITY

CROSS CAMPUS YCC late night. The five Yale College Council candidates will face off in the one and only debate of this election season at 7 p.m. this evening in LC 102. Candidates for president, vice president, events director and finance director will all be present. Student groups’ endorsements may not be publicized until after the debate, which will be jointly moderated by the YCC and the News.

How low can you Fargo. John

Shrewsberry SOM ’92, the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo & Co., has recently joined Yale’s 10-person Investment Committee which oversees the University’s $25.6 billion endowment. Also joining the Yale team is Ann Miura-Ko ’98, co-founder of venture capital fund Floodgate.

ROBBIE SHORT/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

F

ive sophomores — Peter Huang ’18, Sarah Armstrong ’18, Diksa Brahmbhatt ’18, Josh Hochman ’18 and Carter Helschien ’18 — compete this week for the role of YCC president. The election kicks off tonight with a debate, and polls open Thursday.

Yale-NUS: an island on an island

To the Constitution State.

Both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have begun to set up shop in Connecticut in preparation for the state’s primary election, which is two weeks away. Television advertisements supporting the various candidates are also appearing on air.

In the 2012 GOP primary, Connecticut residents voted overwhelmingly in former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s favor.

Bailando. When Harvard sophomore Schuyler Bailar joined the university’s women’s swim team two years ago, she was one of the best recruits. Today, Schuyler has transitioned and, after joining Harvard’s men’s team, is one of the first openly transgender male athletes in Division I sports. CBS’s 60 Minutes covered Bailar’s experience in a recent showing.

Take back the night. The Yale Community and Consent Educators, Unite Against Sexual Assault at Yale and the Women’s Center are jointly hosting a conversation about sexual respect and climate at Yale. The open discussion will be held at the Slifka Center at 8 p.m. tomorrow.

Take me to court. The Yale Politic invites students to a Master’s Tea with prominent lawyer Lisa Blatt in Jonathan Edwards College at 4 p.m. tomorrow. Early in her career, Blatt clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Heyo, it’s a party. Yale Rumpus

will host its annual “50 Most Launch Party” at Partners Cafe tomorrow night. Venmo Rumpus to party with Yale’s most beautiful.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1982 The Gay/Lesbian Awareness Days — a week of events to promote inclusion on campus — begin. There will be speeches, screenings and panel discussions, and the week will end with a rally on Cross Campus.

Follow along for the News’ latest.

Twitter | @yaledailynews

y

BOE supports relocating Strong School

BY REBECCA KARABUS STAFF REPORTER

story, raising questions of both the college’s isolation and ultimate viability.

How has Yale-NUS fared in its integration? Interviews with over 30 Singaporeans indicate that opinions towards Yale-NUS ranged from ignorance to indifference, from mixed hopes to hostility. Although three years might be a short time for Yale-NUS to establish its name, and the world of elite higher education remains out of reach for many everyday Singaporeans, these responses do raise questions about how well the college engages with the National University of Singapore — its neighbor — and Singapore, its

New Haven’s Board of Education voted unanimously in support of a proposal to move the Strong Magnet School from The Hill neighborhood to Southern Connecticut State University’s campus at a Monday board meeting.

Mayor Toni Harp first proposed the school’s relocation in the budget she submitted to the Board of Alders last year. While the Connecticut General Assembly agreed to cover 80 percent of the cost of a new building — the maximum proportion permitted by state law — the alders rejected last year’s proposal. But the state’s one-year extension of the pledged funding led to a renewed push for approval by city education leaders, including BOE member Carlos Torre, who is a professor of education at SCSU. “Southern already has a relationship with the Strong School, but with its not being on the campus, this can’t be as direct and continuous as we would want, and as children there deserve,” Torre said. “If it doesn’t pass this year, it’s dead in the water; it’s not going to happen.”

Citing the dilapidated conditions of the Strong School’s current building and the lack of ample space for school activities, Torre called the proposed relocation a “win-win” for students, parents, teachers and community members. Torre added that the new Strong School, which he wants to call a “university school,” would be modeled on “lab schools,” elementary or secondary schools that operate in association with colleges or universities and are used as training schools for teaching students. Torre highlighted the success of the lab school operating at the University of Puerto Rico, which he said boasts a 100 percent graduation and matriculation rate for all of its students, as well as a 100 percent college graduation rate among alumni within four or five years.

Strong School teacher Susan Bonanno read

SEE YALE-NUS PAGE 6

SEE BOE PAGE 4

T

hough Yale-NUS settled into its permanent home in Singapore last fall, it enjoys little fame or recognition on the small island. In March, staff reporter Qi Xu travelled to Singapore to find out what Singaporean politicians, peers at other local universities and even taxi drivers think of the school, and whether a degree of self-containedness is necessary for the young liberal arts college to uphold its educational mission. QI XU reports.

SINGAPORE — On Oct. 12, 2015, in Yale-NUS’s well-lit, brand-new auditorium, Yale President Peter Salovey inserted an orange block — a miniature figurine of Yale-NUS’s buildings — into the lodge podium, signaling the inauguration of the young college’s very own campus. Salovey was joined by Singapore’s prime minister, as well as other government officials and leaders in higher education. The ceremony marked a major milestone in cementing Yale-NUS’s reputation as the country’s first liberal arts institution.

But despite the momentousness of the occasion for those tied to Yale-NUS, broader Singaporean society had, and continues to

UPCLOSE have, little knowledge of the college’s existence at all. Though Singapore’s Ministry of Education and other prominent figures in higher education often refer to Yale-NUS as Singapore’s educational experiment, many members of the public cannot locate the campus on a map, let alone describe Yale-NUS’s unique culture.

Considering the small number of colleges in Singapore, it may seem strange that taxi drivers — living maps of the city-state — have never heard of Yale-NUS. Singaporeans with an inkling of the school know it as a liberal arts college — end of

New grad dorms prepare for construction

BY JIAHUI HU STAFF REPORTER Bulldozers entered the parking lot on Broadway adjacent to Tyco this past week and bored holes in the ground to prepare for the summer construction of a new graduate student apartment complex.

Yale will begin construction on the building at 272–310 Elm St. — which will house two stories of retail below four stories of housing with 41 twobedroom units with kitchens — in early June. The project was approved by the New Haven City Plan Commission this February, according to Bryan Yoon GRD ’18, the facilities and health care chair of the Graduate Students Assembly. Yoon added that the building is on schedule for completion

in fall 2018, when renovations to the 83-year-old Hall of Graduate Studies are slated to begin. Yale announced in September 2014 that it would be constructing the 82 new graduate dorms on Elm Street to replace the 168 beds that will be lost when HGS is transformed into a center for the humanities.

Administrators explained the decrease by citing the small number of graduate and professional students who seek school-provided housing out of the 6,859 total graduate and professional students at Yale, according to Stefan Krastanov GRD ’19, who currently lives in HGS. “Generally, the sense of the administration is that not many people are SEE CONSTRUCTION PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS

The grad student dorms on Elm Street will replace the rooms lost when HGS becomes a humanities center.

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “I recommend joining the apathetic anarchists, no meetings, no dues, no yaledailynews.com/opinion

A labor of love H

e’s the classmate in section who takes up six minutes per comment and aggressively corrects the female professor at every opportunity.

He’s the friend who sends you essays over text whining about his current romantic morass and expects you to discuss it for the next three hours. He’s the boyfriend who thanks you for being consistently caring, but is somehow always too stressed or busy to reciprocate.

A specter is haunting Yale’s campus — the specter of the Emotionally Stunted Male.

The concept of “emotional labor” has only recently entered the public vernacular, and the discourse around it tends to be confused. No one who enjoys caring for and validating their friends and partners wants to define that effort as “labor,” particularly if it’s something for which one has great aptitude.

Despite these negative connotations, the language of emotional labor accurately captures the kind of investment that is necessary for meaningful relationships to flourish. Mutual respect, individual responsibility and reciprocal care simply cannot arise without a genuine effort from both parties to understand each other and consciously incorporate that understanding into their interactions.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming bulk of the work that is done to build and maintain functioning relationships falls along gendered lines. Especially in a high-pressure environment like Yale, populated by budding adults trying to collectively figure out life, women are disproportionately saddled with the expectation that they will be nurturing, maternal figures and remain constantly attentive to the emotional needs of their male peers — all while miraculously handling academics, a student job, laundry (plus their boyfriend’s) and their own mental health.

I have often heard my (female, exclusively) friends at Yale joke that relationships are a “sixth class,” and they’re absolutely right. Many men act as though they are entitled to the time and energy of the women in their lives, and are staggeringly unaware of the toll it takes on them. I happen to be a natural caretaker, and nothing gives me more pleasure than listening to those whom I love and helping them with their problems. But far too often my own needs are ignored by people who take my effort for granted, who flag me down with blithe insensitivity so I can serve as their security blanket or their general angst receptacle. Considering all the arguments over “coddling” that took place this year, it strikes me as odd that men were not immediately identified as an egregiously coddled group.

Much of this problem is societal. Public schools do little to educate people about the rudi-

m e n t s of emotional literacy beyond “sharing is good,” and men are conditioned SHERRY LEE from a disturbingly A classical young age to eschew vulact n e ra b i l i ty and empathy. A litany of damaging phrases such as “man up” coupled with a warped image of masculinity define their formative years, with the consequence that many men are emotionally stunted and unable to understand the concept of emotional work. Accordingly, women are perceived as “naturally” caring and pressured to perform as such all their lives, whether in the workplace or the home, lest they be condemned as “unlikable.” But the gender disparity in emotional capacity only exists because society has systematically deprived men of the tools and vocabulary to engage in emotional labor.

I understand that it can be difficult and even daunting to unlearn a lifetime’s worth of conditioning, or to realize one’s chronic negligence toward loved ones. But until society learns to neutralize the gender gap in emotional education, or your boyfriend actually does the Virginia Woolf reading he skipped in Directed Studies, there has to be stop-gap measures for the Emotionally Stunted. Emotional work cannot remain a one-sided affair.

And there are in fact attainable courses of action men can take in between “nothing,” “crying exclusively to women you want to sleep with” and “being perfect.”

Read online articles and testimonies about emotional labor (just Google it). Communicate openly with your female friends on how you can better respect and validate them. Take responsibility for yourself, so that the women in your lives don’t have to.

“By far the worst thing we do to males … is that we leave them with very fragile egos,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie states in her essay, “We Should All Be Feminists,” a call to arms for the rigorous deconstruction of gender roles. “And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.”

This is my call to arms. Learning emotional labor is a vital skill that will have significant consequences long after we have left Yale. It will affect how you treat your loved ones, how you raise your children, the sorts of friendships you form, how you interact with coworkers, even how good a sexual partner you are. This is a vicious cycle that we can and must end.

SHERRY LEE is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles College. Her column runs on alternate Tuesdays. Contact her at chia.lee@yale.edu .

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duties”

'SHADRACHSMITH' ON 'AMEND: THE SKITTLES CLUB'

GUEST COLUMNIST ADAM KROK

Tax Yale

T

he single worst mistake in Connecticut’s legislative history has to be the passing of one particular bill in 1872. That year, representatives of the Constitution State eliminated the cap on Yale’s taxexemption status. For the previous 127 years, since Yale’s first charter was ratified by the colonial government, the College had but limited protection from the taxman. The charter defined as nontaxable entities: “Lands and Ratable Estate belonging to ye said College not Exceeding ye Yearly Vallue of five Hundred Pound Sterling.” Anything above that was fair game. The bill in 1872, however, combined with Connecticut’s constitutional obligation to obtain permission from the Yale Corporation before changing the College’s charter, meant that the state practically forfeited in perpetuity the right to tax Yale.

Talk about a screw-up.

But as Noah Feldman’s recent article in Bloomberg suggested, the state of Connecticut might have the law on its side. Changing Yale’s charter unilaterally would constitute a breaking of contract between the state and a private entity. Modern contract law, however, recognizes the right of a state to impair contracts if “the impairment is reasonable and necessary to serve an important public purpose” (U.S. Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1).

As Yale students, we are complicit in one of the most scandalous tax exemptions in American history, at the cost of almost everyone around us. This is the case across Connecticut: The wild disparities in tax revenue between municipalities are creating ever larger cycles of poverty, poor quality of education and low social mobility for most — all while enriching the quality of life for the already well-off. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original name for “The Great Gatsby” jumps to mind: “Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires.”

Let’s try to understand how Yale directly undermines the tax system, at least with respect to New Haven. When it comes to education, 54.6 percent of funding comes from local property taxes, according to the State Department of Education, Digest of Education Statistics 2011–12. Similar rates hold for other municipal programs like general government

administration, public works and public safety. Yale’s taxexempt status thus spells disaster for New Haven. Look around.

New Haven’s low tax base means schools are chronically underfunded, overcrowded and provide poor-quality education.

The city is dilapidated outside of Yale’s immediate vicinity, and crime levels are shockingly high. And this all affects the Elm City’s poorest residents. Those able to live in wealthy suburbs send their children to wellfunded high schools and lounge in their crime-free neighborhoods. Regardless of your socioeconomic background, as a Yale student you are part of this privileged latter group.

In this context, most of Yale’s defense for tax-exempt status just doesn’t hold. Admittedly, Yale does great things for the economy: The University brings in a ton of tourism, is the city’s main employer and makes annual multi-million dollar “voluntary” donations to the city. But all of that tourism takes place in the immediate vicinity of Yale, furthering inequality between the University and the rest of the city. Very few students venture far into New Haven, preferring to spend most of their money on businesses near to them yet far from most residents. Employees that are paid by Yale must still send their children to dilapidated schools — which might be in better shape if Yale would pay a property tax. And for analogous reasons we should view voluntary donations as red herrings.

A donation here and there does not absolve Yale of its systemic culpability in the city’s pervasive economic inequalities.

The sad truth is that Yale’s economic interests actually align with New Haven’s. As a former Yale Law School student, who is currently involved in Connecticut politics, put it over the phone to me, “ A stronger community creates a stronger Yale. They are in a symbiotic relationship.” If Yale were to pay its taxes, it would alleviate the tax burden for the rest of New Haven. Attractive tax rates could bring more and higher tax-paying citizens into the city. In the same vein, more businesses could open and take advantage of the low tax rate. Remember also that the attractiveness of New Haven affects Yale’s admissions yield. It’s tough

to convince the brightest students in the world to attend Yale when New Haven is in such poor shape. A New Haven with better schools and neighborhoods, and more businesses and jobs, could go a long way toward reducing crime, invigorating the city and ultimately enticing more brilliant students. Everyone’s lives are better off when Yale remembers it is part of New Haven, and not just in New Haven.

This same logic should apply to Yale’s endowment. Revenues from such a tax will be bet-

ter spent around the state than locked away in bank accounts.

Ultimately it boils down to this: Yale has become a quasi-republic of finance with its own sovereign wealth fund to boot. Should it continue to systemically harm New Haven, Connecticut, and even its own economic interests? The law, our consciences and true love for Yale command us to say no.

ADAM KROK is a freshman in Ezra Stiles College. Contact him at adam.krok@yale.edu .

ASHLYN OAKES/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

G U E ST C O LU M N I ST JA N I N E C O M R I E

Leading by example O

ver the next two weeks, Yale will host a series of events for the eighth United Nations Global Colloquium of University Presidents on the subject, “Preservation of Cultural Heritage: Challenges and Strategies.” U.N. SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon will chair the colloquium to discuss significant threats to cultural heritage and possible solutions for overcoming them. Climate change will be among the topics discussed; many communities and countries suffer from the environmental and economic harms of fossil fuel extraction. However, Ban Ki-moon’s ideas of the tactics necessary to combat climate change do not appear to be shared by the other attendees of the colloquium: presidents of universities that have refused to divest their endowments from fossil fuels.

This colloquium will not be the first occasion on which the Secretary-General has discussed climate change. He has consistently called upon investor action as a strategy for overcoming this issue. He lauds investor action — that is, removing investments from fossil fuel companies — as an effective and necessary step in transitioning to a sustainable-energy economy. Ascribing great power to the implications of actions made by investors, the Secretary-General states that investors’ decisions can “accelerate the rapid decarbonization of the economy.”

“In a world of scarce resources,

you provide one of the rarest of all commodities — leadership by example,” stated Ban Ki-moon at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk in January 2016. His statements demonstrate an understanding that fossil fuel divestment has impacts broader than financial damage incurred by fossil fuel companies. Rather, divestment serves to set a new standard in which the investor community refuses to fund practices that hinder sustainable development and an environmentally just future. As the Secretary-General stated at the Investor Summit, “Every decision on investment and resource allocation must be part of the solution.”

Continuing to invest in fossil fuels cements reliance on unsustainable energy practices.

Ban Ki-moon encourages investors to recognize alternatives rather than continuing this conventional reliance. He expresses confidence in the “force of human ingenuity” to create resilient economic growth based in clean energy. To “transform the global economy” is the best way to make sufficiently wide-reaching improvements that combat climate change. Society cannot afford to wait for this transition to evolve slowly. Studies have shown that the damage of past greenhouse gas emissions will soon be beyond society's control to fix. Ban Ki-moon stresses that if communities wish to limit the rise in global temperature to below two degrees Celsius before

it is too late, they must rapidly enact widespread change.

If the UNGC wishes to discuss cultural heritage, they must discuss unsustainable energy practices that directly threaten cultural heritage by debilitating poorer, less-developed communities. These communities are exploited in the process of fossil fuel extraction. Furthermore, when such areas rely on fossil fuels for energy, the basis of their prospective development is unsustainable. This undermines the stability and reliability of their progress.

It is necessary we allocate resources to support sustainable energy solutions for the millions of people living without it.

According to Ban Ki-moon, “that is the route to ending poverty, increasing opportunity and laying the foundation for sustainable global economic growth.”

Ban Ki-moon encourages investors both to remove investments from fossil fuel companies, and to transfer these investments to infrastructure based in sustainable energy for more reliable, lasting development.

The Secretary-General praises organizations that have shifted investments from fossil fuel companies into cleaner energy.

He affirms forward-thinking civil movements, such as fossil fuel divestment campaigns, and encourages them to continue pushing climate change initiatives. Fossil fuel divestment campaigns have materialized in college campuses across the world,

including here at Yale, pushing universities to divest alongside colleges that are already transitioning. The UN organization overseeing global climate change negotiations also expressed support for these campaigns.

“We have lent our own moral authority as the U.N. to those groups or organizations who are divesting. We are saying, ‘We support your aims and ambitions because they are fairly and squarely our ambition,’” Nick Nuttall of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change told The Guardian in March 2015.

Ban Ki-moon refers to this shift in investments as an inevitable solution that is already being implemented. “Investors and businesses that redirect resources to low-carbon, climate-resilient growth will be the economic powerhouses of the 21st century. Those that fail to do so will be on the losing side of history.”

Will divestment come up explicitly at this summit of university presidents? That remains unclear. But what does it mean that this prominent figure will be speaking to this group of presidents who have not been practicing “leadership by example”?

What interests hold them back?

It’s far past time for places like Yale to merely talk about cultural heritage — it’s time we act to protect it.

JANINE COMRIE is a freshman in Berkeley College. Contact her at janine.comrie@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.”

JAMAIS CASCIO AMERICAN AUTHOR

CORRECTIONS

Humanism Week explores nonreligious belief

MONDAY, APRIL 11

The article “Yalies dance for kids” incorrectly stated that Doug Berv is a psychologist; in fact, he is a psychiatrist.

New Reach targets housing waitlist

BY AMY CHENG STAFF REPORTER When Connecticut was certified by the federal government in August 2015 as the first state in the nation to eliminate homelessness among veterans, another group in the homeless population seemed to be forgotten: young women, usually under the age of 24, and their children.

Three months ago, New Reach, a New Haven-based nonprofit dedicated to supportive housing and stabilization, received $100,000 from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the state Department of Housing, and shortly after launched a program to support just this demographic. Dubbed “Families Navigators,” the new program grew out of the high demand for supportive housing that the Elm City had seen since last winter.

According to New Reach’s statistics, over 200 families remained on the waitlist to be considered for supportive housing in January, and the waiting period extended to as long as four months. As of last month, only 28 families remain on the waitlist.

“We found that the demand for housing was so high in New Haven that over 200 families were on the waitlist, not able to access the shelters,” said Kara Capone, chief operating officer of New Reach. “We created this Families Navigator position that works specifically to either get people into shelter more rapidly or divert them to other resources to stay away from homelessness.”

The Families Navigators program operates within the framework of the Connecticut Coordinated Access Network, a federally mandated system that connects housing and shelter service providers across the state under one umbrella organization. Families and individuals who are facing the possibility of becoming homeless can access the closest housing sources in their geographic region by dialing a central phone line.

According to Capone, after contacting the CCAN, families and individuals will schedule appointments to assess their level of need. Those facing immediate physical harm, such as victims of domestic abuse, will be directly

led to a secure housing location, while others are placed onto a waitlist for openings in supportive housing and shelters.

Capone said that Families Navigator reaches out to people on the waitlist and directs them to the most appropriate resource.

These resources include legal services, education and access to emergency funding for equipment necessary for employment.

“Sometimes we refer them to legal services. For example, when [families and individuals] receive eviction notices, they don’t necessarily have to leave their housing,” Capone said.

It’s great that there was funding from the state as well, because we couldn’t get to the full amount.

SARAH FABISH Grantmaking and Scholarships Vice President, CFGNH In other situations, people are directed to family and friends who are able to provide more stable housing, especially when children are involved, she added.

The Families Navigator program is jointly funded by CFGNH and the state DOH, with the former contributing 60 percent of funds and the latter 40 percent.

“Having the staffing to manage this long waitlist and get people critical assistance in a timely fashion, we understood it to be critical. So we were happy to [contribute] to it,” said Sarah Fabish, grantmaking and scholarships vice president for CFGNH. “And it’s great that there was funding from the state as well, because we couldn’t get to the full amount [New Reach] was looking for.”

Fabish said a lot effort has been put forth for eliminating homelessness among veterans and adults, but not as much attention has been given to women with young children. She added that funding Families Navigator was the organization’s way of directing attention to this population.

Contact AMY CHENG at amy.xm.cheng@yale.edu .

OPINION.

YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR VOICE. YOUR PAGE.

BY AYLA BESEMER STAFF REPORTER Last week, students and New Haven community members participated in a series of events highlighting the questions, debates and beliefs confronted by nonreligious individuals through Yale & New Haven Humanism Week.

Co-founded in 2012 by former Yale Ph.D. candidate Paul Chiariello and Miles Lasater ’01, the Yale Humanist Community is a campus organization for “humanists, atheists, agnostics and the nonreligious,” according to its website. Though according to the Chaplain’s Office only 0.24 percent of Yale undergraduates explicitly define themselves as Humanist, another 6.62 percent are either atheist or agnostic, and 4.52 percent are unaffiliated. The events of Humanism Week — which took place from April 2-9 — were meant to highlight aspects of the Humanist community and “facilitate important conversations related to belief, identity and meaning,” YHC Executive Director Chris Stedman said.

Events included talks on topics from America’s religious history to agnosticism, as well as a launch party for the Green Light Project — a crowd-funded initiative to install a nonreligious statue on the New Haven Green — and a day of service. The week concluded with an Animal Gratitude Ceremony led by psychology professor Laurie Santos, who sits on the YHC’s Board of Directors. “[Humanism] really is about hearing other people’s perspectives on life and figuring out what each person can do to make the world a better place, and how can we live through a philosophy of compassion, reason and understanding for other people across the world, and really try to take action,” said Fiona Riebeling ’18, a student member of the YHC who discovered the community through dinners and events before realizing that Humanism aligned with her developing worldview. “That’s the core of it, and I think you can do that whether or not you do have a religious faith.”

The YHC applied for membership to Yale Religious Ministries in 2013, but was denied when University Chaplain Sharon Kugler said that she decided that

AYLA BESEMER/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Yale Humanist Community is an organization for “humanists, atheists, agnostics and the nonreligious.”

YHC did not fit into an explicitly religious definition. Though the YHC is involved with the Chaplain’s Office, it does define itself as a group for the nonreligious.

The Animal Gratitude Ceremony, for example, was as a nontheistic version of the animal blessings that occur in the Catholic church, Santos said. The overarching question of whether Humanism is a religion is a “very contentious” debate, Chiariello said, adding that part of the ambiguity comes from the various ways the word “religion” can be interpreted. Under a historical definition in which religion implies a spirituality that includes belief in a soul, heaven and God, Humanism cannot be considered a religion, given that humanists are “at best agnostic, and at most atheistic,” he said.

Chiariello added, however, that Humanism can fit into a more secular definition of religion that includes participation in a community and a system that explains “the world and how to live in it.” This approach to Humanism was echoed by Riebeling, who praised the YHC for its “support and inclusion” and highlighted that Humanism is not about denouncing religion, but rather focuses on how to improve oneself and the world despite nonreligious belief.

“My involvement in the YHC gives me access to at least some of the positives that come from being involved in other kinds of

organized religions — it gives me a sense of community, a group of like-minded folks to speak with about the big questions and to work with to improve our world and our community,” Santos said. “So I think participating in Humanist activities comes with at least some of the positives of being religious.”

Humanist communities play a particularly important role on college campuses where many students arrive questioning their previously held systems of belief, Chiariello said. He emphasized that Humanist groups remove the stigma surrounding atheism — a stigma studied recently in a 2015 Gallup poll which showed some bias against atheist presidential candidates — and demonstrate to students that community service and ethical action are possible without belief in God. A Humanist chaplain can provide unique guidance to students who are grappling with issues such as how to inform religious parents that they no longer believe in God to developing a system of ethics without religious instruction, Chiariello said.

He went on to add that Christian chaplains are inclined to respond to questioning students by encouraging them to redevelop their faith in God, whereas Humanist chaplains can provide a “personal level of depth and empathy.”

Though the YHC has halted pursuit of recognition as part of

the Yale Religious Ministries, Stedman said that a productive working relationship has been facilitated between the YHC and Chaplain’s Office, a sentiment echoed both by Chiariello and Yale Assistant Chaplain for Special Programs Maytal Saltiel.

Saltiel emphasized that the Humanist community is “certainly” included in the Chaplain’s Office’s commitment to working with students from a variety of different backgrounds. Stedman also discussed events co-hosted with religious groups such as Luther House and St. Thomas More. Saltiel spoke to collaborations between Yale Religious Ministry groups and the YHC on service projects, as well as YHC representation in both the InterFaith Forum and as Chaplaincy Fellows.

“All of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, have to share this world,” Stedman said. “So it’s important to build mutual understanding and try to work together to solve our world’s biggest problems … I want to see a world where people of all faiths and philosophies can be open about what they believe without fear of being punished or ostracized, including the nonreligious.”

The YHC is part of the American Humanist Association, which was formed in 1941.

Contact AYLA BESEMER at ayla.besemer@yale.edu .

Students review Yale sustainability goals

BY CAITLYN WHERRY STAFF REPORTER When the Yale Office of Sustainability gathered to announce its assessment of the University’s sustainability goals, there was one resounding conclusion: “There are gaps.”

This summer, the Sustainability Strategic Plan of 2013– 16 will come to an end. The new strategic plan currently being drafted will span nine years — between 2017 and 2025 — rather than three, and set sustainability targets to be met by 2050. Students were invited to review and comment on a draft of this new plan at a Monday open forum, hosted by the Office of Sustainability together with the Sustainability Service Corps.

The strategic plan begins with a “sustainability vision” to be met by 2050, which is unprecedented in its goal to align sustainability goals with Yale’s academic mission to create, disseminate and preserve knowledge.

The plan highlights the University’s goal of becoming a global sustainability leader that integrates its contribution to social, environmental and financial excellence with sustainability.

The sustainability plan is broken down into eight “ambitionaries” — the highest-priority aspirations of the nine-year stratagem — and further distinguishes between objectives that support these ambitionaries.

Following this distinction, the plan goes into depth about the goals of each objective, and outlines step-by-step strategies for achieving each goal.

“Now we are saying, ‘We know where we are; here’s where we’d like to be,’” Amber Garrard,

education and outreach manager at the Yale Office of Sustainability said. “As an academic institution, we have the responsibility to ask those questions.”

The proposed plan’s ambitionaries center around eight concepts: Leadership in teaching, research, service and operations, empowerment through diversity, health and well-being, climate action — which Garrard specifically noted is a topic requiring “urgent action” — stewardship, mobility, material flow and technology. Garrard emphasized the importance of “smart goals” that are feasible, measurable and time-sensitive.

She added that it is important to support each of the objectives within the broader ambitionary categories, while ensuring the plan is in touch with the priorities of the Yale community.

Further focal points of the plan include student and faculty education and risk-taking. The plan’s steering committee noted that the University should not be hesitant about pursuing a goal it does not immediately have the means to achieve.

The plan also resolves to expand the general knowledge of sustainability initiatives and the impacts of personal actions in order to best use campus resources wisely. Garrard referred to these new perspectives as a “complete shift from how we have been doing things.”

After Garrard opened the plan up to student critiques, Jane Zhang ’19, Sustainability Service Corps residential college coordinator for Berkeley College, made notes on one of the diversity ambitions of the new strategic plan, which she said aims to include communities that may not currently be in the conversation around sustainability.

“It’s important to engage the cultural communities at Yale and ask for their perspectives,” Zhang said. “So we can consider hosting an event that brings all the cultural houses together to discuss how sustainability relates to members’ experiences, culture and communities.”

To this idea, Garrard responded positively, engaging with the idea of individual workshops or group roundtables with the University’s cultural houses.

Other student recommendations included developing technology to connect a centralized group of students interested in sustainability initiatives and School of Forestry & Environmental Studies researchers, and seminar-

esque open roundtables on the sustainability strategic plan.

National University of Singapore junior Samuel Cheng, who is also an SSC Materials Management Team member, spoke of the importance of the logistics of such a plan.

“If you plan all your initiatives on a vague sense of what constitutes a better outcome, then it is not really going to get you anywhere,” Cheng said.

The Yale Office of Sustainability is currently seeking student recommendations and input on the progress of the new plan.

Contact CAITLYN WHERRY at caitlyn.wherry@yale.edu .

CAITLYN WHERRY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The new strategic plan currently being drafted will span nine years — between 2017 and 2025 — rather than three.

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

NELSON MANDELA SOUTH AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY AND POLITICIAN

BOE supports Strong School relocation

Grad dorm construction set for June CONSTRUCTION FROM PAGE 1

REBECCA KARABUS/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Board of Education met Monday to discuss the Strong School.

BOE FROM PAGE 1 a letter penned by Kevin Bermudez, one of Torre’s freshman students majoring in education at SCSU. In the letter, Bermudez, who could not attend Monday’s meeting, emphasized the opportunities a Strong School on SCSU’s campus would provide him and other prospective-teacher classmates, who would gain the hands-on

experience of student teaching in a New Haven public school on the university’s campus.

For Bonanno, there are also logistical reasons for which a relocation could benefit Strong School students and teachers.

Bonanno said while she and other teachers make the most of the limited space the current Strong School provides, the school has only one facil-

ity that serves as its auditorium, gymnasium and cafeteria. This forces students to have gym class in classrooms or hallways when the multipurpose room is needed for conflicting performances or other events. She added that since the current school lacks a library, students do not have the same privilege as other NHPS students to learn the responsibility of borrowing and returning books.

Harp justified her support of the new building using the analogy of mending an old car, which eventually stops being cost-effective.

“It’s time to buy that new car and to get a new building — at an 80 percent discount,” Harp said.

The remaining 20 percent of funding would come from the city’s capital budget, which Harp included in her proposal to the alders. NHPS

The European Studies Council and The European Union Studies Program present

Eurozone Unemployment Insurance: The Next Step of EMU Reform?

László Andor Former European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Senior Fellow, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Visiting Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Superintendent Garth Harries ’95 said Harp balanced the budget to include the amount needed to finance building the new school without raising taxes on city residents.

The BOE is also seeking a $5 million raise in the overall NHPS budget for fiscal year 2017.

interested in HGS,” Krastanov said. “They’ve thrown around the number that only 10 to 20 percent are interested.”

Construction was delayed earlier this year due to disagreements between Yale and the city over the quantity of parking spaces that Yale would build. During the February meeting of the City Plan Commission, the commission’s vote rejected the University’s plans to build a 62-space parking garage in Dixwell across the street from Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen to accommodate residents and visitors to the new building. Members of the commission said that the University’s plan had not given adequate consideration to the concerns of Dixwell residents.

City parking ordinances dictate that for a building of this planned size, the University should have built 142 on-site parking spaces in preparation. One month after the public disputes between Yale and city residents at the February meeting, Yale withdrew its request for a special exemption to build zero parking lots — a topic that was to be discussed at the March meeting of the City Plan Commission.

As of mid-April, the issue of parking between the city and Yale was resolved, University spokeswoman Karen Peart said, adding that the City Plan Commission had approved the Dixwell parking lot.

This January, the University announced that it had received an anonymous $50 million gift — $30 million of which will go toward construction — to move forward with plans to renovate HGS.

Contact REBECCA KARABUS at rebecca.karabus@yale.edu .

Contact JIAHUI HU at jiahui.hu@yale.edu .

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PAGE 5

NEWS

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ELIE WIESEL NOVELIST

Panel discusses transatlantic student activism

BY MONICA WANG STAFF REPORTER In April 2015, students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa cheered as the statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes was removed from campus. A few months later, Yale students and community members gathered on Cross Campus in the chilly November air for a March of Resilience that called for an improved campus racial climate.

On Monday evening, a “Students in Revolt” panel organized by the Yale Association for African Peace and Development sought to understand and compare these two student movements. The Black Student Alliance at Yale helped organize the event, which featured panelists including Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway, history professor Daniel Magaziner, as well as five student activists from the University of Cape Town and Yale.

Moderated by Thuto Thipe GRD ’21, the panel explored the causation, method and intellectual theory behind student movements before roughly 70 attendees who packed into a first-floor room in the AfroAmerican Cultural Center.

“Students are often a key force in political movements that bring about change, and as African students in America, both movements — here at Yale and at the University of Cape Town — were dear to us.

It was essential to ensure that our voices were heard here to

create a more inclusive environment, and it was also necessary [for us] to stand with our brothers and sisters back home,” said Nana Akowuah ’18, president of YAAPD. “There weren’t that many talks that were addressing these issues, so we said, ‘Why not have a talk where we bring in student activists from both South Africa and Yale?’”

Holloway, who specializes in post-emancipation U.S. history, gave the audience a short account of student protests in the United States. Student activism typically takes place in two ways, he said: either through the radical approach or the institutional approach. Whereas student protesters in San Francisco State University tended to be more radical in the 1960s and ’70s, Yale students in the same period worked with the administration to found the Af-Am House and open Yale’s doors to more students of color. Holloway added that across elite educational institutions whose students generally took a more institutional approach, the number of black students increased dramatically during that period.

Still, university administrators nationwide quickly discovered that it was one thing to open the doors through admissions and another to truly cultivate and nurture that diverse population of students, Holloway said.

“Universities will all talk about diversity. I’m absolutely all for it, but that’s just the

beginning of the conversation.

We need to be engaging all of our students with all the ideas that they bring with them,” Holloway said during the discussion. “Diversity shouldn’t be a satisfactory endpoint.”

Magaziner, an intellectual historian who focuses on South Africa, also compared contemporary student movements in South Africa with those that took place there in the 1960s and ’70s. An important question that student activists should ask, he said, is whether achieving specific goals as opposed to implementing fundamental transformations can be considered true victory.

Thipe then asked the three South African students — Shandukani Mulaudzi, a South African journalist completing her master’s degree at Columbia University; Kaeleboga Ramaru, an activist with the Rhodes Must Fall Movement who completed her degree in gender and transformation at the University of Cape Town and Nigel Patel, a third-year student at the University of Cape Town — as well as the two Yale students, Joy Shan ’15 and Lex Barlowe ’17, to describe their roles in student activist movements on their respective campuses.

Attendees, organizers and panelists interviewed all said the intersectionality of the student activists’ experiences was an important feature of the discussion.

Helinna Ayalew GRD ’14 said she was drawn to the event

BY CAITLYN WHERRY STAFF REPORTER

MONICA WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

A panel Monday night compared student movements at Yale and in South Africa. because she was interested in learning from these transatlantic conversations. She was grateful for the opportunity to hear South African student activists speak about their experiences and perspectives, she added.

“It’s really great to be able to bring together people who are in different geographical spaces but organizing around such similar issues,” Thipe said. “I think we got from the panel that the contexts are as similar as they are different.

The differences are extraordinary, but there are some common themes that students seem to be bringing up in different contexts. It’s wonderful to be able to talk and to learn from each other.”

The most important thing when it comes to activism, Akowuah said, is finding one’s

place and being careful not to take the spotlight from other people when it is their turn.

Mulaudzi said she hopes more people will read up on South Africa’s student movements after the discussion.

The shared oppression is a common thread that binds issues here with those in South Africa.

“I’m hoping that whatever [the panelists] said resonated with the students here so that they can figure out what it is that ultimately they want to fight for and they would like to gain from protesting and fighting,” Mulaudzi said.

The YAAPD hosts the annual Sankofa54: African Youth Empowerment Conference each spring.

Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu .

Korean WWII survivor recounts human rights abuses

CATALINA SEQUEIRA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Ok-Sun Lee recounted her life as a teenage sex slave under Japanese internment.

“We weren’t consulted for this agreement,” Lee said through a Korean translator.

“We’ve been seeking legal recognition since the early ’90s.”

Suh Young “Sunnie” Kim ’18, a Korean international student and one of the student leaders who planned the event, said survivors of World War II internment and sexual slavery, as well as Korean people in general, are very upset by the agreement between Korea and Japan. After writing a statement promoting solidarity with victims of Japanese military sexual slavery, Kim and Hyun-Soo Lim LAW ’18 were contacted by House of Sharing, a Korean nonprofit that financially supports former comfort women, spreads awareness of the issue to the public and advocates for the recognition of past abuse and crimes against these survivors.

Shin Kwon Ahn, the director of House of Sharing, explained that with only 46 Korean comfort women still alive, all in their 80s and 90s, time is running out for them to share their stories to new audiences around the world.

“They’re desperate for an apology before they pass

away,” Ahn told the crowd.

“They’ve been fighting for this for over 70 years.”

Both Ahn and Lee explained that the problem with the recent agreement — in which Japan admitted some culpability and gave the Korean government $8.3 million — is that the comfort women were not consulted, the wording was too vague and the money was given as humanitarian aid instead of legal reparations. Moreover, these women are seeking an official apology from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as well as legal recognition from the Japanese government of their past military crimes.

Lee’s story was horrific and graphic, leaving the audience outraged and solemn.

She spoke of her abduction at the age of 16 while working as a maid and her subsequent forced relocation to China. There, she survived severe cold, physical beatings and near starvation — she was given only uncooked rice to eat for one week. Originally, the Japanese forced her into hard labor working on the expansion of an air force base, and later she was taken to a “comfort station,” a brothel of

female sex slaves.

There was a high prevalence of suicide among the women, who sometimes saw between 40 to 50 men a day. Lee’s current limp is due to a disability that occurred when she tried to escape the comfort station.

She was captured by the Japanese, who tried and failed to cut off her leg.

The agreement between Japan and Korea has been denounced by Amnesty International as well as the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. These human rights organizations believe the agreement is unsatisfactory and compensation has not been fulfilled.

The U.N. identified a need for “full and effective redress and reparation, including compensation, official apologies and rehabilitative services” for former comfort women.

An estimated 200,000 women throughout East and Southeast Asia were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Contact ANDREW RUYS DE PEREZ at andrew.ruysdeperez@yale.edu .

Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com

Hundreds filed into the Yale Law School auditorium Monday evening to hear the harrowing testimony of a World War II survivor of wartime internment and sexual slavery.

Ok-Sun Lee, a 90-year-old Korean survivor of World War II, recounted her life as teenager under Japanese rule, when she was kidnapped, physi-

cally beaten and raped. On a speaking tour throughout the Northeast with the organization House of Sharing, Lee — whose experiences label her a “comfort woman” — wants to bring more attention to the crimes committed against her and condemn an agreement made last December between the governments of Korea and Japan that supposedly settled this issue through compensation payments.

OPINION.

BY ANDREW RUYS DE PEREZ CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Residents “green up” Elm City Elm City residents gathered on Saturday to “green up” the city in time for the eighth annual Rock to Rock bike race and Earth Day celebration, which will take place on April 30.

For four hours, more than 150 residents volunteered at sites throughout New Haven, including locations at East Rock and Edgewood parks, New Haven Farms, Columbus House, Bishop Woods School, the Farmington Canal and Common Ground High School.

Rock to Rock will host five bike races of varying distances and will kick off with breakfast and performances from local musicians in the morning. After the race, attendees will gather for celebrations at East Rock Park.

Locals spent the afternoon painting, picking up litter, planting native trees and shrubs and removing graffiti. Other volunteers were hosted at sites on the West River bank of Westville through a partnership between the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and the New Haven Land Trust.

“The several hundred volunteers who pitched in came from many diverse places with a similar goal in mind — to clean and green up New Haven,” Coleen Campbell, Rock to Rock Day of Service co-coordinator, said.

The group of volunteers consisted of students from Common Ground High School, Quinnipiac University and the University of Connecticut, Yale staff, representatives from the Regional Water Authority, Elm Campus Partners and the Seymour Lions Club.

Day of Service Co-Coordinator Michael Pinto, who volunteered at the Edgewood Park site, said one goal of the service day was connecting the volunteer work with the main theme of Rock to Rock: alternative transportation. The large focus of the Edgewood Park site was refurbishing the rest stop and the entrance to the carriageway, which he said has not been updated in the eight years he has lived in Westwood.

It’s interesting to see how we can tie in our ecological aims.

MICHAEL PINTO Co-Coordinator, Rock to Rock Day of Service “Because there is a multi-variety of organizations involved, everyone has a different focus on the ecology aspect,” Pinto said. “It’s interesting to see how we can tie in our ecological aims to the bike theme.”

Pinto’s group repainted the entryway, cleared debris and remarked the bike path. He emphasized the importance of connecting this newly accessible bike entrance with the cycle track the city has planned for Edgewood Avenue. He said this connection will be key to connecting the Edgewood community with Fifth Street and Whalley Avenue, which would allow Elm City residents to access Southern Connecticut State University more easily.

Joel Tolman, director of impact and engagement at Common Ground High School,said he worked at the Common Ground High School site, adding that he was impressed by the diversity of organizations from which volunteers originated.

“We had about 30 volunteers out to get our gardens ready for the growing season, fill the 1,000 bags we give out to our Rock to Rock riders and make signs to welcome folks to our rest stops,” Tolman said.

Pinto added that the Rock to Rock service day is a way to kick off the spring planting season and encourage New Haven residents to think about the outdoors after spending most of the winter inside.

Pinto said he believes events like this are essential in developing civic responsibility and tying together the ideas of service and community activism.

“You can really incorporate that civic-mindedness at an early age with college kids that want to reach out. You just need a way for them to connect to the pre-existing local groups,” Pinto said.

Contact CAITLYN WHERRY at caitlyn.wherry@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

UP CLOSE

“I think it’s important for whatever you are doing ... to seek outside advice. If your world becomes too insular, it limits your creativity.” GEORGINA CHAPMAN ENGLISH FASHION DESIGNER

Yale-NUS searches for niche in Singapore YALE-NUS FROM PAGE 1 host country.

But the fact that Yale-NUS is largely unknown in Singapore is ironic given its controversial reputation elsewhere. Since its inception in 2010, Yale-NUS has stumbled through criticism and controversy. Right from when former-University President Richard Levin announced his partnership in Singapore and the Yale Corporation approved the project without a faculty vote, concerned Yale faculty and higher education scholars opposed the idea, citing the seeming infeasibility of a liberal arts education offered under the auspices of authoritarian government. They also worried about Singapore’s discrimination against LGBTQ groups, as well as the lack of transparency in the Yale–Singapore deal. Charles Ellis ’59, a former member of the Yale Corporation and husband of Linda Lorimer — former University vice president for global and strategic initiatives and a main architect of Yale’s Singapore venture — had ties to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, leading the wider community to mistrust the University’s motivation for its collaboration with Singapore.

Most importantly, critics feared that Singapore’s restriction on free speech would seep its way into Yale-NUS’s classrooms, hindering academic freedom and tarnishing the Yale brand.

While voices against Yale’s Singapore project gradually toned down as Yale-NUS went from an abstract concept to daily reality, a series of controversial episodes served to cement some critics’ doubts toward the young college even further. In 2014, YaleNUS retracted its decision to screen Tan Pin Pin’s “To Singapore, With Love” — a film about political exiles that was banned in Singapore for undermining national security — after Tan declined to give the school permission for its screening. Later that year, NUS’s Office of Housing Services removed Yale-NUS student posters in elevators showing support for the Umbrella Revolution, a series of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. In January of this year, a speech made by Singapore’s ambassador-at-large Chan Heng Chee, who also serves on Yale-NUS’s governing board, sparked debate on campus after Chan defended Singapore’s sodomy law.

Still, some educators watched the experiment with excitement as it grew in size. The school is now home to over 500 students from every continent except Antarctica, and 14 majors ranging from life sciences to urban studies. It has been successful in recruiting star faculty from top universities and securing funding with gifts from prominent Singaporean firms, including Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Singapore Exchange Ltd. The college’s Common Curriculum — a set of

courses compulsory for all students — has been celebrated as an embodiment of Yale-NUS’s mission, one which combines eastern and western education.

Yet, equally, if not more, important than how Yale-NUS’s watchers in New Haven view the partnership is what insiders — Singaporean politicians, peers at other local universities or patrons at Singapore’s signature food markets — think of the school.

“Asia is different from America,” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an address during the October inauguration.

“Yale-NUS therefore needs a curriculum and a college ethos that respond to [its] regional context.”

Lee added that the experiment will fail if Yale-NUS is “just a carbon copy” of Yale in New Haven.

In other words, the question surrounding Yale-NUS is no longer one about possibility, but sustainability.

AN ALOOF NEIGHBOR?

Yale-NUS’s $240 million campus, fully funded by the Singapore government, sets itself apart from the NUS buildings next door with its polished dorms and state-ofart facilities. Those at NUS felt physically separated from the new campus due to its steel gates, which although open most of the time, are perceived by some as a sign of “aloofness.” Before moving into its own campus, YaleNUS had occupied a single building within the expansive NUS domain for the first two years of its existence, sharing classrooms and dining space with its much larger, research-intensive parent institution.

Tension over shared versus separate campus space grew last fall regarding NUS’s usage of distinct Yale-NUS buildings. Not long after Yale-NUS opened its campus, its students voiced concerns about their NUS peers taking over the Yale-NUS library space and leaving many Yale-NUS students unable to find seats. In response, Yale-NUS changed its library opening hours to be open to the public during the day but only accessible to Yale-NUS in the evening, a move Yale-NUS President Pericles Lewis said is justified by the higher tuition fees the school charges, but that NUS students called unfair.

Currently, every Yale-NUS student has two student IDs: one NUS ID that permits him or her to use NUS facilities and one Yale-NUS ID that allows access to Yale-NUS buildings during certain times.

“Yale-NUS seems like a very closed-off place, one isolated from the rest of NUS. People there seem to be in their own world and are very different from us,” said Samara Gang, a freshman at NUS. She added that the appearance of Yale-NUS buildings, its physical boundaries as manifest in the gates and the library trespassing issues only emphasized these differences.

Despite living right across from

Yale-NUS, Gang has never been to its campus. Gang said YaleNUS boasts a sense of elitism and gives her the impression that it only wishes to associate itself with Yale, but not its other parent, NUS. Valerie Ng, a second-year student at NUS, said the limited interaction between the two schools probably makes people regard Yale-NUS students as “snobbish.”

An anonymous NUS student echoed similar sentiment toward the Yale-NUS “stepsibling syndrome,” and questioned why Yale-NUS included “NUS” in its name in the first place if it identifies only with its New Haven parent.

An NUS student who asked not to be identified said that rumors about Yale-NUS circulate around the NUS campus. For example, the student said, NUS students speculated that NUS cut its funding for its University Scholars Program — often regarded as NUS’s first experiment in liberal arts — due to its growing support for YaleNUS. But, Lewis said, although the majority of Yale-NUS’s early funding came from NUS, it is the Singapore government rather than NUS that pays the money.

Still, the anonymous student noted Yale-NUS’s inclusiveness in some respects: talks held by the college are often open to NUS as well. While NUS invites locally prominent speakers, Yale-NUS features more guests with international fame and background, the student added.

Other NUS students interviewed also called Yale-NUS “insular,” but said the same situation occurs within every residential system, even NUS’s own residential colleges.

Yale-NUS therefore needs a curriculum and a college ethos that responds to [its] regional context.

LEE HSIEN LOONG Prime Minister of Singapore “All small liberal arts schools are self-contained to some degree, and I think that to some degree we should be,” Yale-NUS Dean of Students Christopher Bridges said, “Part of what we are doing here is living in community. By its very nature, we are partly selfcontained — in the same way that I would argue Yale, or the School of Engineering at NUS, is selfcontained.”

Still, Bridges said Yale-NUS student organizations often partner with those at NUS, and students compete with their NUS peers at inter-college sports games. For example, the G Spot — Yale-NUS’s primary student club tackling issues on sexuality, gender and feminism — opened its membership to NUS students and

MAP SINGAPORE’S UNIVERSITIES

Nanyang Technological University

YALE-NUS PARENT UNIVERSITIES NUS 28,500 UNDERGRADS RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

YALE-NUS 500 STUDENTS LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE

YALE-NUS

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE (NUS)

ELEANOR PRITCHETT/PRODUCTION & DESIGN STAFF

hosted an orientation for queeridentifying students at both schools.

Lewis said the impression of Yale-NUS being self-contained also stems from the fact that NUS has 37,000 students. Many do not have the chance to meet their peers from Yale-NUS, whose student-body size is only a little over 500. Last fall, several YaleNUS freshmen set up a club called Hyphen to bridge Yale-NUS with its neighbor and parent institution. The Dean of Students Office at Yale-NUS oversees a “Building Bridges” fund, which supports activities aimed at fostering bonds with NUS, Bridges said.

Academically, Yale-NUS students may take language classes taught at NUS, and a sizable group are pursuing a dual degree at NUS’s Faculty of Law. Lewis said criticism from the NUS side is an inevitable process of adjustment. When NUS first opened its University Town, a residential complex with modern housing and a plethora of restaurants, its students living in old dorms outside UTown voiced similar unhappiness, he said, adding that the same issue can play out in New Haven.

Yale-NUS’s seeming aloofness is related to a perceived identity crisis as well. Those in New Haven often confuse Yale-NUS with NUS, lumping the duo together; whereas local residents in Singapore simply refer to Yale-NUS as Yale. Overshadowed by its two established parents, Yale-NUS has to assert its independence, and difference, from both Yale and NUS. Karen Ho YNUS ’17 said YaleNUS students have spent much time talking about how they would like to define a distinct Yale-NUS campus space to help clarify the college’s relationship with NUS and establish its unique culture. While the school has been successful in cultivating its own identity, Yale-NUS might have appeared to be more self-contained along the way, Ho added.

Isabel Perucho YNUS ’18 agreed that Yale-NUS’s relationship with NUS has been a point of contention on campus and was never “clear-cut from the start.”

However, Perucho said fostering Yale-NUS’s own culture needs not come at the expense of interaction with the outside world, as no successful liberal arts college is self-contained.

A POLITICAL OUTLIER?

Yale-NUS College National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore Management University Singapore University of Technology and Design ELEANOR PRITCHETT/PRODUCTION & DESIGN STAFF

YALE

5,500 UNDERGRADS RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

The question of whether Yale-NUS is self-contained goes beyond its ties with NUS to its engagement with Singaporean society more broadly. Nicknamed the “little red dot,” the small island was home to four major universities before Yale-NUS set its footprint there. One can literally travel across the country in less than two hours, and imports make up a large portion of daily essentials. Singapore’s smallness is not the only aspect that makes it stand out, as its political scene has attracted much attention as well. Although Singapore upholds voting rights, a single political party has ruled the country for the 51 years since its founding. More-

over, any mention of the country in the west invokes memory of its chewing gum ban and caning as a form of punishment.

Therefore, many are paying attention to how Yale-NUS, the country’s first and only liberal arts college, engages with its host country politically.

Yale-NUS administrators and students insist that the school does engage with Singapore’s political scene without great constraint, though members of Singapore’s opposition parties say otherwise. The most cited example of Yale-NUS’s involvement with local politics was a talk given

by Chee Soon Juan last fall. Chee is the secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, the country’s second-largest opposition party. In 2012, he travelled to New Haven to discuss the possible pitfalls of Yale’s Singapore project, likening it to a business venture.

Chee told the News that even though he was hosted by YaleNUS, he had to approach the school first to ask for the opportunity. Moreover, Chee, while grateful for the chance to speak, said the event was limited its openness, as he recalled it being a closed-door event with no photography allowed.

In some ways, Chee’s talk seemed representative of a common tension at Yale-NUS: While the college tries to engage with its home country politically, there are inevitable restrictions to how much it can do so.

“I keep asking myself why.

Why?” Chee said. “Have an open discussion; organize a debate for goodness’ sake.”

Kenneth Jeyaretnam, leader of Singapore’s Reform Party, another opposition party, said he was never invited to speak at Yale-NUS and has been denied a platform to speak at other Singaporean universities. Jeyaretnam joined Chee in the 2012 panel at Yale, where he condemned Yale as lending its name to an authoritarian government and “making a pact with a devil.”

According to a 2015 report by Human Rights Watch, Singapore requires local newspapers to renew their registration each year.

The government restricts freedom of assembly except for in one park on the entire island, and government officials have used defamation as a way to silence critics.

Political activities at Yale-NUS, with the school’s American association and commitment to freedom of speech, thus form an important lens to examine how the school engages with Singaporean society.

Chee said the litmus test for Yale-NUS’s political freedom is whether the school will make it possible for the opposition to visit not only during elections, but also to convey its ideologies at other times and recruit interested students to set up youth branches of political parties. He noted that groups similar to the Yale College Democrats and Yale College Republicans are absent at Yale-NUS. In October 2012, Yale-NUS announced such organizations would be prohibited on campus, in accordance with the

nation’s laws.

“If Yale, why not Yale-NUS? The only reason I can think of is that Yale-NUS is in Singapore and has to abide by its rules and regulations,” Chee said. “Where do we get the idea that politics is wrong for university students?”

Chee added that he hasn’t heard any conversation coming from Yale-NUS students asking the “why” question. For Chee and Yale-NUS’s critics in New Haven, the fact that no Yale-NUS student challenged the restriction is troubling. Accepting the government’s rules is a dominant attitude in Singapore’s political culture, and some worried that this culture has begun to find its way into Yale’s Singapore project.

Ai Huy Luu YNUS ’19, who is from Singapore, said though Yale-NUS students cannot set up branches of political parties nor campaign for them on campus, hosting forums is still a good way to engage broader society in political issues. Before Singapore’s parliamentary election last September, Yale-NUS’s International Relations and Political Association hosted a debate among various political parties. Also before the election, a group of juniors at Yale-NUS developed Electionaire, a web survey that allows users to see which Singaporean party best aligns with their political stances.

Luu added that because protests are generally banned in Singapore, much dissent has gone online and many of her peers have used online platforms to voice their opinions.

Lewis agreed, noting that some Yale-NUS students contribute to online outlets with more critical stands toward the government.

And, beyond straight politics, Yale-NUS students have also found ways to engage with cultural and social issues relevant to Singaporean society.

The G Spot, for example, has worked with local NGOs on gender equality and the empowerment of the transgender community. It was the first student organization to receive a Student Initiative Award from AWARE, Singapore’s leading genderequality advocacy group.

Despite students’ effort to branch out, Luu said she understands why so many Singaporeans are unfamiliar with Yale-NUS. The college is still a niche institution and liberal arts remains largely a foreign concept on the island, Luu added.

But Bridges, who moved to Singapore in January, said he has the opposite impression and felt as if “the entire nation is watching Yale-NUS.” He cited the fact that many local newspapers closely follow happenings at Yale-NUS. For example, The Straits Times, Singapore’s most widely circulated newspaper, has an entire webpage titled “Latest: YaleNUS.”

ceivably discriminatory laws on paper. As a result, there is room for Yale-NUS students to freely express themselves within the physical boundaries of the school.

In fact, Yale-NUS includes free expression as the school’s “cornerstone” in its Policies and Procedures.

But despite the school’s desire to be as integrated into Singaporean society as possible, some suggest that a degree of isolation is necessary to uphold a commitment to freedom of speech.

Whether Yale-NUS needs to be self-contained to carry out its mission is a point of disagreement on campus among students.

“Students feel as free on our campus as they do in New Haven,” Lewis told the News. “It’s true that one segment of political freedom is somewhat more restricted here, but people interact in the same ways, debate the same issues and express their views freely.”

For many outside Yale-NUS, however, such political freedom is not guaranteed, and there arises the question of whether YaleNUS needs to be self-contained, at least politically, to live up to its promise of free expression.

Yale-NUS’s commitment to freedom of speech makes it a “safe haven” for people with dissenting political views, Thu Truong YNUS ’18 said.

Truong added that students defend same-sex marriage and freedom of speech on campus but do not aggressively take these views to the streets. The school needs to be somewhat self-contained in order to guard its values, Truong said.

Only two of 15 Yale-NUS students interviewed said the discrepancy between a campus culture and a societal environment made them modify their behaviors when stepping outside campus.

“There are things I would say here and be less strong about when I’m outside,” another anonymous Yale-NUS student said.

“It’s not self-censorship but an unconscious response to the environment I’m in.”

Still, Chee challenged the statement, arguing that it ultimately boils down to self-censorship, a huge part of Singaporean culture.

In a 2014 interview with the News, Salovey said that when Yale set out its plan in Singapore, the administration was aware of Singapore’s more restrictive laws about political speech as compared to those in U.S. He added that the University ultimately decided that the risks “were worth it,” when balanced against the chance to create a new liberal arts experience in Asia. Salovey told The Indian Express in 2015 that a vigorous liberal arts training, with its inherent discussion and dissent, is the best preparation for Singapore’s not-too-distant future of fuller democracy.

An anonymous Yale-NUS student said the campus environment is indeed more tolerant compared to elsewhere in Singaporean society, making people less afraid of speaking their minds. The student added that it is necessary that such open exercises of freedom of speech stay within the walls of the school if Yale-NUS is to preserve and live

up to its values.

“It’s simply not practical to remove the bubble,” the student said. “For example, according to the terms in their Student’s Pass, international students cannot engage in political activities in the country, but they happen to be ones most vocal about political issues.”

For international students, who make up around 40 percent of the Yale-NUS student body, student visas may pose more restrictions.

“You shall not take part in any political or other related activities during your stay in Singapore,” the Terms & Conditions of Singapore’s Student’s Pass states. Generally, every international student pursuing full-time studies in Singapore requires a Student’s Pass to legally stay in the country.

Though the document does not specify what “political or other related activities” entail, Lewis said its primary meaning includes joining a political party or attending protests.

In the same way that the U.S. puts limits on foreigners’ contribution to election campaigns, Singapore has its restrictions on internationals’ political involvement, Lewis said, adding that Singaporeans make up the majority of Yale-NUS’s student body and are free to join political parties or participate in campaigns.

International students tend to engage more with social matters that intersect with politics, Lewis said.

I will only know a boundary if I cross over it, and I will keep going if I don’t. Now I feel free to do whatever.

JULIANNE THOMSON YNUS ’18 All eight Yale-NUS international students interviewed said they do not feel restricted by the term on their Student’s Pass.

Carmen Denia YNUS ’17, a student from the Philippines who has spent eight years in Singapore, said that while the term of the Student’s Pass restricts protests, such activities are now allowed in Singapore anyway, and therefore the term does not present international students with additional barriers. She added that the law does not bar her from attending talks or speaking to ministers, for example.

Peter Lewis YNUS ’18, who hails from Arizona, said he felt comfortable speaking his mind and had been allowed to attend political rallies, suggesting a YaleNUS bubble is not necessary.

“We are guests in this country and the Singapore government provides us with this fantastic education,” he said. “I appreciate it without any feeling that I have to change anything. At the end of the day, I am an American living in this country. I don’t feel the restriction is unjust.”

Julianne Thomson YNUS ’18, who is also American, said she thought about the term before attending Yale-NUS and did not consider it an issue. Thomson said it would have been a problem

if some particular issues compelled her to cross the boundary. If that happens, the Student’s Pass will not be a factor holding her back, she added, though she said she could not envision what issues would prompt her to break the rule in the first place.

“I will only know a boundary if I cross over it, and I will keep going if I don’t. Now I feel free to do whatever,” Thomson said.

Moreover, roughly 15 students interviewed, including those from western countries such as the U.S., said the western conception of an authoritarian Singapore is outdated.

Many Americans’ negative perception of Singapore still dwell in the 1990s, when then-U.S. President Bill Clinton LAW ’73 intervened in the case of Michael Fay, a 18-year-old American who was subjected to caning for theft and vandalism, Patrick Wu YNUS ’19, a student from Georgia, said. Wu added that the news coverage of the episode led to the problematic view of Singapore that still exists today.

Paul Jerusalem YNUS ’19 said the rules are strict in Singapore and those who think of the country as “draconian” and a “police state” may have derived their opinion from existing codes of laws. However, the idiosyncrasy of Singapore is that many laws are there simply to reflect the historically traditional fabric of the society, and as long as one’s actions do not hurt someone else, the government does not “police every single thing,” he added.

Luu, a Singaporean student, agreed, saying that Singapore may seem authoritarian on the surface, but there is a lot of leeway as long as one does not openly dispute the status quo or undermine the state. She added that Singapore gives freedom to academic space.

For example, there are university courses taught about queer issues, as well as courses that argue against some of the tenets of government ministries.

Still, Chee said fear and selfcensorship are a big part of the Singapore culture, and the problem is not so much about the government saying “no,” but rather about individuals submitting to fear. He warned that if Yale-NUS were not careful enough, it will be swallowed up in the culture without realizing it.

DEBUNKING THE “LIBERAL” MYTH

Although the term “liberal” in “liberal arts” is derived from the Latin word “liberalis,” meaning freedom, many today mistake it to mean the opposite of conservative, especially in the political sense. Because of its American brand and its selling point as a liberal-arts experiment, Yale-NUS is often subjected to this misconception from many outsiders.

Declan Low, a fourth-year student at NUS who studied at Yale for one year, said Yale-NUS engages with more controversial topics that Singaporeans usually abstain from, such as LGBTQ advocacy. This difference is responsible for impressions of Yale-NUS as more liberal leaning, he said.

And due to Yale-NUS’s small student body, people unfamiliar

with the college often associate a few vocal, liberal student voices with the entire school. A post on NUS Confessions, a popular Facebook page where members of the public can submit anonymous posts, angrily accused several Yale-NUS students of complaining about how illiberal Singapore was while riding public transit.

And most recently, after a few Yale-NUS students called for Ambassador Chan’s removal from the school’s governing board because she defended the country’s sodomy law, Bilahari Kausikan, another Singaporean ambassador-at-large, lamented the “hopefully noisy minority” liberals of Yale-NUS on Facebook.

While Kausikan made sure not to label the entire Yale-NUS community as liberal, he thought establishing the school was the wrong move.

“I think it was a mistake to have let Yale establish a campus in Singapore. Some sections of the American academy have been behaving in insane ways and their particular band of insanity should not be allowed to be imported into Singapore,” Kausikan wrote in the post.

However defensive or xenophobic these comments seem to many at Yale-NUS, they ultimately speak to a larger issue — how easily Yale-NUS can be wrongly labeled as a habitat for liberals within a conservative social fabric. The fact is, YaleNUS is home to a significant percentage of Singaporean Christian students who tend to identify with more conservative political and social views. For this particular group, misconceptions surrounding their school can be problematic.

An anonymous student said the student body consists of a few liberal advocates but also a considerable conservative, but silent, population.

According to the student, the liberal voice at Yale-NUS is very powerful but not wholly representative of the student body.

Denia, a Christian herself, said the misconception about YaleNUS can be hard for her sometimes, especially when outsiders treat Yale-NUS as a “hotbed for atheists and political revolts.”

Whether cautioning Yale-NUS against a liberal frenzy, calling for more interaction with its neighbor or expressing hopes for its greater political freedom, various parts of Singaporean society harbor different expectations for this young college. Ignorance of Yale-NUS’s existence or skewed impressions of its culture persist despite the college’s efforts to engage with its host country. And even among Yale-NUS’s 500 students, opinions remain divided on whether a degree of self-containedness is necessary to cultivating YaleNUS’s unique culture and uphold its commitment to free expression.

As the college’s polished campus stands tall, tucked in a corner of Singapore, Yale-NUS continues to figure out in which direction to head, how to assert its presence and how to make an impact on this Southeast Asian island.

Contact QI XU at qi.xu@yale.edu .

YALE-NUS FIRST SEVEN YEARS 2009 President Levin and NUS President Tan Chorh Chuan discuss joint liberal arts college idea

APRIL 2011 Yale-NUS launch

MAY 30, 2012 President of Yale-NUS College announced

SEPTEMBER 2010 President Levin and Provost Salovey announce partnership

APRIL 5 , 2012 Yale faculty resolution urges Yale-NUS to uphold practices of non-discrimination and civil liberties

SEPT. 13, 2012 Yale-NUS’s inaugural faculty of 38 professors announced NOV. 30, 2012 Singaporean opposition leaders give a talk at Yale to challenge Yale-NUS

DECEMBER 2012 Core Statement on Freedom of Expression issued by Yale-NUS faculty

JUNE 2013 First class admitted to Yale-NUS

OCT. 12, 2015 Campus inaugurated

SEPTEMBER 2014 Yale-NUS retracts decision to screen banned film JANUARY 2016 Ambassador Chan debate

ELEANOR PRITCHETT/PRODUCTION & DESIGN STAFF

AN INCONSISTENT ROLE?

Even in the face of Singapore’s relative political restrictions, academic institutions like Yale-NUS are afforded a degree of leeway.

A widely held view is that Singapore’s government does not actively enforce its strict and con-

QI XU/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Some of Yale-NUS’s neighbors perceived the young college’s steel gates as a sign of “aloofness.”

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“Money isn’t something I play for. I want to compete. I want to win.”

DIRK NOWITZKI 13-TIME NBA ALL-STAR

When ambition goes too far CUGNON FROM PAGE 12 By 1999, Pantani had been convicted of doping, kicked out of that year’s Giro and suspended from competition. From that point onward, Il Pirata was a shell of his former self, while being disgraced in the eyes of the public and his competitors. Soon after his suspension, Pantani’s career collapsed. La Repubblica, a popular Italian newspaper, published an article linking Il Pirata to a massive doping scandal centered on the distribution of erythropoietin, a dangerous performance-enhancing drug, to a large number of Italian professional athletes. In 2004, Pantani died of a cocaine overdose, his body found alone in a hotel room.

The Pirate had pushed himself overboard, his greatness only contributing to the pressure placed upon him to be greater. Drugs like EPO offered a tantalizing boost to an already exceptional rider, but brought with them not only health risks but career risks as well. The desire to succeed drove Pantani beyond his own capabilities, leading to a collapse that brought drugs, depression and ultimately death.

Athletes, especially the great ones, succeed in part because of a desire to push themselves to the limit, even when it threatens their safety or careers. Think of how many professional football players refuse to leave the field when injured, or how boxers simply refuse to go down after several hard blows to the face. A central danger of athletics, or

any field, appears when one begins to value victory or achievement more than one’s own health and wellbeing.

In many ways, it is easy to equate the difficulties faced by athletes like Pantani to the lives of students here at Yale. While it is likely that none of us will ever win a Grand Tour, we are equally victims of our own success. The self-motivation that has allowed many of us to thrive at Yale is also what keeps so many students from being able to compartmentalize their stress, enjoy the present rather than obsess over the future, and to simply stop and smell the roses.

Achievement as an athlete, student or individual shouldn’t come at the price of one’s health, and it doesn’t have to threaten one’s mental well-being either.

Though my rhetoric might sound a bit idealistic, especially to the most driven and hard-working members of our community, believe me when I say that your work at Yale is not as important as you are. Pantani learned a lesson about the pressure to rise, and every one of us can benefit from his tragic example. Tying your selfworth to your career, passion or triumphs might make you feel incredible when things are going well, but there will be bumps in the road and when those come, we should weather them by realizing that we have intrinsic value, independent of our achievements. Cycling didn’t define Pantani, and Yale doesn’t define us.

In any student’s own pur-

suit of greatness, I would encourage him or her to stop and rest along the way. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in my life is that the run to success is a marathon not a sprint. If you’re not willing to detach yourself from your work, sport or academics, it will absolutely impact your wellbeing, mental health and happiness. Pantani’s value as a person wasn’t defined by whether he became the next Eddy Merckx; it was defined by his own character as an individual and bolstered by the love of the friends and family he surrounded himself with.

Like Margaret Mitchell said in “Gone with the Wind,” “Tomorrow is another day.” There are many opportunities for greatness.

Above all, neither the most incredible victories nor most abject failures define a person. Had Pantani taken that lesson to heart, cycling may not have lost one of its most charismatic protagonists.

Though it may sound cliche, following one’s passions and refusing to be paralyzed by a fear of failure will lead to success further down the road. A legacy is something one builds for oneself, not something defined

by Grand Tour wins, a Phi Beta Kappa membership or a degree. We remember Pantani for his tragic death more so than for his remarkable success and that, to me, is more than enough reason to take a moment out of my day, stop and breathe.

MARC CUGNON is a junior in Calhoun College. Contact him at marc.cugnon@yale.edu .

Elis win in first major regatta

YALE DAILY NEWS

National qualifiers still remain for Yale in both coed and women’s fleet racing.

SAILING FROM PAGE 12 get a chance to score because the round in which he sailed did not finish in time to count at the event, said the team was excited to come in first at the qualifier because it was an “abnormal” win for the Bulldogs. He added that the team’s two-race victory over Boston College demonstrated a significant edge over other teams.

“We are taking a lot of pride and comfort in that going into nationals, knowing that we’re pretty good at not making mistakes,” Baird said. “Even if we are not necessarily the best team in certain aspects, we are the best team all around, and it is pretty hard to mess us up.”

In mild weather conditions on Saturday, Yale raced to six straight victories. Winds shifted around more on Sunday, going from the northeast to the southwest during the course of the day. Still, the Bulldogs were equipped to deal with the adverse weather — Doris said the team had sailed previous regattas at Coast Guard, which prepared the Bulldogs for the loca-

On your mark, get set, go for Yale track TRACK & FIELD FROM PAGE 12 meter races, as well as the 3,000 meter steeplechase, for the Bulldogs.

Building off a fall season replete with personal and school records, five of the 13 men who competed on Friday set personal bests. Two — Spike Sievert ’17 and Scott Meehan ’18 — did so in the 5,000-meter run, with the former beating his personal best by nine seconds and the latter shattering his earlier record by 18 seconds. They finished 31st and 52nd in the 68-man pool, respectively.

In the 1,500-meter event, Trevor Reinhart ’19 led all Elis with a 3:55.41 time in his race debut. Reinhart finished 14th, just ahead of Andre Ivankovic ’17 and his 16th-place result. Teammates John Mahoney ’16 and Thomas Gmür ’18 finished 0.1 seconds apart in 25th and 27th place, respectively, and Matt Chisholm ’18 placed 42nd.

James Randon ’17, who broke the four-minute barrier in the mile at the IC4A Championships last month, carried that momentum into the weekend, completing the 800-meter run in 1:50.37, good enough for a secondplace finish and a new personal best.

Alexander McDonald ’16 placed 17th, less than a second ahead of 25th-place Schan Lartigue ’18, with Michael Yuan ’18 and Tim Cox ’17 rounding out the Yale crop of runners with 42nd- and 47th-place finishes, respectively.

Yuan’s time also marked a new personal best.

The women did even better in Friday’s 800-meter race. Frances Schmiede ’17, who broke the school’s mile record on two occasions in the winter season, finished second with a 2:11.10, only 0.39 seconds off her personal best. Emily Waligurski ’17 set a new personal best with a 2:12.11, placing fourth in the same event. Meredith Rizzo ’17 and Gabrielle Rinne ’19 also finished among the top 10 runners, earning seventh- and ninthplace results, while Kate Raphael ’18 and Grace Brittan ’16 rounded out the Eli competitors with 22nd- and 24thplace finishes.

Though the nine other women did not finish within the top 10 in the other three events, all three entrants in the 1,500-meter run — Melissa Fairchild ’18, Ellie Atkinson ’19 and Elizabeth McDonald ’16 — finished in the upper half of the 49-runner pool.

Of the five Bulldogs who competed in the 5,000-meter race, Clare Carroll ’18 — competing for the first time in over a year — crossed the finish line first, ending up in 11th place.

In that same race, Chandler Olson ’17 set a new personal best by over a min-

tion’s strong current and “really weird” shifty wind conditions.

Yale lost only to Dartmouth on Sunday, finishing with a nearperfect 10–1 record. The 10 wins included eight in which the Bulldogs placed two boats ahead of their opponents’ fastest boat.

The Bulldogs also had the chance to increase their record even further, but the races of a final round of five ended up not being counted for points because it could not be finished before a final cutoff of 4:30 p.m. Still, the first three of those five races were won by Eli sailors, including Baird.

“We have had other regattas over the season where the final round did not count,” Kiss said.

“In this event it would not have changed our final position because we won the three races we sailed in the final round.”

This weekend’s race officially ended the team’s regular racing season, and the Bulldogs will now begin preparing for their upcoming fleet races.

Unlike this weekend’s team racing, the fleet races are individual,

YALE DAILY NEWS

ute, finishing in 17:32.91 to notch 15th place.

Rachel Jones ’17, Yale’s sole entrant in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, set a new personal best with an 11:22.69 time.

The following day, the sprinters and throwers competed against local schools at an invitational honoring former Yale cross country and track and field coach Mark Young ’68, who retired after the 2010 cross country season.

On the men’s side, the freshman class made an emphatic debut, with five members of the class of 2019 notching team-best finishes.

Three of those team-best finishes were also top-three overall: Austin Laut ’19 won the pole vault, Connor Hill ’19 tied for second in the 110meter hurdles and Cody Clements ’19 finished third in the high jump.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Shih ’19 and Marcus Downs ’19 placed fourth in the long jump and discus, respectively.

Other Eli throwers performed well, with Jacob Hoops ’18 finishing among the top 10 in both discus and shot put, and Luke Persichetti ’17 coming in eighth in the hammer throw.

“I think it put the throwers in a nice point to launch for the rest of the season,” Downs said of Saturday’s meet.

The lone Yale distance runner to compete on Saturday, Max Payson ’16 set a new personal record with a fifthplace, 4:03.35 finish in the 1,500meter run.

The women did best in the shortdistance races, notching four top-10 finishes in the 400-meter dash. Shan-

non McDonnell ’16 came in second, with Lower right behind her in her 400-meter collegiate debut.

In the 1,500-meter run, Andrea Masterson ’19 and Kelli Reagan ’18 finished fourth and sixth, just nine-hundredths of a second apart.

Additionally, the hurdlers performed well in their debuts, with Bridget Tobias ’19 coming in second in the 400-meter hurdles and Lindsey Combs ’19 and Alexandra Lee ’19 finishing fifth and seventh, respectively, in the 100-meter hurdles.

Meanwhile, Evelyn Roberts ’19 and Kate Simon ’17 set new personal records in the hammer throw, finishing second and fourth, respectively. Roberts’ mark of 48.44 meters — seventhbest in Yale history — is more impressive considering it marked her Yale debut in the event.

The strength of the freshmen performances on both the men’s and women’s sides bodes well for teams seeking their first Ivy League outdoor championships since the 1968 and 1987 seasons, respectively.

“I’m excited for Harvard–Yale this Saturday, and [Ivy League Heptagonals] in several weeks, because running against the other Ivies is always fun and it puts a lot of pride on the line,” Lower said. “That tends to be when people bring their best competitive efforts and get exciting results.”

Both Yale teams welcome Harvard to the Dewitt Cuyler Athletic Complex this weekend.

Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .

Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu .

Spring winding down for golf GOLF FROM PAGE 12

Austin Puleo ’17 completed the 800-meter run in 2:03.95 on Saturday, good for 16th out of 26 runners.

which means the team’s practices will change significantly in the upcoming weeks, focusing on boat speed and fleet race tactics, Kiss said.

“We are just going to keep our approach — we work well, have productive discussions, have fun, work together and there is no negative attitude,” Doris said.

“We will keep doing that. We are less focused on results and just improving all the time.”

The fleet racing national qualifier is the New England Dinghy Championship, to be held at Dartmouth on April 30 and May 1. Until then, the Elis have regattas every weekend in preparation, including three next weekend.

The No. 2 Yale women’s sailing team, meanwhile, will attempt to qualify for the national championship during the Reed Trophy, hosted by Yale on April 23–24. The Bulldogs placed seventh at Connecticut College’s Emily Wick Trophy this past weekend.

matically on Sunday and shot a 70 (-1), including four birdies. Will Bernstein ’18, however, failed to improve upon his first-round effort, shooting a 73 on Saturday only to follow up with a 78 on Sunday. Two-sport athlete James Nicholas ’19, who spent the fall with the Yale football program, continued to impress in his first season with the golf team after shooting a 74 in both rounds, behind six birdies.

Yale finished as one of six schools within three strokes of each other, one being No. 42 Georgia Tech. The sole other ranked school in attendance was No. 20 Duke, which won with a 543 (-25).

“Our lineup is very deep, and if we all play to our potential, there is no reason why we can’t bring home the Ivy League title this year,” Wang said.

The women were led by Jennifer Peng

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

Julie Luo ’19 finished in a tie for 31st in the 75-person field.

’18, who managed to shoot a team-low 229, which was 13 over par at the threeround event. Peng bookended her weekend with two very strong performances of 73 and 75, including back-toback birdies on both days. After completing the first round tied for fourth individually, her second-round score of a 81 dropped her from the leaderboard, in large part due to a quadruple bogey on the ninth hole. Peng’s Sunday rally enabled her to salvage a tie for 18th.

“Overall, I felt my game was more stable and better than it was last week,” Peng said. “I was proud of the team for pulling through and playing through the tough conditions, especially with 36 holes on the first day. It was really windy out there so I think overall it made the course harder.”

Julie Luo ’19 shot an impressive second-round 74 (+2), which included three birdies. Luo’s three-round score was only a few strokes behind Peng’s, sitting at 234. Luo and Peng, who both eagled the par-5 13th hole in the first round, were two of the three total competitors to eagle at River Landing. “[The 13th hole] was a pretty straightforward par-5, and played shorter that day because the wind was with us,” Luo said. “Jennifer is a straight, long hitter, and two good shots took her just short of the green, where she made an awesome 30-footer for eagle. I got a bit luckier in which I actually pitched in from about 30 yards out for eagle.”

Deanna Song ’16 shot a 241 (+25), with her strongest performance being a two-birdie performance during Saturday’s second round, ending in a 78. Sara Garmezy ’17 shot a 249, tallying scores of 84, 82 and 83 over the three rounds.

Also competing were freshmen Sabrina Long ’19 and Sydney Babiak ’19. Babiak finished only a few strokes behind Song with a 247, including a 77 in the first round. While Long tallied a 257 — which included three triple bogeys on the seventh hole — she shot significantly better on the back nine, where she birdied twice.

Yale finished behind all three fellow Ancient Eight schools, as Harvard finished third (+41), Penn finished fifth (+58) and Columbia finished seventh (+72).

While the men compete again next Saturday at home in the Yale Spring Invitational, the women will now focus their attention on the Ivy League Championships in two weeks.

Contact SEBASTIAN KUPCHAUNIS at sebastian.kupchaunis@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

TOMORROW

Showers, mainly before noon. High near 56. Chance of precipitation is 100%.

High of 55, low of 38.

A WITCH NAMED KOKO BY CHARLES BRUBAKER

ON CAMPUS TUESDAY, APRIL 12 9:00 AM Canada in the World: Comparative Perspectives on the Canadian Constitution. This conference will gather leading scholars in comparative public law to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Constitution of Canada. The program will feature four panels structured around a keynote address by The Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, chief justice of Canada. Sterling Law Buildings (127 Wall St.), Faculty Lounge.

6:00 PM Third Annual Yuri’s Night at Yale. Join Yale astronomers for the world space party at Yale’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium. Celebrate human spaceflight on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first orbit in space with special planetarium shows, telescope viewing (weather permitting), rockets, raffles and fun activities for kids and adults. Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium (355 Prospect St.).

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13 11:00 PM Blood Drive. From 11 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. the Yale University Police SWAT Team in cooperation with the Yale Navy ROTC Undergraduate Association will be hosting a blood drive at YPD headquarters, in the rear of the building. Yale Police Department (101 Ashmun St.), Parking Lot. 6:00 PM Battles of Nepali Nationalism: A tale of Kathmandu’s constitution, Tarai’s resistance and Indian diplomacy. Prashant Jha is an associate editor with the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, and author of the critically acclaimed book, “Battles of the New Republic — A Contemporary History of Nepal.” Jha covers both domestic politics and India’s regional policy and has spoken widely on Nepali political transformation. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), Rm. 202.

To reach us: Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Stephanie Addenbrooke at (203) 432-2418.

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

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FOR RELEASE APRIL 12, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Gearshift letters 6 Where a baby develops 10 Largemouth fish 14 Pianist Chick with 22 Grammys 15 Sheltered, at sea 16 Johnson of “Laugh-In” 17 Banjo sound 18 Org. with many long missions 19 Whopper maker?

20 “Fine, don’t listen to me” 23 Old TV-top receiver 26 Calms 27 Lobster-steak combo 31 Prefix with -logue 32 “Airplane!” actor Robert 33 “We don’t know yet,” in a TV schedule 36 Corner-to-corner line: Abbr.

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2 Use oars 3 Org. promoting hunter safety 4 Navigational hazard

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5 Southern California’s __ Beach 6 Classified listing 7 Skin care brand with an Active Botanicals line 8 Middle: Pref.

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28 Green digit?

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30 Sandwich bread 33 Place for a crown or cap 34 Lawn bowling game 35 Pharaohs’ crosses

Monday’s Puzzle Solved

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5

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37 Norah Jones’ “What Am __ You?” 38 Modern, in Munich 39 “Enter the Dragon” martial artist 41 Hollywood favorite 44 Praised 45 Waste watchers: Abbr.

46 Cloak’s partner

4/12/16

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7 6 4 6 3 9 7 8 6 7 9 3 6 2 5 9 3 7 5 4 9 3

THURSDAY High of 57, low of 37.

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Placental inflammation can contribute to pre-term birth

BY GRACE CASTILLO STAFF REPORTER New Yale research suggests that asymptomatic viral infections could lead to preterm births by inducing inflammatory responses in mothers’ placentae, a finding that could eventually help prevent the 50 percent of pre-term births without any obvious risk factors.

Researchers wanted to investigate whether viruses could impact interferon beta, a protein involved in immune response that is found in the placenta.

They found that viruses dysregulated interferon beta, leading to a robust placental inflammatory response when even very low levels of bacteria were present. For the study, the researchers used “knockout” mice, which were genetically modified to have low levels of interferon beta.

Study results showed that all the mice who had dysregulated interferon beta in the placenta and who were exposed to both a virus and low levels of bacteria had preterm births.

According to study co-authors, this finding could enhance scientific understanding of how immune response during pregnancy impacts fetal development.

“The study provides a new model that was not previously considered. We refer to it as the ‘two-hit’ model,” said Ayman El-Guindy GRD ’03, study co-author and professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

“The most interesting finding is that all animals receiving viral infection and bacterial products experienced pre-term birth — 100 percent.” In this model, the inflammatory response induced by viruses is what ultimately causes the pre-term birth, not the viruses themselves.

El-Guindy said the study was inspired by the significant number of pregnancies affected by pre-term birth. Roughly 12 percent of pregnancies end in pre-term birth, and in half of these cases, there are no clear risk factors. Every year, there are almost 1 million neonatal deaths as a result of pre-term birth, El-Guindy added.

The researchers exposed mice to a virus to assess the virus’s effect on inflammation and pre-term birth, El-Guindy said.

They examined the virus’s impact both in the absence and presence of bacterial products. All of the mice exposed to both

the virus and the bacterial product experienced pre-term birth.

Gil Mor, study co-author and professor at the medical school, explained that the placenta has two main immunologic functions: to enhance the mother’s immune system and to prevent viruses and bacteria from reaching the fetus. If a virus did reach the fetus, he added, it would result in stillbirth or miscarriage. Interferon beta helps mediate the placenta’s dual role, so when viruses interfered with interferon beta, the placenta was no longer as effective at its preventative and protective roles.

Mor noted that although hospitals in the United States and other developed countries are often able to provide care for pre-term infants, babies in developing and underdeveloped countries may not receive the specialized treatments that they need, and therefore have higher rates of mortality. In lowincome countries, roughly half of babies born before 32 weeks die, while almost all similarly pre-term babies in developed countries survive, according to the World Health Organization.

Since the study indicated that the mother’s immune response, rather than the virus itself, could impact the fetus, it points to research about other fetal outcomes. Research could investigate placental inflammation’s role on autism, schizophrenia, Zika and much more, according to study co-authors. The researchers emphasized the importance of further study into this type of inflammatory response, since it could have important implications for the health of both babies and mothers.

Contact GRACE CASTILLO at grace.castillo@yale.edu .

YANNA LEE/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

Researchers unlock pathway responsible for allergies

BY ANAMIKA VEERAMANI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A new Yale study has uncovered the regulatory pathway responsible for eliciting allergic responses.

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have identified TYRO3 — a key regulator of cellular processes and an important receptor of the immune system — that is responsible for regulating the mechanism that mediates both allergic reactions and parasitic infections. The findings of this study not only elucidate the mechanism being regulated, but also hint at future t h e ra p e u tic treatments that aim to regulate these r e a c -

ASHLYN OAKES/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

tions in human patients, study authors said. The study was published in the journal Science on April 1.

“The most important takeaway here is that we identified a previously unknown receptor tyrosine kinase as a regulator of this Type II immune response. This response comes into play not only in allergies and asthma, but also in parasite infection,” said Pamela Chan, a former Yale graduate student in immunobiology and

first author on the paper. This finding highlights a dichotomy in the receptor’s function, a key point of the study. Because the pathway in question mediates immune responses in two distinct cases — that of an allergy or asthma attack and that of a parasitic attack — the pathway can be regulated in a number of ways, Chan said.

She described the research itself as “very basic science,” explaining that the group used knockout mice and some human cell lines to investigate the pathway. The next steps, however, will be to expand the boundaries of the research, and eventually extend the research findings to humans, Chan said.

“We’re still very, very pre-clinical stage,” she said. “We used mouse models because there are research protocols you can do with mouse models that you can’t do with humans. But at the end of the day, we don’t want to cure mice, we want to cure humans.”

Carla Rothlin, senior author on the study and medical school professor, also said that the future steps for these findings have significant pharmacological implications in the treatment of allergic reactions, asthma and parasitic worm attacks.

Researchers examined specific disease markers in order to identify how best to utilize their knowledge of the newly characterized regulatory pathways.

Rothlin said they found that patients with asthma have a different sequence in the gene for the TYRO3 receptor. Researchers currently do not know what difference in the gene changes the human immune response, but they know that genetic mutation in the Type II immune response pathway has been linked to asthma in some patients, according to study authors.

However, Rothlin noted that because disease pathology is very nuanced, it is

almost impossible to say that a genetic mutation is the only cause for a disease.

“These diseases are very complex.

We won’t necessarily have allergies or asthma just because we have a change in the receptor — the diseases are the result of a variety of components: genetic, environmental, others too,” she said.

Sourav Ghosh, study co-author and professor at the medical school, acknowledged that future therapeutic possibilities are on the horizon but said those kinds of therapies are a long way away.

“This is just the beginning,” he said.

“It’s really important to make the discovery first and then think about how to translate it into novel pharmaceutical therapies later.”

However, the group has been theorizing different ways to change the regulation of the pathway, now that its normally regulated state is known.

Rothlin described the two therapeutic possibilities in regulating this receptor.

“Either you could activate this receptor — this inhibitor — and reduce the magnitude of this response, which is potentially a way to reduce this intense of a response in asthma or allergy cases,” Rothlin said. “Or, you could inhibit this inhibitor, thereby boosting this type of response, and amplify the same response as a protective immune response against helminths [a type of parasitic worm]. In this case, you could have a much better immune response to parasitic infection.”

Rothlin said she is cautions, yet optimistic, about long-term therapeutic implications. She added that her lab is excited to see if there are other uses for this new knowledge. One other potential use is in diagnostics.

Rothlin is hopeful that this newest finding concerning the Type II immune response pathway and the receptor TYRO3’s involvement with the pathway regulation will set the foundation for future research in the area.

“Each discovery that one makes is based off of past discoveries that others have made,” she said.

The Type II immune response was first identified as an immune pathway in 1963.

Contact ANAMIKA VEERAMANI at anamika.veeramani@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

“I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing ... finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.”

JAMES THURBER AMERICAN CARTOONIST AND JOURNALIST

Humans see less than they think

BY ADWOA BUADU CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A recent Yale cognitive science study, published in the journal Cognition, has demonstrated that humans can be aware of a visual image’s statistical information without perceiving its individual elements.

The study, published online last month, plays into an ongoing debate about whether humans execute sparse or rich visual awareness. Those who have done research on change blindness — a visual phenomenon in which people do not notice a major

change in an image — believe that people normally execute sparse awareness. On the other hand, there are other perceptual psychologists who believe that people actually execute rich visual awareness due to iconic memory — vivid short-term memory for visual images — but people just do not report how much they remember. The Yale study suggests that people have sparse awareness but an overarching understanding of an image’s statistical properties, study authors said.

“There’s this interesting conflict where, on one hand, you feel like you’re really aware of everything in the world; on the other hand, you know that you actually miss a lot of what’s happening.

And so, with this study … I wanted to try and figure out if there was a way to possibly reconcile these two views,” said Emily Ward GRD ’16, co-author of the study and a Yale psychology Ph.D. candidate specializing in cognitive neuroscience.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Yale Perception & Cognition Laboratory under cog-

ASHLYN OAKES/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

nitive science professor Brian Scholl.

Participants were placed at computers that first displayed a fixation primer: a cross in the middle of the screen where participants were directed to look, then a white rectangle and finally a 4-by-6 array of colored alphabet letters. This array had letters with either high or low color diversity.

After the array, the participants were shown a black screen followed by a “spatial letter cue,” a white-bordered square.

“The design of the study was, on one hand, if you’re aware of all of these rich details, you should be able to report specific parts of a scene, you should also be able to report general properties of a scene, and you should notice changes to any of those individual elements,” Ward said.

In the first experiment, 12 participants were instructed to report the letter they had been directed to. Then, they were asked to report if they thought the color diversity of the array was low or high. The participant could answer either in regards to the specific cued row or the rest of the array. Finally, participants were asked to select one out of four experiences describing how clearly they were able to perceive the colors of the letters ranging from no color perception to detailed perception of individual colors of letters.

The second experiment, which involved 24 participants, was similar to the first experiment, but participants were shown the array twice. For half of the trials, the colors of the non-cued letters of the array were changed the second time the array flashed on the screen. Participants, who reported

the letter they were cued to see, were asked if they were aware of the color change and the amount of color diversity in the array.

The third experiment, which involved 36 participants, was nearly identical to the second experiment, except at the onset, the array did not have specific letters, but identical color “digital placeholders” that changed into letters and stayed on the screen until the screen went black.

The methods of this study were modeled after those from the study “We See More Than We Can Report: ‘Cost Free’ Color Phenomenality Outside Focal Attention,” published online in the journal Psychological Science. Both studies found that participants were able to report the color diversity of the non-cued rows in the array, even when they could not detect any individual changes in the letters. However, the 2014 study authors concluded that this gives credence to theory of rich awareness, claiming participants stored the visual information in shortterm memory. The study authors claimed that the short-term iconic memory would disappear before participants could report the detailed information.

The current Yale study, however, drew the conclusion that people were not recognizing the individual details, giving more credence to the phenomenon of sparse visual awareness, Ward said.

According to Ward, the next step is to investigate to see if there is a mechanism that allows for visual information to register a perception into consciousness.

Contact ADWOA BUADU at adwoa.buadu@yale.edu .

Study finds link between genetics and cannabis dependence

BY ZAINAB HAMID CONTRIBUTING REPORTER According to a recently published Yale-led study, the presence of specific genes indicates a predisposition to cannabis dependence. These genes were also found to be linked to higher incidences of schizophrenia and major depression.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry on March 30, analyzed the genes of over 14,000 people sampled from three independent substance-dependence studies: the Yale-Penn study; the Study of Addiction: Genetics and Environment; and the International Consortium on the Genetics of Heroin Dependence. Data were analyzed over a three-year period, between January 2013 and November 2015. The researchers found three genetic variants that were significantly associated with cannabis dependence, as well as evidence of genetic overlap between cannabis dependence, schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. The study was the first of its kind to uncover specific genetic variants linked to cannabis dependence, according to the study authors.

“We identified genetic variants in particular regions of the genome that are significantly associated with risk of cannabis dependence,” said Lindsay Farrer, co-author of the study and medical geneticist at Boston University School of Medicine. “The other primary finding is that by looking at the totality of the genetic result, we were able to identify some shared genetic underpinnings between cannabis dependence and two other disorders, namely schizophrenia and major depression.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the U.S. Marijuana use is especially prevalent among youths.

Although rates of marijuana use have steadied in the past few years, after several years of increase, the number of young people who consider marijuana use risky is decreasing, according to a nationwide, yearly survey of middle and high school students.

A 2007 report published by the National Institutes of Health found that 9 percent of people who use marijuana will become dependent. Addi-

tionally, the report found that adolescents who smoke marijuana are at increased risk of “adverse health and psychosocial consequences,” including sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, early school dropout, delinquency and legal problems. While the concept of marijuana dependence is often questioned, the authors of the NIH report found that dependence on marijuana functions much like other substance-dependence disorders. Frequent marijuana users perceived it as difficult to stop using the drug and reported experiencing withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, anger and difficulty sleeping if they did.

The Yale-led research team hopes that its new study will help draw attention to the potential harms attached to the use of marijuana.

“We hope our findings help bring more awareness to the public that cannabis use is often not benign and can lead to dependence, especially in individuals at high genetic risk,” Joel Gelernter ’79, senior author of the study and professor of psychiatry, genetics and neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine, told Live Science.

While the Yale study found an association between specific genetic variants and

cannabis dependence, the research cannot prove that cannabis dependence is actually caused by the genes, according to the study.

While this particular study found shared genetic underpinnings between cannabis dependence and certain psychiatric illnesses, other research, including a 2016 study conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, found evidence that suggests that the use of cannabis may lead to depressive symptoms. Meanwhile, other research, such as a 2014 study led by Dr. Lydia Shier of the Boston Children’s Hospital, found that people experiencing depressive symptoms may self-medicate with cannabis.

Richard Sherva, co-author of the study and professor at Boston University School of Medicine, said that a causal link between cannabis dependence and psychiatric illness is hard to prove.

He added that while it is possible that people who are experiencing early symptoms

of schizophrenia or major depression may self-medicate in order to alleviate some of their symptoms, “it is probably the case that people who have either certain environmental or genetic risk factors are prone to both things.”

According to the NIH, in 2014, close to 6 percent of 12th graders reported daily use of marijuana, and 81 percent said the drug was easy to get.

Contact ZAINAB HAMID at zainab.hamid@yale.edu .

CATHERINE PENG/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

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STU WILSON ’16 MILESTONE MOMENT FOR FORWARD Less than a month removed from the end of his Yale men’s hockey career, Wilson recently scored his first career goal in his second professional contest. The senior lit the lamp on Sunday for the AHL’s Rochester Americans in a 2–0 win for his team.

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“Our lineup is very deep, and if we all play to our potential, there is no reason why we can’t bring home the Ivy League title this year.”

LI WANG ’17 MEN’S GOLF

SHIYUAN MAO ’17 AND TJ DEMBINSKI ’17 OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN The two juniors were each elected by their teammates last week to captain their respective squash teams. Dembinski is set to lead the defending national champion men’s squad, and Mao will lead the women’s team in the 2016–17 season.

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

Wang ’17 paces third-place result

BY SEBASTIAN KUPCHAUNIS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER While much of the golf world was focused on Augusta National and the Masters Championship this past weekend, the Yale men’s and women’s golf teams had their own business to attend to, with the men competing in the Princeton Invitational and the women contending for the River Landing Classic.

With all Ivies except for Dartmouth in attendance in New Jersey, the Yale men tied for third overall with host Princeton in a field of 15 schools, shooting 10 over par and just one stroke behind Harvard.

Meanwhile, 13 women’s teams travelled to Wallace, North Carolina, including a trio of Ivy foes in Penn, Harvard and defending league champion Columbia.

Yale ultimately took 12th place by shooting 84 strokes over par, 50 strokes behind tournament winner No. 30 East Carolina.

The highlight for the men, who had won this tournament five of the past six years, was the particularly strong performance of Li Wang ’17. Wang’s 138 (-4) over the two rounds of competition was good for fourth-best individually at the tournament, only four strokes behind the leader. He registered seven of Yale’s 25 birdies, which ranked third most of any school at the invitational.

“I think that the team played well overall,” Wang said. “I am proud of the way we handled the adverse conditions on [Saturday] when it was cold, windy and raining throughout the round. We dug in deep and

managed to post a decent score that kept us in the tournament.”

Wang was very consistent in Saturday’s round, which was originally scheduled for 36 holes but cut to 18 due to weather, as he shot par on both halves of the course with a birdie and only one bogey in a consistent showing.

His second day was even stronger: He shot a 67 (-4), with six birdies — including four in a five-hole span on the back nine. His 67 on Sunday was two strokes off the best individual performance of the weekend, a first-round 65 completed by Duke’s Jake Shuman.

“I did a good job of eliminating unnecessary mistakes from my scorecard this weekend,” said Wang, who finished in a tie for ninth at last year’s Princeton Invitational. “I only made three bogeys the entire tournament so any birdies I made allowed me to go under par. The course wasn’t playing too difficult but you had to know which holes to attack and which to play for pars.”

Eoin Leonard ’19 had the second-best scorecard for the Bulldogs, shooting a 148, behind a 72 and 76. Five of his seven birdies over the weekend came on the front nine, including twice on the par-4 third hole. Joe Willis ’16 finished one stroke behind his freshman teammate at 149, shooting a low of 73 in the first round.

Jonathan Lai ’17 had a difficult start to his weekend, shooting an 81 on Saturday after opening the round at four over par through three holes.

However, Lai rebounded dra-

MARC CUGNON

Lessons from a Pirate

SEE GOLF PAGE 8

GOLF

BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER The Yale men’s and women’s track and field teams opened their outdoor seasons this weekend, competing at the Sam Howell Invitational at Princeton on Friday before playing hosts for the third annual Mark T. Young Invitational on Saturday.

TRACK & FIELD Though both meets were unscored, each marked a solid start for both teams as they embark on their spring

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

Joe Willis ’16 was Yale men’s golf’s fourth-best finisher at Princeton, winding up at seven over par in the two-round invitational.

campaigns a year after both squads finished eighth in the Ivy League.

“This weekend was slightly different than a typical meet because many of the distance events were held at Princeton on Friday, while our sprinters and throwers mostly competed on Saturday,” middle-distance runner Emma Lower ’19 said.

At the Sam Howell Invitational, 13 men competed for Yale in the 800-, 1,500- and 5,000-meter races, while 15 women competed in the 800-, 1,500- and 5,000SEE TRACK & FIELD PAGE 8

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

Andrea Masterson ’19 (#11) and Kelli Reagan ’18 (#5) finished fourth and sixth, respectively, in the 1500-meter run on Saturday.

Yale wins New England Team Race Championship

BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER

the Bulldogs never checked off their list — until this weekend.

The No. 2 Yale coed sailing team has won the team racing national championship for the past three years, asserting itself as the country’s most decorated sailing squad in recent history. But in that span of success, there remained one meaningful accomplishment

SAILING For the first time in this decade, Yale won the New England Team Race Championship, qualifying for nationals with sheer dominance on waters near the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. The Bulldogs

In 1998, Italian professional cyclist Marco Pantani was on top of the world. The diminutive climber had reached a figurative mountaintop in his sport, becoming the seventh cyclist ever to win both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France — the two most prestigious Grand Tours — in a single year. Pantani won with the sort of style and panache expected of a man nicknamed Il Pirata (the Pirate) and had skyrocketed himself into the company of cycling legends, of whom only a handful had ever equaled his feat.

The little rider from Cesena became the most celebrated athlete in his country, returning home to parades, roaring crowds and above all, unmatched expectations. Winning a Grand Tour double can make a rider’s career, but with it comes the added pressure of comparisons to legends like Bernard Hinault and the greatest champion of all, Eddy Merckx.

SEE CUGNON PAGE 8

Yale track teams jump out of blocks

won 10 out of their 11 races in the regatta, which marked the first major event of the team’s spring season.

“With a team like ours, my job is easy — everyone is so talented and works hard on being the best we can be,” captain and skipper Mitchell Kiss ’17 said.

“We are very happy to have qualified with a first-place finish at the qualifiers. We don’t

know if Yale sailing has ever done that before.”

The win marked the first at this regatta since at least the 2009 season, the earliest date for which records are still available on Yale’s website. In placing first this year, the Bulldogs beat out regional foes such as No. 8 Brown, No. 11 Dartmouth, No. 10 Harvard and No. 4 Boston College,

which finished second with an 8–3 record.

Working in the Yale boats were skippers Ian Barrows ’17, Kiss and Malcolm Lamphere ’18 and crews Clara Robertson ’17, Charlotte Belling ’16, Natalya Doris ’17 and Chandler Gregoire ’17.

Nic Baird ’19, who did not SEE SAILING PAGE 8

COURTESY OF NATALYA DORIS

The Bulldogs won 10 of their 11 races en route to victory at the regatta.

STAT OF THE DAY 3

THE NUMBER OF CONSECUTIVE WEEKS DURING WHICH THE YALE MEN’S LACROSSE TEAM HAS BEEN RANKED THE NO. 1 TEAM IN THE NATION BY THE USILA COACHES POLL. Yale, the nation’s only undefeated team, also moved from No. 3 to No. 2 in the Inside Lacrosse media poll on Monday.