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T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · VOL. CXXXV, NO. 87 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY CLEAR

43 29

CROSS CAMPUS

AUTISM DIAGNOSING INFANTS EARLY

SINGAPORE

HOUSING

MEN’S TENNIS

New program to explore experiential learning in the real world

CONNECTICUT MARKET SEES FAVORABLE SIGNS

Bulldogs no longer undefeated following weekend in Nashville

PAGE 6–7 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

PAGE 3 NEWS

PAGE 3 CITY

PAGE 12 SPORTS

SNOW DAY, TAKE TWO

Her Holiness? Several eager

Yalies have drafted an official White House petition urging the Obama administration to nominate University Vice President and Yale celebrity Linda Lorimer to the papacy. The popular administrator — who reached star status after she announced that classes would be canceled following Hurricane Sandy and last weekend’s blizzard — has been known to inspire ecstatic behavior among undergraduates. Upon receiving her emails, students have reportedly raised their hands in praise, looked up at the stars and chanted “Sunday night Toad’s!” in unison.

BY JULIA ZORTHIAN STAFF REPORTER

— remain impassable. City Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Emergency Management Robert Smuts ’01 said on Monday afternoon that he hoped about 95 percent of the streets would be passable sometime this morning, but he

Cory Booker LAW ’97, Newark mayor and potential United States Senate candidate, will be delivering this year’s Class Day address on May 19. Class Day Co-Chairs Jonny Barclay ’13 and Chantal Ghanney ’13 announced Booker as the Class Day speaker in an email to the class of 2013 on Monday night. Booker, currently in his second term of office, is a rising figure on the national political scene, and Barclay and Ghanney told the News they chose him for his skills in oratory and hands-on attitude. “In our mind, he represents this new, modern generation of public servants,” Barclay said. “We think that his amazing work in Newark and his ability to engage his constituents has really made a mark, and that sort of presence and force of character is something we’re very excited about.” Barclay and Ghanney said Booker topped their list of potential Class Day speakers from “day one.” They started brainstorming options last spring with Special Assistant to the President and

SEE BLIZZARD PAGE 4

SEE CLASS DAY PAGE 4

Speaking of Lorimer. Though

the papal nominee has been sending warning emails to Yalies following the blizzard, she is reportedly in Paris right now, safely an ocean away from the Elm City’s 3 feet of snow. Before then, Lorimer was in Florida. Looks like you really can have it all.

Once again, Yale’s hookup culture takes the spotlight. In

Helen Rittelmeyer’s review of Nathan Harden’s “Sex and God at Yale,” Rittelmeyer argued that the University’s pervasive hookup culture is not a result of declining morals, but rather Yale students’ natural desire to aim for perfection in all fields. Numerous hookups are a means of improving performance and reaching excellence, Rittelmeyer wrote.

Excited about no class?

Not everyone. Some lucky Yalies still get to trudge through the snow and hit the books. Students in Mark Oppenheimer’s course “Classics of Political Journalism” will be meeting today and discussing McCarthyism. The lesson? Journalism stops for no one, not even Nemo.

Cory Booker named Class Day speaker

BRIANNA LOO/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Students celebrated the University’s first cancellation of classes due to snow since 1978. BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER With New Haven still recovering from the weekend blizzard’s wrath, classes have been canceled for a second day in a row. As Elm City snow removal continues, city and University offi-

cials decided to keep Yale students and employees off the streets for another day to expedite the cleanup process and promote campus safety. Although the main and secondary roads in the city are now clear for vehicular traffic, some neighborhood roads — on which many Yale employees and professors live

Sig Ep added to tailgate lawsuit BY CYNTHIA HUA AND LORENZO LIGATO STAFF REPORTERS A lawsuit filed by Sarah Short SOM ’13, who was injured in the fatal U-Haul crash at the 2011 Yale-Harvard tailgate, has been amended to include Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity Inc. as a defendant in addition to Brendan Ross ’13 and U-Haul. Short filed a memorandum with the New Haven Superior

Court on April 5, 2012, claiming she had suffered “severe and painful injuries” as a result of the crash, which killed a woman and injured two others including Short. Fourteen months after the incident, the lawsuit was amended on Jan. 28 to include Sig Ep as one of the defendants, as depositions indicated that Ross, the driver of the truck, was operating the vehicle on behalf of Yale’s chapter of the fraternity. Short

is seeking at least $50,000 in damages from Ross, Sig Ep and U-Haul. Ross was driving a U-Haul into the tailgate area assigned to Sig Ep before the Yale-Harvard football game on Nov. 19, 2011, when the vehicle accelerated and swerved into the Yale Bowl’s D-Lot around 9:39 a.m., killing 30-yearold Nancy Barry from Salem, Mass., and injuring Short and Harvard employee Elizabeth

Dernbach. In a Feb. 1 hearing, Ross agreed to enter a probationary program that will allow him to maintain his record, with his charges revised to reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Eric Smith, Short’s attorney, said the amendment to the suit follows “the basic principle of vicarious liability,” a legal rule that imposes liability on an organization or employer for an act, error or omission by

one of its agents. In this case, Sig Ep is allegedly liable as Ross was driving the truck on behalf of the fraternity. “The law is clear: When you’re acting as an agent for a principal, the principal can be held responsible for the negligence of the agent,” Smith said. Witness depositions during the case confirmed that the truck had been rented by Sig SEE SIG EP PAGE 5

New Haven Shakes. Sigma

Phi Epsilon fraternity brothers created their own version of the Harlem Shake in anticipation of their upcoming Smooch’d Valentine’s Day party this Thursday. The video, which has garnered over 2,000 views since it was published on Sunday, depicts, among other things, a fraternity brother ironing a printer and another two rubbing their nipples. Sounds like a party.

Horseplay in Swing. On Saturday, a group of Yalies took one of the Swing Space fire extinguishers and, “for no apparent reason,” threw the lifesaving device outside into one of the snow banks, according to an email sent to Swing residents from the Swing Space fellows. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1969 An ad hoc Graduate School faculty committee releases a report proposing reforms in the humanities, including the construction of a Yale Center for Humanistic Studies and a shorter timetable for the Ph.D. Submit tips to Cross Campus

crosscampus@yaledailynews.com

ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com

Sterling nave to face renovations BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER Starting this June, visiting tour groups will not be taking many photos of the iconic entrance hall of Sterling Memorial Library. During the upcoming restoration of the Sterling atrium — known as “the nave” in reference to its cathedral-like design — the space will be covered in scaffolding, and library patrons will have to navigate the room using “construction tunnels,” University Librarian Susan Gibbons said in a Monday email. The comprehensive renovations, which were announced in fall 2011 after the Yale Tomorrow Campaign received an anonymous $20 million donation specifically designated for restoring Sterling’s nave, will begin in June and are expected to be completed in fall 2014. Though the project will primarily aim to restore the stained glass windows and fix leaks around the windows and ceiling, it will also reconfigure the nave as a destination where students can gather and converse, Gibbons said. In preparation for the renovations, library staff mem-

bers are brainstorming ways to reconfigure the setup of services temporarily in a way that will enable the library to operate smoothly during the construction, said Associate University Librarian Kendall Crilly MUS ’86 GRD ’92. “We’re really trying to limit the inconvenience to the users,” Crilly said.

LEO HICKEY 1940–2013

Paleontologist remembered for 30-year tenure BY COLLEEN FLYNN AND YANAN WANG STAFF REPORTERS

Crilly said most of the changes in the way the library operates during the construction will be unnoticeable to students besides the relocation of the three service desks currently in the nave to the nearby Franke Periodical Reading Room. Sterling will continue to operate throughout the renovations, Gibbons said, adding that the

Leo Hickey, a leading scholar in the field of paleontology remembered by friends, family and colleagues for his sense of humor and breadth of academic interest, died of melanoma Saturday morning at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford, Conn. He was 72. A prominent figure in the field of paleobotany, the study of plant fossils, Hickey came to Yale in 1982 to serve as director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History and chaired the Geology and Geophysics Department from 2003 to 2006. Throughout his 30-year tenure, Hickey inspired numerous graduate students to pursue work in the academic areas that fascinated him most, including the evolutionary history of flowering plants and stratigraphy, the study of rock stratification. Friends and family knew him as a vivacious learner who was always eager to share his interests, spanning early Christian history, winemaking, poetry and Latin. “He had a childlike view of the glory of the world and the beauty of nature,” said Hickey’s wife, Judy. A native of Philadelphia, Hickey went to high school at a minor seminary in Indiana and earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from Villanova University in 1962. He first became interested in paleobotany as a doc-

SEE STERLING PAGE 5

SEE HICKEY PAGE 4

We’re really trying to limit the inconvenience to the users [of the library]. KENDALL CRILLY MUS ’86 GRD ’92 Associate university librarian, Yale

YALE

Leo Hickey, Yale paleontologist and former chair of the Geology and Geophysics Department, died Saturday morning at the age of 72.

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “No curves!” yaledailynews.com/opinion

For an end to soda at Yale

S

oda’s deleterious health effects are well-documented. This should have made New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan for an experimental moratorium on the use of SNAP (food stamps) on soda and other nutrition-deficient foods a no-brainer. Alcohol and tobacco are already verboten for SNAP because of their adverse health impacts. And not only is obesity bad for the obese, but there are third-party harms: we all foot part of the eventual health care bills (especially for the poor). But in August 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture blocked the proposal, scoring another victory for the new Big Tobacco — the soda industry. We spend over $70 billion annually on SNAP to help feed over 45 million Americans. Yale’s own Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has conducted research indicating that $2 billion in SNAP is used on sugary drinks. In other words, Big Soda has a lot of skin in the food stamps game; the effort to ensure universal adequate nutrition has substantially lined their pockets. No surprise, then, that aggressive lobbying by trade groups and corporations like the American Beverage Association, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola has helped block a number of similar SNAPrestriction bills nationwide. These organizations utilize the rhetoric and arguments of antihunger advocates and libertarians. They suggest this policy will stigmatize the poor and perpetuate the myth that they make bad shopping choices, or that it is fundamentally “un-American” and Orwellian. The real explanation — that this boosts their bottom line — wouldn’t go over as well with the public. These efforts are emblematic of broader practice. Recently, Coca-Cola donated almost $10,000 to Christine Quinn’s NYC mayoral campaign in the hopes of overturning another health initiative there, the largesoda ban. When asked for comment, a Coke spokesman replied, “We support candidates that promote fair policies that enrich the communities and marketplaces where Coca-Cola employees live and work.” Discerning Yale students will recognize statements like this as tripe. Big Soda fights to enrich its coffers, nothing more. Its weapons of choice include shameful political bribery and questionable scientific “research.” These firms have also undertaken ethically suspect strategies to increase revenue, including aggressive marketing targeted at youths and minorities (justified in the latter case as being “multiculturally sensitive”) and expanding operations in developing countries with less capable regulatory regimes or media watchdogs. For them, “freedom” means ensuring consumers are “free” to be inundated with manipulative ads constructed

by experts in consumer psychology. This co r re s p o n d s to history. In 2000, CocaCola paid out what was then MICHAEL the largest setMAGDZIK tlement ever in a U.S. racial Making d i s c r i m i n a tion case, for its Magic abysmal treatment of black employees. In the mid-2000s several Indian states banned Coke products, which had so much pesticide residue thanks to murky environmental practices, that farmers were spraying their crops with Coke. Refreshing. All of which brings us to Yale. Obesity isn’t nearly as much a problem here as it is among the SNAP-using population of NYC; most of us drink soda in moderation, if at all. This might incline some of us to resist heavyhanded restrictions here. But if we’re cognizant of the industry’s shady practices, then we must eliminate our own remaining soda consumption and stop subsidizing these companies’ lobbying and advertising efforts, if only to protect communities less able to resist them. We should start by getting rid of the dining hall soda dispensers. A handful of residential college cafeterias don’t constitute a large source of revenue for CocaCola, true. But inculcating norms that oppose soda — like inculcating norms against tobacco — is inherently valuable. Yalies accustomed to healthier options will propagate these values in the communities where they live and work postgraduation. Rooting out soda won’t be easy. Even here, the industry’s products and influence are pervasive. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is a Yale trustee, and the company funds a nutritional science fellowship at our School of Medicine, a conflict of interest if I’ve ever heard one. Whenever soda companies face this kind of criticism, they obfuscate, often rather effectively. They are run by smart people who realize that strategies like donating substantial sums to legitimate causes to win goodwill, promoting diet sodas as “healthy” alternatives and assuring us they are a champion of poor minorities and a defender of American freedom can stave off the efforts of less-organized and less-wealthy public health advocates. But unless we’re the kind of people who would have trusted the tobacco companies too when they told us cigarettes don’t lead to cancer, it’s time for all of us to move towards healthier and happier communities by ditching soda at Yale.

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EDITORIALS & ADS

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

What we love O

ver the past few weeks, I have gotten clarity about two things: what I most love to do, and the fact that few people seem eager to hire me to do it. After conferring with friends, it’s become clear that they’re facing similar dilemmas: the things that we want to do don’t ask for resume drops or third-round interviews. How, then, to balance what we want with the reality of having a freshly minted bachelor's degree? For the past three years, I have been lucky enough to work at the Yale University Art Gallery as a teacher and guide. I learned how to approach teaching art history, how to facilitate varied experiences with different kinds of art and how to communicate the overwhelming delight I felt in the museum’s collection to the people I led through the gallery. I fell in love with teaching art, and count the hours I spent in the art gallery as some of my happiest at Yale. My friends who are actors, writers, artists and musicians have expressed similar feelings of joy when describing what they

SUBMISSIONS

All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words and guest columns to 750. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters and columns before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission. Direct all letters, columns, artwork and inquiries to: Marissa Medansky and Dan Stein Opinion Editors Yale Daily News opinion@yaledailynews.com

ZOE MERCERGOLDEN Meditations

do. My friends who are looking for jobs teaching or doing research or policy work have likewise found things that they are passionate about. Some of us have found jobs we’re excited about; many — including

me — haven’t. This fact is a source of mingled embarrassment, exhaustion and uncertainty. I’ve spent the last many months watching waves of friends get corporate, consulting, finance and tech job offers, heard them begin to make plans about where they’ll be next year. Some will go to graduate school; others are doing Teach for America. Even if they aren’t excited about what they’re doing, they have clarity, and are moving forward with their lives. So I am torn: between wanting clarity, a city to move to, room-

mates and an apartment, and not yet wanting to settle for a certainty that wouldn’t necessarily let me do what I love. At the same time, I know that such an ideal combination of factors, community and work may not be possible for next year. When I shared this set of fears with friends, they added their own set of anxieties: They too want less conventional careers, and spoke to the reality that it often takes years for people to find the work they want in career trajectories that don’t begin with interviews and resume drops. In my anxiety about the future, I immediately began picturing a series of “lost years” — adrift from art museums or trapped in a series of unpaid internships, which are rapidly eroding the job market. A certain paralysis sets in while looking for work: anxiety, compounded by insecurity, further compounded by the inevitable tiredness that comes at the end of nearly four years of studying and working. The end result is avoiding situations where people are likely to ask, “What are you doing

next year?” and panicked dodging of the question when it does rear its ugly head. Of course, there are saving graces: I am free to imagine my life wherever and doing whatever I want, which, though panic-inducing, is also liberating. Someone may still hire me to teach in an art museum. And I still have hope — enough — that I will get to do the work I want in future years. Life is long, and the year after graduation is short by comparison. The solution? Probably graduate school. If no wants to hire me this time around, the solution may be to return to the loving arms of Mother Yale or another like-minded institution that at least has an art museum for me to haunt. For now, I’ll wait and see, and sympathize with the other denizens of this land of uncertainty. We’re a tired and motley breed, deserving of your compassion. And possibly, if things don’t go well, of your couch as well. ZOE MERCER-GOLDEN is a senior in Berkeley College. Contact her at zoe.mercer-golden@yale.edu .

GUEST COLUMNIST ALEX WERRELL

Remembering lunches with a friend A

fter I sat with him one day at lunch — he seemed lonely — I began to walk Professor Edward Stankiewicz, 88 years old at the time, from the Timothy Dwight dining hall to his office after lunch. Over the next year and a half, the trip gradually took longer and longer, though his office, carefully decorated with his sketches and paintings and books, each of which he pointed towards and lovingly detailed, was only about a block away. After saying goodbye to Roseann at the front counter — “Bye, Rosie!” “Bye, Ed! See you tomorrow.” — we would make our way through the maze of backpacks and chairs and out the door. Professor Stankiewicz, passionate professor of linguistics and Slavic languages and literature that he was, relished quizzing me along the way. “Spell my name.” “STAN-KIE-WIC-Z.” I had made a jingle to remember. “Where does your name come from?” “My parents,” I muttered. Professor Stankiewicz chuckled and corrected me as I moved a couch out of our way: From the Ancient Greek "Alexandros," my name means “defender of men.” “What is the ablative plural of 'haec'?” “Huius?” If I didn’t know this

MICHAEL MAGDZIK is a senior in Berkeley College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at michael.magdzik@yale.edu .

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EDITOR IN CHIEF Tapley Stephenson

'CRAZYBUS' ON 'FACULTY CONSIDER GRADING OVERHAUL'

at 9:20 in the morning in Latin class, I certainly couldn’t summon it up extemporaneously. I wrote down his response to my clueless stammer following the last question: “Despite the fact that you are utterly incapable of speaking Latin — you cannot even decline ‘lux,’ part of our own college’s motto! — I still think of you as my student.” “Though if you were my student of Latin,” he added parenthetically as we made our way through the doors and into the courtyard, “I would fail you. No question about it.” One particularly nice day after lunch, I had a surprise for him as we sat on the bench halfway between the dining hall and the front gate with my stereo. Sitting in the sun that afternoon, we listened first to a favorite recording of mine: Dame Joan Sutherland singing an excerpt from Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable.” “It is a remarkable trill, yes,” said Professor Stankiewicz, shaking his head and squinting sourly in the sun. “But she’s a songbird. She shows off.” I disagreed, and reluctantly switched to Bizet’s “Carmen,” his favorite. Sitting up, Professor Stankiewicz conducted our way through the overture, watching a few TDers play volley-

ball in the upper courtyard. One player offered him the ball, asking if he wanted to join. Professor Stankiewicz laughed and shook his head, saying, “Another time.” He interrupted himself then to inform me that the orchestra was preordaining the discord of the gypsy and her soldier: “Listen to the strings, Alexander. They tell us everything.” We skipped to the “Habanera,” with Victoria de los Angeles singing the gypsy lead. “No, no. She is Spanish, Defender of Men. The ‘g’ is hard — it’s Victoria de los AnGeles,” he corrected me before the soprano even had a chance to draw a breath. The next week in the dining hall, I sat back in my chair and watched as Professor Stankiewicz, giggling, sketched a galloping horse on a paper napkin. Master Thompson, a friend of his, sat across from the two of us and was spitting out all numbers of unprintable profanities in all numbers of languages. Between laughs, Professor Stankiewicz turned to me and translated phrase after phrase, each more colorful than the last. This delight in languages, in art and in teaching was how Professor Stankiewicz lived most of his life. It was because of these gifts, he told me, that he was able to delight in anything at all. Trapped

behind the barbed wire of Buchenwald after a torturous four years on the run from the Gestapo — painting Soviet propaganda and waiting tables for a living, forging false documents so that other Jews might live — Professor Stankiewicz’s mind roamed up and out of the concentration camp as he painted, discussed philosophy and art with those few other prisoners who were able to imagine and escape to a more decent place, read books from the Buchenwald “library” and wrote poems in both Polish and German. From even before the day the U.S. Army liberated those sent to Buchenwald to be forgotten, when he volunteered to work as a translator for the Army, to the days I spent with him, Professor Stankiewicz was a devoted teacher who cared for each of his many students. I last saw Professor Stankiewicz a few days before his 90th birthday, when his mind no longer roamed free, when he was no longer the man I had met a year and a half before. His teaching and his friendship meant a great deal to me, Latin dropout that I am. ALEX WERRELL is a senior in Timothy Dwight College. Contact him at william.werrell@yale.edu .

GUEST COLUMNIST JOSH RUBIIN

A responsible debate on Syria L

istening to some of the political discourse about whether the United States should “intervene” in Syria, I wonder if neoconservatives have learned from the mistakes of the invasion of Iraq. While Iraq in 2003 was a fundamentally different foreign policy dilemma than Syria is today, the neoconservative approach to these and other complex challenges seems to be unchanged. Leaders like Sen. John McCain continue to bluster about military intervention overseas without mentioning the associated costs to the American people. They mock coordination with our allies and partners as “leading from behind.” And they pine for fiscal responsibility even as they refuse to entertain any trimming of the defense budget. These sentiments do a disservice to our national debate on foreign policy and, specifically, on American involvement in humanitarian crises overseas. Today’s debates seem to revolve solely around the question of when we should intervene in crises overseas. But just as important as when we should intervene is how we should intervene.

In Syria, foreign policy hawks consistently promote the false dichotomy between doing nothing and military intervention. In fact, the Obama administration is currently providing humanitarian assistance and communications equipment to select elements of the Syrian opposition, and has been working both unilaterally and within the United Nations to pressure the Assad regime through diplomacy and economic sanctions. (Not to mention covert intelligence-gathering taking place in the region.) Have these actions achieved their desired effect? Clearly not. The Assad regime is still in power, and the bloodshed continues. Does that mean arming the rebels would achieve the desired result? Not necessarily. Let’s take two very real contingencies that could result from flooding arms into Syria too hastily, before we have credible information on the various factions within the Syrian opposition. First, U.S.-supplied arms could be intercepted by al-Qaida and used against Americans and our interests in the region. Second, the same surface-to-air missiles intended to shoot down Syr-

ian military jets might instead be used to shoot down Turkish or Israeli airliners. These are risks that may eventually be outweighed by the potential benefits of arming the rebels, but they are still possibilities that should be publicly considered before, not after, the decision to arm the rebels is made. It is alarming that proponents of this type of intervention seem eager to avoid this public debate. Moreover, for neoconservatives, the military seems to be the only element of U.S. foreign policy worth considering. But diplomacy and development are also key pillars of American power. We know from history — and certainly from the Iraq War — that American leadership and the success of our efforts overseas stem from the investments we make and the emphasis we place on the intelligence community, State Department, USAID and our international partnerships. Using the military should be our last resort. As we consider next steps in Syria, we must avoid falling into the same intervene-now-figureit-out-later mentality that led us into Iraq. Our politicians cannot

simply demand more American involvement without explaining why or how this would further U.S. interests. Clamoring for American leadership does not make much sense if it leads us into the middle of a civil war. Calling opponents of arming the rebels in Syria “weak” doesn’t explain why that type of intervention would be effective in the first place. No one is satisfied with the status quo in Syria, but we must still evaluate whether our policy options would improve or exacerbate the situation. Instead of devolving into a political debate over who is “strong” and who is “weak” on national security issues, our discourse should instead revolve around whose approach is responsible. It should address whether the benefits outweigh the costs, and whether we have done all we can do to reduce uncertainty and the risk of failure. In the case of Syria, that’s a debate that is still yet to be had. It’s a debate that some would rather avoid. JOSH RUBIN is a junior in Davenport College. Contact him at joshua.a.rubin@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ALBERT EINSTEIN THEORETICAL PHYSICIST WHO DEVELOPED THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY

CT home market uncertain

C L A R I F I CAT I O N A N D CORRECTION MONDAY, FEB. 11

The article “Faculty consider grading overhaul” stated that 40 years ago, only 10 percent of grades awarded by Yale College were A’s, and that last spring, that percentage was 62. Those percentages refer to grades in the A-range.

BY MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS STAFF REPORTER

MONDAY, FEB. 11

The article “Despite storm, IvyQ persists” mistakenly stated that Hilary O’Connell ’14 co-chaired the IvyQ conference with Carolyn Farnham ’13. In fact, Stefan Palios ’14 and Farnham were conference vice chairs, and O’Connell was conference chair.

Yale sues student over loan default BY AMY WANG STAFF REPORTER A lawsuit filed by Yale last spring against a former student who defaulted on federal loan repayments has recently garnered national attention as an indicator of the growing amount of debt college students incur. The University sued Elizabeth Triggs ’05 in March 2012 for nonpayment of a loan from the Federal Perkins Loan Program, a low-interest loan given to students in need of additional financing for postsecondary education. According to a filing before the New Haven Superior Court last year, Triggs defaulted in September 2010, when she left a combined balance of $8,255 — a principal balance of $6,455 and $2,880 in collection fees. Federal law mandates that universities pursue legal action against students with unpaid Perkins loans as a last resort for loan repayment. Yale’s suit against Triggs, who could not be reached for comment, was first reported in a Feb. 5 article published by Bloomberg that outlined defaults on Perkins loans at several United States universities Dorothy Robinson, University vice president and general counsel, said in a Sunday email that Yale’s default rate on Perkins loans is less than 1 percent, adding that only a “small fraction” of Yale graduates who default on Perkins loans eventually get sued by the University. Yale has not made any Perkins loans to undergraduates since 2008, when Robinson said Yale expanded its grant aid and reduced the required self-help contributions in students’ financial aid packages. In 2011, 22 percent of Yale graduates took out loans, compared to 43 percent in 2002. “There are very few individuals whom Yale has had to sue in order to collect defaulted loans,” Robinson said. “Litigation is truly a last resort in the collection process, which is mandated by the federal government.” Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in a Monday email that Yale usually does not sue former students who default on Perkins loans, adding that the national issue of student debt and default “is not a Yale problem” and both the number of undergraduates at Yale who borrow and the average amount of money borrowed have been declining. “The best thing any school

can do regarding student debt is to provide aid for students in need so that they do not need to borrow, and thanks to Yale College’s generous financial aid, Yale does that better than, or as well as, any school in the country,” Conroy said. According to government data, students nationwide defaulted on $964 million in Perkins loans in 2011 — a 20 percent increase from the amount defaulted in 2006. While most student loans are distributed and collected by the federal government, Perkins loans are administered by individual universities and the repayment money is recycled for loans to other students. Because Perkins loans are often given to the students with the greatest financial need, the students “may have the least ability to pay it back,” Nancy Coolidge, associate director of student financial support for the University of California system, told Bloomberg.

Litigation is truly a last resort in the collection process, which is mandated by the federal government.

The Federal Student Aid Handbook instructs universities to provide borrowers with “maximum opportunity to repay” and notes that schools should take steps such as billing the student, sending overdue notices, conducting address searches and — as a “more aggressive collection step” if billing procedures fail — hiring a collection firm or entering litigation. Students who default are given an initial grace period of nine months. Other universities involved in lawsuits with former students over Perkins loans include George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania, which filed more than a dozen Perkins lawsuits last year, according to court records. Bloomberg reported last week that Penn gave out more than $8 million in Perkins loans in the fiscal year that ended in June 2012. Contact AMY WANG at amy.wang@yale.edu .

Amount on which Elizabeth Triggs ’05 defaulted, prompting Yale to file suit

22 $9K

Average debt for Yale graduates in 2012

$964M

ROBERT SHILLER Professor, Economics Department and School of Management “The market in Connecticut showed much improvement in 2012, compared to the previous year when we saw record lows for sales,” Warren said in a statement. “An improved employment picture and consumer confidence boosted the housing market in 2012, and prices will slowly follow suit.” C o n n e c t i c u t’s h o u s i n g rebound reflects a national trend. In 2012, national home sales increased 9 percent to 4.65 million, the highest level since 2007, when the housing bubble burst, according to the National Association of Realtors. Despite the housing market’s mild

Average national debt for college graduates in 2012 Total amount in Perkins loans on which students nationwide defaulted in 2011

resurgence, the greater national recovery appears to have faltered, albeit slightly — consumer confidence, which rose through much of 2012, fell in January for the second month in a row, and unemployment remains at a relatively high 7.8 percent. “[There is] uncertainty about the outlook for the whole U.S. economy, which has been very slow to recover after the financial crisis, and uncertainties abroad too,” Shiller said. “Congress is on an austerity plan, of the kind that put the U.K. into recession. We may yet eliminate the mortgage interest deduction, and government support for Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac]. New regulations … make it harder for another bubble to gain a foothold.” Van Winkle emphasized the importance of improvement in the job market in any long-term housing recovery. Currently, Connecticut’s unemployment rate stands at 8.6 percent — eight-tenths of a point higher than the national average. “Sales will recover as job growth returns to the Connecticut economy,” van Winkle said. Both Shiller and van Winkle encouraged federal and state governments to avoid providing incentives to homebuyers, although for different reasons, with van Winkle citing low home prices and Shiller noting the possibility of a potentially destructive housing bubble. “As for encouraging potential

homebuyers, I think that should be restricted to low-income homebuyers. We do not need to encourage the middle class back into another housing bubble,” Shiller said, referencing the 2006 housing bubble that led to the 2008 financial crisis. In New Haven, however, the housing market has largely remained stable, according to Jack Hill, a realtor with New Haven-based Seabury Hill Realtors. Hill noted that East Rock, Westville and Wooster Square have maintained “extremely strong” markets in the past two to three years. Hill attributed the continued strength of the New Haven market to low interest rates, the constant presence of professors and graduate students thanks to Yale and the perception among first-time buyers that home prices have “bottomed out.” “There are always people buying because there are still jobs around here with Yale,” Hill said. Noting a steady rental market, he added that investment from New Yorkers buying apartment buildings and multifamily homes in the city has also helped to maintain the market’s stability. Connecticut home prices peaked in 2007, when they reached a median of $295,000 for a single-family home. Contact MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS at matthew.lloyd-thomas@yale.edu .

GRAPH CONN. HOUSING MARKET MEDIAN SINGLE-FAMILY HOME PRICES

$300,000

40,000 $200,000 30,000

TOTAL SALES OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES

DOROTHY ROBINSON Vice president and general counsel, Yale University

Percent of graduates from Yale in 2011 who took loans, down from 43 percent in 2002

$25K

We do not need to encourage the middle class back into another housing bubble.

50000 50,000

BY THE NUMBERS LOANS $8,255

Despite an anemic economic recovery, home sales in Connecticut increased in 2012 for the first time in seven years, reflecting national improvement in the housing market. The 24,276 single-family homes sold represent an increase of 14.8 percent from 2011, according to a recent report from The Warren Group, a real estate research firm. The report also found that sales in the fourth quarter of 2012 increased 19 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2011. Economists stressed caution, however, in drawing overly optimistic conclusions from the data, citing stalled job growth and political uncertainty in both Washington and Europe. “There is a lot of uncertainty in home prices. People seem to be gaining too much confidence in the rebound,” Yale professor and housing-market expert Robert Shiller told the News in a Monday email. Others echoed Shiller’s skepticism. West Hartford town manager and economist Ron van Winkle said that, based on housing data from the past 25 years, the market would not be considered “healthy” until at least 30,000 single-family homes were sold in a year. The report comes a year after Connecticut saw record-low home sales combined with a spike in state unemployment.

In 2011, a total of 21,141 singlefamily homes were sold in the state. Connecticut home prices dropped 1.2 percent, from $243,000 in 2011 to $240,000 in 2012. Citing increased prices during the fourth quarter of last year, however, Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren Jr. remained optimistic.

20,000 $100,000 10,000 10000

0

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

Yale-NUS to offer experiential learning BY ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA STAFF REPORTER During the seventh week of school for Yale-NUS’s inaugural class, students will leave campus to participate in a weeklong project designed to provide them with hands-on research experiences. Instead of attending their regular classes, Yale-NUS students will take part in one of several projects that will bring students outside the traditional academic setting to promote “interdisciplinary and active learning,” said Bryan Garsten, a Yale political science professor and member of the social sciences faculty search committee for Yale-NUS. The initiative, entitled Learning Across Boundaries, comes as part of the Yale-NUS faculty’s broader effort to blend experiential and traditional learning in the Singaporean college’s curriculum. “Some of our faculty see this project as a chance to build experiential learning into the fabric of the college, but other faculty think of a liberal arts education as

taking some time away from the practical world,” Garsten said. “How to balance between the two perspectives remains one of the issues that is being discussed.” Yale-NUS President Pericles Lewis said Learning Across Boundaries projects — such as one in which students might travel to Indonesia to research the effects of the 2004 tsunami — will emphasize experiential learning because they are examples of integrating hands-on education into the common curriculum. The initiative aims to expose students to in-depth research and to collaborations with faculty members early on in their college experience, said Brian McAdoo, a Yale-NUS professor who helped propose the initiative. The faculty will design projects that will engage students with “current, real-world issues,” he added. All projects within Learning Across Boundaries will be interdisciplinary, enabling students to synthesize knowledge from all their classes, McAdoo said. “Addressing real-world prob-

lems necessitates work in the real world,” he said. “The boundaries we are trying to cross are not just those between the academic divisions within the curriculum, but also those between the college ivory tower environment and the real world.”

The boundaries we are trying to cross are … those between the college ivory tower environment and the real world. BRIAN MCADOO Professor, Yale-NUS While Yale students boast active extracurricular and classroom lives, Garsten said, intersections between the two are often scarce. Initiatives such as Learning Across Boundaries will create an opportunity for YaleNUS students to reflect on their

extracurricular activities and classes simultaneously, he said. Yale-NUS professors interviewed said faculty involved in the design of the Singaporean college’s curriculum are trying to find the right balance between experiential and traditional instruction. McAdoo said that while he does not think the new college should make experiential learning its focus, it should harbor “a diversity of learning strategies.” Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty Charles Bailyn said Yale-NUS demonstrates a commitment to both experiential and traditional learning, adding that the Learning Across Boundaries initiative will not come at the expense of traditional classroom experiences. The Learning Across Boundaries initiative will end in a symposium, during which each group will share its experiences from the week. Contact ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA at aleksandra.gjorgievska@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Moviemaking is the slowest business on earth next to fossil manufacture.” AARON LATHAM AMERICAN JOURNALIST

Classes canceled for a second day

Hickey led ‘hands-on’ learning HICKEY FROM PAGE 1 toral candidate at Princeton University in the 1960s, when he discovered that scientists often misclassify certain plant fossils called angiosperm leaf fossils, Geology and Geophysics Department Chair Jay Ague said. Hickey then set out to establish a more precise method of studying fossils by examining their leaf remains. After he left Princeton, Hickey went to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., where he studied the leaves of flowering plants and developed an innovative method of plant classification that has been adopted by scientists worldwide. Hickey was the primary scientist behind four permanent exhibits at the Smithsonian and later helped develop seven exhibits at the Peabody including the Cretaceous Garden, which debuted in 2011. Hickey was awarded the Raymond C. Moore Medal, one of the most prestigious international prizes in paleontology, in 2009. Scott Wing ’76 GRD ’81, Hickey’s first student and lifelong friend, said Hickey was animated by exploration and had an infectious enthusiasm for his work even late in his life. Colleagues and students remembered Hickey not only as a dedicated and pioneering academic, but also as a man who worked hard to make science accessible to everyone.

EMMA HAMMARLUND/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The weekend’s blizzard left 34 inches of snow, making it the worst snowstorm in New Haven since 1897. BLIZZARD FROM PAGE 1 added that cleanup efforts will continue throughout the day. Monday marked the first day the University has canceled classes due to snow since 1978. The blizzard, which dumped 34 inches on New Haven, is the worst since 1897, Smuts said. “We ended up with something that we haven’t faced in over 100 years,” Smuts said. “We don’t have the type of equipment or practice that a city like Syracuse, N.Y., has.” In the wake of the storm, President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Connecticut, providing federal aid for snowstorm cleanup. According to Smuts, New Haven was hit with heavier snowfall than nearly any other city in the state. University President Richard Levin and Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

met Monday morning and decided that conditions in New Haven were not suitable for classes on Tuesday. An email sent to the Yale community by University Vice President Linda Lorimer Monday afternoon said that classes were canceled at the request of the mayor. Levin said that the decision to cancel classes came down to worries about safety for Yale employees commuting to work and pedestrians on campus. “[DeStefano] felt it would just be better,” Levin said. “We have 12,000 employees, a large fraction of whom drive in the center of town. He felt if we could keep that minimized, that would be safer and give the cleanup crews more time to get the job done.” In addition, City Hall, Gateway Community College, New Haven Public Schools, city senior centers and the New Haven Free Public Library will be closed today.

While Yale did not suffer widespread power outages or sustain any heavy damage from the storm, there were several incidents in which students were nearly struck by vehicles, said Martha Highsmith, the University associate vice president. Highsmith added that it was responsible to shut down most University services to avoid bringing thousands of employees to downtown New Haven. “The academic enterprise is first and foremost on a regular day, but in extreme circumstances, we have to worry for the safety of the community,” said Highsmith. In addition, some city sidewalks have not yet been cleared, which Yale Director of Emergency Management Maria Bouffard said forces students to walk in the streets. Bouffard added that increased pedestrian and automobile traffic could make commuting less safe. In addition, though

many streets are classified as “passable,” the definition of “passable” is that one lane is cleared, making it possible for emergency vehicles to use the road, Smuts said. City crews are still working to clear entire streets and get traffic back to normal. University officials have not yet determined whether classes will be held Wednesday but hope that conditions in New Haven will soon be close to normal again, Highsmith said. Smuts said he is hopeful that the city will be able to clean up significantly today, but he added that recovery time is uncertain in natural disasters such as this weekend’s blizzard. Metro-North trains resumed service between Stamford and New Haven Monday morning. Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .

Class Day speaker announced CLASS DAY FROM PAGE 1 Jonathan Edwards College Master Penelope Laurans, who serves as the administrative liaison to the Class Day co-chairs. The co-chairs also reached out to the Senior Class Council and other members of the class of 2013 to gauge their peers’ interest in a certain type of speaker and collaborated with Laurans to select a final choice. Ghanney said she was impressed after seeing videos of Booker speaking, including his Commencement speech at Stanford University last year. “I like to believe that that’s just a warm-up for Yale,” she added. The University does not provide Class Day speakers with monetary compensation, and Ghanney declined to comment on how the University extended the invitation to Booker. Last year, journalist Barbara Walters delivered the Class Day address, and previous Class Day speakers include actor Tom Hanks, former President Bill Clinton LAW ’73, former New York Gov. George Pataki ’67, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and journalists Fareed Zakaria ’86 and Anderson Cooper ’89. Booker has served as the mayor of Newark, N.J., since 2006, and his accomplishments in office include supporting charter schools in Newark and reducing the city’s crime rates. He has also established a public persona outside of City Hall for spontaneous charitable actions such as shoveling a Newark resident’s driveway and rescuing his neighbor from a house fire. Last month, Booker formed a United States Senatorial Campaign Committee by filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, completing the first step toward fundraising for New Jersey’s 2014 Senate race. In January,

Booker told “Meet the Press” that he intends to run for the Senate, but he has not officially announced his campaign. University President Richard Levin said he is excited about Booker’s selection. “Cory Booker is an extraordinary young leader who’s done a tremendous job in Newark,” he said. Levin said the school extended an invitation to Booker to speak at Class Day before speculation began about his 2014 senatorial campaign, adding that his “extraordinary work” as mayor has qualified him to be speaker, future possibilities aside.

Cory Booker is an extraordinary young leader who’s done a tremendous job in Newark. RICHARD LEVIN President, Yale University Seniors interviewed expressed mixed responses to the choice of Booker as Class Day speaker. Four students said they look forward to hearing from an energetic political figure, but four said they are not particularly excited because they knew very little about Booker before the announcement. David Sack ’13 said he has been a “big fan” of Booker since hearing him on National Public Radio three years ago. “He’s really interesting — I think he’ll be president one day,” Sack said. “He’s kind of a dark-horse candidate [as the Senior Class Day speaker], but in 10 years everyone’s going to be really happy that they heard him.” Andres Fuentes-Afflick ’13

CREATIVE COMMONS

Cory Booker LAW ’97, the mayor of Newark, N.J., will give this year’s Class Day address on May 19. said he generally admires Booker but felt “underwhelmed” by the announcement. “I think for all the juice Yale has, they could have done better,” Fuentes-Afflick added.

Booker has delivered eight commencement speeches since 2009. Contact JULIA ZORTHIAN at julia.zorthian@yale.edu .

Leo’s philosophy was that it is important for students to see a specimen that is one-of-a-kind in the world, and to handle it, study it, examine it. JAY AGUE Chair, Geology and Geophysics Department “Leo was always so open and willing to be helpful that you never felt intimidated,” said Daniel Peppe GRD ’09, a former advisee who now teaches paleobotany at Baylor University. Every fall that Hickey taught the undergraduate course “Stratigraphy,” he would place a different type of rock on each step of the Kline Geology Laboratory stairway and ask students to identify the rocks and to use their sequence on the steps to predict the kind of environment from which they were extracted, Hickey’s colleagues recalled. Peppe said the assignment was a novel way of approaching the study of stratigraphy, adding that Hickey loved fieldwork and always tried to simulate the experience for his students if they were unable to conduct fieldwork themselves. Robert Burger ’93, assistant provost for science and technology, said his summer working with Hickey in Wyoming was one of the highlights of his undergraduate years, adding that Hickey’s enthusiasm for his fieldwork was contagious even though Burger was not primarily interested in paleobotany. “Leo’s philosophy was that it is important for students to see a specimen that is one-ofa-kind in the world, and to handle it, study it, examine it,” Ague said. “He advocated handson learning — that’s something you can’t get on the Internet.” Judy, Hickey’s wife, said her husband often took the family into the field, adding that all three of their sons developed an appreciation for paleontology. Peppe said Hickey, who had “very, very dry humor,” enjoyed wordplay and making puns. Ague recalled that during faculty meetings, he and Hickey often competed in “pun wars,” and Hickey usually emerged victorious. “He usually could come up with one more pun than I could, and he always laughed heartily once the joke was revealed,” Ague. But when it came to research and teaching, Hickey approached his work with intensity and demanded similar dedication of his students. Evan Sniderman ’13, who took “History of Life” and “Stratigraphy” with Hickey, said his passion for the subject inspired students to tackle their course work with equal vigor. Sniderman said Hickey came into class on the first day of “Stratigraphy” and told students to expect two credits’ worth of work, though the class was only worth one credit. Sniderman added that students in the class were motivated by the rigorous standards Hickey imposed on himself. In addition to his extensive contributions to paleontology, Hickey was passionate about Celtic and early Christian history and had a rich background in the classics. He was also a lover of music and poetry, and he wrote poems that he shared with his friends and family. “He was often called a Renaissance man by those who knew him, because he had a broad knowledge of so many things,” his wife said. A Roman Catholic, Hickey was a member of the St. Thomas More Chapel. Geology and geophysics professor Karl Turekian said he and Hickey often had long discussions about the impact of their religious philosophies on their lives. While his viewpoint often differed greatly from Hickey’s, Turekian noted Hickey was always a sympathetic listener and valued diverse perspectives. Hickey is survived by his wife, his three sons — Geoffrey, Damian and Jason — and his three grandchildren. Contact COLLEEN FLYNN at colleen.flynn@yale.edu.

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“My alma mater was books, a good library. … I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” MALCOLM X AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSLIM MINISTER AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

Sterling atrium to receive facelift STERLING FROM PAGE 1 library is working to find ways to draw attention to the different study spaces in Sterling while the Franke Periodical Reading Room is used for the service desks. Gibbons said the library may create a system to track the daily noise levels during the construction in the areas surrounding the nave — such as the Starr Reading Room — so that students can decide in advance whether to study in Sterling. “The noise level of the construction is the real unknown,” Gibbons said. “I suspect there will be days when the construction noise levels on the [first] floor of Sterling will be very distracting for the library staff and students.”

I suspect there will be days when the construction noise levels on the [first] floor of Sterling will be very distracting for the library staff and students. SUSAN GIBBONS University librarian, Yale

JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The $20 million renovation of the Sterling Memorial Library atrium will begin in June and is expected to be completed by fall 2014.

Before construction begins, Gibbons said library staff will move the paintings, tapestries, exhibit cases, computers and other furniture out of the nave starting in May. The staff workstations in the library basement will also be upgraded with new desks to accommodate the staff members who will be moved out of the nave during the renovation, Crilly said. The Wright Reading Room in the Sterling basement and the three seminar rooms that surround it will be temporarily affected this summer, Crilly said, because construction workers will need to install a modern heating and air conditioning system into the ceilings of those rooms. The area will be available for normal use by next fall, he added.

Crilly said that the stonework and woodwork in the nave also need to be cleaned and repaired. “There are active leaks around the windows and ceiling which are damaging the stone walls of the nave,” Gibbons said. All stained glass windows in the nave that are exposed to the outside will be removed and sent to stained glass workshops for restoration, Crilly said, adding that the windows were created in the 1930s. “They’re failing on us because of conditions over the years,” Crilly said. Gibbons said the new nave will have one central service desk instead of three, and will have better lighting and signage to highlight the location of the entrance to the stacks. She added that the addition of tables and comfortable chairs in the card catalog area will help the nave become a place where students can study and relax. Crilly said the Linonia and Brothers Reading Room, also known as the “Green Room,” will reopen this spring and will remain open during the nave restoration. The room is currently being used by library staff during the renovation of a portion of the “technical services area,” which had faced serious leaks during recent rainstorms, he said. Six students interviewed said they do not anticipate that the renovations will significantly affect them because they do not spend time in the nave itself and can study elsewhere if noise levels become too loud in Sterling’s reading rooms. But two of the six students added that they will miss the nave’s aesthetic qualities while it is under construction. “When people come visit me, I take them to Sterling because it’s the nicest library,” said Maia Eliscovich ’16. “If there’s dust and construction noises, I’ll stop going.” Sterling has nearly 3,300 panes of stained glass in total, designed by G. Owen Bonawit. Contact SOPHIE GOULD at sophie.gould@yale.edu .

Fraternity sued for link to U-Haul crash SIG EP FROM PAGE 1 Ep for a fraternity-sponsored event and operated within the scope of the fraternity, Smith said. After being provided with the information regarding the U-Haul tailgating crash roughly two months ago, Short’s attorney filed a request with the New Haven Superior Court on Jan. 14 to add Sig Ep as an additional defendant in the trial. Fourteen days later, the court granted the request. Sigma Phi Epsilon is a national organization with nondistinct local chapters, Smith said, and the Yale chapter is

not a separate entity from the national group. Will Kirkland ’14, president of the Yale chapter of Sig Ep, deferred comment to the national organization Monday. Kathy Johnston, director of risk management for the Sigma Phi Epsilon national organization, declined to comment on behalf of the organization but said the fraternity has not been served a summons from the court. Multiple representatives of Sig Ep declined to provide contact information for the organization’s attorney. Smith said that he was recently introduced to lawyers

representing Sig Ep over phone. While no hearings have been held yet, the two parties have exchanged paperwork in preparation for litigation. The fraternity could be held responsible for Ross’ actions in two cases: if Ross was acting as an agent on the organization’s behalf, or if the organization itself was negligent in creating unsafe circumstances or not following protocol, said Steven Ecker ’84, an attorney for the family of Nicholas Grass ’05 in a 2005 lawsuit against DKE following a 2003 car crash that killed four Yale students and injured five others on the

way back to campus from a DKE event. In the Grass case, which is still ongoing, the lawsuit alleges the negligence of the organization. Short’s case, which is not connected with the Grass case except that the two are based on the same legal principle, alleges Ross was acting as an agent of Sig Ep, Smith said. In such cases, a fraternity can be found to be responsible if the individual is shown to be acting on behalf of the fraternity or engaged in a fraternity activity, said Joshua Sheffer, a Greek organization and hazing lawyer. Ross, who passed a field

recyclerecyclerecyclerecycle

YOUR Y D N DA ILY

sobriety test at the scene of the crash, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and reckless driving in September 2012. His charges were later revised to reckless driving and reckless endangerment under a plea deal, making him eligible for accelerated rehabilitation, a probationary program that offers first-time offenders a path to a clean record upon completion of probation without violation. Immediately following the accident, the NHPD launched a forensics investigation, which concluded that Ross “applied

no brakes [on the U-Haul] as he traveled through the crowd” and “failed to maintain control of his vehicle, and, instead, accelerated into a crowd of people.” In addition to the lawsuit filed by Short, Ross still faces another civil lawsuit from Barry’s mother, Paula St. Pierre. The victim’s mother plans to file a suit after criminal proceedings conclude, according to Ralph Sbrogna, her Worcester, Mass.based personal injury lawyer. Contact CYNTHIA HUA at cynthia.hua@yale.edu. Contact LORENZO LIGATO at lorenzo.ligato@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

“We humans are the greatest of earth’s parasites.” MARTIN H. FISCHER GERMAN-AMERICAN PHYSICIAN AND WRITER

Autism symptoms identified in 6-month-old infants BY MAREK RAMILO STAFF REPORTER To improve their ability to treat autism, researchers are working to identify symptoms of the condition in infants as young as 6 months old. A team led by pediatrics professor Katarzyna Chawarska of the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center is attempting to discern the link between attention deficits and the risk of autism in patients with a family history of the disorder. The study’s results point to a higher incidence of inattentiveness in 6-month-old infants who were later diagnosed with autism themselves. These findings were first published online in the January 2013 issue of Biological Psychiatry. “For a number of years, we’ve been working on identifying early signs of autism. We want to understand the earliest age when the developmental trajectories of infants who later develop autism begin to diverge from those that we see in typically developing children, or children without disorders,” Chawarska said.

[The results of this study] will likely lead to early diagnosis and fundamental changes in the way we treat autism. KEVIN PELPHREY Director, Yale Child Neuroscience Laboratory Chawarska’s study used innovative vision-tracking technology to analyze the reactions of 67 at-risk infants and 50 control group infants to visual, auditory and social stimuli. The infants were shown a video of a woman performing various familiar tasks — such as playing with toys — as she addressed the viewer directly. Ultimately, the children with a family history of autism tended to spend less time watching the video and making eye contact with the woman than the children without any autistic predispositions, Chawarska said. “We were very excited because the study tells us that, at 6 months, the chil-

dren who later develop autism have difficulty selecting important social features from their visual field,” Chawarska said. Children with attention deficits, such as the at-risk infants in this study, may have trouble interacting even with close individuals such as parents, which researchers said could indicate future developmental problems. “Even a small difficulty in attending continuously to mom’s face when something important happens may have influence later on what children learn about people in the world and communication,” Chawarska said. This discovery could have huge implications in doctors’ ability to detect autism within the first year of infants’ lives, researchers said. Currently, behavioral measures are used to identify autistic symptoms by the time a child is 2 years old. With this new information, however, doctors may be able to diagnose autism in children as young as 6 months old. Such early diagnoses could greatly improve the effectiveness of treatment for the disorder.

“We are hopeful that behavioral interventions begun before the age of 2 are preventative, at least to some degree for some children in terms of improving autism symptoms, but also in terms of fostering critical verbal and nonverbal skills,” said Child Study Center Associate Research Scientist Suzanne Macari, who worked with Chawarska on this project. Autism researchers agree Chawarska’s findings are encouraging. Kevin Pelphrey, the director of the Child Neuroscience Laboratory at Yale, called the study a “game changer” that sheds light on the early stages of autism. “[The results of this study] will likely lead to early diagnosis and fundamental changes in the way we treat autism,” he said. Autism currently affects one out of every 88 children in the United States, according to the National Autism Association. Contact MAREK RAMILO at marek.ramilo@yale.edu .

CREATIVE COMMONS

The study found that children with attention deficits as early as 6 months old may develop autism later in life.

Alzheimer caregiver health examined BY EMMA GOLDBERG STAFF REPORTER Alzheimer’s is a debilitating disease for its victims — but it can also take a toll on a patient’s caregiver. Led by epidemiology professor Joan Monin, researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have conducted a study evaluating the ways in which Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers maintain stable and trusting relationships. Caregivers are typically spouses or other family members who provide day-to-day support to Alzheimer’s patients including feeding and entertaining them. The study, published in the October issue of the Aging & Mental Health journal, found that inconsistent or detached caregiving can cause Alzheimer’s patients to lose trust in their loved ones, exacerbating physical symptoms of the disease. “Physicians have to look out for the emotional environment their patient is in,” Monin said. “That’s why it’s important to provide support to family members of people with Alzheimer’s.” Because many Alzheimer’s patients are not able to communicate their emotions effectively, Monin’s research team worked with patients of fairly advanced cognitive functioning. Researchers surveyed and interviewed the patients and caregivers at various stages of the disease treatment, asking each to report on levels of trust they felt toward one another. “Imagine how it feels to be married to someone who is slowly forgetting who you are,” Monin said. “The relationships between spousal caregivers and patients have the potential for emotional stress.” Monin’s team found that relationships lacking in trust could be classified as either “attachment anxiety” or “attachment avoidance” relationships. Attachment anxiety is a relationship characterized by insecurity and lack of trust, and attachment avoidance is a relationship in which the caregiver intentionally distances

BY ADRIAN RODRIGUES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Researchers now understand how Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness, becomes infectious. Scientists from the Yale School of Public Health, Yale School of Medicine and The Rockefeller University are the first to mimic the natural development of infectivity — the parasite’s ability to cause infection — in a laboratory setting. Infectious forms of T. brucei inside the tsetse fly can infect humans and cause African sleeping sickness, also known as African trypanosomiasis. Researchers identified a protein that triggers the infection in healthy cells, which could provide new intervention strategies in blocking progression of the disease, said study co-author Christian Tschudi, a professor of epidemiology and director of graduate studies at the Yale School of Public Health. The research findings were published in the Dec. 7 edition of Science. “I think it’s a major breakthrough,” said researcher Serap Aksoy, professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. In the past, scientists only observed the life cycle of infectious T. brucei parasites within the tsetse fly vector responsible for transmitting African sleeping sickness. The study’s researchers sequenced the RNA of T. brucei parasites from infected tsetse fly tissues to determine the mechanisms that cause infectivity. The results indicated that high levels of the protein RBP6 occurred during a critical development stage of the parasite. Once researchers had discovered high levels of RBP6 in infected tsetse flies, they artificially raised expression of the protein in healthy T. brucei cells that had not been exposed to flies. They found that these healthy cells suddenly became infectious. “We had no idea this would happen,” said Tschudi. “This was completely serendipitous.” The protein is now seen as the initial trigger in the cascade of events causing the infectious form of the parasite. Jayne Raper, professor of biological sciences at Hunter College of the City University of New York, described the findings as a “holy grail” to the field. She said the ability to induce

Research out of the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity is the first to examine the stigmatization of food addiction. In a study conducted online, researchers found that while subjects viewed food addiction more favorably than other addictions such as alcohol, drug or tobacco dependence, the label increased stigma against obese individuals. The findings add to the growing body of research detailing the pervasiveness of weight-related biases and calls for more legal protection

for obese individuals, said study coauthor Rebecca Puhl GRD ’04, director of research and weight stigma initiatives at the Rudd Center. The study appears in the February issue of the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology. “There is a lot of research showing that certain types of food can trigger processes that are very similar to drug and alcohol addiction,” Puhl said. “There is increasing evidence that maybe food addiction is contributing to obesity. What we didn’t know was how the label of being called a food addict may affect public attitudes.” In the first part of the study, 659

Physicians have to look out for the emotional environment their patient is in.

infectivity in T. brucei without an accompanying fly vector “now gives a huge area of research that people can embark upon.” Though African sleeping sickness affects thousands of people in subSaharan Africa, relatively little was known about the precise mechanisms of the parasite’s development within

participants answered a range of questions about their feelings towards various individuals including food addicts, obese food addicts, cocaine addicts, smokers and the physically disabled. Results showed that food addiction carried less stigma than other addictions like cocaine, but intensified prejudice against the obese. In the second part of the study, which also demonstrated that food addiction was viewed less negatively than other addictions, 570 subjects answered questions about a picture of a thin or obese male labeled as either addicted to food, tobacco or alcohol. The findings add to a long line of research at the Rudd Center examining the pathology and clinical symptoms of food addiction, said Mark Gold, professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida College of Medicine. The Yale Food Addiction Scale, which the Rudd Center released in 2009, is a 27-question survey that clinicians use to diagnose food addiction. Two years later, Rudd Center researchers demonstrated that food dependence activates similar neural pathways as addiction to drugs or alcohol. The current study adds to this body of research by examining the social impact of the food addiction label, Gold said.

I think we can do a much better job of challenging weightbased stereotypes and really depicting people who are obese in more respectful ways.

JOAN MONIN Professor, School of Public Health Though Morin is one of the first scientists to evaluate caregiverpatient relationships, the practice of treating caregivers’ health was established several decades ago. Maria Tomasetti, south central regional director of the National Alzheimer’s Association, said that in the past 20 years, researchers and medical service providers have increasingly realized that improving caregivers’ emotional health benefits the physical health of patients with Alzheimer’s. “People who are caring for someone with dementia tend to think they can do it all on their own,” Tomasetti said. “But caregiving is a long and unpredictable process. Sometimes

KAREN TIAN/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

REBECCA PUHL GRD ’04 Director of research and weight stigma initiatives, Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity

MOHAN YIN/ILLUSTRATIONS CONTRIBUTOR

the caregiver can actually become physically sick, and that takes a toll on the Alzheimer’s patient.” Monin is continuing her research

on caregiver health and is currently focused on understanding how a patient’s suffering impacts the psychological health of their family

members. As many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer’s disease, according to the National Institute

on Aging. Contact EMMA GOLDBERG at emma.goldberg@yale.edu .

the tsetse fly prior to this study, said first author Nikolay Kolev, associate research scientist at the School of Public Health. Since the infectious forms of the parasite could previously only be observed in the flies, developing effective medications proved difficult. While there are several medicines that work against the

disease, such drugs are “horrible” and “extremely hard to administer,” Tschudi said. Sleeping sickness is found in 36 sub-Saharan African countries. Contact ADRIAN RODRIGUES at adrian.rodrigues@yale.edu .

Food addiction stigma scrutinized BY DAN WEINER STAFF REPORTER

himself from the patient emotionally. Both exacerbate the physical symptoms of Alzheimer’s, which can include impaired speech and language skills, compromised motor skills and loss of bladder control, according to the National Alzheimer’s Association. Morin is one of the first researchers to evaluate caregiver-patient relationships. Because her field of research is relatively new, Morin said her findings could have significant implications for physicians treating Alzheimer’s, potentially leading to interventions such as couples’ therapy for the patient and caregiver. “Evaluating an Alzheimer’s patient’s emotional responses is not something traditional pharmaceutical companies were ever interested in,” said Geoffrey Kerchner, a behavioral neurologist at Stanford who treats Alzheimer’s patients.

Sleeping sickness mechanism observed

CREATIVE COMMONS

There are currently no federal laws prohibiting weight-based discrimination, and Puhl said this lack of formal protection contributes to social stigmatization. She added that weight stigma is especially prevalent in entertainment and news media. “I think we can do a much better job of challenging weight-based stereo-

JOY SHAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Food addiction, which has been implicated as a factor in obesity, may lead to stigmatization of the obese. types and really depicting people who are obese in more respectful ways,” she added. This research comes at a time of increasing publicity for overeating disorders, said Marc Potenza ’87 GRD ’93 MED ’94, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. Binge eating disorder, a condition similar to food addiction, is included in the first draft of the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Potenza said he hopes formal recognition will encourage more people to identify the condition and seek treatment. He added that the scientific community has not yet done enough research to decide whether food addiction has a place in the DSM. “I think it would be premature to

shut the door on food addiction,” he said Puhl said she hopes to follow up the study by examining how the food addiction label impacts different populations. There is already evidence that women tend to be more vulnerable to weight stigmatization than men, and Puhl said she wants to examine how public attitudes change depending on factors including gender and race. While official figures are not yet available about the prevalence of food addiction, a 2009 Rudd Center study found that about 11 percent of “predominantly normal-weight students” may be labeled as food addicts under the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Contact DAN WEINER at daniel.weiner@yale.edu .