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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 26, 2013 · VOL. CXXXV, NO. 97 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS CLOUDY RAINY

43 38

CROSS CAMPUS Is love in the air? A recent

rankings list from College Magazine seems to think so. According to the publication, Yale is the eighth-best school to find a husband, falling behind West Point, the United States Naval Academy, Brigham Young University and — somewhat inconceivably — Harvard.

The next Yale idol? The Yale

College Council is seeking a student DJ to perform at Spring Fling 2013 alongside Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Interested music enthusiasts should submit a five- to 10-minute set by this Friday, and the submissions that receive the most “likes” will have the chance to perform at an outdoor DJ/laser show and Spring Fling.

BLIZZARD WOES

FOREIGN POLICY

WOMEN’S TENNIS

After a collapse of one of its high tunnels, the Yale Farm moves forward

NEGROPONTE CONSIDERS RUSSIA, AFGHANISTAN

Bulldogs win two at home, Sullivan ’14 stays undefeated in singles

PAGE 6–7 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

PAGE 3 NEWS

PAGE 5 NEWS

PAGE 12 SPORTS

Yale third in fundraising GRAPH MONEY RAISED IN FISCAL YEAR 2012 $1200 $1000 Amount in millions of dollars

MORNING EVENING

STRESS SALOVEY SAYS IT MAY HELP YOU

$800

BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER

after the conclusion of the campaign significantly bolstered Yale’s performance during the 2012 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2012. O’Neill said donations fell slightly from the fiscal year 2011 total of $580 million, the last year of the fundraising campaign.

Following New Haven Public Schools S u p e r i n te n d e n t Re g i n a l d M ayo ’s announcement last week that he will retire at the end of the school year, the city’s Board of Education moved forward Monday with plans to replace the long-serving public school administrator. The Board of Education voted to make itself the search and screen committee for a new superintendent and also appointed board members Michael Nast and Alex Johnston to a committee that will help select a consulting firm to assist in the selection process. While the specific consulting firm most likely will not be selected by the next board meeting on March 11, several board members expressed the need for a speedy search process. Both School Board President Carlos Antonio Torre and New Haven Federation of Teachers President David Cicarella said they want a permanent superintendent appointed before Mayo leaves this summer rather than an interim administrator. “We need to keep the momentum of school change going,” Cicarella said, “And the new superintendent, whoever he may be, needs to keep that momentum going.” Board members did not disclose specific details about what they are looking for in

SEE FUNDRAISING PAGE 4

SEE SUPERINTENDENT PAGE 4

$600 $400 $200

Rallying for mental health.

More than 150 Harvard students rallied for mental health reform last Friday, chanting “Our Harvard can do better” and “Reform mental health” in an effort to encourage administrators to take action on mental health issues. The protest — which drew members of Harvard’s student government — came one day after an anonymous op-ed was published in The Harvard Crimson by a student with schizophrenia, who detailed perceived flaws with Harvard’s mental health services.

Covert marketing. For those of you looking for fun things to do on the weekends, checking out the flyers in the Bass Library bathrooms may be a start. Recently, studious Yalies seeking a quick bathroom break have stumbled upon flyers for a Latin Dance Night at GPSCY, the popular graduate student bar. Whether the advertisements were strategically placed to attract bathroom-going Yalies remains unknown, but the method has not gone unnoticed. Marriage equality. A statement

of support for marriage equality being circulated by the Ivy League College Democrats and Republicans chapters has received unanimous support from the eight College Democrats chapters, but only from two of the College Republicans chapters: UPenn and Columbia, according to The Daily Princetonian.

Cookie monsters. For no

apparent reason, two Yalies set up camp in Commons Monday armed with only an empty plate and a sign reading “Accepting Free Cookies” — a seemingly spontaneous effort that drew curious glances from Yalies and tourists alike.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1931 The University is granted permission to build the new Sheffield Administration Building 15 feet higher than New Haven zoning law typically allows. Construction is slated to begin at the corner of Grove and Prospect streets in the fall. Submit tips to Cross Campus

crosscampus@yaledailynews.com

ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com

School board searches for Mayo replacement

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BY JULIA ZORTHIAN STAFF REPORTER The University completed a successful fiscal year 2012 in fundraising with a total of $543,905,260 in cash donations — the second-highest amount ever raised for Yale and the third-highest total for all U.S. colleges and universities this year,

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according to the Council for Aid to Education’s annual fundraising survey. Vice President for Development Joan O’Neill said 78 percent of the cash donations were pledges made during the Yale Tomorrow campaign, which took place from September 2006 to June 2011. Donors filling their outstanding pledges

Years later, prize cap remains in place BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER Ever since tight finances prompted administrators to cut back on academic prizes in 2010, Yale has discouraged the creation of new prizes. When the onset of the recession in 2008 tore a $350 million hole in Yale’s operating budget, administrators sought many ways to close the gap, including a decision to cap most prizes at $1,000 and channel the excess funds toward the general operating budget primarily for financial aid purposes. Though at the time, the prize cap announcement elicited outcry from students and faculty members alike, administrators and professors interviewed said the caps have not been lifted since and added that Yale continues to discourage donors from establishing new prizes. “In a time of financial stringency, [prizes are] not the most effective way to use that money,” University President Richard Levin told the News. He added that administrators have “discouraged” the creation of new prizes because “in general, we have an awful lot of them.” Associate Vice President for Development Eugénie Gentry said the Development Office seeks donor support based on priorities set by the Provost’s Office, and Deputy Provost Lloyd Suttle said the creation of new prizes is not a priority at this time. “Yale’s fundraising priorities focus on supporting current programs, especially financial aid, not establishing new ones,” Suttle said. He added that he does not know of any plans to review or revise the cap in the near future. Levin said that even before the cap, Yale had never solicited prize money, which donors had generally volunteered to give. He added that Yale’s policy toward prize money changed in 2010 when administrators told the Development Office to “discourage

Funds tight in NHPS budget

those gifts and put them in financial aid rather than single out specific students.” In the months following the institution of the cap, some departments wrote letters to the Provost’s and Secretary’s offices, appealing the decision to slim down their prize budgets and arguing for the preservation of particular prizes that were going to be slashed or cut entirely. But Suttle said the prize cap was generally “enforced uniformly.”

In a time of financial stringency, [prizes are] not the most effective way to use that money. RICHARD LEVIN President, Yale University Though not significantly impacted by the prize cap, the Economics Department has actively encouraged potential donors to support student research rather than establish new prizes since the cap’s implementation, said Benjamin Polak, who served as the department’s chair before his appointment as provost last month. Polak said the cap hit older, humanities-oriented departments harder because they have accumulated the largest prizes. He added that the cap has been contentious because the prizes carry great significance in these departments’ cultures, and the larger prizes used to help students pay for graduate school or jump-start their careers. “We lost, and the prizes are all capped,” English professor and the department’s Prizes Committee Chair Margaret Homans said in an email last SEE PRIZES PAGE4

DIANA LI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Chief Operating Officer of the New Haven Board of Education Will Clark announced the 2013-’14 fiscal year budget for the city’s schools Monday. BY DIANA LI STAFF REPORTER Administrators of the New Haven public school system presented their proposed budget for the 2013-’14 fiscal year to the Board of Education on Monday night. Will Clark, the chief operating officer of the New Haven Board of Edu-

cation, introduced the $184 million draft budget, which requests a 3.5 percent increase in operating funds. Clark explained that within the budget, the NHPS is requesting $3 million from the city to offset lost grant revenue and cover additional transportation and salary costs. This $3 million, SEE SCHOOL BUDGET PAGE 6

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “Other, already-existing parts of the Yale Health system could use a yaledailynews.com/opinion

real overhaul.”

'ALONNINOS' ON 'YALE HEALTH CONSIDERS SEX CHANGE SURGERY'

Too much Grading and the purpose of the College stuff T T

here is too much happening at Yale. And because there is so much happening, we are divided into little fiefdoms and small conversations. Few events have the power to spark campuswide discussions, and few of these discussions have the staying power to have a meaningful impact on student opinion. The very wealth of opportunities has made us poorer. Yesterday morning, I checked my calendar and realized that in addition to my classes and organizational meetings, I had scribbled down notes to attend six different events within the space of four hours. On my schedule was information for: two separate Masters’ Teas (both scheduled for 4 p.m.), activist Michelle Alexander’s talk at the Divinity School (5:30 p.m.), John Negroponte’s discussion of current foreign policy priorities (6 p.m.), Peter Salovey’s “Open Forum” (7 p.m.) and Sufi Shaykh Hisham Kabbani’s conversation with Rabbi James Ponet on “divine intoxication” (7 p.m.). Overwhelmed, the only thing I ended up going to was my regularly scheduled weekly Talmud study-session. Of course, these events were just the tip of a very large iceberg. But the scary thing about life at Yale is that this sort of surplus is common. In fact, evenings like last night are all too typical. On a daily basis, we are bombarded with a parade of prominent dignitaries and intellectual movers and shakers. There are always far more events occurring and speakers visiting than any of us have the time or energy to attend. So we miss out. The problem with the event saturation at Yale is not merely the disappointment at all the missed opportunities — that is simply part of life. The real problem is that the constant stream of speakers on campus crushes any kind of cohesive, campus-wide engagement with our guests and their ideas. Imagine the power of the conversation around race and mass incarceration that might have been sparked if Michelle Alexander’s lecture was the only guest appearance of the week. Imagine the kind of debate over American foreign policy that Negroponte could have sparked if more than a handful had attended his talk in LC 211. But neither of these talks will have anywhere near that kind of impact. After all, barely anyone heard them speak, and those who did will be running off to hear some other important guest tomorrow evening. Decades ago, when transportation was more difficult and guest appearances less

frequent, individual speakers sparked serious and sustained discussion across campus. With YISHAI fewer SCWARTZ far guests and a more unified Dissentary extracurricular culture, Ronald Reagan’s invitation to Yale in the midst of the Vietnam War triggered weeks of protest and discussion. William F. Buckley and William Sloane Coffin could go at one another, exploring the deepest questions of political philosophy before a political union that boasted membership of nearly a quarter of the Yale College undergraduates.

WE'VE LOST THE CAMPUS-WIDE CONVERSATION Today, there is no possibility for events to inspire collective soul-searching and University-wide introspection. Student intellectual life is balkanized into hundreds of discrete student organizations, each devoted to its own narrow areas of interest. Assaulted with options, we self-segregate into smaller communities, each engaged in a rat race to bring in its own blockbuster speakers. In the process, audiences become smaller and conversations shallower. Campus-wide debate has all but become a thing of the past. There is likely no way to reverse the trend. The proliferation of student groups and the ease of modern travel assure the continued frenzy of special events, guests and opportunities. But we are deluding ourselves if we fail to realize that the abundance of opportunities has led to a drastic reduction in any individual event’s impact or reach. Even worse, it has led the dissolution of the University as a cohesive intellectual community. One day, perhaps, we will realize that more is not always better, and that increased choice does not always lead to better results. But in the absence of systemic change, perhaps we might all breathe a little easier every time we miss 11 of 12 simultaneous happenings. Don’t lust for Hermione’s time-turner, dream of the day when it will be unnecessary. YISHAI SCHWARTZ is a senior in Branford College. Contact him at yishai.schwartz@yale.edu .

he committee on grading recently released a preliminary report noting the phenomenon of grade “compression” (read: inflation) at Yale. Last spring, 62 percent of marks were A-minus or higher. The committee recommended both intra- and inter-departmental information sharing, hoping to encourage self-adjustment. But it went further, suggesting that we institute numerical grading in 1-point increments (59–100) and create suggested University-wide guidelines to limit high grades. The intended outcome? Princeton-style grade deflation. My background is in the humanities and social sciences, so I admittedly have a limited perspective across departments, as will most of us. But it seems to me that the risks of such a strategy go beyond merely disadvantaging Yalies relative to Ivy League peers in graduate school admissions or job markets — they threaten the character of the College itself. The committee believes that undergraduates are incentivized to put less effort into course work if high grades are easily attainable, and that their model encourages work. But an abundance of great work already happens, thanks to a myriad of other incentives. Hard workers benefit from the intrinsic feeling of a job well-done (underclassmen might scoff, but older students might recall their pride

in a particularly arduous project — a thesis, or research work for a graduate course). The sense of having MICHAEL truly learned is MAGDZIK something a better motivator than any Making grade, and closer to the Magic purpose of education — learning for the sake of learning, not to jump through hoops or pass tests. Beyond this, superb work is still required for great letters of recommendation, departmental prizes, journal publication, portfolios or writing samples for prestigious internships, and respect among Yale peers. Many students believe their work has implications for humanity, whether on the local scale (like the Community-Based Learning program, where students apply academic principles while conducting work for local nonprofits and government) or on the global level (cancer research, etc.). Because of all these incentives, I suspect we’ve more or less hit the cap for outstanding work. But let’s say that, for less outstanding students, a new grading policy would increase the average amount of work input. The committee cites a statistic saying stu-

dents worked 40 hours a week in 1961 and only 27 in 2003, which is a problem if you accept their philosophy that more work is better. Firstly, I’d point out that a large part of that may be due to the fact that we now have vast online libraries and keyboards. But more importantly, incentivizing ”more work” in this way would be a disaster for the College mission. A numerical grading scale will see more quibbling, more stress over insignificant details of work, more unproductive competitiveness and more exasperation over frequent arbitrariness. Are there really meaningful differences between a 94 and 96 on similarly structured literature papers, or is it more likely to be attributed to how recently a novitiate teaching assistant refilled his or her coffee mug? Also, a harsher scale will simply exacerbate the adverse selection phenomenon — students will consider it even more important to find the right courses, the right TAs and the right paper topics, because variation will always exist. Most tragically, the quest for each additional point will motivate students to sacrifice the enriching, nonacademic aspects of Yale life in order to compete with other universities’ students. A liberal arts environment is not for Ph.D.s-in-training. It is meant to teach us what it means to be servants in our communities, citizens in our polities, leaders in our orga-

nizations and humans in our time. It is supposed to impart character. Character is not forged in the dungeons of Bass. It is cultivated when students learn to listen and engage, a skill acquired over hundreds of dining hall debates where no one is scurrying to the library. It comes as people spend time finding their calling, whether as public school interns or student newspaper journalists or doctors’ shadows. It is bred as we are socialized to others’ life experiences. You cannot internalize what it means to be black, an immigrant, Muslim, gay or bipolar just by reading. We need to experience friendships and relationships, passion and anger, in large doses unconfined to the Friday nights we can afford to carve out of our study schedules. And, just sometimes, we also need enough time to learn what makes us happy. I, and many others at this University, will continue to work relentlessly for all the reasons I laid out before — already often at the expense of mental health. Before we make such a drastic change and bicker over implementation, it is important to first have a broader philosophical discussion about the purpose of the College, and whether this proposal fulfills it. MICHAEL MAGDZIK is a senior in Berkeley College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at michael.magdzik@yale.edu .

The 'innocent' museum T

he history of museums is a history of theft, appropriation, bribery and manipulation. It is also a history of beauty, elegance, scholarship and public education. We can easily extend these descriptions to other cultural landmarks and institutions: Few libraries, monuments or public buildings come without a complicated history that mixes oppression with celebration. As I intimated in my last column, I give tours at the Yale University Art Gallery (a lot of them recently, as the newly renovated spaces have reopened in spectacular fashion) and have a deep and abiding love for museums and for art. I spent this past summer visiting some of Europe’s finest museums on a Yale fellowship, and saw firsthand the extent to which the great collections in Europe are built out of extraordinary objects that arrived through dubious means. Few museums enjoy making reference to this part of their histories: They prefer to provide a sanitized version of events for public consumption that steps over the dingier aspects of the story. I listened to an astonishing number of audio guides and read an alarming number of labels that came perilously close to tell-

ing lies. Museums are not innocent spaces — and no convoluted, whitewashed version of events will make it so. ZOE I say all this MERCER- because most visitors I see GOLDEN at the museum Meditations come in with a sense that museums are elitist, highbrow institutions, designed to safeguard works of art and promote superior cultural taste in the masses. Some are shocked when I tell stories about objects that came to Yale through bribery or manipulated auctions; works that were sawn in pieces and scrubbed clean of paint; works that were illegally excavated and sold before there were laws against it; paintings that were heavily cleaned by a small group of somewhat radical art historians, now too damaged to go back on view. To counteract these stories, I share tales of monuments that we only know about because an archaeologist arrived before a war started, and got some pieces out; I

talk about the high-quality conservation and restoration work that the gallery is currently doing to preserve important pieces of art in our collection for future generations. Yale has, in the wake of the Machu Picchu episode, cemented itself as a deeply thoughtful institution that is comfortable with publicly owning up — unlike many European art museums — to the problematic histories of some of its artifacts. The challenge then becomes balancing the image museums present of themselves — pure temples to art — with the masked realities of blood, sweat and tears. Learning to read museums is much like learning to decode a piece of literature: You look for signs and symbols, for deliberate effacements and evasions. You acknowledge that everything is a construction, and done deliberately. You ask questions, and don’t accept half-hearted answers. In the same vein, Yale allows me to tell the stories of these objects in all of their convoluted glory. My teachers at the museum taught me these stories, as have my art history professors. They’ve shown me that it’s possible to balance a love of a museum or cultural institution with criticism of its history, and that above all, every terrible

story is an opportunity for further education, for oneself and others. Objects and museums are our global cultural heritage. As a community, we are responsible for safeguarding the works that defined moments and peoples in the past. But our job is also to recognize that no object or institution is made with completely clean hands — not even the ones around the corner. That should not stop us from loving these places. But it should teach us to read them, and consider history, a little differently. If for no other reason, these stories should put an end to the notion that museums are “boring.” Though not all objects have an "Indiana Jones"-style backstory, a surprisingly large number of them do. Even for those that don’t, we still see in those objects the truth of museums and other cultural institutions: They bring us closer to our common humanity through an exploration of the human psyche, in the stories shaped both through and around the object. ZOE MERCER-GOLDEN is a senior in Davenport College. Her column runs on alternate Tuesdays. Contact her at zoe.mercer-golden@yale.edu .

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Drone strikes at home

year and a half has passed since the August evening when an overpriced shuttle dropped me off at Phelps Gate. Throughout my time at Yale, I have often been struck by how well this campus makes me feel at home in a country that is not mine. I did not grow up speaking English, and I cannot donate to the yearly YaleHarvard blood drives despite Dean Miller’s many emails, but I have very rarely felt alienated from those around me simply because I come from somewhere different. Last Thursday was an exception. That afternoon, I attended a talk by a Yale Law School professor, Oona Hathaway LAW ’97, on the legality of drone strikes. It was informative; Hathaway’s knowledge of the issue was excellent, and her arguments were convincing. Throughout the talk, however, something kept nagging at me. I knew we were all there to discuss the legality of the issue, and not the morality, so I could not understand why I still felt uneasy. It was during the Q-and-A session that it hit me — a student asked Hatha-

way how soon she thought drones would reach “closer to home.” The talk had been organized by the International Students Organization and was attended by students hailing from across the world. But when we discussed the possibility of drone proliferation “at home,” we meant only the United States. I thought back on the home I left in January, where we discuss drone strikes over dinner tables and in daily news bulletins. I looked back and remembered the children that died, the resentment that invariably rises, the bruised, indignant sovereignty. Drones reached my home, Pakistan, many years ago. Back in November 2012, I sat talking to another Pakistani at Yale about the upcoming American presidential elections. “Who do you want to see win, Obama or Romney?” I asked. “Their policy on drones is very similar, so I don’t care much.” His reply bothered me. I was puzzled at how anyone who planned to live in this country for years to come could remain aloof from such an important event.

Last Thursday, Hathaway explained how the U.S government broadly defines “militants” killed by drone strikes as “all military-age males in a strike zone.” Many believe it’s an effort to reduce the official civilian casualty counts. From my friend to the U.S. government, apathy happens everywhere. Right after the talk, I attended a dinner with a guest of the Yale University Art Gallery, along with curators and art students. They were discussing recent trends in visual and literary arts, and someone pointed out, “Oh, drones are all the rage nowadays. They’re everywhere in art.” Again, I was unsettled. A traumatic and debilitating reality for many abroad was being used to feed the need for fantasy, innovation and wonder in the art studios of New York City or Boston. Do I believe that such attitudes will easily change? No. Hathaway’s talk convinced me that drones are here to stay, given their efficiency, relatively lower costs and the very obvious fact that they eradicate the need for “Ameri-

can boots on the ground.” Among friends and classmates who continue to turn a blind eye to their government’s abuse of power abroad, I can understand the apathy, at least partially. It is not easy to worry about issues that do not remotely affect us, especially when we live in an insular college community and face various academic and emotional concerns of our own everyday. However, there are some of us who are torn between this place and another, a home less peaceful than here. And it’s frustrating. We call this campus our home regardless of the color of our passports, but issues of national identity and foreignness creep in from time to time. For many international students who come from regions adversely affected by U.S. foreign policy, there are realities beyond the confines of this campus. Try as we might, we can’t ignore them. DUR E AZIZ AMNA is a sophomore in Berkeley College. Contact her at dureaziz.amna@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS Future uncertain for Islas

“I was born on a farm. My strength has nothing to do with political apparatus. I get my strength from nature, from flowers.” ARIEL SHARON FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER

After blizzard, Yale Farm recovers

BY MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS STAFF REPORTER Surrounded by a small cadre of Yale College Democrats Monday evening, Josemaria Islas continued his advocacy against his own looming deportation, which he has been fighting to prevent for seven months. Islas, a New Haven undocumented worker arrested in July on charges of armed robbery of which he was later cleared, faces an uphill battle in his effort to remain in the United States. Last Thursday, an immigration court in Hartford decided against dropping Islas’ case, bringing him one step closer to deportation. At the same time, four protestors — including two current Yale students — claiming unfairness in the Secure Communities program of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were arrested in an act of civil disobedience in the state Capitol. Secure Communities asks local law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants who have been arrested until ICE officials can bring them to a immigration detention center. While last week’s rally generated some public support for Islas, it thus far has produced no change on the part of ICE or highlevel public officials who might influence his case. As a result, Islas and his advocates are left to continue their efforts to build support on a local level, though with no guarantee of success. “I migrated looking for a better life for my family,” Islas said during Monday’s meeting. “I’m paying for something I did not do.” Islas will speak at the Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven on Saturday. On Sunday, his family will participate in the Keeping Families Together campaign tour, a national bus tour focusing on immigration issues visiting New Haven this weekend. Beyond that, Islas’ plans are undetermined, said Unidad Latina en Accion organizer Megan Fountain ’07, who was arrested Thursday. Fountain said there is no timeline for Islas’ continuing deportation procedures. He has 30 days to appeal last week’s court decision, but whether he will choose to remains uncertain. At the moment, Islas is continuing to consult his lawyer on possible legal strategies. Fountain added, however, that prosecutorial discretion, in which ICE would simply close Islas’ case, “is really the only option.” At least 12 community leaders and elected officials have sent letters asking ICE Public Advocate Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, who is prosecuting the case, to exercise prosecutorial discretion, including New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. ICE spokesman Ross Feinstein remained firm in the agency’s commitment to continue Islas’ deportation proceedings, calling him a “priority for removal” in an email to the News last week. Feinstein emphasized that ICE prioritizes “those that have broken criminal laws, recently crossed our border, or repeatedly violated immigration laws,” which, he said, Islas had done. “Islas was originally charged with a serious criminal offense of conspiracy to commit robbery. He was subsequently charged with two lesser offenses arising from the same incident and entered Connecticut’s accelerated rehabilitation program,” Feinstein wrote. “Islas was also previously removed from the United States on four separate occasions in both August and September 2005. He subsequently entered the United States without permission.” Islas and his advocates have asked for similar letters from Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 and Chris Murphy and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Although Blumenthal has reportedly turned down the request, Fountain said that Murphy and DeLauro’s offices are still considering writing such a letter. In her evaluation of the requests’ prospects, however, she remains pessimistic. “Politicians want to come out in support of young people, undocumented youth,” Fountain said, referring to broad support for the DREAM Act, which proposed to grant temporary and then permanent residency to certain undocumented young immigrants. “They’re very afraid to come out in support of undocumented parents and undocumented workers.” In the meantime, Islas’ case has spurred an invigorated push for Connecticut to close the loophole that allowed for Islas’ detention by ICE. Last year, Gov. Dannel Malloy instructed the state Department of Corrections to hold only undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies for ICE. Because Islas was in the custody of judicial marshals, however, Malloy’s order did not apply. State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield is, at the request of the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance, in the process of authoring the Connecticut TRUST Act, which would extend the essence of Malloy’s order to all branches of the state’s law enforcement. Islas has a brother, sister, brother-inlaw and several nieces and nephews in New Haven, he said Monday. Four of them are currently undocumented. Contact MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS at matthew.lloyd-thomas@yale.edu .

JENNIFER CHEUNG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The collapse of one of the Yale Farm’s three high tunnels during the Feb. 8 snowstorm will limit the farm’s planting and harvesting capacity this season. BY EMMA GOLDBERG STAFF REPORTER While students celebrated two consecutive days of canceled classes after a blizzard hit New Haven earlier this month, interns at the Yale Farm scrambled to rescue their winter crop from the storm’s path. The snowstorm that struck New Haven on Feb. 8 collapsed one of the farm’s three high tunnels (metalframed structures that shield crops from the elements), and the damage will limit planting and harvesting capacity for the rest of the winter season. Farm Director Mark Bomford said in a Sunday email that the staff plans to rebuild the damaged structure before the spring, but reconstruction will leech off of the farm’s budget. Although the farm received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resource Conservation Service to build a new high tunnel, Shizue Rocheadachi ’15, the farm’s student manager, said that the farm will instead use the funding to reconstruct the collapsed tunnel. “We were all blown away by the impact of the storm,” Rocheadachi said. “It was beyond what any of us had conceived.” Student interns had attempted to prepare for the storm by ensuring that all doors to the high tunnels were closed, preventing crops from being exposed to the snow. Farm Coordinator Jeremy Oldfield said volunteers stayed on the farm until after the storm hit on Friday evening, knocking fallen snow off the high tunnel

roofs. Rocheadachi and farm intern Justine Appel ’15 planned to dig out the high tunnels from under the snow the next day, but the roof caved in under the weight of the snow before they could arrive on Saturday. Rocheadachi said she was surprised that the tunnel collapsed because she said it had been constructed more recently than the other tunnels. The tunnel housed spinach and greens that volunteers planned to sell at a local farmer’s market, she added, and Oldfield said the farm staff were only able to salvage two-thirds of the already harvested greens.

A garden like ours is such a dynamic piece of land that bracing ourselves for severe weather usually turns out to be more creative and on-thefly. JUSTINE APPEL ’15 Intern, Yale Farm Bomford said he hopes to have the tunnel repaired by the spring planting season, which begins in April, but Rocheadachi said she is concerned the construction will be delayed when students leave campus for spring break.

Though volunteers are disappointed that they will not be able to add a fourth high tunnel to the farm this spring, Rocheadachi said they are keeping the problem in perspective, particularly given the damage the storm has caused to other farms in the area. Common Ground, a local New Haven farm, only had one high tunnel and it collapsed during the storm, Rocheadachi said. On farms across Connecticut, tunnel collapses could lead to major problems including a shortened growing season, a late start for seedlings and a lessened supply for vendors, leaving a gap in the local marketplace, Yale Farm Events and Outreach Coordinator Jacqueline Lewin said. “We’re a teaching farm, so it’s not as if anyone is going to go hungry because of the tunnel’s collapse,” Rocheadachi said. “We’re taking this as a learning experience, even though we are losing a lot of valuable time that we could have used for planting.” In recent years, the Yale Farm has invested in structures that protect crops from weather damage, Bomford said. Prior to Hurricane Sandy, volunteers built temporary barriers around the farm’s tunnels to prevent them from being damaged by the wind. The farm emerged from the hurricane untouched, save a few artichokes that died and some fencing that was damaged by fallen trees. Many of the precautions made for the hurricane were still in place when the blizzard hit this month. Though the Yale Farm staff works to protect its structures and equip-

ment before storms like Hurricane Sandy, Appel said the farm staff have not developed a general procedure for responding to severe weather conditions. “A garden like ours is such a dynamic piece of land that bracing ourselves for severe weather usually turns out to be more creative and onthe-fly than following a certain predetermined procedure,” Appel said. Weather problems like the blizzard can be helpful, Oldfield said, in allowing student managers to identify problems in farm infrastructure that can be addressed to prevent future storm damage. Bomford said volunteers are currently working with the Yale Office of Sustainability and students at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies to improve the farm’s stormwater management system, which will prevent any damage from flooding in the future. Despite the structural issues that the blizzard created, Bomford said the snow might make the crops sweeter in the spring, since plants tend to produce sugar in cold weather. “While the crops grow more slowly, you get some flavors during the cool weather that you don’t find in the summer,” Bomford said. In addition to spinach, the collapsed high tunnel also housed arugula, tatsoi, golden frill mustard and several other greens. Contact EMMA GOLDBERG at emma.goldberg@yale.edu .

Salovey confronts student concerns BY APSARA IYER STAFF REPORTER President-elect Peter Salovey offered a sounding board for student concerns by discussing University resources and student engagement in STEM classes and online education at the Yale College Council Open Forum Monday night. During the forum, which roughly 50 students attended, Salovey responded to six prescreened questions about athletics, education in STEM fields, the relationship between students and administrators, sustainability, online education and financial aid. Salovey said he supports expanding the field of online education at Yale beyond the online course experience to providing user-specific learning and broadening the global reach of the University. “Online tools can expand Yale’s reach,” he said. “I’m not as sure that they’ll have a radical transformation of what happens in the classroom, but they can allow a lot more people to have access to Yale’s resources.” Salovey used the concept of a “flip-classroom,” in which students watch online lectures at home and then discuss them during class, as an example of harnessing online tools to enhance the way students interact with their professors directly. He said he envisions a

future of online courses in which presentations adjust to incorporate more auditory and visual elements based on performance tracking tailored to each student’s learning style. The state of the University’s budget and student financial aid were also central to the evening’s discussion. Salovey said he is “strongly in favor of the most generous financial aid policies that we can have,” but that he does not think the University can realistically eliminate the summer income contribution required of students on financial aid, which totals between $1,500 to $2,900 per year and could inhibit students from pursuing unpaid summer opportunities. Salovey said he faced financial aid challenges as a student at Stanford, but even with his financial constraints, he found summer activities that “complemented” his education. Ned Downie ’14 estimated that it would cost the University roughly $8 million to cover summer income contributions, though Salovey said the University is already $50 million short of a balanced budget. Salovey also said a timeline for updating facilities with handicap accessibility would depend on “committing to a rate of spending over a period of time.” The topic turned to academics when Salovey emphasized the importance of providing high-

SARI LEVY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

President-elect Peter Salovey responded to student concerns on financial aid, online education and introductory STEM classes at Monday’s YCC Open Forum. quality teaching in introductory courses and offering incentives for good instruction in STEM fields. Currently, he added, the University is focusing on improving STEM classes by increasing individualized student attention, including a commitment to obtaining funding to hire 10 new engineering professors this year. Students interviewed said they were satisfied with Salovey’s

responses. Sophia Charan ’16 said she thinks that Salovey should advocate for improved technology in classrooms “for the sake of the technology” rather than because it has the “Yale name attached to it.” The YCC Open Forum event was last held in 2001. Contact APSARA IYER at apsara.iyer@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT 26TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Stanford sets fundraising record

City to hire consulting firm

FUNDRAISING FROM PAGE 1 “Yale’s second-biggest year is a big accomplishment, and it demonstrates the great success of the Yale Tomorrow campaign,” O’Neill said, “so we’re seeing the benefit of that.” O’Neill said nearly 58 percent of the roughly $540 million raised in cash donations went into the University endowment, 26 percent went directly toward specified uses such as research funding and 14 percent was mostly split between facilities funding and unrestricted use. She added that donors are still deciding how to allocate the remaining small percentage of the donations. University President Richard Levin said the large donation figure did not surprise him, adding that Yale received a nine-figure pledge and a number of eight-figure pledges during the campaign, so donors fulfilling some of those pledges this year added to the total.

DIANA LI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Board of Education is poised to search for a replacement for NHPS Superintendent Reginald Mayo, right. SUPERINTENDENT FROM PAGE 1 a new superintendent, only noting that the appointment will entail a nationwide search process. Assistant Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries ’95, a possible front-runner for the post, would not confirm intentions to apply for the job. Harris only noted that he plans to stay in New Haven and that he is committed to school change. School board officials at the Monday meeting agreed that the next step in the process is to hire a consultant who can help guide the board through a search process. Board members will create an application for the super-

intendent post in the coming weeks. “We’d be spinning our wheels if we ran ahead and started doing the work [without a consulting firm],” Torre said. Board members also stressed that in order to maintain the current progress of the School Change Initiative in New Haven, it is imperative that the search process finishes before Mayo steps down this June. However, the board stopped short of outlining specific dates for each step in the search. Johnston added that it is important to move quickly at the beginning of the search process and thus allow time for

community involvement in the coming months. Torre said that the Board of Education plans to have focus groups in which teachers, community members and parents can voice qualities and characteristics they believe are important for a new superintendent. Will Clark, chief operating officer of the Board of Education, said the consulting firm selected will need to charge a fee of $100,000 or less to be an affordable partner for the city. Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .

Yale’s second-biggest [fundraising] year … demonstrates the great success of the Yale Tomorrow campaign. JOAN O’NEILL Vice president for development, Yale University He added that he does not expect the cash donation total to be larger for the 2013 fiscal year because fewer pledges from the Yale Tomorrow campaign have yet to be paid off. Harvard University and Stanford University were the two schools that outperformed Yale on the Council for Aid to Education’s annual fundraising survey, and Stanford set a fundraising record as the first college to surpass $1 billion in donations, counting $1.03 billion in 2012. On Dec. 31, 2011, Stanford concluded a $6.23 billion campaign called “The Stanford Challenge,” and the school’s

fiscal year ended in August, creating a similar effect in the 2012 fiscal year that O’Neill said occurred after the Yale Tomorrow campaign. Harvard raised the second-highest amount with a total of $650 million. Members of the Stanford Development Office could not be reached for comment, and the Harvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office declined to comment. O’Neill called Stanford’s performance a “huge accomplishment,” and said that receiving $1 billion is not out of question for Yale in the future and that “we have aspirations” to raise that amount. If the Development Office received many large gifts at the same time, it could be possible to break $1 billion, she said. The University is a relatively smaller school than Stanford, she added, and Yale College is the “biggest funding arm” in terms of alumni support. The relative sizes of the different schools within the University differ significantly from the school sizes at Harvard and Stanford, O’Neill explained, adding that Yale has relatively smaller business and engineering schools, which can drive support for a university. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have years we are able to outperform schools that are bigger than us,” O’Neill added. The numbers released by the Council for Aid to Education reflect cash payments, but not pledges, Levin and O’Neill said, and colleges usually take both donations and pledges into account when measuring fundraising success. O’Neill added that when taking pledges into consideration, in the 2013 fiscal year, the University is currently outperforming its fundraising efforts at this point last year. Altogether, about 3,500 U.S. colleges and universities raised $31 billion, marking a 2.3 percent increase from fiscal year 2011 — a significantly lower change than the 8.2 percent increase in all giving from 2010 to 2011. Contact JULIA ZORTHIAN at julia.zorthian@yale.edu .

Admins continue to discourage new prizes PRIZES FROM PAGE 1 week. Still, professors were able to convince administrators to spare a handful of prizes that the policy had previously marked for elimination or significant reduction. Linda Peterson, former chair of the English Department Prizes Committee, said she and Department Chair Michael Warner examined the state of every English prize after the cap. Through discussions with the Provost’s Office, they managed to save at least one prize that was “going to be either eliminated or made entirely honorific,” she said.

Math Department chair Yair Minsky said his department successfully appealed to reinstate some funding for the John Alan Lewis Prize. The name of the prize has been changed to the John Alan Lewis Summer Research Fellowship, but it is now worth close to $3,000, Minsky said in a Monday email. But eventually, inflation will cause the reduced prizes to decline even further in value, Peterson said. She said she has heard no discussions about the implications of the cap five or 10 years from now when prizes of $1,000 will be worth less, though Polak said he is “pretty sure” that the

Provost’s and Secretary’s offices will need to adjust the cap for inflation. Administrators have also restricted the formerly common practice of splitting large prizes between students, professors said. Before the cap, the English Department had split some of the larger prize funds between five or six students each year, Peterson said, but Stefanie Markovits, another former chair of the English Prizes Committee, said the Provost’s and Secretary’s offices now “actually discourages” the department from splitting up individual prizes. The DeForest Prize for senior

math majors, an award that had increased in value to more than $23,000, used to be spread among 10 to 12 students before the cap, mathematics professor Roger Howe told the News in 2010. It was adjusted to give $1,000 each to two seniors after the cap, he said. “The ground rule now is one winner per prize,” Peterson said. “You can understand the logic — if the prize language says ‘to the best senior’ or ‘for the best freshman composition,’ it shouldn’t be given to five people.” Many of Yale’s older prizes, some of which were given as early as the mid-1800s, started

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out small but ballooned over the years because they were invested alongside the Yale endowment. In 2009, the total value of the Mathematics Department’s prize funds exceeded $70,000, Howe told the News in 2010. After the prize cap, the department awarded only $6,000, he said. Suttle said prizes were reduced in March 2010 after administrators reviewed each prize’s indenture — a legal document in which a donor specifies how the money can be used. That spring, thenConnecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal investigated Yale’s handling of its donations. Suttle said the prize cap policy

was “reviewed and approved by the Attorney General’s Office.” Markovits said the English Department has gradually adjusted to the cap. “I’m hoping that we will be able to continue to give out the prize money we were able to preserve when the budget cuts were made,” she said. “We’re optimistic that we’ve reached a new normal that will be preserved.” Thirty-nine students received prizes from the English Department in spring 2012. Contact SOPHIE GOULD at sophie.gould@yale.edu .

OPINION. YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR VOICE. YOUR PAGE.

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NEWS

“We’ll try to cooperate fully with the IRS because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail.” DAVE BARRY PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AMERICAN AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST

Negroponte highlights foreign policy challenges BY JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN STAFF REPORTER Speaking to an audience of about 20 students in LinslyChittenden Hall Monday night, Yale lecturer and former ambassador John Negroponte ’60 commented on a wide range of foreign policy issues facing the Obama administration today. The former ambassador identified what he described as the three key elements of American foreign policy: to protect the country’s security, to enhance economic interests and to promote and defend American values. Negroponte also argued that the core of U.S. foreign policy involves the ongoing need to build positive diplomatic relations with other countries. He called for the new secretary of state, John Kerry ’66, to continue the emphasis on keeping diplomatic channels open and to articulate the need for more economic and military agreements between nations as a strategy for deterring new challenges. Negroponte also spoke of the consistency that has characterized American foreign policy since the end of World War II. “When you take a look at what is actually done, foreign policy doesn’t broadly change from administration to administration or party to party,” Negroponte said. The former ambassador said the international situation and the national mood mean that President Barack Obama is unlikely to start any new foreign engagements in the near future, adding that Obama will likely

opt instead to concentrate international relations in the context of a national focus on the economy and internal rebuilding. He cited the president’s State of the Union address in January, which alluded sparsely to foreign policy but mentioned a potential freetrade agreement with Europe, as an example of a shift in focus.

Foreign policy doesn’t broadly change from administration to administration or party to party. JOHN NEGROPONTE ’60 Former U.S. ambassador Negroponte also touched on issues he predicted that America and its allies will soon have to face, including the changing role of NATO and a still-resurgent Russia. While there have been positive relations between the United States and Russia on issues like arms control, nuclear nonproliferation and counterterrorism, Negroponte acknowledged “some daylight” in terms of human rights and democracy issues that must be managed strategically. In speaking about the Obama administration’s policy on the decadelong war in Afghanistan, Negroponte said the president seems committed to ending the war quickly, though he recommended leaving a small military

presence to indicate long-term American interest in the region. The former Bush administration diplomat also took questions from the student audience, fielding inquiries about current and past political issues. When asked about the American military’s controversial drone program currently under international scrutiny, Negroponte said the president has been enthusiastic about the program and the administration is looking to expand the program by installing a new launch base in central Africa. Toward the end of his speech, Negroponte spoke of climate change as an issue he would like to see addressed. “This is an area where it will take the president’s personal leadership to get things done,” he said, recommending a focus on China and India as two of the world’s largest polluters. Linh Nguyen ’15, who organized the event, praised Negroponte for sharing his views, adding that his personal experience enriched his opinions. Miranda Melcher ’16 said Negroponte’s perspective allowed audience members to consider foreign policy over time. “People our age tend to forget that the people making the decision are a lot older than us,” she said, adding that this time frame shapes the way high-level government officials make decisions. The ambassador’s talk was sponsored by the Yale International Relations Association. Contact JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN at john.aroutiounian@yale.edu .

JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Former ambassador John Negroponte discussed the consistency of U.S. foreign policy over time at a Monday talk.

Civil rights lawyer explains the New Jim Crow BY LAVINIA BORZI STAFF REPORTER Students and faculty filled Marquand Chapel at the Divinity School Monday afternoon to listen to one of today’s most influential legal rights advocates discuss the issue of mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer who gained national renown after publishing the book “The New Jim Crow,” spoke to the audience about the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the United States, which she described as a legalized form of racial discrimination. Because African-Americans make up a large percentage of America’s prison population, Alexander said millions of African-Americans nationwide are deprived of basic human rights to housing and employment, adding that the prisoners have fallen victim to the kind of racial discrimination that

existed at the time of Jim Crow. “We have not ended racial caste in America, we have merely redesigned it,” she said. “This is a system that has literally turned back the clock on racial progress in the U.S.” Alexander said a series of American government campaigns to curb the illegal drug trade, commonly referred to as the war on drugs, is causing an unprecedented number of incarcerations, especially of people of color. More than 45 million people have been “swept into the system” for drug offenses, Alexander said, adding that the number of people currently incarcerated for drug offenses surpasses the number of people incarcerated for any one reason in 1980. She said the government’s approach to helping American black communities, which often face economic challenges, has involved targeting the African-American population with

“police and prisons” rather than implementing economic stimulus systems, creating bailout programs, or investing in schools and job training.

Children are now shuttled from low-funded schools to very high-funded, hightech prisons. MICHELLE ALEXANDER Author, ‘The New Jim Crow’ “Children are now shuttled from low-funded schools to very high-funded, high-tech prisons,” Alexander said. She also said that the phenomenon of mass incarceration will be difficult to change because it is deeply embedded into the social and economic fabric of America.

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Many states feel that their economies depend on prisons, and that closing down prisons would have dramatically negative economic effects, Alexander said. She added that four of five prisoners would have to be released in order for the rate of incarceration to return to its level in the 1970s. Alexander said addressing the issue of mass incarceration will require a change from a civil rights movement to a human rights movement. The fight against mass incarceration needs to be “multiracial and multiethnic,” Alexander said, and it requires a “great awakening.” She argued that the issue of mass incarceration can only be truly addressed by opening Americans’ communities — their homes, schools, churches and workplaces — to those whose lives have been altered by mass incarceration. Audience members interviewed said they were impressed

MARIA ZEPEDA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

At a Monday talk, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander condemned mass incarceration of African-Americans as a form of legalized discrimination. by Alexander’s persuasiveness and the strength with which she conveyed her message. Kayla Parker DIV ’15 said Alexander’s talk made the issue of racial discrimination in America seem less impossible to change. “I appreciated the idea of

movement-building,” she said. “It was helpful and inspiring.” Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.” ARTHUR WEASLEY CHARACTER IN J.K. ROWLING’S “HARRY POTTER” SERIES

Stress may offer workplace benefits BY EMMA GOLDBERG STAFF REPORTER Amidst midterm season, President-elect Peter Salovey has a message for students — stress can be good. In a recent study to be published in the April edition of The Journal of Social and Psychological Sciences, Salovey collaborated with lead author and Columbia adjunct professor Alia Crum GRD ’12 and former Harvard researcher Shawn Achor to show that training employees to view stress positively can result in improved job performance. The team first began developing their plans in 2009 and started conducting tests in 2010, Crum said. “Usually what the media talks about is how stress can be damaging for our health and performance,” Crum said. “But our research showed that stress can lead to enhanced psychological growth and productivity.” In order to investigate the impact of stress, Crum and her team evaluated a group of 380 employees from a prominent investment bank. The employees were split into three groups — one watched a series of videos on the benefits of stress, the second watched videos on the damages caused by stress and the third was a control group that did not watch any videos. The videos contained anecdotes and facts that the researchers hoped would shift employee attitudes toward stress. Salovey, Crum and Achor then designed a measurement to quantify employees’ beliefs about stress on a 4-point scale, and found that employees with positive attitudes toward stress were more productive in the workplace and exhibited fewer physical symptoms such as headaches and fatigue. The researchers also conducted a follow-up study in which they trained 200 managers at an investment bank, helping them channel their stress into improved work effectiveness and efficiency. Crum said the researchers were interested in contrasting the results of an inperson training session with the videos they showed employees in their first study. The results of the followup study have not yet been published. “For research purposes, it is helpful to have subjects watch a threeminute video,” Crum said. “But in practice, we wanted to work with people in trainings to consciously and deliberately change their mindsets about stress.” Putting their findings into practice, the researchers are currently developing an online program that teaches the public about the bene-

PFCs linked to osteoarthritis

fits of stress, Crum said. The course, called ReThink Stress, is being designed by corporate trainer Eric Karpinski. “The ReThink Stress program can change the way one views stress from something to be feared to something that can be utilized to achieve important goals,” Achor said in a February press statement from ReThink Stress. “And managers can bring this training to their employees to help their entire team tap into these productivity benefits.” Crum said she hopes the project will show the public that the debilitating effects of stress are primarily psychological — if people shift their mindset, they can use stress to their advantage, a lesson she believes is particularly relevant for students.

HELLERHOFF/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Higher exposure levels to PFCs, a family of chemicals found in many everyday products, was associated with an increased risk of osteoarthritis in women.

Our research showed that stress can lead to enhanced psychological growth and productivity.

BY HANNAH SCHWARZ STAFF REPORTER

ALIA CRUM GRD ’12 Adjunct professor, Columbia Business School “Learning in schools is one of the biggest places where our research applies,” Crum said. Though the researchers believe stress can be helpful to students in the classroom, a representative of the undergraduate meditation organization YMindful warn that stress also has its downsides. Though pressure can enhance efficiency, YMindful member Deena Gottlieb ’15 said it can detract from overall mental health and emotional stability. “Stress shifts our focus from completing the task at hand to the fear and anxiety about not completing that task,” Gottlieb said. “Stress distracts us.” Hoping to combat negative perceptions of stress, Salovey, Crum and Achor drew from the work of Yale researcher Jeremy Gray whose 2008 study published in the journal Psychological Science showed that students were able to raise their scores on the Graduate Record Examinations when taking the test under high-pressure conditions. A 2012 survey conducted by the American Psychological Association showed 33 percent of Americans have never discussed stress management techniques with their health care providers. Contact EMMA GOLDBERG at emma.goldberg@yale.edu . THAO DO

Study pinpoints schizophrenia-causing receptor BY DHRUV AGGARWAL STAFF REPORTER A Yale study has identified the neuroreceptor whose malfunction is thought to cause cognitive diseases such as schizophrenia. Published in the Feb. 20 issue of the journal Neuron, the study examines the role NMDA receptors in the prefrontal cortex of the brain play in determining the onset of illness. Yale neurobiology professor and paper senior author Amy Arnsten said scientists already knew genetic defects led to NMDA defects, adding that the study examined why genetic alterations to NMDA receptors were associated with thought disorders. Arnsten said understanding the function of NMDA receptors is key to understanding mental illness. “That’s the receptor you need for highly developed circuits [in the brain] to talk to each other,” she said. “This will provide clarity for therapeutic development.” Arnsten said the study was based on “wonderful collaboration” between Yale’s Psychiatry and Mathematics departments, along with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where the electron microscopy necessary for the project was conducted. Working under Psychiatry Department chair John Krystal MED ’84, the Yale laboratory exposed human subjects to low doses of the anesthetic ketamine, which researchers discovered affected NMDA receptors and induced schizophrenia-like symptoms in the subjects. Although these symptoms were transient, the human subjects demonstrated impaired cognitive functions typical of the disease. “When healthy people get a low dose of

When healthy people get a low dose of ketamine, it produces behavioral changes resembling schizophrenia. JOHN KRYSTAL MED ’84 Chair, Department of Psychiatry “The ability to hold something in your mind when the stimulus is not there grants the freedom to do what you want without the stimulus,” he said. Krystal said the project was initiated decades ago through his interactions with Arnsten and the late Yale neuroscience professor Patricia Goldman-Rakic. “[Goldman-Rakic] was a pioneer in seeing how the prefrontal cortex guides behav-

FOTIS BOBOLAS/CREATIVE COMMONS

The study examined the role of the anesthetic ketamine in disrupting the brain’s NMDA receptors, which have been linked to thought disorders. ior,” he said. He said this study continued GoldmanRakic’s research hypothesis that nerve cells retained activity when ideas were generated. Arnsten said her future research will focus on other molecules that might weaken or impair cognition. “We are in great need of better understanding and better treatment of serious

mental illness,” she said. “The only way to do that is to understand molecular influences on higher cognitive functions.” Eight of the 10 authors of the paper published in Neuron are affiliated with Yale. Contact DHRUV AGGARWAL at dhruv.aggarwal@yale.edu .

Contact HANNAH SCHWARZ at hannah.schwarz@yale.edu .

OSTEOARTHRITIS 9\`e^ fm\in\`^_k `eZi\Xj\j risk of osteoarthritis because of the extra weight placed on joints. Fjk\fXik_i`k`j k\e[j kf Y\ genetic. 8cdfjk ). d`cc`fe g\fgc\ in the United States have osteoarthritis. 8ck_fl^_ fjk\fXik_i`k`j occurs equally in men and women under the age of 55, women account for around 60 percent of those older than 55 with osteoarthritis. Sources: PubMed Health, Everyday Health

Researchers identify cellular origins of fat BY MAREK RAMILO STAFF REPORTER

ketamine, it produces behavioral changes resembling schizophrenia,” Krystal said. “[The anesthetic] also doesn’t activate the prefrontal cortex [of the brain] when it’s having its effect.” Xiao-Jing Wang, formerly a Yale neurobiology professor and now a faculty member at New York University, provided the mathematical models of brain circuits examined in the study. These models predicted that NMDA receptors would be utilized by these circuits. Wang said he conducted his mathematical modeling research after realizing working memory must be mathematical. He defined working memory as the memory retained once there is no immediate stimulus present, such as remembering a particular telephone number.

A recent study from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has found that high levels of exposure to a chemical found in everyday products are linked to osteoarthritis. The study found that women in the highest 25 percent of exposure levels to perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs — a family of chemicals containing fluorine and found in everyday products such as furniture, paper products and textiles — were twice as likely to become osteoarthritic as those in the lowest 25 percent, said Michelle Bell, one of the study’s researchers and an environmental health professor at the environment school. The study was published in the February issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. “PFCs act like hormones in our bodies,” Sarah Uhl FES ’12 said — and even “vanishingly tiny doses” can have an impact. Even though PFCs are “ubiquitous” chemicals to which most humans are exposed via ingestion and inhalation, there is not much definitive data on PFCs’ health effects on humans, said Russ Hauser, reproductive physiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. A large number of studies have assessed the effects of PFC exposure in rats, but Uhl said studying and measuring levels of toxic chemicals in humans is “very difficult.” Hauser cited two studies focusing on health effects of high PFC exposure — one which determined a link between thyroid function and PFC exposure, and another which showed decreased immunization effectiveness in children from ages 5 to 7 linked to PFC exposure. More studies are necessary to understand the long-term effects of PFC exposure, Uhl said. The data for the recently published study was taken from the 2003–’08 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Initially, the research-

ers looked at the data of men and women together. However, upon separating the data by sex, the researchers found that the link between PFC exposure and osteoarthritis was attributable to the women’s data — in fact, there was “no association in men, but a strong association in women,” who are already at a higher risk of the disease, Uhl said. Bell said that although production of chemicals within the PFC family, such as PFOA and PFOS, has declined due to growing health and environmental concerns, exposure to the chemicals remains widespread. Still, the study’s results can be used to develop policies that protect the public from chemical exposure, she added. Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder, according to PubMed Health.

Yale researchers have identified a population of cells that eventually develop into adipocytes, or the cells that make up fat tissue. A study led by Ryan Berry GRD ’15 and associate research scientist Matthew Rodeheffer from the Yale School of Medicine determined that a specific type of cell, the CD24+ cell, differentiates into fat cells in mice. This development answers many questions regarding the origins of body fat, which is the key factor in highly prevalent conditions such as diabetes and obesity. Berry and Rodeheffer published their findings in the Feb. 24 online issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology. “One of the things that hadn’t been figured out is exactly what the cell lineage is, or ‘Where do fat cells come from in the body?’ The whole point of this paper was to nail down and identify what cells actually make the fat cells in the body,” Rodeheffer said. For the study, which occurred over roughly two and a half years, Rodeheffer and Berry marked one cell population in each mouse subject with fluorescent proteins. Over time, the researchers were able to identify which group of cells eventually differentiated into adipocytes by looking for fluorescence in the fat tissue that developed in each mouse. Ultimately, it was the mice in which CD24+ cells — cells that express the PDGF receptor alpha — were tagged

that showed fluorescence in their adipose tissue, and further tests confirmed that these cells did indeed develop into fat cells. “By showing that adipocytes derive from cells that express PDGF receptor alpha, we can actually look at what genes those specific cell types express and potentially modulate how fat is formed or to activate or deactivate these cells from being able to differentiate to form new adipocytes,” Berry said. The implications of this study are far-reaching, researchers said. By understanding the original form from which fat cells develop, researchers can now investigate and potentially decelerate the processes by which fat grows, Berry said. Conversely, there also is the possibility of synthesizing fat tissue for the sake of reconstructive surgery in a process similar to culturing skin cells to create skin grafts. “What’s really of interest is what actually activates these precursor cell populations. We know that when you place animals on a high-fat diet, they grow, they get overweight just like humans do when they eat too many calories,” Berry said when asked about the next steps in this study. “We’re actually probing to ask the question of what exactly in highfat diets activates these cell populations and leads to accumulation of adipose tissue.” Professor Robert Farese of the University of California, San Francisco’s Diabetes Center, who worked with Yale researchers who analyzed

fat storage methods, said Berry and Rodeheffer’s work will be impor- t a n t in the quest to understand adipogenesis, the full process by which fat cells are synthesized. “We know that increases in fat leading to obesity involves both growing existing fat cells and making new fat cells. To understand how they are made anew, we have to understand where they come from. So, this paper is an important step,” Farese said. More than one-third of adults in the United States are considered

obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Contact MAREK RAMILO at marek.ramilo@yale.edu . KAREN TIAN