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 · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · VOL. CXXXV, NO. 103 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
RAINY RAINY
40 41
CROSS CAMPUS
ROBOTICS ARCHITECTS LOOK TO TECHNOLOGY
GUN CONTROL
VITA
SOFTBALL
Blumenthal part of bipartisan efforts to tighten trafficking laws
OVER $500,000 IN TAX REFUNDS AND CREDITS SAVED
Elis swept in seasonopening doubleheader against CCSU
PAGES 6-7 CULTURE
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 12 SPORTS
HGS woes persist, for now
Public service announcement.
For those of you who will be on campus during spring break, today is the last day to register for a spring break dining plan. Fingers crossed every day will be chicken tenders day.
Thriftshopping spree. It looks like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are making their rounds at college campuses this year. In addition to performing at Yale’s Spring Fling this April, the hip-hop duo will also make an appearance on April 7 at George Washington University alongside indie rock band Walk the Moon. And before canceling its shows, the pair was scheduled to sing at Columbia University and Williams College. One in six female Princeton
undergraduates have reported experiencing nonconsensual vaginal penetration during their time at the university, according to 2008 survey results published Monday in The Daily Princetonian. In addition, according to the survey, more than 28 percent of female undergraduates said they were touched in a sexual manner or had their clothes removed without their consent. The survey was completed by 1,595 Princeton students from the classes of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Preparing for Class Day?
Yale alum and Newark mayor Cory Booker LAW ’97 — who will deliver this year’s Class Day address — got some solid speech-giving practice on Tuesday night when he delivered his annual State of the City address, touting more affordable housing and reduced crime.
Compromise sought in state gun proposals BY MICHELLE HACKMAN STAFF REPORTER
ture problems, which may finally end after the completion of the University’s $100 million renovation of HGS, set to begin this summer, according to Deputy Provost Lloyd Suttle.
Over two months after a gunman killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the state Legislature took a major step forward on Tuesday in passing gun violence and mental health services legislation intended to respond to the mass shooting. The gun violence and mental health services working groups, two of the three groups that make up the Legislature’s bipartisan task force, delivered their recommendations to be included in the task force’s final bill. The third working group, a panel that examined school security, delivered its recommendations almost two weeks ago. One of the task force’s leaders, Senate President Don Williams, said that it hopes to deliver an omnibus bill incorporating all three groups’ proposals by next Wednesday. “I understand that the incident that
SEE HGS RENOVATIONS PAGE 4
SEE GUN VIOLENCE PAGE 5
CLINTON WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
A $100 million renovation of the dilapidated Hall of Graduate Studies is scheduled to begin this summer. BY CLINTON WANG STAFF REPORTER The Hall of Graduate Studies, plagued with heat, gloom, smells and floods, can now add toxins to its list of problems. The cancer-inducing building
material asbestos was detected over two weeks ago in the basement of HGS, forcing faculty members and classes to relocate while the hazard was removed. Though the asbestos was removed after a week, the incident represents the latest example of the building’s ongoing infrastruc-
Under Gibbons, library makes strides BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER Yale’s libraries amassed new physical and digital holdings and expanded their influence on academia during the 2011–’12 academic year, University Librarian Susan Gibbons said in an annual report posted on the library’s
website last week. After working at the University for nine years, former University Librarian Alice Prochaska announced in June 2009 that she would be leaving Yale for a position at Oxford. Over the next two years, Yale’s libraries faced a rapidly changing digital world and significant cuts to library bud-
gets under two interim University librarians, Gibbons told the News. But the library gained a measure of stability in July 2011 when Gibbons took over Prochaska’s position, and Gibbons said in her annual report that Yale’s librarians took great strides last year toward meeting modern needs for digital content while balancing
their simultaneous roles as librarians, educators and teachers. “This first year felt as if we were trying to reset ourselves, adjust to the new economic realities and chart a new course forward,” Gibbons said. Gibbons said in the report that academic libraries can no longer assume that their importance is
Speaking of graduation speakers, Harvard announced
on Monday that popular talk show host Oprah Winfrey will speak at the school’s 362nd Commencement on May 30. Winfrey has previously spoken at Stanford, Duke and Spelman College. As one astute online observer noted, “The Lance Armstrong interviews have proven that Oprah is always the perfect choice for an institution in the aftermath of a cheating scandal.”
Debating mental health. The Connecticut subcommittee on mental health access has recommended that teachers, counselors, nurses and community members receive instruction on “mental health first aid” to identify mental health illness early on and respond quickly to psychiatric emergencies. The items will be included in a bill that will come for a vote on March 13, according to the New Haven Register. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1943 The newly elected Whiffenpoofs, representing members from the class of 1944, announce that they will discontinue all activities until the end of the war. Submit tips to Cross Campus
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Grad students question online ed BY JANE DARBY MENTON STAFF REPORTER As Yale contemplates new initiatives in online education, graduate students are seeking ways to participate in the University discussion. At December’s faculty meeting, the Ad Hoc Yale College Committee on Online Education presented a report suggesting possible routes the University could take to expand online, including offering for-credit courses to Yale undergraduates and the public during the academic year and expanding online offerings during the summer. Members of the Graduate Student Assembly have criticized the report for failing to include graduate student input and have raised questions about the potential ramifications of new policies on the teaching fellows program. “A lot of graduate students are in charge of discussion sections. … They’re managing the environment where the students create knowledge by talking to each other and engaging in conversation with each other,” said Ksenia Sidorenko GRD ’15, who is leading the effort to discuss online education through the GSA. “It’s not yet clear how these proposSEE ONLINE EDUCATION PAGE 5
universally understood in an age of computer brands and websites like Google, Amazon and Apple. Yale’s libraries not only preserve knowledge, Gibbons said, but also play an active role as a partner to Yale in research and academic excellence through teachSEE LIBRARY REPORT PAGE 4
Connecticut powers startups BY RAYMOND NOONAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Sitting at a table with no more than her laptop, Judi Otton had all she needed to grow her new company. Otton was working at New Haven’s The Grove, a coworking space of one of four entrepreneurship incubators, or “hubs,” across Connecticut receiving funding from Gov. Dannel Malloy’s new Innovation Ecosystem project. The Innovation Ecosystem, which the governor’s office revealed last October, is a $5 million public-private initiative intended to spur economic growth in Connecticut by supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs through a number of programs. Besides funding the “hubs,” which are located in New Haven, Hartford, Stamford and Storrs, the Innovation Ecosystem will provide mentoring and assessment services meant to support entrepreneurs statewide. Last week, Mayor John Destefano Jr. attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for an extension of The Grove called The Grid, the New Haven hub located beside The Grove on Orange St. The Grid largely consists of new office space and will help roll out many of the Innovation Ecosystem’s new programs. “We haven’t found a single state that’s attempting to create the type of network we’re trying to create,” said Tim Coates, managing director of the Innovation Ecosystem.
MAP INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM HUB LOCATIONS Storrs Hartford
New Haven
Stamford Five-sixths of the Innovation Ecosystem’s budget will go to the hubs, which will provide financial, technical, strategic and mentorship assistance to budding small businesses. Besides attending talks and networking events, small business owners may sign up for a diagnostic at a hub where experienced entrepreneurs evaluate a company’s growth potential. If a company’s growth potential is great enough, the hub will open up all of its resources to the company. Hubs across the state have accepted 205 ventures thus far,
according to Coates. Otton’s company, which creates financial applications for small businesses, doesn’t have a name yet. But since starting two months ago, Otton has found the Grove’s resources valuable. “It’s wonderful [here]. There’s so many people to collaborate with,” Otton said. The Grove provides small offices, meeting rooms, storage space and a resource library, as well as free tea and coffee for its memSEE THE GRID PAGE 4
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “Attempts at equity benefit society, including those who perceive themselves as yaledailynews.com/opinion
truly gifted and worthy, in a number of ways”
GUEST COLUMNIST FRANCISCO DIEZ
'GOKIE' ON 'WHO BELONGS AT YALE'
GUE ST COLUMNIST ANDREW SOBOTKA
Equal athletic appreciation Mourning with
Latin America
W
ithin an hour of Hugo Chávez’s death, I saw the ¡Viva Venezuela Libre! pop-up on Facebook, celebrating the death of one of America’s supposed great menaces and one of the worst dictators of the 21st century. But in doing so, we have vastly simplified a complex situation. If we actually face the facts on the ground, Venezuela was already free. The Organization of American States and The Carter Center certified almost every election he ran in as free and fair. In his 14 years as president, he used oil revenues, which had once benefited only the white upper classes of the country, to begin helping the most marginalized members of its very unequal society. Within that time span, hundreds of thousands of young people were given an education for the first time while poverty levels plummeted. There have been some violations of human rights, but far fewer than that of “democratic” predecessors under the two-party system that existed before, as Venezuela expert professor David Smilde has noted. His aggressive stance towards the United States and “neoliberalism” did not emerge until after a botched U.S.-backed coup in 2002. The uncertainties under Chávez had nothing to do with democracy. He demonstrated a lack of commitment to the environmental goals he set out for the country. He failed to invest in industries other than oil, leaving the nation’s infrastructure in disrepair. Some of his social welfare programs were hampered by inefficiency and corruption. On the international stage, his legacy must be remembered for a long time. Latin Americans of all political stripes have every right to mourn and remember Chávez. Perhaps no one since the liberator Simón Bolívar has done so much to improve the sense of solidarity in the region. He spearheaded the creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, an organization aimed at furthering the region’s integration. At the community’s most recent meeting, Uruguayan President of José Mujica commented that the current sense of indispensible solidarity in the region would not have existed without his leadership. Even conservatives like Felipe Calderón of Mexico have praised his efforts. Moreover, his election signaled the start of Latin America’s “Pink Tide.” For the first time, liberal and leftist leaders have been elected throughout the region without being forcibly removed. His example has
shown that new forms of economic development could be tried. Some of the most important economic experiments are being conducted in places like Brazil and Ecuador. While conservatives disapprove, it shows that the democracies in these countries can support an ideological diversity that used to be limited violently by elites. More voices can now be incorporated into national discourses. And for the first time in as long as anyone can remember, inequality across the region is finally decreasing. Few leaders have experienced approval ratings as high as some in this new generation.
WE MUST UNDERSTAND HIS LEGACY We should do better than to remember him for calling President Bush “El Diablo” at the U.N., and for occasionally shaking Ahmadinejad's hand, which are probably, at worst, bad publicity stunts. The fact that undemocratic forces were not able remove him in 2002 signaled an affirmation that Latin America was no longer the United States’ backyard. Gabriel García Márquez once remarked after having spent several hours with the man, that he could not decide whether he was just another Latin American despot, or the savior of his country. History has shown us that Hugo Chávez was neither. Like any statesman, he has made moral mistakes and policy errors. He leaves behind a polarized nation. But, if we as Yalies are supposed to pride ourselves with our ability to understand and contextualize a situation, we cannot write Chávez off as a tyrant. If we, as future leaders of this country (and many other countries), are to foster respect and a better relationship with our neighbors to the south, we must gain an appreciation for the complexity of their societies, their institutions, their leaders and their traditions. Just because he wasn’t our kind of democratic leader, doesn’t mean he wasn’t democratic. Much of Latin America and a majority (yes, a majority) of Venezuela mourn today. For what he started and for the hope that he has fostered, I mourn too.
A
student wakes up in the morning, tired. He was up late last night finishing up his work and had to wake up early this morning. He forces himself out of bed. This morning, he might have practice. His class schedule that day takes him from Science Hill, to WLH, and back to SSS 114. And then back to practice. When that’s over, he’s back to the homework after grabbing a quick dinner. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Who is this person? A dancer? A student-athlete? An actor? A debater? A violinist? Who knows. And it doesn’t really matter. Yet, more and more, student-athletes are being told that they are inferior to their fellow extracurricular specialists. It has been reaffirmed and recycled too often by campus news sources, the administration and naïve dining hall conversations. They’ve been called “opportunity costs” and heard that they’re taking the spots of “STEM majors and underrepresented minorities.” They’ve read that “one talented musician or writer adds more value to the lives of many Yalies” than they do, as was written in a recent News’ View (“A Stadium Divided,” March 4). First of all, many recruited student-athletes happen to live
double lives as talented writers, actors, musicians, singers and scientists — the same talents we are supposedly giving up in recruiting slots. Many are underrepresented minorities. Assigning any Yale student a one-dimensional label underestimates the breadth of talents and interests on this campus. I am lucky enough to live with a recruited athlete who spent his freshman year getting to know Science Hill as well as, if not better than, the walk from Old Campus to Payne Whitney. He’s going to be able to brag to his children about arriving at Yale as a recruited athlete and leaving a scientist, as well as having the opportunity to be both at the same time. Calling him just one or the other would not do him justice. And his story is not even remotely unique. The most incredible thing about many of our student-athletes is not that they are able to balance practice, games, social lives, community service and academics in schedules that are, to say the least, packed. It’s that they’re able to do it seamlessly, achieving the same or even greater things that their non-sport-playing peers do. Let me be clear — I do not want to elevate student-athletes to godlike status as happens at
other universities in this country. I simply propose that this campus allow athletes to sit at the same table as the other extracurricular standouts — singers, actors, writers, musicians — that we seem to have arbitrarily reserved our institutional praise for.
ATHLETES DESERVE EQUAL RECOGNITION By our unfair generalizations about who brings Yale students more value, we insult one of the things that makes Yale so attractive to thousands of prospective students and beloved by its students and alumni: We have an incredible array of students with different interests. I will probably never see the Yale Symphony Orchestra besides at the Halloween Show where, I unashamedly admit, the music is not my prime concern. And that’s OK. Maybe one of my peers will never go to a hockey game. And that’s OK. We’re probably both missing out on watching elite performances. The concert is just as valuable to
my peer as the hockey game is to me. But having both means that at Yale, he or she can learn what a top-notch penalty kill looks like, and I can learn to recognize a beautiful movement in Mozart’s 5th. There’s no reason this University should settle for anything less than exceptional in any venue — whether it be in the classroom, on a field, or on stage. Everybody’s values and interests are different. That’s something we should encourage and provide for, not attempt to conform and constrain. One of my best friends, a student-athlete, walked into my room at 10:30 p.m., tired from the practice she just got back from, and began preparing for a couple hours of work. Another one of my best friends, an active member of the Dramat board, will challenge me to a quick FIFA game in about an hour before he heads off to a midnight meeting. Those of us are who are friends with both of them appreciate equally the hard work, dedication and talent they bring to their respective activities. It’s time the Yale community does the same. ANDREW SOBOTKA is a sophomore in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact him at andrew.sobotka@yale.edu .
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T M A R Y B O LT
Necessary anger I
’m angry. I’m angry because the ladies of Whim ‘n Rhythm have to work their butts off to make a fifth of the Whiffenpoofs' budget, but will receive a fiftieth of the recognition. I’m angry because, as the future business manager of Whim ‘n Rhythm, I’m 100 percent committed to the group and yet there are people out there who are claiming that I somehow hurt Whim when I auditioned for the Whiffs. And I’m angry that people assume that, were I chosen for both groups, I would have joined the Whiffenpoofs over Whim ‘n Rhythm. I’m angry, but I’m also happy and proud and hopeful. All of us in this conversation agree that Whim ‘n Rhythm is at a rather large disadvantage relative to the Whiffenpoofs of Yale Inc. Some would say the solution is for Whim to work a little harder, be a little better, ignore the Whiffs and forge ahead! The thing is — Whim already works incredibly hard. I can attest that both the pitch and biz of Whim’s 2012 class are two of
FRANCISCO DIEZ is a junior in Morse College. Contact him at francisco.diez@yale.edu .
the hardest-working people I’ve ever met, and they’re both crazy about Whim, but that doesn’t mean that Whim didn’t have to cut countries out of their summer tour, while the Whiffs flitted around the world. Their Whim album is phenomenal — actually, it’s the only a cappella album I’ve ever listened to, in full, more than once. Tracks from that album have been nominated for several awards. The 2012 Whiffenpoof album from that year has yet to be released on CD.
THIS CONVERSATION MUST CONTINUE So, if it’s not about a work ethic or sound quality, then … it’s probably because the Whim girls aren’t taking a year off, some say. The thing is — the Whiff year is a new phenomenon for the Whiffenpoofs, too, and inequality between the groups didn’t
sprout within the last 10 years. If any of the new Whim taps are interested in taking the year off, they should consider doing so, but we shouldn’t have to take a year off to catch up with the Whiffs. My audition for the Whiffenpoofs was in no way a statement that all singing groups and organizations should be coeducational. You want a boys club? Fine by me. I am absolutely thrilled to be singing alongside a group of incredibly talented female singers. But this debate isn’t just about "some singing group." This is about the most wellknown a cappella group in the country. It’s about a group often considered, whether we like it or not, to be the face of Yale, and I see no reason why women should not be a part of that face. In my ideal world, Whim ‘n Rhythm and the Whiffenpoofs merge together to allow for the legacy of both groups to continue — but that wasn’t going to happen this year. Instead, a conversation has started. Where before it was happening behind closed doors
and over cups at Mory’s, it is now being had in the open. The next step toward equality is making sure that this conversation does not become muted. We, both in and out of the a cappella community, have to actively keep this discussion alive and work to create some sort of change, because we all recognize that there is a problem and we haven’t tried to find a solution. For the time being, I’m going to go enjoy this tap night. I’ll take a break from essay-writing to join Whim ‘n Rhythm and begin to (tearily) take leave of my coed undergrad group. I’m beyond excited to meet and gather with the fantastic men and women that will comprise the Whiffs and Whim next year, and I can’t wait to work with them to start taking steps to figure out what the future holds for senior singers at Yale. So yes, I’m angry. But anger might be just what this conversation needs. MARY BOLT is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact her at mary.bolt@yale.edu .
GUEST COLUMNIST SHIRA TELUSHKIN
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COPYRIGHT 2013 — VOL. CXXXV, NO. 103
I
was in the bathroom a few weeks ago, watching my friend wrench her guts out from food poisoning. I had a paper due the next day, it was 4 in the morning, and frankly, I was starting to feel nauseous myself — but none of that mattered. A friend is a friend is a friend, and friendship requires sacrifice. This is not a question of simple human ethics. Were the person throwing up not my friend, then the situation would not be my problem. But somehow this elusive label of “friend” has certain claims on us, claims we like to cast in terms of obligations. When describing the bonds of closest friendship, we turn to the language of family: He’s like a brother to me, my suite is my family, these girls are my sisters. There is something comforting about the comparison. Just as we cannot reject the familial bond, so too can we not reject the person who has attained the status of friend, regardless of what they do or whom they become. The elasticity of the term "friend" is often unsatisfactory because it can mean both everything and nothing. A friend can be the person who will lay his or
her life down for you or a Facebook friend you barely know from a forgotten summer program. And this broadness makes it difficult to talk about friendship at Yale.
WE SHOULD FOCUS ON OUR FRIENDSHIPS There has been much discussion recently over the financial diversity of Yale students, the culture of silence around money and privilege, and ways that Yale as a university should respond. Absent from this discussion is how all this silence plays into Yale friendships. What does it means for us as a community of friends if we don’t know about the financial struggles of our suitemates? What does it mean for us to consider one another a family if we talk politely about religion, politics and the controversial views of our home communities? How can we be friends in the deepest, purest sense of the word if there
is a culture of silence around the very issues that shape our lives? A friend of mine, who recently transferred in as a Yale junior from a very homogenous college, remarked to me that friendships at Yale seem more superficial. This reflection could easily be chalked up to the busy lives of Yalies, and all the ways our overscheduled, hectic lives of meals planned weeks in advance are a further manifestation of our generation’s problems. This muchderided phenomenon could be one reason for the prevalence of shallow friendships. But another reason is that students arrive knowing so little about one another, or far less than in communities where students grew up with shared cultural assumptions and beliefs. The diversity of the Yale student body means that friendships will take more work. We start from further places. Acknowledging the gap our differences produce is coming one step closer to ensuring we work harder to understand one another in more than just a superficial way, and thus take full advantage of the strength of our communal diversity. Friendship is one aspect of life
that gets better with age. There is something unique, and incredible, about old friends. My parents have friends who have literally been with them through everything — friends who have seen them single, newly married, with children and with an empty nest; friends who have been there when parents died and careers seemed derailed and life proved difficult; friends with whom they have circled through life’s big questions. But, in testament to the generation in which my parents grew up, their friends are, on the whole, mostly like them. I believe, and hope, that my community of old friends who will still be there for me in the decades to come, who will be the role models for my own children, will reflect the diversity of Yale. But I know that forming such meaningful relationships won’t come without considered effort, and respecting the sacred possibilities of friendship requires first and foremost eroding the culture of silence. SHIRA TELUSHKIN is a junior in Pierson College. Contact her at shira.telushkin@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
NEWS
“There may be liberty and justice for all, but there are tax breaks only for some.” MARTIN A. SULLIVAN ECONOMIST
Volunteers aid in tax refunds
CORRECTIONS TUESDAY, MARCH 5
The article “Eating times affect biological clocks” misattributed the finding that unhealthy foods eaten at certain times of day may have little impact on health to a study by researchers at the School of Medicine published Feb. 5 in the journal Cell Metabolism. In fact, that finding came from an earlier study conducted by Satchin Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. TUESDAY, MARCH 5
The headline of the article “CT looks to tighten Medicare eligibility” mistakenly suggested that a proposal put forward by Gov. Dannel Malloy’s administration was intended to tighten Medicare eligibility. In fact, the proposal was intended to tighten Medicaid eligibility.
Blumenthal joins gun trafficking bill ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Through the VITA program, Yale students help low- and moderate-income city residents complete their tax returns free of charge. BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER STAFF REPORTER
YDN
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 is part of a bipartisan group of six senators working to strengthen gun trafficking laws. BY MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS STAFF REPORTER In the first major legislative movement on gun reform in more than a month, a bipartisan group of six senators, including Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, announced a new bill to strengthen measures against gun trafficking. The new bill was announced after two similar gun trafficking bills — one introduced by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and the other by Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk — failed to gain momentum in Congress. The new bill, titled the Stop Illegal Trafficking of Firearms Act of 2013, would provide increased resources to law enforcement to prevent and prosecute illegal gun trafficking and straw purchases, instances in which someone buys a gun for an individual prohibited from buying one. Supporters are hailing the legislation, which is currently cosponsored by four Democrats and two Republicans, as a bipartisan compromise and a major success in the effort to reform the nation’s gun laws in the wake of December’s shooting in Newtown, Conn. “The bill strikes a balanced approach and for the first time will create specific prohibitions to deter and punish the dangerous practices of straw purchasing and trafficking of firearms,” Blumenthal said in a statement Tuesday. “This legislation is what law enforcement needs to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals who already legally cannot possess them.” The bill would make acting as a straw purchaser illegal. According to a statement issued by Leahy Monday, there is currently no specific statute that makes acting as a straw purchaser illegal. Additionally, the bill would make smuggling firearms out of the United States illegal, which its supporters claim would mitigate drug violence on the U.S.Mexico border. Republican Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia, a lifetime National Rifle Association member, is mounting a similar effort against gun trafficking in the House. In February, Rigell introduced a bill, entitled the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2013, that would increase penalties for straw purchases. The NRA, which has repeatedly vowed to oppose any new firearm restrictions, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. On Tuesday, Richard Burgess, president of the gunrights group Connecticut Carry, said that a new federal law would make no difference in gun trafficking, as federal law already defines most straw purchases
as illegal: Lying on a Firearms Transaction Record, the form required to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer, is illegal itself. The bill will move to the Judiciary Committee, which Leahy chairs, on Thursday. Joining it will be three other bills written largely in response to the Newtown shooting: an assault weapons ban, a school safety bill and a bill requiring universal background checks. Gun trafficking is, at the moment, experiencing the most bipartisan support of all guncontrol measures in the Senate, as negotiations over background checks have stalled and an assault weapons ban has failed to gain Republican backing. Supporters of legislation directed at trafficking have cited long-standing advocacy for such reform from law enforcement. “Law enforcement and prosecutors are telling us that there is ambiguity in the current code with respect to gun trafficking,” Rigell told The Washington Post shortly before introducing his legislation in February. “They’re telling us that prosecution is difficult. It’s clear that legislation is needed.” In his statement, Blumenthal said that the legislation introduced Tuesday is supported by a collection of law enforcement organizations, including the National Fraternal Order of Police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the National District Attorneys Association and the Police Executive Research Forum. Municipalities nationwide have also frequently pointed to gun trafficking as a source of urban violence. In a 2009 report entitled, “A Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns,” Mayors Against Illegal Guns, of which New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. is a member, outlined several actions the federal executive branch could take to mitigate trafficking. Among the recommendations was increased funding for investigations into straw purchases, which is included in the new bipartisan bill. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who has emerged as one of the leading advocates of gun reform since taking office two months ago, has yet to support the bill publicly. On Tuesday, Murphy spokesman Ben Marter said that Murphy remains focused on passing an assault weapons ban, which Marter characterized as widely supported across the state and nation. As of yet, no federal legislation introduced in response to Newtown has been signed into law. Contact MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS at matthew.lloyd-thomas@yale.edu .
On weekday afternoons, city residents trickle into the basement of the New Haven Public Library, making their way down the stairs, past the circulation desk and the computer clusters until they greet a Yale student at a makeshift desk who asks them for photo identification and hands them a double-sided form, English on one side and Spanish on the other. The form is the 2013 Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Client Form, and the student is a greeter for Yale VITA, a branch of the national Internal Revenue Service program that helps low- and moderateincome people complete their annual tax returns free of charge. On Monday, after just 22 days open thus far this season, Yale’s branch of VITA helped its clients procure a total of over $515,000 in tax credits and refunds, already matching its half a million dollar record from tax season last year. The primary credit for VITA clients is the Earned Income Tax Credit, said Sam Hamer ’13, who founded the program at Yale in 2011 and continues to volunteer as a tax preparer. The EITC is a tax refund available to working families earning less than $51,000 per year. According to a report of the New Life Corporation, a New Havenbased nonprofit consumer financial protection organization, $360,000 went unclaimed under the EITC in 2010 by eligible New Haven families. Each year, an average of 20 percent of credits are never
received by eligible tax filers, according to IRS estimates. The VITA program first took off in New Haven in 2001 at the behest of Mayor John DeStefano Jr., said Rick Kaiser, a board member of the New Haven Economic Security Coalition. The clinics aim to help residents take advantage of the full force of available tax credits. New Haven residents may currently benefit from both the federal EITC and the Connecticut EITC, which was first implemented in November 2011 and hailed by Gov. Dannel Malloy at the time as a means of putting an additional $108 million into the pockets of the state’s working families. But as VITA programs gather momentum — saving New Haven clients a total of $6.4 million in refunds and credits in 2012, as estimated by the Connecticut Association for Human Services — those credits themselves are now under siege by state budget cuts. The governor’s current budget plan may slash the two-anda-half-year-old state credit that complements the federal EITC. Malloy has proposed lowering the amount of money the state pays back to families in the form of tax credits — from 30 percent to 25 percent of the federal EITC, or from $1,767 to $1,473 per household. The modification, which may only be for a two-year period, will depend on additional rounds of state budget negotiations. Lucille Sclafani, VITA coordinator at CAHS, said the nonprofit organization is working to prevent those cuts. “We understand that they’re going
to do a little trimming, but we want to make sure that the state EITC doesn’t get chopped,” she said. “We don’t want them to see the credit as someplace where people can say, ‘Oh, we can cut even more spending here.’” Sclafani said she will be working with lobbying groups to try to persuade the governor and the Legislature to preserve the state EITC as they hammer out a final budget deal. Still, Yale VITA members say they have high hopes for their project. The program is staffed by 67 IRS-certified tax preparers, all of whom are Yale undergraduates except for three law students, said Ariella Kristal ’14, who coordinates the program along with Amalia Skilton ’13. Ajanae Grant, a senior at Southern Connecticut State University, attended the clinic on Friday to inquire about receiving additional federal student aid credits. “I’m not an expert on taxes,” she said as she waited in line. “And I don’t have the money to pay someone to do this for me.” With increasing manpower, Kristal said the program is setting new goals. She said she hopes they will break a million dollars in refunds and credits by the end of the tax season on April 15. Jan. 25 marked EITC Awareness Day, an event sponsored by the Connecticut Association for Human Services to raise awareness of the state and federal income tax refund. Contact ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER at isaac.stanley-becker@yale.edu .
UN rep calls for nuclear disarmament BY J.R. REED STAFF REPORTER Nations must eliminate nuclear weapons within their borders in the present age of increased globalization, according to Angela Kane, the United Nations high representative for disarmament. At a talk on Tuesday afternoon, cosponsored by the Yale International Relations Association and Global Zero, Kane explained the steps the U.N. is currently taking to combat nuclear weapon proliferation and provided guidance on ways to advocate for global disarmament to a small crowd of seven students. Kane, who has worked at the U.N. for roughly 30 years, said disarmament is the key to resolving conflicts throughout the world in the coming years. “The world has become interdependent, due to the rough process of globalization,” Kane said. “The future of peace and global security will most likely be determined by disarmament.” Kane explained that members of the U.N. focus on two ways to diminish the use of weapons: First, they attempt to prohibit and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and second, they aim to limit and regulate conventional arms. In the past, U.N. secretary-generals have supported these broad goals, she said. But she added that some secretarygenerals have been more active than others. Kane said she believes current U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been more involved with disarmament initiatives due to his background as a South Korean foreign minster, in which he learned about North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. Although the U.N. does not serve as an international governing body to enforce laws, the U.N. is significant because it establishes multinational guidelines to regulate states’ behavior with nuclear arms, she said. “The U.N. does serve as a kind of an assembly line for establishing these multinational norms,” Kane said. “This assembly line gives a unique value added of our whole institution and serves a function that no other government or
JACOB GEIGER/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Angela Kane, who works for the United Nations, stressed the importance of nuclear disarmament for achieving global security at a Tuesday talk. coalition can do.” Kane said much progress has been made in the field of nuclear disarmament. In 1980, roughly 75,000 nuclear weapons existed, and now that figure has lowered to roughly 19,000. But she argued that nuclear proliferation still must be regulated further.
The future of peace and global security will most likely be determined by disarmament. ANGELA KANE High representative for disarmament, United Nations Although every country with nuclear weapons says it will not use them, Kane said the only way to eliminate the danger posed by nuclear weapons effectively is to abolish them entirely. Kane added that states face pressure from other nations to sign disarmament and nonproliferation treaties.
“Every country wants to look good in the international community, and they are subject to moral pressure from other nations,” Kane explained. “There are very few states that don’t care about this, besides North Korea and Iran.” Kane said a multilateral arms negotiation organized by the U.N. will occur on April 18. During the two-week negotiation, she added, representatives will aim to regulate international gun trade and to achieve transparency between arms sellers and buyers. Linh Nguyen ’15 said she appreciated that Kane gave opinions of the disarmament process that she had not yet heard in the media — specifically that states do not always work together in a field that demands cooperation. Mahir Rahman ’16 said he thought Kane provided a well-rounded picture of global disarmament and provided critical insights through her insider perspective. Prior to joining the U.N., Kane worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Contact J.R. REED at jonathan.t.reed@yale.edu .
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FROM THE FRONT
“So, I say that the travails of the student are these: mainly poverty.” DON QUIXOTE FROM MIGUEL CERVANTES’ NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME
As dangers emerge, HGS renovations on horizon HGS RENOVATIONS FROM PAGE 1 “It’s suffocating — there are no windows, and there’s a bad smell with the sewage seeping through the walls,” Arabic senior lector Shady Nasser said. “This also makes it tough to teach. Students are not happy. … I understand that there are no other places available, but I think administrators don’t care much.” Classroom technology and media specialist Arthur Greiser, who often works in the basement of HGS, said some of the pipes that run along the classrooms, offices and corridors are still lined with asbestos. Properly covered pipes can prevent the presence of asbestos from becoming a health hazard, but leaks in the pipes have led to recurring cases of asbestos exposure. HGS senior custodian Jerome Myers said the toxin posed a danger in the basement last year when asbestos was discovered in the custodians’ working area. Though most students and instructors who use the space said that they are not worried that the asbestos exposure damaged their health, some pointed to the incident as evidence that HGS is in need of immediate renovation. In 2007 budget projections, $122 million was allocated for large-scale renovations to HGS, but the collapse of Yale’s endowment after the onset of the recession in 2008 put the plans on hold. Recently, the renovation plans have been revived with an estimated cost of $100 million
that will use funding from the University’s capital replacement charge — a portion of the operating budget allocated to construction — and from acquiring debt. Renovations to the interior of HGS will begin in summer 2014 while renovations on the exterior will begin this summer. Suttle said an advisory committee overseeing the renovations has yet to determine how the building will be used once the renovation is completed.
You always hear that they’ll renovate next year or in the next two years, but nothing ever happens. JEROME MYERS Senior custodian, Hall of Graduate Studies “One of the questions to be addressed by the Advisory Committee is how the space in HGS should be used after the renovation, so we don’t want to spend a lot of money on the damaged space until we have a better idea of its eventual use,” Suttle said. Students and instructors who use the basement agree that the conditions range from “pretty bad” to “miserable” — students refer to the space as “the Dungeon.” Nicholas Torsiello GRD ’15, a Graduate Student Assembly representative on the University’s HGS Planning Committee, said
the recreation room, computer lab and other basement facilities are rarely used by graduate students because of their decrepit condition, even though students are already lacking study space on other floors. Most instructors with offices in the basement said they have learned to tolerate the unpleasant environment. Hebrew lecturer Dina Roginsky said she has gotten used to incessant ringing and humming of the pipes running through the ceiling and walls near her office. “This is the music I listen to,” she said. HGS has not seen major renovations since its construction in 1932. The deterioration accelerated last year when flooding last August forced faculty and classes to relocate for approximately four months while workers restored some offices and classrooms. Seven months after August’s storm, much of the flood damage remains unrepaired, leaving former offices and computer labs in the basement of the McDougal Center festering. “The contractors just fixed up the offices and then left,” Myers said. “I’ve been here for 17 years. You always hear that they’ll renovate next year or in the next two years, but nothing ever happens.” The University HGS Planning Committee will meet for the first time on Monday to discuss the renovation plans. Contact CLINTON WANG at clinton.wang@yale.edu .
CLINTON WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Damage from an August flood has gone largely unrepaired in the basement of the Hall of Graduate Studies.
Library reports year’s initiatives LIBRARY REPORT FROM PAGE 1 ing and working with students and faculty. In the 2011–’12 academic year, the library provided 1,337 instruction sessions to more than 5,000 total students, compared with 746 sessions the year before, and established initiatives like the Traveling Scriptorium and Teaching Collection — two portable teaching tools for classes learning about the history of books and bookbinding. Though the challenges of digital preservation can be “intimidating,” Gibbons said in the report that the library’s increasing focus on digital resources will not replace its commitment to Yale’s physical collections.
“The tension between the physical and digital libraries is an unnecessary and false dichotomy,” she said in the report, adding that the library must honor its “stewardship responsibilities” while also bringing digital resources to the Yale community. Gibbons said planning and designing the Center for Science and Social Science Information, which opened in January 2012 in the basement of Kline Biology Tower, was an exciting project because it posed unique challenges for the library and for Information Technology Services. CSSSI, which includes a 24-hour study space and a library with 180,000 volumes, required the creation of a team of library and ITS staff
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 201 1-’1 2 YEAR FACILITIES
Opening of the Center for Science and Social Science Information (CSSSI) in January 2012. From February 2012 through June 2012, the gate count for the CSSSI was 76,607. CATALOGING
Acquisition of about a million documents and objects belonging to Henry Kissinger. Completion of a three-year project to catalog hundreds of endangered African languages. Launch of the Chinese Rare Books at Yale Database. STAFF
Twenty-eight professional library staff appointments made, including the first full-time Director of Communications Amanda Patrick. PROGRAMS
The East Asia Library instruction program drew 585 participants, a 159 percent increase over the previous year. SERVICES
The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department supplied 21,355 articles to other institutions around the world this year, a 111 percent jump over last year. ONLINE PRESENCE
Number of library followers on Facebook more than doubles since the previous year. Redesign of the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library’s Web presence.
members with different job descriptions and skill sets, Gibbon said. “There were a lot of ‘firsts’ with CSSSI,” Gibbons said, adding that the resulting merge of the former science library and StatLab, the former social science and statistical laboratory, has exceeded her expectations.
The tension between the physical and digital libraries is an unnecessary and false dichotomy. SUSAN GIBBONS University librarian, Yale The report highlighted numerous notable acquisitions the library made during the 2011–’12 academic year, including approximately a million documents and objects belonging to Nobel laureate Henry A. Kissinger, who served as U.S. secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford LAW ’41. Librarians completed a three-year project to catalog hundreds of endangered African languages, 20 of which had never been collected and processed by a library before, and also launched Chinese Rare Books, a searchable online database of uncommon Chinese books, most of which were published before 1796. Gibbons said she hopes the current academic year will be remembered for new and improved services, including Scan and Deliver — which allows patrons to order and receive book scans by email — and for the “thoughtful planning” of impending construction projects such as the restoration of the Sterling Library nave, which will begin this June. Librarians interviewed said library staff have been meeting this spring to plan the construction in a way that will inconvenience patrons as little as possible. The library spent $103.2 million during the 2011–’12 academic year. Endowments made up 60 percent of the library’s revenue, while general University appropriations made up 35 percent of the budget. Contact SOPHIE GOULD at sophie.gould@yale.edu .
State project funds entrepreneurs THE GRID FROM PAGE 1 bers. It also has open spaces with tables, where any member may work, or “hotdesk,” among fellow small business owners. To Otton’s left was a web developer, whom Otton said she asked questions from time to time, and to her right was a “branding guy” who was helping come up with a name for Otton’s company. The Grove also provides more formal educational opportunities for its members. Otton took a course on creative learning, and every Tuesday morning some of the entrepreneurs get together for a “peer education group” where they discuss how to use social media over pancakes. “[The best part is] meeting all these smart, creative entrepreneurs,” Otton said. “I want some of those entrepreneurial juices.” A100, one of The Grove’s new programs funded by Malloy’s Innovation Ecosystem, seeks to equip university students with the computer programming skills many companies need. Krishna R. Sampath, A100’s program manager, said he sees an educated workforce as vital to the city’s future growth. He explained that New Haven companies do not think there is enough software development talent at the same time that many students who have that software development talent do not think there are enough jobs in the Elm City. “There’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem,” Sampath said. To eliminate this perception, Sampath added, A100 will link students to local job and internship opportunities.
Leaders at hubs around the state, including Hartford Innovation Hub lead partner Michelle Cote, also see their programs as helping their communities while making a profit. Cote — who is also executive director of reSET, a nonprofit that promotes social entrepreneurship in the state — said the Hartford hub was using its first year to understand the state of social entrepreneurship in Connecticut. The Hartford hub’s Social Enterprise Accelerator Program, an initiative that helps scale and test the assumptions of a social entrepreneur’s businesses, is another one of the Innovation Ecosystem’s projects. It will be graduating its first 10 companies later this month, Coete said. The Hartford hub plans to run the Accelerator Program twice a year with the second run starting early this summer. “It’s really all about increasing the number of community partners that Connecticut has in solving some of its most entrenched problems,” Cote said. Looking forward, Otton said he sees a bright future for New Haven’s economic growth and culture of entrepreneurship, calling the city “a thriving place for business.” Cote was similarly optimistic. “We’re finally starting to bring all the necessary pieces together,” she said. “It’s a really exciting time to be in Connecticut.” New Haven’s unemployment rate was 11.3 percent in December 2012. Contact RAYMOND NOONAN at raymond.noonan@yale.edu .
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FROM THE FRONT
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” JORGE LUIS BORGES SHORT-STORY WRITER AND POET
Bipartisan task force split on gun control MAJOR GUN PROPOSAL ITEMS Democratic proposal
Limit the definition of assault-style weapons Ban ammunition magazines that contain 10-plus bullets
Republican proposal
Require a permit to buy a rifle or shotgun available to individuals aged 18-plus Require a “universal” background check for every sale and transfer of a firearm Require presentation of a rifle or pistol permit to purchase ammunition Establish a statewide deadly weapon offender registry Strengthen laws regarding firearms trafficking and straw purchases Prohibit individuals from purchasing more than one pistol or revolver within a 30-day period GUN VIOLENCE FROM PAGE 1 brought us here is one of the most unfortunate incidents that ever happened in Connecticut,” said Rep. Craig Miner, the Republican co-chair of the gun violence working group. “What it has done, I think, is that it has permitted, if not required, all of us to learn a lot more about mental health, a lot more about guns, a lot more about school safety than I probably ever wanted to. It’s probably taken a lot of us out of our comfort zone.” Both the mental health services and the school safety working groups presented their recommendations to the task force in the form of consensus items, which had received bipartisan support, and nonconsensus items, which had not. The
gun violence group, on the other hand, delivered separate Democratic-endorsed items and Republican-endorsed items — a testament to the contentious nature of the proposals in question. Both caucuses of the working group agreed on a majority of proposed items, including raising the minimum age to own a gun from 18 to 21, mandating universal background checks on all gun sales, requiring gun permits to purchase ammunition, limiting the number of guns a permit-holder can buy to one per 30-day period and strengthening the regulation of straw purchases — the process by which a permit-holder legally purchases a gun for a person not authorized to own one. However, the Democrats’ most
prominent two proposals — to tighten the ban on assault-style weapons and limit the size of ammunition magazines to contain no more than 10 bullets — were absent from the Republicans’ proposal. Pat O’Neil, a spokesman for the House Republican caucus, said that a ban on high-capacity magazines is unnecessary because the Republicans’ plan would not allow people without gun permits to purchase any ammunition to start. “[The Republican proposals are] a comprehensive, wellthought-out approach to gun safety that we believe will make our schools and society in general safer,” O’Neil said. “At the same time, it recognizes the constitutional rights to individuals that we continue to uphold.” Democrats on the gun vio-
GSA criticizes online courses ONLINE EDUCATION FROM PAGE 1 als are going to be developed and whether graduate students are going to be consulted.” While some students are excited about having more opportunities to use new technologies, Lauren Tilton GRD ’16, chair of the Graduate Student Assembly, said others are concerned about their teaching fellow positions if sections take place online instead of in a classroom. Bill Rando, director of the Yale Teaching Center and a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Online Education, said the committee considered graduate student feedback along with input from faculty members and other students while formulating its report, but he added that he hopes there will be more discussion on graduate students’ role in the broader question of online education. “The committee report emphasized one point overall — that whatever Yale does in online education should enhance what we do in our live classes,” Rando said. “Nowhere is this more true than in the roles and experiences we provide for our TFs. It won’t be easy,
but we’ve got to do it.” If Yale begins offering section online, Rando said the Yale Teaching Center will make a concerted effort to train graduate students to lead online sections that are as engaging as those held in a classroom. Lucas Swineford, director of digital media and dissemination at the Yale Broadcast & Media Center, said his office will work with the Yale Teaching Center to develop a set of “best practices” for teachers and teaching fellows for online courses. Swineford added that these technology skills will also help graduate students entering the job market.
Losing face-to-face interaction, I think, will have terrible consequences. KSENIA SIDORENKO GRD ’15 Sidorenko said she is concerned that some plans to expand online will reduce direct classroom inter-
action, which will harm both graduate students and undergraduates. “I think it’s one thing to supplement the kind of education you get in a seminar with an online forum,” Sidorenko said. “But making the full experience about an online forum and losing face-to-face interaction, I think, will have terrible consequences.” Graduate students interviewed had mixed opinions about teaching over the Internet. One graduate student, who led an online section and who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns about criticizing a professor with whom he worked, said he does not think the online format was a positive experience for himself or for the students. “You lose the pulse of conversation when you go online,” he said. “If everyone can meet in a room together, why would you not promote that?” Yale College Dean Mary Miller announced the Ad Hoc Yale College Committee on Online Education in a Sept. 21, 2012 email to the Yale community. Contact JANE DARBY MENTON at jane.menton@yale.edu .
lence working group could not be reached for comment. The Democrats’ signature proposed ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines also figured prominently in a push by Gov. Dannel Malloy late last month to force the gun violence working group to move more quickly. When asked if the governor would sign legislation lacking these items, his press secretary Juliet Manalan declined to answer, telling the News, “the governor will review carefully all legislation that reaches his desk.” In contrast to the gun violence working group, the mental health services group released its recommendations with little fanfare. The group passed along four proposals that received consensus: providing mental health first aid training for school employees,
training pediatricians to recognize and prescribe medication for mental illness in children, offering case management services to people with severe mental illness in the court system as an alternative to hospital commitment, and creating a task force that would further investigate issues in the state’s mental health system. Legislators said this task force would tackle some of the items on which the working group could not reach consensus, including addressing the state’s current shortage of child psychiatrists, closing gaps in private mental health coverage, and improving early intervention and treatment. Two other high-profile policy items — restricting individuals with mental illness from purchasing guns and instituting an outpatient commitment system
— will likely hear much debate throughout the rest of this legislative. “We learned quickly that there are many holes in the state’s mental health system, and we can’t really implement a lot of the programs we will likely need to shore up the gaps immediately,” said State Sen. Toni Harp, the Democratic co-chair of the mental health services working group. “Some of that will require working across silos of government and working with commercial insurers on how we can improve the mental health service delivery system in our state.” The full bipartisan task force will meet on Wednesday to begin compiling an omnibus bill. Contact MICHELLE HACKMAN at michelle.hackman@yale.edu .
‘HEALTH OF NATIONS’
BLAIR SEIDEMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MCCHRYSTAL JOINS FORCES WITH RESEARCH SCIENTIST In the “Health of Nations” interdisciplinary talk, retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal and research scientist Kristina Talbert-Slagle compared the health of humans to the health of nations. Drawing on their respective fields, they mapped out similarities between solving the AIDS epidemic in the United States to solving the insurgency in Afghanistan. The message to the audience was that when approaching any problem, understanding is key.
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ARTS & CULTURE
“I know what D’Fwan said about me and it is on. I’m a superb dancer. At Princeton, I played Maria in an all-male production of ‘West Side Story.’” JACK DONAGHY “30 ROCK” CHARACTER
Dance lab takes the stage
Robotics enhances architecture courses BY YANAN WANG STAFF REPORTER At the School of Architecture, robots are changing the way students approach the design process. In the school’s fabrication labs, located in the sub-basement of Rudolph Hall, architecture students have access to a wide range of robotic technologies — from computer numerical control (CNC) tools and waterjet cutters to laser scanners and 3-D printers. The most well-known of the machinery is the Kuka HA 60-3 Automatic Scale Arm. When the school purchased the robotic arm in 2006, Yale was the first university to own the device. Now, architecture programs across the country are investing in robotics as a means of revolutionizing the design and construction process. Last December, the school acquired a cost-effective 3-D printer, a technology that will make the benefits of robotics accessible to a much wider range of students, said John Eberhart ARC ’98, School of Architecture digital media director. Taylor Dansby, an instructor in the fabrication lab, said the proliferation of such technology is a double-edged sword. “Robots are one of the best ways to talk about the relationship between reality and simulation,” Dansby said. “At the same time, reliance on technology can create lazy decision-making.” Dansby pointed to the school’s 3-D printers, which spit out successive layers of material to transform computerized designs into fullyformed models. Before last December, all the printers were high-quality and high-cost: the Dimension printer, which cost $40,000, requires students to pay $200 for each model printed. The end products are constructed from highquality plastic, but the machine’s costs makes it inaccessible to many students, Eberhart said. Eberhart noted that the price of high-quality models can place some students at a disadvantage, adding that he hopes this will change as companies develop cheaper methods of production.
“While it’s amazing that we have access to all these machines, the expenses can be very prohibitive, particularly for undergraduates,” architecture major Matthew Claudel ’13 said. Late last year, the school acquired a MakerBot — a 3-D printer that spits out miniature models for $24 apiece. Whereas the professional-grade printers were used almost exclusively to represent final designs, students can use the MakerBot to experiment with works-inprogress. “Students can now see their designs in 3-D, which allows them to go back and make changes before their final critiques,” Eberhart said. “The MakerBots have facilitated a quicker feedback loop.” Due to high demand for the MakerBot during exam season, students must submit requests one or two weeks ahead of time in order to have their designs processed. Eberhart added that the school hopes to have a “Printer Farm” set up by this summer, which will house 8 to 10 low-cost printers in the same room, allowing students to submit prints and retrieve their products with ease. Bobby Cannavino ARC ’14, a monitor in the imaging labs, said the emergence of robotic technologies geared toward architectural design raises questions about how methods of construction might change in the future. The level of complexity and detail with which robotics allow architects to create designs could affect the way they think about buildings, he said. When considering the impact 3-D printers may have on the design process, Dansby emphasized the need for students to remember that they are only a means to an end — “just one tool in a large collection” — rather than a shortcut to the finished product. Claudel said technology presents a threat to the “investigative process” of architecture. “It’s sort of dangerous to rely too much on technology because there is the temptation to make a really complex file on the computer and then think that it will be printed
BY JESSICA HALLAM STAFF REPORTER In one Yale laboratory, experiments are performed on the researchers by the researchers themselves. Today, the first half of Yale Dance Theater’s semester-long spring 2013 project will culminate in “Reggie Wilson Showings,” two lecture presentations that will feature Reggie Wilson — a critically acclaimed choreographer — and 16 undergraduate members of YDT. During the presentations, Wilson will describe to the audience the derivation of different aspects of his choreography in conjunction with YDT’s performance of his work. The presentations will demonstrate YDT’s focus on movement literacy in the hopes of informing the Yale and greater arts communities of the intellectual relevancy of dance, said Emily Coates ’06 GRD ’11, YDT faculty director. “Other universities license choreography,” Coates said. “We bring choreography and choreographers into our dance laboratory and develop ways of researching it and writing about it.” YDT was established as an extracurricular group in 2006 as a prac-
tice-based arts research initiative. Linked to the dance studies curriculum in the theater studies major, YDT aims to invent and experiment with research methods to understand the historical basis of choreography. As researchers of Reggie Wilson’s choreography this year, YDT students have investigated the synthesis of cultural forms — references to the African diaspora, Moses, Zora Neal Hurston, the 1960s pedestrian movement, classical ballet and even fractal geometry — within Wilson’s dances.
Sometimes [details] aren’t useful for dance because you have to see the big picture. CAROLINE ANDERSSON ’15 “His work is very much about the physical experience of doing it — letting your body do its thing,” said Elena Light ’13, a student coordinator of the spring 2013 project and a dancer in the presentation. “He scrunches up his face and says,
ANNELISA LEINBACH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Robotic technologies at the School of Architecture can create exquisite models quickly, but are still cost-prohibitive for many students. exactly how you want it to be,” Claudel said. “It’s liberating, but you have to be careful that it doesn’t start to define your creativity.” While students are not required to use the machinery for their mandatory coursework, some professors in elective courses have designed their curricula around the growing stock of digital technologies. In Assistant Dean Mark Gage’s class, “Disheveled Geometries,” students are encouraged to use robotics in their exploration of form. One undergraduate and two professional students interviewed said since the school only began purchasing robotic machinery in 2000, learning how to use these new and
complex technologies remains challenging. Dansby said he hopes the technical knowledge will spread through word-of-mouth as he continues to give tutorials to a small group of students who can then share their expertise with peers. Sarah Gill ARC ’13 said the slow transfer of knowledge stems from the limited amount of staff devoted to managing the technology. “There is only one Taylor [Dansby],” she said. The Yale School of Architecture bought its first three-axis CNC mill in 2002. Contact YANAN WANG at yanan.wang@yale.edu .
ANNELISA LEINBACH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The School of Architecture’s fabrication labs offer students access to CNC tools, waterjet cutters, laser scanners and 3-D printers.
Photo exhibit shows ‘Real Myanmar’
YDN
Yale Dance Theater dancers act as researchers, investigating the synthesis of cultural forms in Wilson’s work.
Guerrero discusses inspiration
Myo Oo said the photographs “showed multiple dimensions” of the country. For instance, many of Rivkin’s photos captured the beauty of Myanmar’s landscape, while others told the stories of individual citizens. As one of only two Burmese students in Yale College, Myo Oo said he wants the exhibit to raise awareness about the
ments they learn. She added that writing about past learning has allowed her to connect motifs and themes, helping her improve in the next class. “I wouldn’t necessarily think about the overarching themes and ideas that the choreography is trying to impart, if I didn’t reflect on it, because I get really caught up on details,” Andersson said. “Sometimes [details] aren’t useful for dance because you have to see the big picture.” Light said that it is imperative for scholars of dance studies to write about dance. She said blogging about choreography provides her with an understanding of Wilson’s work that she would not have acquired through solely dancing it. She compared practicing dance as research to performing Shakespeare to gain a deeper understanding of the text; instead of maintaining the critically distant perspective that is so widely practiced at Yale, being kinesthetically involved in the study of a work provides a unique outlook. “There are ideas that can only
MARIA ZEPEDA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Award-winning poet Laurie Ann Guerrero connected her Texan upbringing with her poetry at a Tuesday Master’s Tea. BY VIRGIL BLANC CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
ALISSA CHU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“The Real Myanmar” draws attention to the cultural richness of a country known mainly for its political strife and ethnic violence. culture and splendor of Myanmar. While the photographs focused on the country’s local culture, they also “alluded to something going on behind the scenes,” Rivkin said. He pointed to a picture of a small child bathing, noting that viewers could not see that the child’s bathtub lay directly next to an open sewer. “Our purpose is to show the riches but also subtly hint at underlying issues,” Rivkin said. Co-organizer Priyankar Chand ’16 said that when “The Real Myanmar” debuted on Thursday, the reception’s turnout of 50 to 70 people far
exceeded the group’s expectations. Rivkin recalled how the room was so crowded he could barely move, adding that the audience was surprisingly diverse, including visitors outside of the Southeast Asian and undergraduate communities. “People became more informed, and the exhibit showed people a country they don’t normally get to see,” Rivkin said. In addition to raising student awareness about the country, The Myanmar Project’s mission is to work with Burmese refugee communities in the United States. Members of the group
travel to Hartford, Conn., several times a semester to lead workshops with a Burmese refugee community. This past year, Myanmar Project cofounders Myo Oo and Katherine Aragon ’14 were instrumental in bringing Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi to Yale. Myo Oo said that going forward, the group hopes to create a promotional video depicting Burmese refugee life in the United States. “The Real Myanmar” exhibit will be on display until Thursday. Contact ADRIAN RODRIGUES at adrian.rodrigues@yale.edu .
At a Tuesday afternoon Ezra Stiles Master’s Tea, an intimate audience flocked around poet Laurie Ann Guerrero as she told stories of her family and personal history with laughs and tears. Guerrero, the recipient of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize — which supports emerging works by Latino artists — read poems from her 2012 book “A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying.” The poet discussed the importance of her community in shaping her work, as well as her creative process, with an audience of roughly 20 Yale community members. Guerrero immediately adopted a personal tone when she described her family setting as an eight-year-old. She said her father was “abusive and alcoholic,” and that she used poetry as a way to escape this violence. “I would just go to my room, and I only had a pen and paper,” Guerrero said. “I would put on the Beatles and just write.” Guerrero said her poetry centers on community as well as family. She explained that she went to college because of a “desire to be more than what society and culture had prescribed for [her].” She described how shocked she was when, returning home after attending Smith College and meeting empowered women there, she realized that the women of her own commu-
nity did not speak up. Guerrero read “A Meal for the Tribe,” in which she explains how the kind of conversation and discussion she encountered in college would have been beneficial to her family. “I can’t imagine not living in my community,” Guerrero said of living in Texas. “I want the women — and men — of San Antonio to discover what I discovered, to feel empowered.”
I want the women — and men — of San Antonio to discover what I discovered, to feel empowered. LAURIE ANN GUERRERO Poet Guerrero’s Latino background plays an important role in her poetry. She described her fascination with race in her Texan community, noting her interest in understanding how Latinos fit into the black and white dichotomy she feels is prevalent in Texas. She also spoke to the importance of her relationships with the women in her life. “Not only did we have each other’s back, but I knew we were in it together [and] that we understood each other,” Guerrero said. The poet went on to describe her writing pro-
cess and influences. After citing authors including Sandra Cisneros, Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, Guerrero explained that her inspiration was mostly internal. “What keeps me writing is the inspiration I’ve had from living in my body for so many years, from my mother living in her own body, my father living in his own body,” Guerrero said. She added that everyone has within themselves enough to create poetry. “If we don’t pull it out, no one will,” she concluded. Many of Guerrero’s stories took a humorous tone and drew laughs from the audience, but reading her poems and talking about her family also made her tear up. With emotion, she told the story of her grandfather’s graduation gift, a wooden table he had made that inspired her poem “Wooden Box.” All three attendees interviewed said they appreciated the “conversational tone” of the discussion. Christofer Rodelo ’15 described Guerrero’s presentation as “genuine” and “heartfelt” and said he enjoyed her creative outlook on Chicano culture. Natalia Thompson ’13 reported that the discussion was a “breath of fresh air,” since she thinks Chicano feminist thought is underrepresented at Yale. The last winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize was Emma Trelles in 2010. Contact VIRGIL BLANC at virgil.blanc@yale.edu .
be accessed through embodying them,” Coates said. Coates said YDT’s practicebased research in dance is innovative among United States liberal arts institutions, and that the dance world has thus come to view it as an exciting movement of ideas and research. Andersson and Light said they hope this external attention, when combined with increasing prevalence on campus, will garner support for the expansion of the dance studies course offerings and faculty. Both women added that Yale dancers need more than what Coates and YDT can provide — Coates’ approach to dance education proves the potential for an amazing dance program at Yale, they said. “We need a more consistent course offering and a more consistent voice in the faculty,” Light said. The lecture presentations will be held at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Morse-Stiles Crescent Theater. Contact JESSICA HALLAM at jessica.hallam@yale.edu .
Oscar winner on ‘Inocente’ Last week, Yael Melamede ’88 ARC ’93 won an Oscar as producer of this year’s best documentary short, “Inocente,” a film centered on a homeless teenager’s dream to become an artist. She also produced the 2003 documentary “My Architect: A Son’s Journey,” which follows Nathaniel Kahn ’85, the illegitimate son of renowned architect Louis Kahn — the late School of Architecture professor who designed the Yale Center for British Art and one building of the Yale University Art Gallery — as he travels the world to learn about his father through his architectural works. Following her Oscar win, Melamede spoke with the News about her time at Yale and her career as a filmmaker.
A new photo exhibition is trying to change how students see Myanmar, a country often defined by accounts of political oppression and ethnic violence. The Myanmar Project, a student group dedicated to supporting Burmese refugees and raising awareness about the country, opened “The Real Myanmar” at the Trumbull Art Gallery on Feb. 28. The exhibit featured photographs by four students and Berkeley College writing tutor Cathy Shufro. Showcasing dozens of photos from past trips to Myanmar, the exhibit sought to portray another side of a country riddled by conflict, said Edward Han Myo Oo ’15, one of the exhibit’s organizers and co-founder of The Myanmar Project. “A lot of people here in the U.S. focus too much on the political side of Myanmar,” Myo Oo said. “The exhibit was an attempt to show the other side of Myanmar.” All five photographers had visited the country, some as recently as the summer of 2012. Photographer Eli Rivkin ’15 has visited Myanmar three times, and Myo Oo grew up in the country. Physically arranged according to photographer, each collection depicted scenes of local life, including temples, monks, farmers and panoramic landscapes.
EDWARD HAN MYO OO ’15 Co-organizer, ‘The Real Myanmar’
YDN
Students in Yale Dance Theater will reflect upon the dances of acclaimed choreographer Reggie Wilson by performing and blogging about his work.
BY KAMIL SADIK CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
BY ADRIAN RODRIGUES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
A lot of people here in the U.S. focus too much on the political side of Myanmar. The exhibit was an attempt to show the other side.
‘I’m thinking very hard about doing a big jump,’ but that’s not doing the jump.” Light said being physically engaged with Wilson’s works instead of researching them through video or text allowed her to gain a broader, more informed perspective that aided her in writing about his choreography. In addition to dancing Wilson’s works as research, it is required of YDT members to compose blog posts after each rehearsal that translate learned movements into writing. Students are challenged to connect kinesthetic and linguistic practices by translating movement without losing the vitality of the dance, Coates said. “They are mutually exclusive practices that are at the same time mutually informative,” Coates said. Caroline Andersson ’15, a YDT dancer in the spring 2013 project, said writing about dance allows her to reflect deliberately about her performance in class. She said that since the focus of Wilson’s work is on the body and not the mind, on doing rather than thinking, the dancers are not considering the past or the future — and therefore are not actively forming connections between the different move-
If you make a bad movie, you can put it in a closet; if you make a bad building, there’s nothing you can do about it. YAEL MELAMEDE ’88 ARC ’93 Filmmaker and producer
tion behind me. I think the ability to see something in two ways is always incredibly useful. would you describe your QHow Yale experience?
A
I came to Yale very young. I was 16. In retrospect, coming back to grad school was a real chance to take greater advantage of the school. It was a much more focused and mature time for me. Yale was in a great moment of transition when I was a freshman there. It was a time when the campus as a whole became a little more conservative.
is your favorite memory QWhat from Yale?
A
One of the big things for me at Yale was that I discovered photography. If it hadn’t been for photography, I would have had a very different track.
was the professor that QWho had the greatest impact on you?
A
Richard Benson [former dean of the School of Art] was my first photography teacher, and he really opened up my world. I’m always grateful to him, or in times of difficulty in this business I think, “Why did you do this to me?” The photo department in the 1980s was an inspiring place to be.
did you realize you inspired you to make QWhen QWhat wanted to be a filmmaker? “Inocente”?
A
I had been interested in film all along — I actually applied to film school and architecture school together. I always feel like if you make a bad movie, you can put it in a closet; if you make a bad building, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s an interesting question: Which one has a bigger impact, given how far a movie can go or a building can go?
has your architectural QHow background informed your filmmaking?
A
I’m very grateful for having an architectural educa-
A
We had decided we wanted to make a film about resilience. We had also come across this statistic that one in 45 kids in America is homeless. By chance, we were looking for all kinds of kids to tell their story, and we came upon Inocente. The film was originally going to cover more than one kid, but she was so strong that she would have overshadowed the other kids.
know “Inocente” raised QImoney using Kickstarter, an
online funding platform. How is Kickstarter changing movie production?
A
Kickstarter has gotten so much press off of this movie. We loved having them around, and being able to raise money through Kickstarter was such a huge benefit. I think what’s interesting is the fact that you have to present your story to other people — why it’s important and why they should believe in it, which is incredibly useful as filmmakers and as artists. For us Kickstarter played a hugely valuable role, but it was less than 10 percent of our final budget.
QWhat is your next project?
A
I’m working on a new documentary about dishonesty with Dan Ariely inspired by his book “The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves.” I’m just finishing up a completely different film I adore about ultramarathon runners. I specialize in films that ask, “What is that thing we have that we can call upon when everything else is gone?”
advice would you give to QWhat an aspiring filmmaker?
A
I would say to store up a lot of stamina. It’s a really difficult business financially and even emotionally. I think finding a mentor is also really important, and I think it’s a hard business to find mentors. And I think the more you collaborate with people, the stronger you can be, if you pick your collaborators carefully.
you describe your ideal QCan partner?
A
I really like to work with people where we fight a lot, but I don’t care who’s right — it’s just about getting to the right idea. The more people there are and the more smart collaboration there is, the better the result can be. Contact KAMIL SADIK at kamil.sadik@yale.edu.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
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ARTS & CULTURE
“I know what D’Fwan said about me and it is on. I’m a superb dancer. At Princeton, I played Maria in an all-male production of ‘West Side Story.’” JACK DONAGHY “30 ROCK” CHARACTER
Dance lab takes the stage
Robotics enhances architecture courses BY YANAN WANG STAFF REPORTER At the School of Architecture, robots are changing the way students approach the design process. In the school’s fabrication labs, located in the sub-basement of Rudolph Hall, architecture students have access to a wide range of robotic technologies — from computer numerical control (CNC) tools and waterjet cutters to laser scanners and 3-D printers. The most well-known of the machinery is the Kuka HA 60-3 Automatic Scale Arm. When the school purchased the robotic arm in 2006, Yale was the first university to own the device. Now, architecture programs across the country are investing in robotics as a means of revolutionizing the design and construction process. Last December, the school acquired a cost-effective 3-D printer, a technology that will make the benefits of robotics accessible to a much wider range of students, said John Eberhart ARC ’98, School of Architecture digital media director. Taylor Dansby, an instructor in the fabrication lab, said the proliferation of such technology is a double-edged sword. “Robots are one of the best ways to talk about the relationship between reality and simulation,” Dansby said. “At the same time, reliance on technology can create lazy decision-making.” Dansby pointed to the school’s 3-D printers, which spit out successive layers of material to transform computerized designs into fullyformed models. Before last December, all the printers were high-quality and high-cost: the Dimension printer, which cost $40,000, requires students to pay $200 for each model printed. The end products are constructed from highquality plastic, but the machine’s costs makes it inaccessible to many students, Eberhart said. Eberhart noted that the price of high-quality models can place some students at a disadvantage, adding that he hopes this will change as companies develop cheaper methods of production.
“While it’s amazing that we have access to all these machines, the expenses can be very prohibitive, particularly for undergraduates,” architecture major Matthew Claudel ’13 said. Late last year, the school acquired a MakerBot — a 3-D printer that spits out miniature models for $24 apiece. Whereas the professional-grade printers were used almost exclusively to represent final designs, students can use the MakerBot to experiment with works-inprogress. “Students can now see their designs in 3-D, which allows them to go back and make changes before their final critiques,” Eberhart said. “The MakerBots have facilitated a quicker feedback loop.” Due to high demand for the MakerBot during exam season, students must submit requests one or two weeks ahead of time in order to have their designs processed. Eberhart added that the school hopes to have a “Printer Farm” set up by this summer, which will house 8 to 10 low-cost printers in the same room, allowing students to submit prints and retrieve their products with ease. Bobby Cannavino ARC ’14, a monitor in the imaging labs, said the emergence of robotic technologies geared toward architectural design raises questions about how methods of construction might change in the future. The level of complexity and detail with which robotics allow architects to create designs could affect the way they think about buildings, he said. When considering the impact 3-D printers may have on the design process, Dansby emphasized the need for students to remember that they are only a means to an end — “just one tool in a large collection” — rather than a shortcut to the finished product. Claudel said technology presents a threat to the “investigative process” of architecture. “It’s sort of dangerous to rely too much on technology because there is the temptation to make a really complex file on the computer and then think that it will be printed
BY JESSICA HALLAM STAFF REPORTER In one Yale laboratory, experiments are performed on the researchers by the researchers themselves. Today, the first half of Yale Dance Theater’s semester-long spring 2013 project will culminate in “Reggie Wilson Showings,” two lecture presentations that will feature Reggie Wilson — a critically acclaimed choreographer — and 16 undergraduate members of YDT. During the presentations, Wilson will describe to the audience the derivation of different aspects of his choreography in conjunction with YDT’s performance of his work. The presentations will demonstrate YDT’s focus on movement literacy in the hopes of informing the Yale and greater arts communities of the intellectual relevancy of dance, said Emily Coates ’06 GRD ’11, YDT faculty director. “Other universities license choreography,” Coates said. “We bring choreography and choreographers into our dance laboratory and develop ways of researching it and writing about it.” YDT was established as an extracurricular group in 2006 as a prac-
tice-based arts research initiative. Linked to the dance studies curriculum in the theater studies major, YDT aims to invent and experiment with research methods to understand the historical basis of choreography. As researchers of Reggie Wilson’s choreography this year, YDT students have investigated the synthesis of cultural forms — references to the African diaspora, Moses, Zora Neal Hurston, the 1960s pedestrian movement, classical ballet and even fractal geometry — within Wilson’s dances.
Sometimes [details] aren’t useful for dance because you have to see the big picture. CAROLINE ANDERSSON ’15 “His work is very much about the physical experience of doing it — letting your body do its thing,” said Elena Light ’13, a student coordinator of the spring 2013 project and a dancer in the presentation. “He scrunches up his face and says,
ANNELISA LEINBACH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Robotic technologies at the School of Architecture can create exquisite models quickly, but are still cost-prohibitive for many students. exactly how you want it to be,” Claudel said. “It’s liberating, but you have to be careful that it doesn’t start to define your creativity.” While students are not required to use the machinery for their mandatory coursework, some professors in elective courses have designed their curricula around the growing stock of digital technologies. In Assistant Dean Mark Gage’s class, “Disheveled Geometries,” students are encouraged to use robotics in their exploration of form. One undergraduate and two professional students interviewed said since the school only began purchasing robotic machinery in 2000, learning how to use these new and
complex technologies remains challenging. Dansby said he hopes the technical knowledge will spread through word-of-mouth as he continues to give tutorials to a small group of students who can then share their expertise with peers. Sarah Gill ARC ’13 said the slow transfer of knowledge stems from the limited amount of staff devoted to managing the technology. “There is only one Taylor [Dansby],” she said. The Yale School of Architecture bought its first three-axis CNC mill in 2002. Contact YANAN WANG at yanan.wang@yale.edu .
ANNELISA LEINBACH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The School of Architecture’s fabrication labs offer students access to CNC tools, waterjet cutters, laser scanners and 3-D printers.
Photo exhibit shows ‘Real Myanmar’
YDN
Yale Dance Theater dancers act as researchers, investigating the synthesis of cultural forms in Wilson’s work.
Guerrero discusses inspiration
Myo Oo said the photographs “showed multiple dimensions” of the country. For instance, many of Rivkin’s photos captured the beauty of Myanmar’s landscape, while others told the stories of individual citizens. As one of only two Burmese students in Yale College, Myo Oo said he wants the exhibit to raise awareness about the
ments they learn. She added that writing about past learning has allowed her to connect motifs and themes, helping her improve in the next class. “I wouldn’t necessarily think about the overarching themes and ideas that the choreography is trying to impart, if I didn’t reflect on it, because I get really caught up on details,” Andersson said. “Sometimes [details] aren’t useful for dance because you have to see the big picture.” Light said that it is imperative for scholars of dance studies to write about dance. She said blogging about choreography provides her with an understanding of Wilson’s work that she would not have acquired through solely dancing it. She compared practicing dance as research to performing Shakespeare to gain a deeper understanding of the text; instead of maintaining the critically distant perspective that is so widely practiced at Yale, being kinesthetically involved in the study of a work provides a unique outlook. “There are ideas that can only
MARIA ZEPEDA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Award-winning poet Laurie Ann Guerrero connected her Texan upbringing with her poetry at a Tuesday Master’s Tea. BY VIRGIL BLANC CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
ALISSA CHU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“The Real Myanmar” draws attention to the cultural richness of a country known mainly for its political strife and ethnic violence. culture and splendor of Myanmar. While the photographs focused on the country’s local culture, they also “alluded to something going on behind the scenes,” Rivkin said. He pointed to a picture of a small child bathing, noting that viewers could not see that the child’s bathtub lay directly next to an open sewer. “Our purpose is to show the riches but also subtly hint at underlying issues,” Rivkin said. Co-organizer Priyankar Chand ’16 said that when “The Real Myanmar” debuted on Thursday, the reception’s turnout of 50 to 70 people far
exceeded the group’s expectations. Rivkin recalled how the room was so crowded he could barely move, adding that the audience was surprisingly diverse, including visitors outside of the Southeast Asian and undergraduate communities. “People became more informed, and the exhibit showed people a country they don’t normally get to see,” Rivkin said. In addition to raising student awareness about the country, The Myanmar Project’s mission is to work with Burmese refugee communities in the United States. Members of the group
travel to Hartford, Conn., several times a semester to lead workshops with a Burmese refugee community. This past year, Myanmar Project cofounders Myo Oo and Katherine Aragon ’14 were instrumental in bringing Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi to Yale. Myo Oo said that going forward, the group hopes to create a promotional video depicting Burmese refugee life in the United States. “The Real Myanmar” exhibit will be on display until Thursday. Contact ADRIAN RODRIGUES at adrian.rodrigues@yale.edu .
At a Tuesday afternoon Ezra Stiles Master’s Tea, an intimate audience flocked around poet Laurie Ann Guerrero as she told stories of her family and personal history with laughs and tears. Guerrero, the recipient of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize — which supports emerging works by Latino artists — read poems from her 2012 book “A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying.” The poet discussed the importance of her community in shaping her work, as well as her creative process, with an audience of roughly 20 Yale community members. Guerrero immediately adopted a personal tone when she described her family setting as an eight-year-old. She said her father was “abusive and alcoholic,” and that she used poetry as a way to escape this violence. “I would just go to my room, and I only had a pen and paper,” Guerrero said. “I would put on the Beatles and just write.” Guerrero said her poetry centers on community as well as family. She explained that she went to college because of a “desire to be more than what society and culture had prescribed for [her].” She described how shocked she was when, returning home after attending Smith College and meeting empowered women there, she realized that the women of her own commu-
nity did not speak up. Guerrero read “A Meal for the Tribe,” in which she explains how the kind of conversation and discussion she encountered in college would have been beneficial to her family. “I can’t imagine not living in my community,” Guerrero said of living in Texas. “I want the women — and men — of San Antonio to discover what I discovered, to feel empowered.”
I want the women — and men — of San Antonio to discover what I discovered, to feel empowered. LAURIE ANN GUERRERO Poet Guerrero’s Latino background plays an important role in her poetry. She described her fascination with race in her Texan community, noting her interest in understanding how Latinos fit into the black and white dichotomy she feels is prevalent in Texas. She also spoke to the importance of her relationships with the women in her life. “Not only did we have each other’s back, but I knew we were in it together [and] that we understood each other,” Guerrero said. The poet went on to describe her writing pro-
cess and influences. After citing authors including Sandra Cisneros, Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, Guerrero explained that her inspiration was mostly internal. “What keeps me writing is the inspiration I’ve had from living in my body for so many years, from my mother living in her own body, my father living in his own body,” Guerrero said. She added that everyone has within themselves enough to create poetry. “If we don’t pull it out, no one will,” she concluded. Many of Guerrero’s stories took a humorous tone and drew laughs from the audience, but reading her poems and talking about her family also made her tear up. With emotion, she told the story of her grandfather’s graduation gift, a wooden table he had made that inspired her poem “Wooden Box.” All three attendees interviewed said they appreciated the “conversational tone” of the discussion. Christofer Rodelo ’15 described Guerrero’s presentation as “genuine” and “heartfelt” and said he enjoyed her creative outlook on Chicano culture. Natalia Thompson ’13 reported that the discussion was a “breath of fresh air,” since she thinks Chicano feminist thought is underrepresented at Yale. The last winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize was Emma Trelles in 2010. Contact VIRGIL BLANC at virgil.blanc@yale.edu .
be accessed through embodying them,” Coates said. Coates said YDT’s practicebased research in dance is innovative among United States liberal arts institutions, and that the dance world has thus come to view it as an exciting movement of ideas and research. Andersson and Light said they hope this external attention, when combined with increasing prevalence on campus, will garner support for the expansion of the dance studies course offerings and faculty. Both women added that Yale dancers need more than what Coates and YDT can provide — Coates’ approach to dance education proves the potential for an amazing dance program at Yale, they said. “We need a more consistent course offering and a more consistent voice in the faculty,” Light said. The lecture presentations will be held at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Morse-Stiles Crescent Theater. Contact JESSICA HALLAM at jessica.hallam@yale.edu .
Oscar winner on ‘Inocente’ Last week, Yael Melamede ’88 ARC ’93 won an Oscar as producer of this year’s best documentary short, “Inocente,” a film centered on a homeless teenager’s dream to become an artist. She also produced the 2003 documentary “My Architect: A Son’s Journey,” which follows Nathaniel Kahn ’85, the illegitimate son of renowned architect Louis Kahn — the late School of Architecture professor who designed the Yale Center for British Art and one building of the Yale University Art Gallery — as he travels the world to learn about his father through his architectural works. Following her Oscar win, Melamede spoke with the News about her time at Yale and her career as a filmmaker.
A new photo exhibition is trying to change how students see Myanmar, a country often defined by accounts of political oppression and ethnic violence. The Myanmar Project, a student group dedicated to supporting Burmese refugees and raising awareness about the country, opened “The Real Myanmar” at the Trumbull Art Gallery on Feb. 28. The exhibit featured photographs by four students and Berkeley College writing tutor Cathy Shufro. Showcasing dozens of photos from past trips to Myanmar, the exhibit sought to portray another side of a country riddled by conflict, said Edward Han Myo Oo ’15, one of the exhibit’s organizers and co-founder of The Myanmar Project. “A lot of people here in the U.S. focus too much on the political side of Myanmar,” Myo Oo said. “The exhibit was an attempt to show the other side of Myanmar.” All five photographers had visited the country, some as recently as the summer of 2012. Photographer Eli Rivkin ’15 has visited Myanmar three times, and Myo Oo grew up in the country. Physically arranged according to photographer, each collection depicted scenes of local life, including temples, monks, farmers and panoramic landscapes.
EDWARD HAN MYO OO ’15 Co-organizer, ‘The Real Myanmar’
YDN
Students in Yale Dance Theater will reflect upon the dances of acclaimed choreographer Reggie Wilson by performing and blogging about his work.
BY KAMIL SADIK CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
BY ADRIAN RODRIGUES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
A lot of people here in the U.S. focus too much on the political side of Myanmar. The exhibit was an attempt to show the other side.
‘I’m thinking very hard about doing a big jump,’ but that’s not doing the jump.” Light said being physically engaged with Wilson’s works instead of researching them through video or text allowed her to gain a broader, more informed perspective that aided her in writing about his choreography. In addition to dancing Wilson’s works as research, it is required of YDT members to compose blog posts after each rehearsal that translate learned movements into writing. Students are challenged to connect kinesthetic and linguistic practices by translating movement without losing the vitality of the dance, Coates said. “They are mutually exclusive practices that are at the same time mutually informative,” Coates said. Caroline Andersson ’15, a YDT dancer in the spring 2013 project, said writing about dance allows her to reflect deliberately about her performance in class. She said that since the focus of Wilson’s work is on the body and not the mind, on doing rather than thinking, the dancers are not considering the past or the future — and therefore are not actively forming connections between the different move-
If you make a bad movie, you can put it in a closet; if you make a bad building, there’s nothing you can do about it. YAEL MELAMEDE ’88 ARC ’93 Filmmaker and producer
tion behind me. I think the ability to see something in two ways is always incredibly useful. would you describe your QHow Yale experience?
A
I came to Yale very young. I was 16. In retrospect, coming back to grad school was a real chance to take greater advantage of the school. It was a much more focused and mature time for me. Yale was in a great moment of transition when I was a freshman there. It was a time when the campus as a whole became a little more conservative.
is your favorite memory QWhat from Yale?
A
One of the big things for me at Yale was that I discovered photography. If it hadn’t been for photography, I would have had a very different track.
was the professor that QWho had the greatest impact on you?
A
Richard Benson [former dean of the School of Art] was my first photography teacher, and he really opened up my world. I’m always grateful to him, or in times of difficulty in this business I think, “Why did you do this to me?” The photo department in the 1980s was an inspiring place to be.
did you realize you inspired you to make QWhen QWhat wanted to be a filmmaker? “Inocente”?
A
I had been interested in film all along — I actually applied to film school and architecture school together. I always feel like if you make a bad movie, you can put it in a closet; if you make a bad building, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s an interesting question: Which one has a bigger impact, given how far a movie can go or a building can go?
has your architectural QHow background informed your filmmaking?
A
I’m very grateful for having an architectural educa-
A
We had decided we wanted to make a film about resilience. We had also come across this statistic that one in 45 kids in America is homeless. By chance, we were looking for all kinds of kids to tell their story, and we came upon Inocente. The film was originally going to cover more than one kid, but she was so strong that she would have overshadowed the other kids.
know “Inocente” raised QImoney using Kickstarter, an
online funding platform. How is Kickstarter changing movie production?
A
Kickstarter has gotten so much press off of this movie. We loved having them around, and being able to raise money through Kickstarter was such a huge benefit. I think what’s interesting is the fact that you have to present your story to other people — why it’s important and why they should believe in it, which is incredibly useful as filmmakers and as artists. For us Kickstarter played a hugely valuable role, but it was less than 10 percent of our final budget.
QWhat is your next project?
A
I’m working on a new documentary about dishonesty with Dan Ariely inspired by his book “The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves.” I’m just finishing up a completely different film I adore about ultramarathon runners. I specialize in films that ask, “What is that thing we have that we can call upon when everything else is gone?”
advice would you give to QWhat an aspiring filmmaker?
A
I would say to store up a lot of stamina. It’s a really difficult business financially and even emotionally. I think finding a mentor is also really important, and I think it’s a hard business to find mentors. And I think the more you collaborate with people, the stronger you can be, if you pick your collaborators carefully.
you describe your ideal QCan partner?
A
I really like to work with people where we fight a lot, but I don’t care who’s right — it’s just about getting to the right idea. The more people there are and the more smart collaboration there is, the better the result can be. Contact KAMIL SADIK at kamil.sadik@yale.edu.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
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Senate panel votes to approve CIA nominee BY RICHARD LARDNER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Tuesday to approve President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the CIA after winning a behindthe-scenes battle with the White House over access to a series of top-secret legal opinions that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects, including American citizens. John Brennan’s installation at the spy agency has been delayed as Senate Democrats and Republicans have pressed the Obama administration to allow a review of the classified documents prepared by the Justice Department. The senators have argued they can’t perform adequate oversight without reviewing the contents of the opinions, but the White House had resisted requests for full disclosure. The intelligence committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday that the committee voted 12–3 to send Brennan’s nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. The panel’s deliberations were held behind closed doors. Feinstein said all eight Democrats on the committee voted yes. She did not identify the Republican senators who voted against him. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee vice chairman, said he voted against Brennan because he didn’t think Brennan would create the kind of “trust relationship” between Congress and the CIA. He did not specify what his concerns were, however. But Chambliss said he would not encourage other Republican senators to attempt a filibuster of the nomination. “He’ll probably be confirmed,” Chambliss said. Feinstein said the full Senate should act quickly confirm Brennan, who spent 25 years at the CIA
before later becoming Obama’s top counterterrorism and homeland security adviser in the White House. Although Brennan has made it out of the committee, Republicans have threatened to hold up his nomination unless the White House supplies them with classified information, including emails among top U.S. national security officials, detailing the Obama administration’s actions immediately following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed during the raid. Feinstein said the White House has delivered the “great bulk” of the Benghazi records, and lawmakers are awaiting “a few odds and ends that need to come.” The White House released two out of a total of 11 Justice legal opinions to the intelligence committee just hours before Brennan’s Feb. 7 confirmation hearing in front of the panel. Two other memos had already been released to the committee.
The White House tends to look at this as advice to the president, and therefore that advice is protected. DIANNE FEINSTEIN U.S. senator, California Feinstein attributed the White House’s resistance to providing the legal opinions to a difference of opinion between lawmakers and the Obama administration over what the documents represented. “The White House tends to look at this as advice to the president, and therefore that advice is protected,” she said. But the commit-
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
CIA Director nominee John Brennan defends President Barack Obama’s policies in the war on terror as he testifies during his confirmation hearing. tee viewed the opinions as the legal advice that underwrites possible actions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Congress is charged with overseeing. “So there are different views of this,” Feinstein said. Brennan so far has escaped the harsh treatment that former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the president’s choice to lead the Defense Department, received from Senate Republicans, even though Brennan is one of Obama’s most important national security aides and the White House official who oversees the drone program. During President George W. Bush’s administration, Brennan served as a senior CIA official when waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced inter-
rogation” and detention practices were adopted. Brennan has publicly denounced the use of these tactics, but the cloud hasn’t gone completely away. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has said Brennan’s stance on waterboarding and torture is inconsistent. Although Brennan has decried these methods, he also has said they saved lives, according to McCain, who said he is awaiting an explanation from Brennan. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are also leading the charge for the Benghazi records. Brennan vigorously defended the use of drone strikes during his confirmation hearing. He declined to say whether he believes waterboarding, which simulates drown-
ing, amounted to torture. But he called the practice “reprehensible” and said it should never be done again. Obama ordered waterboarding banned shortly after taking office. Drone strikes are employed only as a “last resort,” Brennan told the committee. But he also said he had no qualms about going after U.S.born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed alAwlaki’s 16-year-old son, a Denver native. Brennan spent 25 years at the CIA before moving in 2003 from his job as deputy executive director of the agency to run the Terror-
ist Threat Integration Center. He later worked as interim director of the center’s successor organization, the National Counterterrorism Center. When Bush’s second term began in 2005, Brennan left government to work for a company that provides counterterrorism analysis to federal agencies. After Obama took office in 2009, he returned to the federal payroll as the president’s top counterterrorism adviser in the White House. If confirmed by the full Senate, Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA’s deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.
Racial episodes shake Ohio’s Oberlin College BY THOMAS J SHEERAN ASSOCIATED PRESS OBERLIN, Ohio — Scrawls of racially offensive graffiti and, more recently, a report of someone wearing what looked like a Ku Klux Klan-type hooded robe on campus have shaken students at historically liberal Oberlin College, one of the nation’s first universities to admit blacks. Two students are being investigated for possible involvement in the graffiti and are facing discipline by the college, but no criminal charges have been filed, said Oberlin city Police Chief Thomas Miller. It wasn’t clear, he said, whether the culprits were pranksters or genuinely motivated by bigotry. The college canceled Monday’s classes after an early morning report of someone in a white, hooded robe. Investigators were trying to determine whether the sighting was reliable or related to a separate
sighting of a person wrapped in a blanket. Classes resumed Tuesday, though the atmosphere was still tense. The police department has stepped up patrols around the campus at the request of the college. “I just really feel uncomfortable walking alone anywhere,” Modjeska Pleasant, 19, a firstyear student from Savannah, Ga., said Tuesday. Pleasant, who is black, said she became upset after hearing a few white students suggest that the racist graffiti first found a month ago and anti-Semitic and racist fliers and other messages left around campus since then were just a prank to get out of classes. In an open letter, President Marvin Krislov and three deans told the campus they hoped the ordeal would lead to a stronger Oberlin. Students and professors gathered Monday afternoon to talk about mutual respect.
Hate-filled graffiti and racially charged displays are not unusual on college campuses. But what makes these episodes so shocking is that they happened at a place tied closely with educating and empowering blacks. Oberlin began admitting blacks nearly 180 years ago. Among its graduates are one of the first blacks elected to public office and the first black lawyer allowed to practice in New York state. The city itself was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The college, with nearly 3,000 students, remains a liberal oasis in the middle of northern Ohio, surrounded by conservative farming towns and Rust Belt cities. Cleveland is about 30 miles away. Isaac Fuhrman, a psychology major from Lexington, Mass., said the episodes were upsetting, especially for black students. “I guess for them, Oberlin doesn’t seem like such a safe
haven perhaps,” said Fuhrman, who is white. The incidents began the first week of February, according to a police report that detailed the defacement of Black History Month posters with the N-word, a “whites only” sign written above a water fountain, a swastika drawn on a science center window and a student knocked to the ground by a person making a derogatory comment about ethnicity. Some of the graffiti and fliers also included homophobic slurs, the police report said. Joshua Blue, 18, a first-year student from Naperville, Ill., who is black, said the reports have cast the historically tolerant Oberlin community in a different light. “We believed that there was what people call the ‘Oberlin bubble,’ which is the idea that we’re in this area where hate and anger and stuff like that doesn’t exist,” he said after phoning his
mother to assure her he was safe. “It’s a wonderful idea to feel safe and accepted,” Blue said. “But the recent event was a reality that we’re still part of the world and the issues of the world are also our issues, and you can’t avoid that.”
For [black students], Oberlin doesn’t seem like such a safe haven perhaps. ISAAC FUHRMAN Student, Oberlin College Blue, who is studying vocal performance, said he has begun riding home from evening rehearsals with classmates for safety. Francis Bishop, 83, who lives near the campus, said he couldn’t remember similar racerelated incidents on the campus
and speculated it was done by someone trying to cause a stir. “It’s so much of an isolated thing, in the long run I don’t think it’s going to make a hill of beans,” Bishop said while walking his dog near the picturesque town square, lined with shops and college buildings. Oberlin has no fraternity or sorority houses, and sports aren’t a big part of campus life. Instead, students come to study music, art and creative writing. Notable recent alumni include Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Lena Dunham, creator of the HBO series “Girls” — a show featuring several characters who met at Oberlin. Dunham wrote on her Twitter account Monday that she was saddened by the news from her alma mater. “Hey Obies, remember the beautiful, inclusive and downright revolutionary history of the place you call home. Protect each other,” she wrote.
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 9
BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST Showers, with a high near 42. Calm wind becoming east between 15 and 17 mph.
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
High of 38, low of 36.
High of 40, low of 33.
ANTIMALS BY ALEX SODI
ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 7:30 PM Belly Dancing Lecture and Workshop This is a free, relaxed, beginner-level workshop that will introduce you to the veritable cultural mosaic that is the history of belly dance in the Middle East and United States. The workshop will teach some basic belly dance moves and a short choreography. International Center (421 Temple St.).
THURSDAY, MARCH 7 2:00 PM “Of Human Bondage: The History of Slavery in California” Jean Pfaelzer, current Beinecke visiting fellow, will give a talk focusing on three eras of slavery in California: the capture of Aleutian otter hunters by Russian fur traders, AfricanAmericans transported to the gold fields, and girls kidnapped from the southern coast of China and sold in dens in San Francisco. Open to the general public. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (121 Wall St.), Room 39.
THAT MONKEY TUNE BY MICHAEL KANDALAFT
5:00 PM “Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine” Wendy Cadge, professor of sociology at Brandeis University, will give the Dobihal Lecture in Medical Humanities. Cadge will talk about religion and spirituality in large academic hospitals and how religious diversity is addressed by staff. Sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine. Free and open to the general public. Anlyan Center (300 Cedar St.), Auditorium.
FRIDAY, MARCH 8 11:30 PM “Broadcasting Your Work: Publication Trajectories in the Google Scholar Age” Political science professor Nikolay Marinov will cover some simple things scholars can do to augment the impact of their work. Lunch starts at 11:30 a.m., and the talk begins at noon. Free and open to the general public. Kline Biology Tower (219 Prospect St.), CSSSI Stat Lab.
SCIENCE HILL BY SPENCER KATZ
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
WORLD Syrian jets bomb rebel city
“I think we are suffering from political impotence. We need political Viagra.” HUGO CHAVEZ LATE PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA
Hugo Chavez dies at 58
BY ZEINA KARAM ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIRUT — Syrian jets bombed oppositionheld buildings Tuesday in the strategic northern city of Raqqa, a day after rebels overran the onetime regime stronghold and captured its provincial governor. A toppled statue of President Bashar Assad’s father was defaced with graffiti reading, “Tomorrow will be better.” The rebels continued to battle pockets of government troops in Raqqa, struggling to crush the remaining resistance in the city of 500,000 people on the Euphrates River. If successful, it would be the first major city they would completely control in the civil war, and it would consolidate their recent gains in the northern Syrian towns along the historic river that runs from Turkey to Iraq. “This is the beginning, and other Syrian cities will soon fall, one by one God willing,” said Mustafa Othman, a Raqqa-based activist who spoke via Skype, with the sounds of gunfire crackling in the background. But government airstrikes and intermittent clashes, particularly around two security buildings, raised doubt about whether the rebels would be able to maintain their hold on Raqqa, about 120 miles east of the commercial capital of Aleppo. Rebels have been making headway in Raqqa province for weeks. Last month, they captured the country’s largest dam west of the city and this week, they stormed its central prison. On Monday, they swept regime forces from much of the provincial capital, prompting residents to pour into the main square and tear down a large bronze statue of Assad’s late father and predecessor, Hafez. Images of cheering rebels and residents bringing down the statue after tying a rope around its neck were reminiscent of the toppling of the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam’s Hussein in 2003 after U.S. troops stormed Baghdad, signaling the symbolic collapse of his regime.
VICTOR R. CAIVANO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Argentine supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez react as they gather in front of Venezuela’s embassy in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. BY IAN JAMES AND FRANK BAJAK ASSOCIATED PRESS CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez was a fighter. The former paratroop commander and fiery populist waged continual battle for his socialist ideals and outsmarted his rivals time and again, defeating a coup attempt, winning re-election three times and using his country’s vast oil wealth to his political advantage. A self-described “subversive,” Chavez fashioned himself after the 19th century independence leader Simon Bolivar and renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He called himself a “humble soldier” in a battle for socialism and against U.S. hegemony. He thrived on confrontation with Washington
and his political opponents at home, and used those conflicts to rally his followers. Almost the only adversary it seemed he couldn’t beat was cancer. He died Tuesday in Caracas at 4:25 local time after his prolonged illness. He was 58. During more than 14 years in office, his leftist politics and grandiose style polarized Venezuelans. The barrel-chested leader electrified crowds with his booming voice, and won admiration among the poor with government social programs and a folksy, nationalistic style. His opponents seethed at the larger-than-life character who demonized them on television and ordered the expropriation of farms and businesses. Many in the middle class cringed at his bombast and complained about rising crime,
soaring inflation and government economic controls. Chavez used his country’s vast oil wealth to launch social programs that included state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs. Poverty declined during Chavez’s presidency amid a historic boom in oil earnings, but critics said he failed to use the windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the country’s economy. Inflation soared and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the world. Before his struggle with cancer, he appeared on television almost daily, frequently speaking for hours and breaking into song or philosophical discourse. He often wore the bright red of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or the fatigues
and red beret of his army days. He had donned the same uniform in 1992 while leading an ill-fated coup attempt that first landed him in jail and then launched his political career. The rest of the world watched as the country with the world’s biggest proven oil reserves took a turn to the left under its unconventional leader, who considered himself above all else a revolutionary. “I’m still a subversive,” the president told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview, recalling his days as a rebel soldier. “I think the entire world has to be subverted.” Chavez was a master communicator and savvy political strategist, and managed to turn his struggle against cancer into a rallying cry, until the illness finally defeated him.
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
SPORTS
“When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back.” WOODY ALLEN AMERICAN SCREENWRITER, DIRECTOR AND ACTOR
Bulldogs swept in doubleheader
Eli women open season in second
ZEENAT MANSOOR/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Both Eli teams finished in second place at regattas this week. SAILING FROM PAGE 12
This weekend, the Bulldogs kick off their spring break by traveling to the Pacific Northwest, where they’ll play at the University of Washington softball tournament in Seattle. “We’re facing good competition, and it’s a good way to jump into the season,” said Hughes, who hails from Seattle. “For me and the others from the Puget Sound area, it’s really exciting to be able to go back and play there.” Three Yale players hail from the Western Washington area, including Hughes, infielder Hannah Brennan ’15 and pitcher Kylie Williamson ’15.
town’s top boat, skippered by Nancy Hagood, won the regatta. The Bulldogs sat in third behind Charleston and Georgetown at the conclusion of Saturday’s racing. Due to shifting winds the following day, the course was moved to the middle of the river, where the high-current played to the advantage of the Cougars, who regularly train in high currents. “The conditions were challenging with lots of current and huge differences in [wind] pressure,” Fauer said. “I think we all handled it very well and with level minds.” Both the women’s and coed teams will look to build upon their recent success during spring training at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. Belling said the training will be especially critical since Eckerd is hosting all three double-handed national championships in May. “We are looking forward to maximizing our time at this venue and finally having the opportunity to get back on the water for some concentrated practice and warm weather,” Belling said. The coed team travels to St. Mary’s College of Maryland for the St. Mary’s Team Race next weekend, while the women’s team travels to Annapolis, Md., for the Navy Women’s Interconference Regatta.
Contact GRANT BRONSDON at grant.bronsdon@yale.edu .
Contact NIKOLAS LASKARIS at nikolas.laskaris@yale.edu .
HENRY EHRENBERG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
In the first game, Chelsey Dunham ’14 struck out four out of 34 batters, but the Bulldogs fell 8–1. SOFTBALL FROM PAGE 12 a run, she proceeded to induce a strikeout and a groundout to second to end the threat. The top of the fourth saw right fielder Riley Hughes ’15 hit an RBI single into center field with two outs to even out the score, but that was as close as the Elis could get. Five runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth for the Blue Devils sealed the deal. Of those seven runs, six were unearned. “We need to work on more situational defense, which is difficult to do while practicing indoors,” captain Christy Nelson ’13 said. “Our defense will definitely improve once we get back onto our field.” Game two of the doubleheader
proved just as frustrating for the Bulldogs. Yale got its first two hitters on base after an error by CCSU first baseman Tessa Brown and a hit by pitch. A sacrifice bunt by Nelson moved the runners into scoring position, but the Elis could only muster one off of a Lauren Delgadillo ’16 single to right field. Delgadillo was the only Bulldog to collect hits in both games, going 1-3 with a run in the first game and 2-3 with an RBI in the nightcap. In the bottom of the first, however, the Bulldogs did themselves in. Rhydian Glass ’16, taking the hill in her first career start, yielded a homer to No. 2 hitter Kat Malcolm and later committed a two-out error that resulted in two unearned runs for the Blue Devils to wrap up
the scoring early. The game finished 3-1 in five innings, ending early due to darkness.
We’re facing good competition, and it’s a good way to jump into the season. RILEY HUGHES ’15 Right fielder, women’s softball “The team was a bit hesitant at the plate and in the field since it was our first game of the season … but there were still some good moments in the games,” Nelson said.
Yale falls at UNH
Men’s squash closes out season
PHILIPP ARNDT/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Early falls on the balance beam offset strong Eli performances in other events, leading to a fourth-place finish. GYMNASTICS FROM PAGE 12 to a fourth-place finish. Head coach Barbara Tonry attributed her team’s poor performance to nerves and noted that the Bulldogs needed to compete like they practiced. She added that the Elis’ goal has been to perform well on all four events during one meet and she believes it is within their reach. “They’re really going to be surprised by the kind of score they can put up,” Tonry said. After the tough start on the balance beam, the Bulldogs settled down and put up strong numbers on the remaining three events. Goldstein finished 11th on floor to complement her teammates’ efforts on the bars and vault. Tonry noted that many of the players were dealing with illness and midterm exams this weekend.
Despite these obstacles, the Elis continued to come in and work hard in practice every day. “That’s what I love about them,” Tonry said. “They’ve got tons of heart.”
[The team is] really going to be surprised by the kind of score they can put up. BARBARA TONRY Head coach, women’s gymnastics Still, she added that two consecutive last place finishes means the team has a lot of work left to do. Goldstein echoed her coach’s remarks, adding, “We need to keep plugging.” Looking forward, the Bulldogs
hope to qualify as a team for the ECAC Division I Championships and the United States Gymnastics Collegiate nationals. Since the Bulldogs had another team score above 190 in the NH Invitational, a lower score from earlier in the season was dropped, improving their qualification chances. A week after Brown beat Yale by 2.825 points in the Ivy Classic, the Bulldogs narrowed the gap between themselves and the Bears. “We’re capable of beating Brown,” Tonry said. Li added that the team hopes to improve its consistency in the future. Yale will head down to the University of Maryland this Sunday for meets against the host team and Central Michigan at College Park. Contact ADRIAN RODRIGUES at adrian.rodrigues@yale.edu .
KATHRYN CRANDALL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
In the first division, Sam Fenwick ’16 pulled off the upset of the day by defeating Trinity’s No. 1 player, Reinhold Hergeth. MEN’S SQUASH FROM PAGE 12 his seed by defeating Hergeth in four sets. His win over the Trinity Bantam propelled him into the round of 16, where he was ousted by Cornell’s No. 1, Nicholas Sachvie, in three sets. Chan also fell in the round of 16, losing to Rochester’s Andres Duany after defeating another Rochester player earlier on in the day. Leman, Martin and Dodd all lost in the first round. Fenwick said the tournament showed him that he has a long way to go. In the B division, or the Molloy Cup, Joseph Roberts ’15, Caine and Charlie Wyatt ’14 all competed. Caine and Wyatt both made it to the second round of the first day of play. Caine
defeated Gray Riley of MIT and Wyatt arrived with a bye, though they then lost to Franklin Marshall’s Pedro Almeida and Drexel’s Justin Singh, respectively. Roberts was knocked out by Connecticut College’s Caleb Garza. “We are losing our seniors, the top three players in our team — it is going to be tough to replace them,” Fenwick said. “Therefore, for myself, my goal is to step up and try to replicate what they have achieved this season and over their four years.” The CSA Individual Championship was the last event of the season for the Bulldogs. Contact ADLON ADAMS at adlon.adams@yale.edu .
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MANDI SCHWARTZ MARROW DRIVE DATE SET FOR APRIL 18 Yale Athletics Department will sponsor a marrow donor registration drive in memory of Mandi Schwartz ’10, who passed away in 2011 after a two-year battle with acute myeloid leukemia. Since 2009, the drive has helped identify over 14 life-saving genetic matches.
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NCAAM Duke 85 Virginia Tech 57
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FIELD HOCKEY ELIS EARN ACADEMIC AWARD The National Field Hockey Coaches Association awarded the Bulldogs with the National Academic Team Award for the eighth-straight season under head coach Pam Stuper. The Bulldogs also had 11 players named to the National Academic Squad for the 2012 season.
MLB Tampa Bay 8 Minnesota 5
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“Despite our limited time on the water, we were sailing fast and communicating well.” CHARLOTTE BELLING ’16 CREW, COED SAILING YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
Softball stumbles in opener SOFTBALL
Eight compete at Individuals BY ADLON ADAMS STAFF REPORTER The Yale men’s squash team (12-5, 5-2 Ivy) proved it has the ability to compete next year against top teams when rookie Sam Fenwick ’16 defeated Trinity’s No. 1.
MEN’S SQUASH
dogs did not get off to a fast start. The Blue Devils (4-3) started the scoring in the third inning, when a pair of walks and an error by shortstop Brittany Labbadia ’16 loaded the bases. After Chelsey Dunham ’14 walked the next batter to allow
The No. 4 men’s squash team sent eight players to compete in the CSA Individual Championships at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., over the weekend. By the end of the first day, all of the Elis had been knocked down to the consolation brackets, but not without putting up a fight. “The tournament was great,” Kenneth Chan ’13 said. “Fenwick played really well the first round to pull an upset. Everyone played hard but we were all outmatched.” The lineup for Yale in the top division, also known as the Pool Division, included Fenwick, Zachary Leman ’16, Neil Martin ’14, Chan and Richard Dodd ’13. This division featured the nation’s top 32 players and determined the top player in the nation. Todd Harrity of Princeton scored his second national title in his collegiate career. “The Yale men didn’t have a great tournament at individuals this weekend, but that was to be expected,” Eric Caine’14 said. “Our team’s strength is our depth, and this tournament only rewards individual achievement.” In the first division, Fenwick pulled off the upset of the day by defeating Trinity’s No. 1 player, Reinhold Hergeth. Fenwick normally plays at No. 5 for Yale but was able to overcome
SEE SOFTBALL PAGE 11
SEE MEN’S SQUASH PAGE 11
HENRY EHRENBERG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s softball team fell 8–1 and 3–1 to the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils under new head coach Jen Goodwin. BY GRANT BRONSDON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In its first action of the season on Tuesday, the softball team (0-2, 0-0 Ivy) proved unable to collect a victory, losing 8-1 and 3-1 at the hands of Central Connecticut State due to five errors by the Bulldog
defense. The Elis step up to the plate this year with a new head coach after a tough 12-34 season last year. Jen Goodwin took the position after serving for two years as the assistant executive director of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
Two regattas, two second-place finishes BY NIKOLAS LASKARIS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER With the women’s team traveling to Charleston, S.C. and the coed team shipping up to Boston, Mass. last weekend for different events, both sailing teams turned in strong performances to build momentum as the spring racing season gets underway.
SAILING The No. 2-ranked women finished second overall at the Charleston Women’s Interconference Regatta on the Cooper River in their first contest of the spring season, while the No. 3 coed team also came in second at the Sharp Trophy Team Race hosted by Harvard on the Charles River. The host College of Charleston Cougars easily won the women’s event, finishing well clear of Yale and third place Georgetown. The coed Bulldogs finished with a 10-3 round-robin record, leaving them one loss behind first-place Brown in their second regatta of the season. “For some of us, this weekend was our first time traveling to a regatta this spring,” coed crew Charlotte Belling ’16 said. “Despite our limited time on the water, we were sailing fast and communicating well between boats.” Three two-person teams competed in Cambridge for the coed team: skipper Cameron Cullman ’13 and his crew, Sarah Smith ’15; cap-
tain Chris Segerblom ’14 and Belling; and Graham Landy ’15 and Katherine Gaumond ’15. After having several races canceled in their opening regatta at Charleston last weekend, the Bulldogs were again frustrated by poor weather and could not complete in a single race on Saturday. Despite starting three different races against MIT, shifty, inconsistent winds led them all to be canceled. Fortunately, Sunday brought a northwesterly breeze that hovered between 2–6 knots, and the Bulldogs responded by racing to a 6–1 record in the round-robin and finishing the day just off the Bears’ pace. “On a championship weekend the race committee probably would have chosen to not start races as the wind was probably below our league minimum,” head coach Zachary Leonard ’89 said. “But since it was more like a practice event, we ran the races. Everyone did pretty well.” While the coed team wrapped up its second regatta of the spring season, the women performed well in their first, racing to a second place finish in the nine-team field at Charleston. Women’s captain Marlena Fauer ’14 and her crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 finished fourth overall out of 18 boats and third in the A Division, while Yale’s second boat, sailed by Emily Billing ’13 and Amanda Salvesen ’14, came in second in the B Division and sixth overall. GeorgeSEE SAILING PAGE 11
“Coach Goodwin has brought a lot of great energy and new ideas to our team and runs highly organized and thought-out practices,” Sarah Onorato ’15 said. “The level of organization starts on the top and has really allowed us to focus in on more position-specific skills.” In their debut, however, the Bull-
Balance beam struggles continue
PHILIPP ARNDT/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
One week after soaring past Yale by 2.825 points en route to an Ivy championship, Brown finished only 0.925 ahead of the Elis on Saturday. BY ADRIAN RODRIGUES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After a disappointing finish at the Ivy Classic two weeks ago, the gymnastics team traveled on the road to participate in the New Hampshire Invitational this Saturday. Despite several strong individual performances, Yale finished last in the field for a second straight meet.
WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS With a score of 190.925, the Bulldogs placed fourth, 0.925 behind newly crowned
Ivy champion Brown, which finished in third. The University of New Hampshire came out on top, scoring 194.850 points, while Towson finished second, only 0.175 points behind the hosts. Joyce Li ’15 and Tara Feld ’13 led the Bulldogs in individual events, both coming in fourth in the all-around with identical scores of 38.125. The Elis dominated the uneven parallel bars. Li earned a career-high score of 9.800 in the event, coming in fifth, with teammates Morgan Traina ’15 and Lindsey Andsager ’13 finishing right behind her at 9.775. Feld also finished fifth on the vault,
TOP ’DOG LAUREN DELGADILLO ’16
scoring 9.775 points. Despite their strong performances on floor, vault and bars, the Bulldogs continued to struggle on the balance beam, falling three times in the first event of the meet. Li said that the difficult start on the beam made the rest of the meet challenging for the Elis. Captain Stephanie Goldstein ’13 added that it was frustrating not to hit all four events. “It’s kind of what happened at the Ivy Classic,” she added. Two weeks ago, the Bulldogs faltered on beam as well en route SEE WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS PAGE 11
DELGADILLO WAS THE ONLY SOFTBALL PLAYER TO COLLECT HITS IN BOTH GAMES OF THE DOUBLEHEADER AGAINST THE BLUE DEVILS.