NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2014 · VOL. CXXXVI, NO. 127 · yaledailynews.com
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CROSS CAMPUS Winners keep winning. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has awarded eight Yale faculty members with membership. The eight Yale recipients are among 204 new members elected into AAAS for the 2014 class, which includes winners of the Nobel Prize, the Wolf Prize and the Pulitzer prize as well as Grammy, Emmy, Oscar and Tony Awards. Brass goes big. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is hosting a 15th anniversary celebration today of Brass, a Yale-based quintet that performs in New Haven and surrounding areas. The theme, Hollywood brass, brings performances including scores from James Bond films, “The Lord of the Rings,” composer John Williams and more. The event also includes a documentary screening and reception.
PROBLEM CHILD RECREATIONAL DRUG USE AT YALE
SWIMMING
CULTURAL HOUSES
New pool on the capital projects list after alumni lobbying
INSIDE THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER
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ale sits in a city whose diverse homeless population is nearly double that of neighboring Connecticut towns. While over half of Yale’s student body volunteers in New Haven, students question how they can most effectively engage with the city’s growing homeless population. POOJA SALHOLTRA reports.
Akintunde Ahmad of Oakland Technical High School has received attention for his college admissions success story and his decision to go to Yale. Self-described as “any other street dude” from Oakland, Calif. Ahmad’s story of overcoming adversity was applauded in BET, SF Gate, The Daily Mail as well as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he received a $12,000 check this week to help with tuition.
Not actually accepted.
“Acceptance,” a 50-minute film produced by Ryan Chan ’14 was screened yesterday evening in the Whitney Humanities Center. The movie is based on the true story of a student from India who lies about getting into Harvard in order to gain acceptance from his peers. Chan began working on the film his freshman year. Remembrance. The Yale
Armenian Network organized a memorial event yesterday evening to reflect on the Armenian genocide. Students gathered in front of the Women’s Table after dark to read, share and remember.
Flower power. After Spring Fling, the Japanese American Students Union is taking part in a cherry tree planting. The planting is part of the Cherry Blossom Festival being held at Wooster Square. The Internet wins again. The
Columbia Daily Spectator is becoming the first Ivy League daily paper to go entirely digital. According to IvyGate, the move was announced at a staff-wide meeting this week by Editor in Chief Abby Abrams. The digitization is expected to go into effect in the fall, accompanied by a once-weekly print edition on Thursdays.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1980 Three juniors seek to be selected as delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, representing Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York. Submit tips to Cross Campus
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BY LAVINIA BORZI AND ADRIAN RODRIGUES STAFF REPORTERS
a clinic to get his daily dose of methadone, a synthetic opioid drug that treats heroin addicts. By 8:30 a.m. he has made his way to Liberty Safe Haven, a homeless support center where he spends most of his days filling out countless job applications. “I’m just trying to get back on my feet,” Paul Bacon said. “Once you finally do hit rock bottom, its hard to dig yourself out.” Just across the street from the winding lunch line is Phelps Gate. Inside the walls, Yale students are lounging on blankets on Old Campus, some drinking beer with friends
Sociology professor and Deputy Provost Julia Adams will be the next Calhoun College Master, University President Peter Salovey announced Thursday. Adams will succeed Jonathan Holloway GRD ’95, who will step down at the end of the academic year. At an announcement in the Calhoun dining hall Thursday evening, Salovey, Holloway and Yale College Dean Mary Miller praised Adams’ skills as a scholar, instructor and administrator. Adams said she is excited to become more integrated into student life, adding that the position will be intellectually challenging but still “a lot of fun.” “I have to say, uncharacteristically, I’m a little bit tongue-tied,” Adams told a crowd of Calhoun students yesterday. “I’ve been at Yale 10 years and by far this is my most exciting day.” Adams came to Yale in 2004 after beginning her career as a professor at the University of Michigan. Adams previously chaired the University’s sociology department and won the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize for her work, “The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe.” Holloway, a history professor and chair of the African American Studies depart-
SEE HOMELESSNESS PAGE 4
SEE CALHOUN PAGE 6
POOJA SALHOLTRA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
On Easter Sunday, Paul and Kirk Bacon were among the roughly 200 men and women standing in a singlefile line on the New Haven Green to receive a free lunch.
UPCLOSE Accepted. Eighteen-year old
Calhoun master named
A Haven for the homeless?
The brothers grew up in a lowincome single-parent household with a mother whom Kirk called an alcoholic and “pill-popper.” Paul Bacon recalls his childhood in Fair Haven where shooting heroin at home and smoking pot with his parents was the norm. Throughout adolescence, the brothers earned enough money to pay
their own rent and still spend money on hard drugs. Paul and Kirk Bacon are among the 767 homeless men, women and children in New Haven, many of whom count on the Chapel on the Green for lunch on Sundays. In 2008, Trinity Church on the Green collaborated with other local agencies to provide a brief Holy Eucharist service followed by a meal. Three years ago, when Paul Bacon was an employee at Banton Construction Company, he never anticipated that one day he would be standing in that lunch line. But now, he wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every day at the Overflow Shelter on Cedar Street and heads to
After YIRA email, charges dropped BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER AND WESLEY YIIN STAFF REPORTERS On Feb. 11, the executive board of the Yale International Relations Association — one of the largest studentrun undergraduate organizations on campus — sent its members an email alleging that former president Larissa Liburd ’14 had mishandled funds and jeopardized YIRA’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The statement said board members had referred the issue to the Yale administration for investigation. Two and a half weeks later, Liburd received notice from the Executive Committee, Yale’s disciplinary body, that the charges against her had been withdrawn after an initial fact-finding effort, exonerating the former president of ExComm-punishable offense before the case went to a disposition — which implies a guilty plea — or a penalty hearing to contest the charges. “It … was perhaps deemed a matter that did not fit under the ExComm’s jurisdiction,” said a member of ExComm who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The factfinder, [history
professor Alan] Mikhail, and [ExComm Secretary] Pamela George make decisions as to whether it is an ExCommable offense — something the student has little control over, once the ball gets rolling.” Two specific charges against Liburd were withdrawn: mismanagement of funds and falsification of documents, both surrounding Citoyen Haiti, a community service program she organized for the summer of 2013. “I decided to comply with ExComm because maybe if the Yale administration found I hadn’t done anything wrong, it would make this go away,” Liburd said Tuesday. The majority of the 2013–’14 YIRA board — including YIRA President Jade Ford ’16 and Vice President Ben Della Rocca ’16 — declined to comment, citing the need to abide by Yale’s undergraduate regulations, but without providing further detail. Alessandra Powell ’16, current executive director and YIRA’s president-elect, declined to comment on the specific details surSEE YIRA PAGE 6
YCC, students reflect on year BY NICOLE NG STAFF REPORTER Last spring, the 2013–’14 Yale College Council was elected after a race with three uncontested seats and low voter participation. Despite widespread student apathy during that race, the YCC — under the leadership of president Danny Avraham ’15 — has taken an active role over the past year, launching and executing both internal improvements and external projects with varying degrees of success and mixed reception by students. According to YCC Vice President Kyle Tramonte ’15, this year’s YCC worked on more than 60 projects. Some initiatives led to tangible results, including the addition of a day to reading period and a referendum on fossil fuel divestment, while others made strides in conversations with the administration, according to members of the YCC board. While a majority of the approximately 20 students interviewed were indifferent to or supported the progress of the initiatives YCC tackled this year, several added that the YCC has
attained a reputation for being out of touch with the student body. Tramonte said this year’s YCC operated under a new structure, consisting of a Management Board comprised of an academics director, student life director and University services director. Rather than having project committees, every elected representative was required to lead a project under one of the three directors on the Management Board. Tramonte said the new structure allowed the YCC to more effectively pursue a greater volume of initiatives. The addition of a Management Board increased accountability and productivity, he said. According to YCC Communications Director Andrew Grass ’16, the restructuring was part of the YCC’s efforts to create a flexible and sustainable system that could transition smoothly between YCC boards. Tramonte said past YCC boards often wasted time repeating failed policies and projects because of a lack of centralized data and communications. SEE YCC PAGE 6
Porter secures House seat BY APARNA NATHAN AND MICHAEL LEOPOLD CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS On Thursday, Newhallville ward committee member Robyn Porter won a special election to fill the state representative seat recently vacated by new State Sen. Gary Holder-Winfield. Porter will represent the 94th assembly district, which includes portions of Hamden and New Haven, in the Connecticut State House of Representatives. She will serve in the House until May 7 when the legislative session ends and will contend with an open
field of candidates in the general election in November. “I think [the victory] was based on good old grass-roots campaigning, knocking on doors, listening to people,” Porter said. “That’s what works.” Porter won the election with 347 votes, roughly 38 percent of the 904 votes cast Thursday. Hamden resident and atlarge city council member Berita Rowe-Lewis came in second with 236 votes. In New Haven, only 7 percent of eligible voters turned out to the polls. Porter’s platform included a focus on unemployment, gun
violence and the achievement gap in local schools. A New Haven local, Porter has strong ties to community activism. She currently works at a labor union, Communication Workers of America, a communications and media labor union, and garnered the endorsements of a variety of other unions during her campaigning. The bulk of Porter’s support came from Ward 19. Voters for Porter lauded her involvement in her local ward, where she has been a member of the Newhallville Community Resilience team, a grass-roots organization dedi-
cated to strengthening community ties. “I’m impressed with how she listens to people,” said Ethel Berger, a Ward 19 resident who voted for Porter. “She ran a terrific [Newhallville Community] Resilience team and has a lot of leadership potential.” Since the 94th district Democratic committee did not endorse a candidate, Thursday’s ballot featured a total of four Democratic candidates facing off against Republican challenger and former 91st assembly district representative Leonard B. Caplan. In addition to Porter and Rowe-
Lewis, other Democratic candidates included Hamden resident Reynaud Harp, brother-in-law of Mayor Toni Harp, and New Haven business owner Charles Ashe. A fifth Democratic candidate, Jerome Dunbar, originally campaigned as a write-in candidate, but withdrew his candidacy on Tuesday. Holder-Winfield, the previous representative for the 94th district, did not publicly endorse any of the candidates prior to the election. He said his successor should keep in mind the diversity SEE ELECTION PAGE 6