NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · VOL. CXXXVI, NO. 94 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
CLOUDY SNOW
30 18
CROSS CAMPUS Baby penguins. The
Whiffenpoofs selected their newest class this weekend. On the list of fourteen names were six previous members of The Duke’s Men, three former Alley Cats, two prior Shades members, and one each from Living Water, the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus and Redhot & Blue.
YaleTube. Add another jewel
to Yale’s YouTube crown. Yale Medical School students have created a music video parody of Beyoncé’s “Partition.” The video featured students dancing and lip-synching in hospital exam rooms. The lyrics, all with a med school spin, include: “He took all my vitals, yeah he wrote them down. He perfectly Bates’ draped my backless gown.” Not surprisingly, the video was accompanied by a brief guide to medical terms include the fact that Bates refers to the commonly used physical exam textbook.
The Largest Lecture Ever Taught. Professor Robert
Shiller’s online course, “Financial Markets,” has received over 100,000 sign-ups from around the world. This makes it the most successful business ‘Massive Online Open Course’ ever, according to The Washington Post, so picture his current “Introduction to Macroeconomics” class times a thousand or so.
ACADEMICS TV AND GRADES PROBED
EDUCATION
AUTHOR
Harp calls for “6-to-6” solution for underperforming schools
DAVID MCCULLOUGH DISCUSSES HISTORY
PAGES 10-11 SCITECH
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 3 NEWS
BY SEBASTIAN MEDINA-TAYAC STAFF REPORTER The Connecticut Department of Labor arrested Gourmet Heaven owner Chung Cho on Thursday on numerous counts of wage theft, the New Haven Police Department announced Monday afternoon. Cho, who has been under investigation by the DOL since August, is facing a total of 42 felony and misdemeanor charges. Twenty-one of the charges are for wage theft of a sum exceeding $2,000, which constitutes a felony in Connecticut. Because the sum of stolen wages amounts to over $10,000, Cho faces a charge of firstdegree larceny, a Class B felony. He has also been charged with 20 counts of defrauding an immigrant worker, which is a misdemeanor. Cho has posted his $5,000 bond and will go to court for arraignment
on March 3. “I don’t like to wish bad things on people, but I’m happy that the Department of Labor finally recognized Mr. Cho’s errors,” said a former Gourmet Heaven employee who wished to remain anonymous. “Now that they have been brought to light, people will know we were not lying or doing it for the money. Now the Department of Labor is doing what they must do.” Gary Pechie, head of the DOL’s Wage and Workplace Standards Division, could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon. He told the News in September that DOL would use its authority to arrest business owners in severe cases, when all attempts at mediation had failed and owners still refused to comply. SEE CHO ARRESTED PAGE 4
BY WESLEY YIIN STAFF REPORTER In a Monday email, Yale College Dean Mary Miller informed the Yale College community about five new initiatives to reduce high-risk alcohol consumption, all of which will begin by next fall. The initiatives on how to better handle alcohol-related issues on campus came jointly from the Yale College Dean’s Office (YCDO) Task Force on
Alcohol and Other Drugs and the University Council Committee on Alcohol in Yale College (UCCAYC). The groups’ recommendations called for the University to unify its approach to alcohol, clarify and communicate policies old and new, enhance training and education on alcoholrelated issues, provide events that are either alcohol-free or low-alcohol to students and engage the Yale community in conversation about alcohol and
T H E AT E R
Yalies work to attract technicians
1929 Yale debaters lose their match against Vassar. The topic debated was international arbitration. Submit tips to Cross Campus
crosscampus@yaledailynews.com
ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus
HENRY EHRENBERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The Connecticut Department of Labor arrested Gourmet Heaven Owner Chung Cho, Feb. 20 for 42 felony and misdemeanor charges.
its related issues. Both groups consulted students in the formulation of their recommendations, though only the Task Force included student members. “Students, faculty and staff have long pressed for a more welcoming social scene that supports community wellness and promotes healthy options,” Miller said in the email. “Students have reported a widespread perception that the University applies its alcohol
policies inconsistently, and they say they are anxious about contacting authorities to help dangerously intoxicated peers.” The recommendations primarily emerged from student input, which is why they emphasize communication, education and outreach rather than disciplinary policy reform, said Paul McKinley, Director of Strategic Communications . For instance, McKinley said, the current educational work-
BY RISHABH BHANDARI AND J.R. REED STAFF REPORTER
When you think of Yale … you don’t think of startups, but this culture exists if you look for it. DILLON LEW ’16
S
tudents have been incorporating more and more ambitious design elements into undergraduate productions. But mastering technical theater is difficult, and the supply of student technicians at Yale does not always meet the demand. ERIC XIAO reports.
BY ERIC XIAO STAFF REPORTER The set of an upcoming undergraduate adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, #romeojuliet, will include elaborate projected images — virtual representations of walls, floors and
of the actors themselves. While 10 years ago, technologically advanced projects such as this one may have been difficult to execute, members of the undergraduate theater community can now stage their ambitious ideas SEE DRAMA PAGE 6
shops and modules given to underclassmen on alcohol and bystander intervention may be expanded, and it is also possible that training for freshman counselors and residential college masters and deans will be enhanced. Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry said he believes students’ understanding of alcohol should be refreshed throughout the SEE ALCOHOL PAGE 4
YEI, students build Yale startup culture Like many recent graduates, Zach Rotholz ’11, Max Sutter ’11 and Michael Mossoba SOM ’12 decided to become roommates after college. But unlike most of their peers, the three alumni do not work for employers in New York or San Francisco. Two are their own bosses, and each owns a stake in a New Haven-based startup.
Confessions of an Ivy League rebel. The Dartmouth recently
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
PAGE 5 NEWS
New alcohol initiatives announced
Insomnia, no cookies. The New York Times’ Ask Well column recently featured Meir H. Kryger, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Kryger discussed an issue that is relevant to probably all medical students — sleep. “Worrying about being awake only makes the problem worse,” according to the column. Kryger also recommended not napping for more then 20 minutes and to not “lie there in anguish staring at your clock.”
released a feature exploring a local tattoo parlor in Hanover, titled “I Ink … Therefore I Am.” Owner Scott Ibey said that the Dartmouth students who come “are usually nervous and appear more out of their element than his typical clientele.” He added that many students seem worried about hiding their tattoos from their parents.
Politician talks career, environmental policy at master’s tea
Gourmet Heaven owner arrested for wage theft
Dinner, with a side of mini iPads. The Final Cut
competition for Yale Dining is being held today in Commons. Teams from each residential dining hall will compete to take the Final Cut trophy back to their respective college. Attendees will also enjoy food from vendors giving out samples. Evidently, mini iPads will also be given away.
CANADA
According to administrators interviewed at Undergraduate Career Services, a rising number of Yale students are choosing to spend their first years after college building a business or working for a small startup company. Jim Boyle — the co-founder and managing director of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, a stand-alone institution funded by the University and alumni with the goal of encouraging student entrepreneurship — said both the number and caliber of students who have come to the YEI for help in starting their own business has grown dramatically in recent years. By Feb. 28, the YEI will announce the 10 ventures that will each receive $15,000 in grant funding from the 2014 YEI Summer Fellowship. Boyle said this year, over 100 students applied for venture creation programs through the YEI, adding that just two years ago, only a few dozen students applied for the same opportunities. “Entrepreneurship has come a long way in the last few years at Yale,” said Kenneth Koopmans, co-deputy director of UCS and the advisor specializing in student entrepreneurship. He added that although Yale’s reputation as a hub of entrepreneurship may lag behind that of schools such as Stanford,
the University has made huge strides in recent years. Koopmans said student entrepreneurship at Yale has blossomed with the advent of the YEI. Since the center’s founding in 2007, YEI ventures have raised $79.5 million in investment funding and created over 300 new jobs. The University’s recent investments in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics have augmented the growth in Yale’s entrepreneurial culture, Koopmans said, citing Yale’s recent creation of the Center for Engineering, Innovation and Design as one catalyst for student entrepreneurship at Yale. Rotholz, who is the founder and owner of Chairigami, a company that sells furniture made of cardboard, said he first developed a cardboard chair for his senior project as a mechanical engineering major. He added that Yale’s support through the YEI Summer Fellowship and the strength of New Haven’s startup culture helped him succeed in launching his entrepreneurial venture in the Elm City. The School of Management’s move to a new campus is the latest in a series of University initiatives that are fostering a culture of innovation in the city, Rotholz said. UCS Director Jeanine Dames said UCS often collaborates with alumni, YEI and the School of Management to give students opportunities to work for a preexisting startup. “The best way to prepare for a startup is to work for a startup that’s already up and running,” she said, adding that UCS aims to help students learn from the successes and failures of prior ventures. Dames said UCS, along with the YEI and the Yale School of Management, is currently developing an online database entitled StartUp Connect. This new resource will advertise job and internship opportunities at startups and small entrepreneurial firms, tailored specifically to Yale students and graduates, she said. Though StartUp Connect will be housed on SOM’s version of Symplicity, Dames said all undergraduates SEE STARTUPS PAGE 4
PAGE 2
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT yaledailynews.com/opinion
"Democratic participation is always more complicated, but it offers the chance for actual, not nominal, representation of the entire student body."
'CONCERNED' ON 'YCC'S BROKEN PROMISE'
Hold YCC Recognize, revalue and rid accountable G U E S T C O L U M N I S T S K I C A M A T O S & V E S L A W E AV E R
S
aturday afternoon, I attended a meeting of the Yale College Council for the first time in my three and a half semesters at Yale. The agenda was more controversial than it tends to be, and it was the reason I chose to attend in the first place. The council was deciding how to choose the student representative to help select the next Dean of Yale College. I left the meeting disappointed in the twelve representatives who voted against having a campus-wide election for the position, as well as the Executive Board for voicing its support for this decision, as its members do not having voting powers. These members did not adequately represent the interests of the student body. But beyond my disappointment, I left the meeting with a strong conviction that nonYCC members need to start attending YCC meetings. Saturday’s contentious debate was forced by the presence of several non-members, including myself, who felt that a campus-wide election was absolutely necessary. To be fair, I ended up at the meeting mainly because YCC President Danny Avraham ’15 asked to meet with me and two other students about the issue beforehand. But it was clear from the start of the council meeting that the Executive Board did not want to hold a campus-wide election. The presence of non-members who spoke out against the Executive Board’s message pushed the Council to discuss student representation, an issue they may have not touched on otherwise. Attending YCC meetings also holds the council accountable for its statements — especially given that until around 4 a.m. on Monday, the most recent YCC minutes available on their website were from Nov. 16. Emails from the YCC on Feb. 16, Jan. 27 and Jan. 20 claimed that minutes were available online, but this was inaccurate. I contacted Avraham on Sunday about the minutes, and they were put up 12 hours later. But the minutes should have been up in November. Up until Monday, students who were not present at meetings since November had no way of knowing what was discussed at these meetings in any level of detail. Even with the minutes available online now, some important statements are missing. A particularly important missing statement was made by a freshman representative on Saturday. She claimed that student voice was a major component in Salovey’s selection for president in 2012, even without a student on the committee. This statement showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of student representation at Yale and she should
be held accountable. Putting up the minutes is a good step toward student engagement. But YCC can DIANA do more. ROSEN P ra c t i cally speakLooking Left ing, most students will not take the time to read through them. At Saturday’s meeting, I witnessed troubling actions on the part of various YCC members that most students did not. For example, all seven freshmen on YCC voted against having a campus-wide election. The vote breakdown among upperclassmen was 9–5 in support of the election. A common argument voiced by the freshmen was that, as YCC representatives, they were the voice of the student body. Interestingly enough, none of the freshmen on YCC were elected over an upperclassmen opponent — they all either ran unopposed or only beat other freshmen. The unusually small number of upperclassmen who ran for YCC was a clear indicator of the widespread apathy towards YCC at the end of last year. Saturday’s disappointing vote was a direct result. Attending the meetings is also a way for students to see how the council carries out the tasks it was elected to carry out. I was surprised, for example, to learn that the vice president only allowed discussion to move around the table in a circular fashion, preventing any back-and-forth discussion or immediate responses. This made discussion difficult. Students should make more of an effort to attend these meetings, but the council should also make more of an effort to encourage them to come. YCC posted on Facebook less than two hours before Saturday’s meeting inviting students, but this has only been done two other times since September. They should post notices of their meetings on Facebook every week with a short description of the intended agenda, preferably with more than two hours warning. The pressing issue right now is the selection of the next Dean of Yale College. Although there has been a large amount of disagreement over how Avraham was selected as the representative, we must attend YCC meetings and demand that Avraham accurately relay the student body’s opinions to the advisory committee.
ANNELISA LEINBACH/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR
T
wo weeks ago, a man’s life ended a few paces from our doorsteps. Many of us came out of our houses and assembled on the street on that cold winter night, shocked at what transpired, trying to make meaning of such a violent act on an otherwise ordinary Friday night. New Haven’s two main daily newspapers devoted just a few lines to the homicide. There was no public outcry, no statements from city officials, nothing of consequence emerged from the individuals and institutions that represent our beloved city. It was almost as though this murder had taken place in another city. The victim, Varnouard Hall, was a young African-American male. The shooting took place in Fair Haven, a working class neighborhood that has historically been home to waves of immigrants. We can’t help but ask — had the victim been white, or wealthy, or a Yale student, or had it taken place in East Rock or downtown, would it have registered more outrage? Or have we become so indifferent that a murder of one of our own neighbors gets less coverage than the debut of a local chocolate bar, like Chocolate Maya? Here is what we have come to know about Varnouard Hall, known as “Nard” to family and friends. That he grew up right here in New Haven, and attended its schools as a young boy. He
DIANA ROSEN is a sophomore in Pierson College. Her columns run on Mondays. Contact her at diana.rosen@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS PUBLISHING CO., INC. 202 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 432-2400
EDITOR IN CHIEF Julia Zorthian MANAGING EDITORS Anya Grenier Jane Darby Menton ONLINE EDITOR Cynthia Hua OPINION Emma Goldberg Geng Ngarmboonanant NEWS Sophie Gould Amy Wang CITY Monica Disare Michelle Hackman FEATURES Lorenzo Ligato CULTURE Aleksandra Gjorgievska
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Daniel Weiner SPORTS Charles Condro Alexander Eppler ARTS & LIVING Jackson McHenry Elaina Plott Yanan Wang YTV Madison Alworth Raleigh Cavero Kevin Kucharski MAGAZINE Sarah Maslin Joy Shan COPY Adrian Chiem Ian Gonzalez Elizabeth Malchione Douglas Plume
PRODUCTION & DESIGN Emma Hammarlund Leon Jiang Jason Kim Jennifer Lu Daniel Roza Mohan Yin PHOTOGRAPHY Kathryn Crandall Henry Ehrenberg Brianna Loo Sara Miller
PUBLISHER Julie Leong DIR. FINANCE Joyce Xi DIR. OPERATIONS Yumehiko Hoshijima ONL. BUSINESS MANAGER Gonzalo Gallardo
COMM. MANAGER Abdullah Hanif MARKETING MANAGER Yuanling Yuan ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE MANAGERS Vivian Wang Shannon Zhang
ILLUSTRATIONS Annelisa Leinbach DIRECTORS OF TECHNOLOGY Vincent Hu Soham Sankaran ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Clinton Wang
THIS ISSUE COPY STAFF: Eva Landsberg, Sarah Sutphin PRODUCTION STAFF: Sammy Bensinger, Marisa Lowe, Aparna Nathan EDITORIALS & ADS
The News’ View represents the opinion of the majority of the members of the Yale Daily News Managing Board of 2015. Other content on this page with bylines represents the opinions of those authors and not necessarily those of the Managing Board. Opinions set forth in ads do not necessarily reflect the views of the Managing Board. We reserve the right to refuse any ad for any reason and to delete or change any copy we consider objectionable, false or in poor taste. We do not verify the contents of any ad. The Yale Daily News Publishing Co., Inc. and its officers, employees and agents disclaim any responsibility for all liabilities, injuries or damages arising from any ad. The Yale Daily News Publishing Co. ISSN 0890-2240
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
SUBMISSIONS
All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words and guest columns to 750. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters and columns before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission. Direct all letters, columns, artwork and inquiries to: Emma Goldberg and Geng Ngarmboonanant Opinion Editors Yale Daily News opinion@yaledailynews.com
COPYRIGHT 2014 — VOL. CXXXVI, NO. 94
men reported having had a close friend or relative murdered. The Fair Havens of the country bear strikingly little resemblance to the environment of neighborhoods like East Rock; only 20 percent of black neighborhoods claim the levels of safety that 90 percent of white areas enjoy. And if we dropped a pin on these places, they would be areas where people struggle for a decent wage, areas with the most insecure work opportunities and the least educational resources. Catastrophic rates of violence, concentrated in few areas, have grievous effects on business patterns, mobility and even the expectations that adolescents have for their futures, features that radiate outward and affect city life. We need to recognize these inequities. Second, revalue: Nard’s death did not mobilize widespread public concern. Without that, it is difficult for our city to begin to design policies that address the problems that have made these communities less secure against violence in the first place. And third: rid. The city has a responsibility to provide residents security from violence. That means we need not just punishment for crime but protection from it. Witnessing extreme violence should not be a rite of passage to adulthood. Anti-gang initiatives like Project Longevity, expanded community contact with police foot patrols
and limits on the accessibility of guns are already having incredible effects. But this is not a task for the police alone. We need a serious, decades-long investment in programs that serve as buffers against violence. One example of such work is the Street Worker Outreach program, which works to mediate conflicts before they escalate. The program engages with people from vulnerable communities, helping them to become advocates for young folks in the neighborhood. It helps to build viable communities with jobs and activities for youth. We are concerned that the Street Worker Outreach program has been allowed to wither on the vine. We live in a city with one of the richest educational institutions in the world — why must city residents who live around Yale still vie for their very lives? Sometimes, events occur in our city that force us to wake from our stupor and face our community’s challenges. Hall’s death, and other homicides that similarly elicit little public outcry, should be a reminder of our obligation to the city and its youth. KICA MATOS is the Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice at the Center for Community Change. VESLA WEAVER is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Yale.
Harp's budget pains W
Editorial: (203) 432-2418 editor@yaledailynews.com Business: (203) 432-2424 business@yaledailynews.com
made people laugh and mentored young men. And he was deeply loved by his family, children and friends. And here is what we know about our street. Our neighbors are hardworking city residents who care about their neighborhood and city, the type of folk who come by and help shovel out your driveway and walk their kids to school. We joined more than 50 of Hall’s family members and friends for a vigil at the site where he died. We watched as each person raised a finger in the air to the man that passed too briefly. We watched as police officers came, the only representatives of the city to show up. Here is what we would like our city to recognize: That individual lives matter, irrespective of what neighborhood they come from. That one of the most basic human dignities is to live out one’s years without fear of predatory violence. In order that we as a unified community value the life that our city lost, we need to recognize, revalue and rid. First, recognize that Hall’s death is a collective crisis even as it affects some city constituents more than others. Despite steady declines in overall homicide across the nation for white men, young black men continued to die at increasing rates. Nationally, black people are victimized by homicide six times more than whites; an astonishing two-thirds of young black
ithin a week, we’ll see just how much Mayor Toni Harp has learned in her first two months in office. That’s because her budget for the upcoming fiscal year is due on March 1, giving her the opportunity to ground her legislative agenda and city priorities with hard numbers. It’s one thing to express soaring plans for the Elm City during election and quite another to face the hard reality of implementing those goals. Before she sat in City Hall’s top seat, Harp served as the senate chair of the legislature’s appropriations committee. That means she’s had heavy influence over the state’s budget, shaping how taxpayer dollars are spent across Connecticut. As mayor, she finds herself in a role that might appear quite similar: She must decide which departments receive city cash. But dictating budgets as the chair of the appropriations committee is fundamentally different from managing the fiscal health of a city like New Haven. In the state senate, Harp was largely removed from constituents and dealt with the broad implications of distributing state money. At the municipal level, however, she is much closer to those most directly affected by fiscal policies, the citizens whose pocketbooks will register even mild changes in
city budgeting. She must deal with the minutiae of finding revenue sources and grapple with uncertain state funding NICK DEFIESTA levels. It seems that Harp is City Limits still getting a handle on the intricacies of city budgets and has yet to grasp how the average citizen responds to even the smallest changes in city taxes. That’s the best explanation I can come up with for why the mayor recently announced a possible property tax hike in an attempt to plug a $4.7 million hole in the city’s rainy day fund. True, taxpayer revenue is necessary for essentially every item on the city’s legislative agenda. Harp has identified public safety, education, jobs and economic development as the highest priority policy initiatives during her first term in office, none of which will see any positive developments without funding. But the city must strike a balance between pursuing these legislative items and keeping New Haven affordable for those who live here. Already, owning property
is much more expensive in the Elm City than in one of the surrounding suburbs. The mill rate in New Haven is 40.80 — meaning property owners pay $40.80 for every $1,000 their property is assessed to be worth — compared to $31.25 in West Haven, $30.95 in East Haven and a low $28.10 in North Haven. From an individual homeowner’s perspective, it already makes a whole lot of sense to move to a neighboring town to pay lower property taxes while still enjoying all the benefits a city like New Haven has to offer. Such reasoning would only grow stronger if Harp follows through with the tax increase she suggested. Still worse, Harp doesn’t seem to have bothered trying to reduce city spending; instead, she’s made several proposals that would cost New Haven even more than we’re already paying. Harp’s office has submitted requests for a number of seemingly redundant positions — including a bilingual receptionist, a legislative director and a director for the Minority and Small Business Initiative — which, while useful, would be incredibly difficult to justify given the city’s fiscal realities. And when asked what her immediate priorities were after reading her transition team’s report, Harp said she would create a new community outreach cen-
ter at the Bethel A.M.E. Church offering activities for kids. A nice idea in theory, but spending much-needed city tax dollars on a new community outreach center that is mere blocks away from the Q House and across the street from the Goffe Street Armory comes off as fiscally irresponsible upon closer inspection. All that is to say: Harp is facing an incredibly complex budgetary picture and has not yet demonstrated that she is capable of providing the fiscal leadership that New Haven needs. True, the city’s taxpayers continue to struggle beneath the unfair burden of the partially funded PILOT program. And true, short-term budgeting under former Mayor John DeStefano Jr. has not left Harp with the easiest hand to play. But the Elm City has more than enough budgetary leverage to set itself on a path towards a strong, progressive future. As her own transition team wrote, “The success of moving forward with [Mayor] Harp’s policies depends on getting New Haven’s fiscal house in order.” Next week, Harp’s budget will tell us just what chance those policies have. NICK DEFIESTA is a senior in Berkeley College and a former city editor for the News. His columns run on alternate Tuesdays. Contact him at nick.defiesta@yale.edu.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
NEWS
“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.” PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ENGLISH ROMANTIC POET
CORRECTIONS FRIDAY, FEB. 21
Harp pushes 6-to-6 plan
The article “Yalies in hunt for million” mentioned only one Yale team participating in the Hult semifinals in March. In fact, three Yale teams are participating in the semifinals. MONDAY, FEB. 24
The text accompanying the “Through the Lens” mistakenly referred to the “cathedrals” of New Haven. In fact, there are no cathedrals in New Haven.
Yalies face arrest in protest BY LILLIAN CHILDRESS STAFF REPORTER On Saturday afternoon, a group of Yale students is planning to travel to Washington, D.C. to protest the Keystone XL pipeline alongside college students from across the country. The students are willingly risking arrest to participate in the rally against the crude oil transport system which runs from Canada to Texas. The upcoming protest is expected to bring approximately 600 students to the capitol, according to Alexandra Barlowe ’17, one of the lead organizers of the trip. The 2011 protest drew over 10,000 protestors and resulted in over 1,000 arrests. “This is not just about Keystone, this is about our generation saying that we’re moving in the direction against policies that are moving us backward,” said Elias Estabrook ’16, the other leader of the trip. The Keystone XL pipeline is a project that has been proposed by the company TransCanada, and would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands through an underground pipeline to refineries in Texas. Many environmentalists have rallied against the pipeline, arguing that the refining and transport of the oil is such a carbon intensive process that if the oil were to be released, it would harm many other carbon reduction efforts, said Patrick Reed ’16, former president of YSEC, the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. President Obama has still not yet decided whether or not to give plans for the pipeline the green light, but has announced he will make a decision in the coming months. The group — currently projected to be around seven students — will arrive in D.C. on Saturday to participate in a nonviolent protest training given by XL Dissent, a group of college students from schools across the nation who have banded together to organize a protest against the pipeline. On Sunday morning, the group of protestors will meet at Georgetown to begin marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where they will engage in nonviolent protest. Barlowe said that she expects the group to end the day in handcuffs. “I think there’s more than a likelihood of arrest. It’s almost guaranteed,” Barlowe said. According to Barlowe and Estabrook, every student going on the trip has been informed of the probability of arrest, and has agreed to pay any fines that may be incurred as a result. The XL Dissent website has also been raising money to donate to a fund for students who may not be able to pay the fine. Estabrook said he expects at least one lawyer to be present at the training, which is mandatory for any student who is participating in the protest. Those coming from Yale will have their transportation costs furnished by YSEC. The board of YSEC declined to comment for this article. Mitchell Barrows, a student going on the trip, said he is both excited and nervous to go on the trip, but in the end, he feels as though participating in the rally is “fulfilling my civic duty to involve myself in politics and voice my opinion to those whose job it is to listen.” This protest is just one of a number of environmental issues that students having rallied behind, Estabrook said. He mentioned the divestment movement as another example of a student environmental activism.. Reed said Yale students in particular have an ability to leverage social capital that comes from attending such an institution to affect political change in the world. “I think that’s why this action is so important — not because it’s about the pipeline, and not because it’s about this specific thing, but because it’s about but because it’s sending a message about what people are and aren’t going to tolerate,” Barlowe said. The XL Dissent website features the signatures of over 60 college students across the country who helped organize the protest. Contact LILLIAN CHILDRESS at lillian.g.childress@yale.edu .
2014 WALLACE PRIZE YALE’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS INDEPENDENT WRITING AWARD Submit your unpublished fiction and nonfiction to the Yale Daily News Building, 202 York St., by 5 PM on Monday, March 3. Pick up applications in the English department office or at the YDN.
Winning entries are selected by a panel of professional judges and published in the Yale Daily News Magazine
RAYMOND NOONAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed new “6-to-6” school model would keep students in some New Haven schools on campus for 12 hours a day. BY POOJA SALHOTRA STAFF REPORTER Next year, students at the Lincoln-Bassett School could be in school for 12 hours a day as part of a new extended school-day program. During her mayoral campaign, Mayor Toni Harp proposed a “six-to-six” school model as a way of reviving struggling neighborhood schools. She suggested implementing the program first in Newhallville’s K-6 Lincoln-Bassett — one of the lowest performing schools in the district — and then replicating the model in other district schools. The new model seeks to accommodate the “modern family,” which includes many mothers working outside the home, Harp said at a Friday press conference. “The amount of time that women spend in the home has changed over the past 60 years,” Harp said. “The sixto-six school looks at the child and the family and the kind of support they need in
this day and age with parents working.” At the press conference, Harp officially received the Transition Report her team has been preparing over the past few months. The report included the idea of a sixto-six school in its outline of initiatives to improve education. Transition team chairman Ed Joiner emphasized that in addition to improving academic achievement, the extended school day would have a “ripple effect” of decreasing other youth problems such as violence and crime by keeping students engaged while their parents are still at work. Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries ’95 said Harp’s plan for extending Lincoln Basset’s school day aligns with the Board of Education’s goal of improving student achievement at the school. “We knew we wanted to do something different with Lincoln Basset,” Harries said. “Harp’s plan is helping to shape exactly what that change is.”
Last month, the state invited Lincoln-Bassett to apply to join the Commissioner’s Network, a cohort of under-performing schools that receive supervision and monetary support from the state Department of Education. Two New Haven high schools have already joined the Commissioner’s Network, receiving a total of $1.4 million this year. Lincoln-Bassett is currently forming a redesign committee that will create a plan to submit to the state by May, according to Executive Manager of Leadership Development Gemma Joseph Lumpkin. While Harp’s extendedday program is based on that at a six-to-six magnet school in Bridgeport, Lumpkin said the exact model to be implemented at Lincoln-Bassett is still being decided. The goal is to create before and after school programs that address the needs of the community and engage students, she explained. Lincoln Basset’s extended school day would come
one year after an education nonprofit, National Center on Time and Learning, announced a five-state initiative to redesign school schedules. Connecticut was included in the plan, and Governor Dannel Malloy announced earlier this year that a second wave of schools in Meriden, East Hartford and New London will extend their school-day, bringing the total number of Conn. students in the program to nearly 5,000. Although many consider the extended school day an effective way to improve student achievement, others are skeptical of the model. Dave Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said that while the idea of extending the school day is noble, he would want to see more empirical data showing its success before implementing the program in New Haven. Lincoln-Bassett School serves roughly 300 students. Contact POOJA SALHOTRA at pooja.salhotra@yale.edu .
McCullough talks history as a story BY RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTER Despite his renown as a writer, narrator and historian, David McCullough ’55 said he has no intention of ever being an expert. “Experts have all the answers,” McCullough said at a Silliman College Master’s Tea on Monday. “I have a lot of questions.” Speaking before a crowd of about 50 students and family members, McCullough described his days as a Yale undergraduate and his interest in history, which he characterized as a study of human events. McCullough emphasized that in order to understand an era, it is necessary to examine the people who lived during that time period and to view them as human beings. “[McCullough] digs into the people that make the stories,” Silliman College Master Judith Krauss told the audience. “When you’re reading him, you’ll forget you’re reading history and you’ll think you’re reading a novel.” McCullough said he was particularly inspired by four people during his time at Yale, who he called the greatest influences on his life. He first spoke of his wife — his “editor in chief” — who still reads everything McCullough writes aloud to make sure every line is pleasing to the ear as well as to the eye. McCullough also described how two professors and one graduate student helped pique his interest in subjects that he did not initially find enticing. Inspired by these mentors, McCullough said he learned to use these subjects to view the world through a fresh lens. “He opened our eyes to see what’s in front of us,” McCullough said of Vincent
ALEX SCHMELING/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Author David McCullough discussed his view of history as a human story in a Master’s Tea yesterday. Scully, Jr., who was his history of art and architecture professor at Yale in the 1950s. “Art is the expression of the human desire for identity. You can’t go into a cathedral from the Middle Ages and not be moved.” Reflecting on his own college experience, McCullough encouraged audience members to thank the professors that mean the most to them. Decades after his graduation, McCullough said he encountered his former geology professor who had opened his eyes to the sciences. McCullough said he was glad he introduced himself and thanked the professor for all he had taught him because, two weeks later, he read of the professor’s death. Throughout the talk, McCullough returned to the idea of history as being centered around people and their stories. He said he only recently realized that he had written all of his biographies about people with a steadfast determination to never give up despite improbable odds, like George Washington and the Wright brothers.
McCullough said he does not always know much about his subjects before beginning the writing process. Still, he said having a foundational interest is key. “We have this wonderful quality called curiosity,” McCullough said. “It’s what separates us from the cabbages.” McCullough compared writing about a historical figure to picking a roommate, because he has to spend large amounts of time with his subject every day. McCullough said he always aims to write the book he wishes he could read. He added that thinking, rather than researching or writing, is the most important part of the book-writing process. McCullough challenged students in the audience to dedicate their time to something they love, and stressed the importance of not pursuing a career for the money alone. He credited his years at Yale as some of the most enlightening of his life. McCullough said his own relationship with writing his-
tory is what fuels him for each new day. “It’s my way of life,” McCullough said of his writing. “I’m dancing. And I still have the same girl.” Students interviewed who attended the talk said they enjoyed hearing about McCullough’s perspective on his work. Eva Landsberg ’17, a copy staffer for the News, said she was most inspired by McCullough’s view of history as a human story, adding that she would attempt to incorporate that perspective into her own writing. Emma Poole ’17 said she appreciates McCullough’s choosing a career path based on something he loved. McCullough opened himself up to people and came to know and love them better, she said. McCullough received two Pulitzer Prizes for his books on Presidents Harry Truman and John Adams in 1993 and 2002, respectively. Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .
PAGE 4
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” HUNTER S. THOMPSON AMERICAN JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR
Recent grads build startups in New Haven STARTUP FROM PAGE 1 will be able to access the database. Six students interviewed — all of whom were either working on a startup or had expressed an interest in doing so in the near future — said the YEI and other similar umbrella organizations such as the Elmseed Enterprise Fund are important in encouraging the growth of entrepreneurship at Yale because they provide a space for students to network with other budding entrepreneurs. “When you think of Yale, unlike MIT or Harvard, you don’t think of startups, but this culture exists if you look for it,” Dillon Lew ’16 said. “There’s a politics kid in every suite, but you need places like YEI to gather all the people who are interested in startups.” David Lawrence ’15, who is
working on a startup with a friend from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, said the startup culture at Wharton is much more pervasive. On the whole, Yale students are less familiar with aspects of the startup process like non-disclosure forms and other legal documents, he said. Still, Lawrence said Yale has proven capable of producing cutting-edge startups. He cited Silvia Terra, a nonprofit that Max Uhlenhuth ’12 started that has been featured in a number of national publications for its innovative use of satellite technology, as one example. To further encourage students to pursue entrepreneurship through YEI, Boyle said the institute is renovating offices at 254 Elm St. in preparation for the 2014-’15 academic year. Boyle said the YEI’s downtown loca-
WHERE THEY WORK CLASS OF 2013
tion, surrounded by other students and nightlife, make it an attractive work environment for current students and those who are considering staying in New Haven after graduation to continue working on their startups.
Yale’s strength in terms of entrepreneurships is leveraging its liberal arts education. JEANINE DAMES Director, Undergraduate Career Services When deciding on a location to start their business, students look for easy access to resources, capital and a “cool” vibe, he added. Dames said many alumni
44.5%
Percent of graduates
Contact RISHABH BHANDARI at rishabh.bhandari@yale.edu and J.R. REED at jonathan.t.reed@yale.edu .
3%
12.6%
Self-employed in own business or professional non-group practice
Government or other public institution or agency
30
21.2%
20
10.6%
10
4.1% 501+
code without having to look to New York.” When Boyle was a graduate student in the late 80s, New Haven was comparatively run down and not nearly as many students were staying in the Elm City after graduation. Now, if students supported by YEI do not stay in New Haven, they often go to New York, Boston, or San Francisco. In a few years, New Haven residents will be able to tell if their city can compete with bigger cities, he said. According to a UCS survey, 3 percent of graduates from the class of 2013 — the first class year for which the office collected data — worked for their own company following graduation.
EMPLOYMENT BY SECTOR
40
0
things other schools can’t touch,” she said. Although YEI is supportive of alumni staying in New Haven to grow their businesses and stimulating local economic development, Boyle said the office is more concerned with supporting students who come to them with mature and promising ideas. This year, YEI is launching a “tech boot camp,” where Yale students will learn how to code over a 10-week summer program. Boyle said building a network of programmers will help strengthen New Haven’s entrepreneurial community. He added that New Haven especially is in need of more programmers. “If we start to grow a larger cluster of people with web skills, those people will find each other,” Boyle said. “Companies need these types of people who can
The data from this report was compiled from the 2013 Senior Survey, which was administered by UCS in May 2013. The survey was sent to 1,288 graduates in the Class of 2013 and 1,075 graduates completed the survey creating an 83.4% response rate.
EMPLOYER SIZE 50
remain in New Haven because they have developed a fondness for the city during their four years at Yale. She added that many students feel a need to give back to the community by remaining in New Haven with their businesses. Alumni in New Haven can also easily access University resources, including faculty, libraries and laboratories. “Yale’s strength in terms of entrepreneurships is leveraging its liberal arts education,” Dames said, adding that Yale’s advantage over other more technical institutions is the University’s ability to bring together both technologically proficient students and students who are strong in other areas. “If you combine someone who can program with someone majoring in the classics or a musician, then Yale can create
500–251
10.2%
9.4%
250–101 100–51 Size of employer
50–11
10–1
21%
Non-profit organization, institution or NGO
63.3%
For-profit corporation, company or group-practice
New alcohol initiatives to debut next year ALCOHOL FROM PAGE 1 years. “As people mature and become juniors and seniors, they may need to know more than they may have had to as freshmen,” Gentry said. McKinley underscored the administration’s desire to make students feel welcome on campus, regardless of their drinking habits. He said many students expressed hope for more locations and events on campus where they can choose to drink in moderation in an effort to avoid high-risk drinking. Several administrators interviewed said they are proud the University approaches high-risk drinking as a public health issue, instead of focusing on individual behavior and disciplinary action. Goff-Crews said the University hopes to take a broader perspective and discuss the type of community it is trying to create — one that is knowledgeable about the risks of drinking and understands how to support individuals and groups. Over the next few weeks, McKinley said two committees will begin working in support of the first initiative. The implementation committee, led by Gentry and Goff-Crews, will
encompass some former members of the Task Force, including the four students that served on it. The committee will concentrate on executing the policy changes and recommendations in an efficient and centralized manner. It also has two more positions for undergraduates, who will be selected through an application process, GoffCrews said. The other body, the advisory committee, will be a more permanent presence on campus and handle alcohol-related issues as they emerge, McKinley said. This body, led by Branford Master Elizabeth Bradley, will consist solely of students who apply for the positions. During the same period of time, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd ’90 and YCDO fellows Garrett Fiddler ’11 and Hannah Peck DIV ’11 already have scheduled a number of dinners and discussions. Each residential college, Peck said, will have at least one meal or study break specifically to discuss the new initiatives and alcohol policy and procedures. Peck said they will also meet with large student bodies — such as the Singing Group Council and the Panhellenic Council — to go over the new developments so that major campus leaders are
KATHRYN CRANDALL/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The University plans to clarify and better communicate its policies on alcohol and to enhance training and education on alcohol-related issues. clear on alcohol policy. Goff-Crews said she hopes the residential college outreach will spur interested students to apply for the Implementation Committee so that work can begin as soon as possible. “My hope is for us to have a significant amount of the policy work to be done by summer,”
Goff-Crews said, adding that the new policies and programs should be ready by fall 2014. According to McKinley and Gentry, the UCCAYC, which includes five external experts on alcohol, has agreed to be available in support of the implementation and advisory committees — an unprecedented
move by any other University Council Committee. Matthew Breuer ’14, who served on the Task Force and will sit on the implementation committee, said he has been satisfied with the overall process and with administrators’ willingness to listen to student input. He commended the University
for embracing the public health approach and encouraged students to make their voices heard in the new committees. The YCDO Task Force and UCCAYC were first announced in December 2012. Contact WESLEY YIIN at wesley.yiin@yale.edu .
Gourmet Heaven owner facing 42 charges CHO ARRESTED FROM PAGE 1 The DOL, NHPD and New Haven Board of Alders will host a press conference about the arrest at police headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, at which further details are expected to emerge. After a DOL investigation that began in August, Cho was found guilty of paying 25 workers under minimum wage over the course of several years. In a settlement, he agreed to pay a
total of $140,000 in back wages to the workers, as well as a $10,000 fine to the DOL. Pechie told the New Haven Independent that Cho had been arrested after he failed to pay the first two installments of back wages in a timely manner. Cho paid the third installment on time, but the warrant for his arrest had already been issued when he made the payment, according to the Independent. Eleven workers filed additional allegations with the DOL
in late November about continuing improper payment, mistreatment and ethnic discrimination. Four former workers have also brought a complaint to the Connecticut Labor Commission alleging they were fired in retaliation for having made the aforementioned complaints. A Labor Commission investigation into these claims is still pending. “This case should set a precedent, since wage theft, left unpunished, has become an
epidemic [in New Haven],” said John Lugo, an activist with Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA), the grassroots group that began the ongoing boycott of the deli. Megan Fountain, another ULA organizer, added that the arrest “gives hope to workers and former workers who are still waiting for Mr. Cho to pay tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.” Workers and activists alike said they do not know the fate of the popular campus locale.
Gourmet Heaven’s manager and several workers declined to comment. Fountain said she hopes students will pressure Yale University Properties to act in compliance with the statement Vice President Bruce Alexander issued in the fall. “Yale University Properties shares the concerns about the alleged labor violations at Gourmet Heaven,” the statement read. “We strongly condemn unfair labor practices and
will not renew the lease of any tenant not in complete compliance with the labor laws regarding fair treatment of employees.” Alexander could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon. Cho operates four Gourmet Heaven locations in New Haven and Providence, R.I. Contact SEBASTIAN MEDINATAYAC at sebastian.medina-tayac@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
NEWS
“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.” PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ENGLISH ROMANTIC POET
CORRECTIONS FRIDAY, FEB. 21
Harp pushes 6-to-6 plan
The article “Yalies in hunt for million” mentioned only one Yale team participating in the Hult semifinals in March. In fact, three Yale teams are participating in the semifinals. MONDAY, FEB. 24
The text accompanying the “Through the Lens” mistakenly referred to the “cathedrals” of New Haven. In fact, there are no cathedrals in New Haven.
Yalies face arrest in protest BY LILLIAN CHILDRESS STAFF REPORTER On Saturday afternoon, a group of Yale students is planning to travel to Washington, D.C. to protest the Keystone XL pipeline alongside college students from across the country. The students are willingly risking arrest to participate in the rally against the crude oil transport system which runs from Canada to Texas. The upcoming protest is expected to bring approximately 600 students to the capitol, according to Alexandra Barlowe ’17, one of the lead organizers of the trip. The 2011 protest drew over 10,000 protestors and resulted in over 1,000 arrests. “This is not just about Keystone, this is about our generation saying that we’re moving in the direction against policies that are moving us backward,” said Elias Estabrook ’16, the other leader of the trip. The Keystone XL pipeline is a project that has been proposed by the company TransCanada, and would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands through an underground pipeline to refineries in Texas. Many environmentalists have rallied against the pipeline, arguing that the refining and transport of the oil is such a carbon intensive process that if the oil were to be released, it would harm many other carbon reduction efforts, said Patrick Reed ’16, former president of YSEC, the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. President Obama has still not yet decided whether or not to give plans for the pipeline the green light, but has announced he will make a decision in the coming months. The group — currently projected to be around seven students — will arrive in D.C. on Saturday to participate in a nonviolent protest training given by XL Dissent, a group of college students from schools across the nation who have banded together to organize a protest against the pipeline. On Sunday morning, the group of protestors will meet at Georgetown to begin marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where they will engage in nonviolent protest. Barlowe said that she expects the group to end the day in handcuffs. “I think there’s more than a likelihood of arrest. It’s almost guaranteed,” Barlowe said. According to Barlowe and Estabrook, every student going on the trip has been informed of the probability of arrest, and has agreed to pay any fines that may be incurred as a result. The XL Dissent website has also been raising money to donate to a fund for students who may not be able to pay the fine. Estabrook said he expects at least one lawyer to be present at the training, which is mandatory for any student who is participating in the protest. Those coming from Yale will have their transportation costs furnished by YSEC. The board of YSEC declined to comment for this article. Mitchell Barrows, a student going on the trip, said he is both excited and nervous to go on the trip, but in the end, he feels as though participating in the rally is “fulfilling my civic duty to involve myself in politics and voice my opinion to those whose job it is to listen.” This protest is just one of a number of environmental issues that students having rallied behind, Estabrook said. He mentioned the divestment movement as another example of a student environmental activism.. Reed said Yale students in particular have an ability to leverage social capital that comes from attending such an institution to affect political change in the world. “I think that’s why this action is so important — not because it’s about the pipeline, and not because it’s about this specific thing, but because it’s about but because it’s sending a message about what people are and aren’t going to tolerate,” Barlowe said. The XL Dissent website features the signatures of over 60 college students across the country who helped organize the protest. Contact LILLIAN CHILDRESS at lillian.g.childress@yale.edu .
2014 WALLACE PRIZE YALE’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS INDEPENDENT WRITING AWARD Submit your unpublished fiction and nonfiction to the Yale Daily News Building, 202 York St., by 5 PM on Monday, March 3. Pick up applications in the English department office or at the YDN.
Winning entries are selected by a panel of professional judges and published in the Yale Daily News Magazine
RAYMOND NOONAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed new “6-to-6” school model would keep students in some New Haven schools on campus for 12 hours a day. BY POOJA SALHOTRA STAFF REPORTER Next year, students at the Lincoln-Bassett School could be in school for 12 hours a day as part of a new extended school-day program. During her mayoral campaign, Mayor Toni Harp proposed a “six-to-six” school model as a way of reviving struggling neighborhood schools. She suggested implementing the program first in Newhallville’s K-6 Lincoln-Bassett — one of the lowest performing schools in the district — and then replicating the model in other district schools. The new model seeks to accommodate the “modern family,” which includes many mothers working outside the home, Harp said at a Friday press conference. “The amount of time that women spend in the home has changed over the past 60 years,” Harp said. “The sixto-six school looks at the child and the family and the kind of support they need in
this day and age with parents working.” At the press conference, Harp officially received the Transition Report her team has been preparing over the past few months. The report included the idea of a sixto-six school in its outline of initiatives to improve education. Transition team chairman Ed Joiner emphasized that in addition to improving academic achievement, the extended school day would have a “ripple effect” of decreasing other youth problems such as violence and crime by keeping students engaged while their parents are still at work. Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries ’95 said Harp’s plan for extending Lincoln Basset’s school day aligns with the Board of Education’s goal of improving student achievement at the school. “We knew we wanted to do something different with Lincoln Basset,” Harries said. “Harp’s plan is helping to shape exactly what that change is.”
Last month, the state invited Lincoln-Bassett to apply to join the Commissioner’s Network, a cohort of under-performing schools that receive supervision and monetary support from the state Department of Education. Two New Haven high schools have already joined the Commissioner’s Network, receiving a total of $1.4 million this year. Lincoln-Bassett is currently forming a redesign committee that will create a plan to submit to the state by May, according to Executive Manager of Leadership Development Gemma Joseph Lumpkin. While Harp’s extendedday program is based on that at a six-to-six magnet school in Bridgeport, Lumpkin said the exact model to be implemented at Lincoln-Bassett is still being decided. The goal is to create before and after school programs that address the needs of the community and engage students, she explained. Lincoln Basset’s extended school day would come
one year after an education nonprofit, National Center on Time and Learning, announced a five-state initiative to redesign school schedules. Connecticut was included in the plan, and Governor Dannel Malloy announced earlier this year that a second wave of schools in Meriden, East Hartford and New London will extend their school-day, bringing the total number of Conn. students in the program to nearly 5,000. Although many consider the extended school day an effective way to improve student achievement, others are skeptical of the model. Dave Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said that while the idea of extending the school day is noble, he would want to see more empirical data showing its success before implementing the program in New Haven. Lincoln-Bassett School serves roughly 300 students. Contact POOJA SALHOTRA at pooja.salhotra@yale.edu .
McCullough talks history as a story BY RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTER Despite his renown as a writer, narrator and historian, David McCullough ’55 said he has no intention of ever being an expert. “Experts have all the answers,” McCullough said at a Silliman College Master’s Tea on Monday. “I have a lot of questions.” Speaking before a crowd of about 50 students and family members, McCullough described his days as a Yale undergraduate and his interest in history, which he characterized as a study of human events. McCullough emphasized that in order to understand an era, it is necessary to examine the people who lived during that time period and to view them as human beings. “[McCullough] digs into the people that make the stories,” Silliman College Master Judith Krauss told the audience. “When you’re reading him, you’ll forget you’re reading history and you’ll think you’re reading a novel.” McCullough said he was particularly inspired by four people during his time at Yale, who he called the greatest influences on his life. He first spoke of his wife — his “editor in chief” — who still reads everything McCullough writes aloud to make sure every line is pleasing to the ear as well as to the eye. McCullough also described how two professors and one graduate student helped pique his interest in subjects that he did not initially find enticing. Inspired by these mentors, McCullough said he learned to use these subjects to view the world through a fresh lens. “He opened our eyes to see what’s in front of us,” McCullough said of Vincent
ALEX SCHMELING/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Author David McCullough discussed his view of history as a human story in a Master’s Tea yesterday. Scully, Jr., who was his history of art and architecture professor at Yale in the 1950s. “Art is the expression of the human desire for identity. You can’t go into a cathedral from the Middle Ages and not be moved.” Reflecting on his own college experience, McCullough encouraged audience members to thank the professors that mean the most to them. Decades after his graduation, McCullough said he encountered his former geology professor who had opened his eyes to the sciences. McCullough said he was glad he introduced himself and thanked the professor for all he had taught him because, two weeks later, he read of the professor’s death. Throughout the talk, McCullough returned to the idea of history as being centered around people and their stories. He said he only recently realized that he had written all of his biographies about people with a steadfast determination to never give up despite improbable odds, like George Washington and the Wright brothers.
McCullough said he does not always know much about his subjects before beginning the writing process. Still, he said having a foundational interest is key. “We have this wonderful quality called curiosity,” McCullough said. “It’s what separates us from the cabbages.” McCullough compared writing about a historical figure to picking a roommate, because he has to spend large amounts of time with his subject every day. McCullough said he always aims to write the book he wishes he could read. He added that thinking, rather than researching or writing, is the most important part of the book-writing process. McCullough challenged students in the audience to dedicate their time to something they love, and stressed the importance of not pursuing a career for the money alone. He credited his years at Yale as some of the most enlightening of his life. McCullough said his own relationship with writing his-
tory is what fuels him for each new day. “It’s my way of life,” McCullough said of his writing. “I’m dancing. And I still have the same girl.” Students interviewed who attended the talk said they enjoyed hearing about McCullough’s perspective on his work. Eva Landsberg ’17, a copy staffer for the News, said she was most inspired by McCullough’s view of history as a human story, adding that she would attempt to incorporate that perspective into her own writing. Emma Poole ’17 said she appreciates McCullough’s choosing a career path based on something he loved. McCullough opened himself up to people and came to know and love them better, she said. McCullough received two Pulitzer Prizes for his books on Presidents Harry Truman and John Adams in 1993 and 2002, respectively. Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .
PAGE 6
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” ALBERT EINSTEIN GERMAN PHYSICIST
Theater community seeks technically trained DRAMA FROM PAGE 1 more easily. Over the past decade, Yale has constructed three new undergraduate theaters and renovated two others. During the 2013-’14 academic year, various groups within the University have invested a total of over $65,000 in maintaining and increasing the technological potential of these theaters, Yale College Dean of the Arts Susan Cahan said in an email. By experimenting with theater’s technical aspects such as light, sound and set design, students have been staging increasingly complex shows. But the demand for skilled student technicians has not always been met. Stuart Teal ’14, who specializes in lighting design, explained that because the number of students with the necessary skills to fulfill productions’ technical needs varies from year to year, directors and producers have sometimes found it challenging to assemble a full team of technicians for their shows. Janine Chow ’15, a sound designer, said the theater community is currently suffering from a lack of sound designers. Many experienced sound designers graduated in 2013, she explained, and there were not enough new designers to take their place. “The number and complexity of shows fluctuate independently of the number of technicians available to work on them,” Teal said. “I never want to say there is too much theater, but sometimes you might not have enough designers to cover all of the shows.”
Sometimes you might not have enough designers to cover all of the shows. STUART TEAL ’14 In 2007, student production teams often lacked members specializing in design, according to Kate Krier, head of the undergraduate production office. It was typical for actors and directors to try to complete entire projects on their own because they could not find enough designers, she added. Today, she said, almost every senior project in theater studies has a fully staffed creative team behind it. Both the theater community and the University have responded to the student productions’ rising demands. Over the past five years, professional technicians employed by Yale — and particularly employees of the Undergraduate Production Office — have become more involved in student-run shows, adopting the roles of mentors to members of the student theater community. At the same time, members of the theater community interviewed said students have placed more emphasis on peer education, with experienced student technicians investing more time and effort in passing their knowledge on to their peers.
A STEEP LEARNING CURVE
In the last year alone, the Uni-
versity has used its Arts Discretionary Fund — a Yale fund used to finance various art-related projects each year — to purchase new, technologically advanced equipment for undergraduate theaters. Off Broadway Theater technical adviser Justin DeLand noted that last year marked Yale’s first ever investment in light-emitting diode technology, explaining that LED lights are brighter, have more color options and use much less energy than OBT’s previous light system. The University also purchased a new digital sound board and speaker system for the theater, DeLand added. Although improvements are allowing students to undertake theater projects with more ambitious light and sound design than in past years, members of the theater community interviewed said mastering the technical aspects of the field can be difficult. Janine Chow ’15, a sound designer, said sound design presents unique challenges to production teams because sounds create an entirely new force within the play, rather than simply enhancing other aspects of a production. “Unlike lighting, which illuminates actors, sound interrupts them,” Chow said. “The designer needs to incorporate the sound into the movement and aesthetic of the play.” Al Nurani ’17, a light designer who has worked on two productions this season, explained that the theoretical side of lighting design is difficult to master. While the act of hanging a light may be simple, he said, hanging it in a way that illuminates actors or objects to achieve a particular effect is a skill that takes a long time to learn. Eliza Robertson ’17, the master electrician for the upcoming production “Valhalla,” explained that many aspiring student technicians start out by working as beginner crew members in order to learn basic technical skills. Usually, Robertson said, students will acquire a decent amount of hands-on experience by working in these roles before they move on to roles that require expertise in a specific area of technical theater. Chow said she thinks experienced sound technicians’ biggest priority at the moment is training new sound designers and building student interest in the field, noting that she has become a peer mentor for the UP Office in an attempt to inspire underclassmen to learn sound design. UP’s Peer Mentor Program, which was established in the fall of 2012, pays experienced student technicians to any answer questions for students new to technical theater. According to UP’s website, the students help their peers with “issues ranging from developing a project, producing, designing, build, and through load-in and the tech process.” The mentorship program is one of several ways students just entering the field can receive support and guidance on campus.
A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY
Teal said he thinks there was a deficit in the student technician community during his freshman year at Yale — a deficit he attributes to the previous generations’ failure to sufficiently educate
OPINION. Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com
YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR VOICE. YOUR PAGE.
WILLIAM FREEDBERG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Despite the general excellence in tech in Yale Drama, those involved in theater have noticed that demand for technicians is not always met. their successors. But the current generation of experienced technicians is making a sustained effort to instruct their less experienced peers, he explained. All four freshmen technicians interviewed said their transitions into the technical theater community have been made significantly easier by the support they received from more experienced student technicians. Hannah Friedman ’17 said she thinks that students share technical knowledge because of the collective expectation that each generation of student technicians will eventually transfer their skills to their younger counterparts. Professionals in the Theater Studies Department and the Undergraduate Production Office have also responded to the high demand for skilled technicians by directly participating in student production teams as well
as educating students on theater technology and design. Members of the theater community interviewed said the number of technicians serving as technical directors or sound and lighting designers in undergraduate productions has increased over the past several years. Krier said that though UP’s primary concern is safety, the office aims to provide overall guidance and assistance to students involved in performing arts shows. “We are here to support every aspect of the production process,” Krier said. Members of the Undergraduate Production Office have recently adopted roles as mentors to undergraduates interested in technical theater and design. Krier said Technical Director for Theater Studies and Undergraduate Production Tom Delgado DRA ’09, who has extensive experi-
ence with lighting design, sometimes invites students who are interested in the field but do not have a lot of technical background to assist him in his projects, thus allowing them to improve their skills. Delgado said he has taken on many different roles in undergraduate theater shows in the past year — he was a lighting designer in “The Water Play,” a set designer on “The Spitfire Grill” and currently plays a supervising role on “The Paper Bag Princess.” He added that UP also hosts a “tech boot camp” each semester during which students receive handson experience in various areas of technical theater. Yale Drama Coalition President Nikki Teran ’14 said that when Delgado found out about her interest in lighting design, he offered to teach her about the field. When Teran later worked
as a lighting designer in a theater company, she put that knowledge to use. “Every skill I used there, I learned from Tom,” Teran said. “I wouldn’t have learned lighting design at such an early stage from anyone else.” Tim Creavin ’15 said he thinks the professionals who participate in undergraduate theater help students interested in pursuing the field after they leave Yale acquire skills they would not otherwise learn on campus. “Since Yale is not a conservatory, we don’t have classes that teach us these skills,” Creavin said. “Having professionals here to teach them to you definitely encourages more students to pursue directing, producing or technical theater as a career.” Contact ERIC XIAO at eric.xiao@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
Partly sunny, with a high near 30. West wind 10 to 14 mph.
THURSDAY
High of 31, low of 13.
High of 32, low of 9.
LORENZO’S TALE BY CHARLES MARGOSSIAN
ON CAMPUS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 7:00 p.m. “How to Build a Career in Documentary Filmmaking”: An Evening with Lawrence Hott. The Yale Film Studies Program is bringing Lawrence Hott, who made “Imagining Robert,” a film about two brothers grappling both directly and indirectly with mental illness. Hott, who is experienced with working with PBS and the National Endowment for the Humanities, will talk about his film and give advice. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Film Study Center.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 5:00 p.m. “Helicobacter Pylori: ‘Is Our Foe Our Friend?’” Dr. Martin Blaser will be speaking on the Gram-negative, microaerophilic bacterium harbored in our stomachs. Fitkin Memorial Pavilion (789 Howard Ave.), Fitkin Amphitheatre.
DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
6:00 p.m. Emotionally Intelligent Parenting Workshop. Join Marc Brackett, Robin Stern and others from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence for a workshop on the importance of emotional intelligence for you and your children. The talk will be filmed and participants must sign a film release in advance. RSVP at sarah.delaney@yale.edu. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), Rm. 102.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 12:00 p.m. “Thinking About Having Children in Graduate School?” Dean Richard Sleight, Susan Abramson from the Child Care Programs and current students with children at Yale will be on a panel speaking on the university policy and services available to students with children. Open to the Yale community only; register in advance online. Hall of Graduate Studies (320 York St.), Rm. 199.
XKCD BY RANDALL MUNROE
CROSS CAMPUS
4:00 p.m. “Immense and Possible Oceans: the Maritime Imagination in Medieval and Early Modern Portugal.” Josiah Blackmore, the Nancy Clark Smith Professor of the Language and Literature of Portugal at Harvard University, will be speaking as sponsored by the departments of Spanish and Portuguese. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), Rm. 203.
THE BLOG. THE BUZZ AROUND YALE THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.) 2-2400 (after 5 p.m.) Mailing address Yale Daily News P.O. Box 209007 New Haven, CT 06520
Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Julia Zorthian at (203) 4322418. Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.
cc.yaledailynews.com
To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 25, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
CLASSIFIEDS
CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Lunchbox staple, initially 4 Handy, say 8 Hatcher of “Lois & Clark” 12 Pakistani language 14 Pakistan neighbor 15 Tablecloth fabric 16 Striped fish 17 Dangerously sharp 19 Ranch nightmare 21 “Wake Up Little Susie” singer Don or Phil 22 “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator 24 Next-to-last Greek letter 26 Difficult turn on the slopes 27 Fellows 28 Cape Town’s land: Abbr. 31 1983 Streisand film 33 “From __ to shining ...” 34 Has-__ 35 Common pump choice 39 Early garden 40 La-Z-Boy room 41 Very unpleasant, weather-wise 42 Country south of Turk. 43 Costly crackertopper 44 35-Across, e.g. 46 Boxer’s stat 47 Gnarly one on the waves 50 “Beat it, kid!” 53 “I’m serious!” 56 “Star Wars” droid, and a hint to letters shared by 17-, 22-, 35and 47-Across 58 Eyelid trouble 59 Taxi fixture 60 Clothier Strauss 61 Traffic sound 62 Glimpse 63 Lose sleep (over) 64 Mario Brothers console
Want to place a classified ad? CALL (203) 432-2424 OR E-MAIL BUSINESS@ YALEDAILYNEWS.COM
2/25/14
By C.C. Burnikel
DOWN 1 Stout servers 2 Unruly kid 3 Holden Caulfield creator 4 Cable stations, e.g. 5 Vintage sitcom stepfamily 6 Vegged out 7 Ambient music pioneer Brian 8 Assisted through a tough time, with “over” 9 Caltech grad, often: Abbr. 10 Hose holder 11 Race nickname 13 West Point letters 15 “Deathtrap” playwright Ira 18 Disclose 20 Suave shelfmate 23 “So true!” 24 Funereal piles 25 Like some rye bread 28 Comedian who ended his show with “... and may God bless”
Monday’s Puzzle Solved
SUDOKU EASY
1 4 7 1 5 2 (c)2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
29 Make arrangements for 30 Raggedy dolls 32 Winery cask 33 Baltimore daily 34 Cry from a flock 36 Loved to pieces 37 Scuba spot 38 Come after 43 Gossip fodder 44 Vinyl record feature
2/25/14
45 Cleverly skillful 47 “Here, piggies!” 48 “It’s open!” 49 Imprecise cooking measure 50 Pool or polo 51 Raw rocks 52 Web address opening 54 Harp kin 55 Strong urges 57 Pixie
6 5 9 8 8 2
9 6 4 8
4 7 5
6 3 2
7 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 8
SPORTS
“Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it not to die.” DEMETRI MARTIN AMERICAN COMEDIAN
Sherrod hits right notes
Yale ends weekend with a win
SHERROD FROM PAGE 12 priority because I was recruited to play at Yale, and I chose Yale so that I could get a great education,” Sherrod said in an email. “That being said, I try to find as much time for music as I can.” Sherrod got his start in music at a young age. Growing up, he sung in the church choir, and had his first solo with his children’s choir when he was about nine years old. Gabe Nathans ’16, who is in a musical group formerly known as The Notorious K.J.B., which features Sherrod on the drums, said that Sherrod has good musical sense. “He has a lot of raw talent,” Nathans said. “He’s really creative and has an excellent feel for rhythm.”
YDN
The softball team began its season this weekend at the Norfolk State Tournament, going 1–2 on the weekend. SOFTBALL FROM PAGE 12 responded, scoring six in the next two, thanks in part to two RBI’s apiece by Balta and Delgadillo, who returned this year after missing much of last season due to an injury. But Yale left the bases loaded at the end of its third inning rally, and that lost opportunity would prove problematic later in the game. In the fifth, the Seahawks hit a three-run homer, with one of the runners reaching on a walk and another on an error. Wagner scored four more runs on five hits in the sixth, giving the Bulldogs six outs to overcome a 9–6 deficit. Yale put two runners on base in its half of the sixth and another two in the seventh, but could only plate one. Yale ended up with a 9–7 loss despite outhitting Wagner 14–11. Yale ace Chelsey Dunham ’14 pitched the first five innings in the loss, allowing six runs, five earned, on eight hits. Kylie Williamson ’15 came in for the sixth inning but was taken out after recording one out
and allowing three runs. Williamson took the loss in the game. “We didn’t really take care of the ball like we should have, and that gave them opportunities to build momentum,” Onorato said. “There were a couple of instances where we had a walk, and then an error, and then a hit. It seemed like a pattern.” Rhydian Glass ’16 finished the final inning and two-thirds without allowing any earned runs. Glass continued her strong pitching later that day as the starter against Norfolk State, allowing two earned runs on four hits in four innings. Efflandt relieved Glass and allowed one unearned run on an error in her two innings. In the sixth, Efflandt recorded a one-two-three inning with three straight groundball outs. The Yale offense, however, could not match the pitching performance. The Elis tallied five hits but scored just one run on an error. Left fielder Allie Souza ’16 was on first as the tying run when a strikeout
BRIANNA LOO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The softball team lost to Wagner and Norfolk State this Saturday before topping Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday.
Second-half surge spurs women’s lax WOMEN’S LACROSSE FROM PAGE 12 said. “We should not have gone down by four in the first place, but it pushed us to work even harder. We tied the game up seven minutes into the second half. That quick change in momentum really gave us the confidence we needed to win.” Entering the final period of the game, the Elis were relentless. McMullan said the team took care of the ball on offense, scoring on a number of opportunities. Phillips also mentioned the tremendous defensive effort by the Bulldogs, as they forced Holy Cross into eight turnovers in the second half after the Crusaders committed only three in the first half. “Winning the draw and great play by our defense were critical components of the win,” Phillips said. “Also, getting big saves from Erin McMullan in the second half and holding Holy Cross to one goal
in the final period was huge.” Seven different players scored goals on Saturday — including Magnuson who scored three times — showcasing the team’s depth. Two freshmen also started for the Elis, and Tess McEvoy ’17 scored in her first collegiate game. DeVito added that the victory in the season opener will help to start the Bulldogs off on the right paw. “I think this game was an important confidence booster and shows that we are heading in a good direction,” DeVito said. “But moving forward we know the things we need to work on as we take on our big rivals within the Ivy League over the course of the next few weeks.” The Elis will look to build on their success in the season’s first game as they prepare to face Sacred Heart and Dartmouth on the road this week. Contact ASHLEY WU at ashley.e.wu@yale.edu .
BRIANNA LOO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The women’s lacrosse team opened its season this Saturday with a 10–8 win over Holy Cross.
ended the game in a 3–1 loss. In total, Yale stranded six runners in scoring position. “We had a really strong pitching performance from [Glass], but unfortunately we weren’t able to give her the run support that she needed,” Onorato said. On Sunday in 65-degree Virginia Beach weather, the Bulldogs were finally able to gather strong hitting and pitching at the same time. Leung no-hit Fairleigh Dickinson through three innings, while Knight pitcher Cheryl Lopez also kept the Bulldogs at bay in the beginning of the game. Neither team could score in the first four. In the fifth, Yale scored its first runs when Souza singled up the middle, Balta moved her over on a misplayed bunt and shortstop Brittany Labbadia ’16 knocked Souza in with a sacrifice fly. Onorato, the next batter, singled down the left field line to drive in Balta and put Yale up 2–0. The Knights threatened Yale in the sixth when they loaded the bases with two singles and a walk with just one out. Efflandt came in to relieve Leung and got out of the jam with just one run allowed. “[Efflandt] got put in a tough situation, and she came in and really shut them down, which was great to see,” Onorato said. “Especially as a freshman pitcher, there’s a lot of pressure, so she did a great job.” Yale would go on to score two more in the seventh on RBI’s by third baseman Hannah Brennan ’15 and Delgadillo, and Efflandt pitched a scoreless seventh to complete the save. Both Onorato and Balta agreed that the three opponents that the Bulldogs faced were comparable to the competition they will see in the Ivy League this season. “[That’s] good, because we could compete against and beat any of the teams that we played this weekend,” Onorato said. Yale has two weeks off before its next games in Clearwater, Fla. on March 11.
Jones, who has coached the Bulldogs for 15 years, said Sherrod will be his first player on the Whiffenpoofs during his time at Yale. The Whiffenpoofs perform at venues across the globe, which Sherrod said he is excited about as he has never traveled outside the United States. “He’s very musically inclined and I do think that’s part of who he was [when he was being recruited],” Jones said. “I’m glad that he’s had an opportunity to find a place where it works for him.” Founded in 1909, the Whiffenpoofs are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in America. Contact GRANT BRONSDON at grant.bronsdon@yale.edu .
JENNIFER CHEUNG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Forward Brandon Sherrod ’15 (No. 35) is fourth in scoring and third in rebounding for the Bulldogs.
Contact GREG CAMERON at greg.cameron@yale.edu .
Elis swim into third SWIMMING FROM PAGE 12 freestyle by Fabian and Isla Hutchinson-Maddox ’17, bringing the Bulldogs’ point total to 55. Emma Smith ’16 then won the 400-yard IM, earning more valuable points for the women. Courtney Randolph ’14 took fourth in the event as well, earning 26 points. Zhou took second in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:47.92, a time that would have broken the previous pool record of 1:48.92 had it not been for the first-place Penn swimmer. After a shutout in the next three events, the Elis came back with a vengeance, taking second in the 800yard freestyle relay. The “A” team of Zhou, Fabian, Anna Wujciak ’17 and Olivia Jameson ’17 finished two seconds ahead of third-place Princeton. At the end of the day, Harvard took the overall lead with Princeton in second and the Bulldogs in third, over seventy points ahead of fourth-place Columbia. Columbia was the only undefeated team entering the competition. The younger swimmers on the Bulldog team produced excellent results during the first two days, a remarkable feat considering it was their first collegiate conference championship. “We have such a young team: 17 of the 22 girls on the Ivy team were either freshmen or sophomores — and our depth really paid off,” Randolph said. Fabian kept her winning streak alive with a victory in the first event of the meet’s third day, the 1650-yard freestyle. Fabian broke the pool record earlier in the season with a time of 16:18.75. Casey Lincoln ’17 took second and Hutchinson-Maddox took fourth, all recording valuable points in the last day of competition. In the 200-yard backstroke, Michelle Chintanaphol ’17 just out-touched Sada Stewart of Princeton, taking second place by only one-tenth of a second. Ali Stephens-Pickeral ’16 placed third in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:16.20, while Sydney Hirschi ’17 placed first in the 200-yard but-
ELENA MALLOY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s swimming and diving team recorded 1163.5 points at Ivies this weekend, good for third place. terfly.
It was bittersweet because that was the last time we would ever compete with the same group of girls. KINA KHOU ’17
Women’s swimming and diving team On the diving side, MacRae placed again, taking second in the threemeter dive with a score of 299.85, four points higher than her preliminary score. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, the final event of the meet, the “A” team of Zhou, Jameson, Wujciak and Hirschi took fourth, earning 52 points among them. At the end of competition, Harvard was in first with 1409 points, Princeton was in second with 1384 and the Elis were in third with 1163.5 points, well ahead of fourthplace Columbia at 945 points. The freshmen on the team fin-
ished their first championship with great standing, an experience Jameson said will stick with them for a long time. She added that the meet made the team truly come together, but expressed sadness over seeing the season finish and watching the seniors swim for the last time. “It was bittersweet because that was the last time we would ever compete with the same group of girls,” Zhou said. The three seniors on the Ivy team — Randolph, Allison West ’14 and Christina Brasco ’14 — felt the emotions that came with swimming in their last meet. Randolph said it was amazing to finish the season in the top three and expressed excitement for the future of Yale swimming and diving. Now that the women are done for the season, they will be cheering on the men as they travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts for their Ivy Championships this weekend. Competition begins on Thursday, Feb. 27. Contact SYDNEY GLOVER at sydney. glover@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS 路 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 路 yaledailynews.com
recyclerecyclerecyclerecycle
YOUR YDN DAILY
PAGE 9
PAGE 10
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Study links health, academic achievement BY APARNA NATHAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Helping kids do better in school might be as easy as removing televisions from the bedroom, according to a collaboration between Yale researchers and New Haven Public Schools. The study revealed unexpectedly strong ties between students’ health habits and academic performance. The research was published last month in the Journal of School Health, and is already helping educators and policy makers implement programs to improve their students’ performance, according to Catherine McCaslin, a study co-author and director of research, assessment and student information at the New Haven Public Schools. “The most important finding for New Haven Public Schools is the additive effect of health behavior and academic achievement,” she said. “The more healthy behaviors a student has, the higher the academic achievement.” While prior evidence linked academic achievement with health, the researchers wanted to pinpoint the set of behaviors that influence scholastic achievement. In the study, the team assessed overall health by measuring 14 factors, ranging from measures of physical health like body mass index to descriptions of family environment, such as having family meals. Connecting academic achievement to overall health, instead of to individual factors, provides a more complete perspective of risk behavior, said Marlene Schwartz, study co-author and director of the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. The researchers measured
academic performance through standardized Connecticut state tests administered to fifth and sixth graders from 12 local New Haven public schools. The team worked with local students through the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE), an initiative started in 2007 to connect Yale public health researchers with New Haven. “Our commitment is to bring evidence to action,” said Jeanette Ickovics, a professor of public health, director of CARE and senior author of the study. “It’s our responsibility at Yale to work closely with our neighbors in New Haven.” While Ickovics said the researchers expected good health to predict academic success, they were surprised by how strong the effect was. The health behavior with the largest impact on academic performance was whether there was a television in the student’s bedroom: Those without a television were more than twice as likely to achieve target scores in reading, writing and math. The study also revealed that students with the most healthy habits were 2.2 times more likely to reach target scores, regardless of their ethnicity, sex or socioeconomic background. “That’s not just statistically significant, it’s socially meaningful,” Ickovics said. Ickovics said she hopes to follow up on this correlational finding by both investigating the mechanism connecting health and achievement and determining the feasibility of intervention. For instance, she said researchers could try removing televisions from children’s rooms and observing whether academic improvement followed.
Health factors have often been linked to improved concentration and cognitive focus; Ickovics said the team wants to understand whether these mechanisms underlie the correlation between health and academic performance.
For the school district, the study has already informed curriculum and policy decisions, said Sue Peters, director of coordinated school health for New Haven Public Schools and study co-author. She said New Haven is rolling out comprehensive K-12
health education over the next three years, and the results of the study are convincing people that such programs are important. “Making the link between health and academic achievement isn’t always obvious,” she said. “This data helps us speak
with educators in a concrete way about the importance of health promotion.” The New Haven Public Schools serve 21,500 students. Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .
ANNELISA LEINBACH/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR
Tarantula venom kills pain BY JOYCE GUO CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Researchers at Yale are the first to demonstrate that tarantula venom could also serve as an effective painkiller for humans. Tarantula venom has long been known to contain proteins that have the ability to target specific ion channels in different animals. The researchers disovered that the toxin also inhibits a receptor called TRPA1 that is partly responsible for creating the sensation of pain and inflammation. The study also marks the first published use of “toxineering,” a particular approach to engineering toxins for research. Toxineering is a powerful tool for turning the poisons into potentially useful substances, said Michael Nitabach, study senior author and professor of cellular and molecular physiology at the Yale School of Medicine. “It’s possible that this particular toxin that we isolated could be mutated in ways that could turn it into an effective therapeutic,” Nitabach said. Previous work by Nitabach catalogued a range of spider toxins, which were then injected into fruit fly eggs for experiments. The “toxineering” approach involved cataloguing the genetic code of different spider toxins and, when appropriate, manipulating the natural genes to create synthetic toxins that effectively target pain receptors. Nitabach said working with DNA is more effective than working with the toxins themselves and that the approach allows the researchers to process a vast array of polypeptides. This technique, which includes scanning live eggs injected with the
toxin, allowed the researchers to identify toxins that affected specific pain. This analysis isolated the polypeptide Protoxin-I — a toxin which comes from the venom of the Peruvian green-velvet tarantula — as the first peptide that could potently inhibit the pain receptor TRPA1, said Boyi Liu, co-author and Yale research scientist in pharmacology. Protoxin-I is known to inhibit voltage-gated sodium channels, which are central to neuron function throughout the body. To develop a variant of ProtoxinI that inhibits TRPA1 while sparing the sodium channels, the researchers then engineered different mutations of the peptide and scanned the engineered library of mutations to find variants that could act as a TRPA1 antagonist without disrupting other ion channels. The mutant peptide they isolated was the first effective inhibitor that only affected TRPA1. Beyond its application as a new painkiller for humans, Liu said this work on Protoxin-I opens up the potential for a greater understanding of the pain receptor. “By further studying the interactions of this toxin with TRPA1, we will be able to learn more about the biophysical properties of TRPA1,” he said. “This may result in more specific blockers for TRPA1, which may likely be used clinically to treat pain and inflammation.” Nitabach said toxineering could be used to explore a wider range of toxins, including those from other predators. This finding was published in Current Biology in March. Contact JOYCE GUO at joyce.guo@yale.edu .
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Through a “toxineering” approach, Yale researchers have explored the possibility of developing a painkiller for humans from tarantula venom.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
“Never trust a doctor whose plants have died.” ERMA BOMBECK AMERICAN HUMORIST AND COLUMNIST
Cooperation reduces racial categorization BY TYLER FOGGATT CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A common enemy can bring people together regardless of traditionally divisive factors like race. And a new Yale study suggests that peaceful cooperation can create the same effect. By simply assigning individuals to groups, the study authors were able to consistently decrease the amount by which people categorized others by their race. For study coauthor and professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara Leda Cosmides, the findings suggest a novel strategy for alleviating inter-group conflict. The findings of their study provide evidence for an “alliance detection system” within humans, a cognitive construct that analyzes patterns of cooperation and conflict. A 2001 study coauthored by Cosmides and John Tooby, a professor of anthropology at UCSB and co-author of the current study, demonstrated that racial categorization could be decreased through intergroup conflict. In the new study, lead by Yale postdoctoral psychology fellow David Pietraszewski, the researchers showed that peaceful cooperation between groups could also decrease the tendency to categorize people by race. “There are a lot of science fiction movies where the people of Earth are divided by race and ethnicity, and then there’s a space alien invasion that brings the people together into one cooperative unit,” she said. “Many people think that conflict is neces-
sary to erase social boundaries, but we found that not to be true.” In the study, subjects were shown photos of individuals paired with quotes that these individuals had made about their work. In one condition, the quotes paired with each individual indicated that they either worked for the charity group Partners in Health, or for the group Habitat for Humanity, while in the other condition, the individuals were unaffiliated with a charity group. Subjects were later asked to attribute the statements they had seen earlier to the people who were originally responsible for saying them. The errors each subject made indicated how they were categorizing people, Tooby said. “If you heard a remark by Chris Rock and later misattributed this remark to George Carlin, then that would maybe imply that the category you’re using is ‘comedian’,” he said. “On the other hand, if you were to misattribute this remark to O.J. Simpson, then that might indicate that the implicit tool of categorization is race, and that race is operative in your mind when you are thinking about these people.” By affiliating the individuals with groups like Partners in Health, the researchers were able to decrease racial categorization and increase categorization by charity group, demonstrating that conflict is not necessary to decrease racial categorization. For males, racial categorization was cut in half, and for females it was eliminated completely, Tooby said.
Whether or not the people in the photos were assigned to Partners in Health or Habitat for Humanity groups had no effect on the amount of gender categorization by subjects. While the visual system processes both gender and race, the fact that race but not gender changed in the group condition suggests the alliance detection system is specific for race. Gender, Cosmides said, is not part of the gender alliance system because people always categorize by gender. To gather further evidence that visual stimuli are not responsible for categorization, the researchers showed subjects the same photo, except that subjects were wearing bright red and bright yellow shirts instead of gray ones. As expected, subjects
did not categorize people by their shirt color. While these studies demonstrated that we are not destined to categorize people by race, Pietraszewski said race remains a dominant form of grouping. The researchers are trying to understand why race is so important and why people use it as a form of categorization at all. There does not seem to be a biological motivation behind race, since the idea of race varies over time and culture, he said. “Race is a hallucination in the sense that people don’t biologically come into these categories,” he said. “These categories are social constructions and we’re trying to understand why these categories are constructed.” This study demonstrated that
certain social cues in the environment can fundamentally change the degree to which people are categorized by certain features. Now that the researchers have proven that cooperation is sufficient to reduce racial categorization, Pietraszewski said he is interested in conducting other studies to see if the same effect can be produced by other variables, such as similar ages and opinions. He is currently working on another paper where subjects are aligned by political party membership, which he believes would decrease the amount of categorization done by race, similarly to peaceful cooperation. Cosmides is interested in the way our alliance detection system appears to be capable of responding
extremely quickly to which visual cues are necessary to detect alliances, and which ones are not. “People assume that you have to remove racial discrimination in order to get people to cooperate with one another, but it’s possible that it may actually be the opposite — that by putting people in situations in which they have to cooperate with one another, where race doesn’t predict who is cooperating with whom, this just causes race to fall away as an important dimension for thinking about people,” said Cosmides. This study was published online in the journal PLOS ONE on Feb. 10. Contact TYLER FOGGATT at tyler.foggatt@yale.edu .
ANNELISA LEINBACH/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR
Grateful patient programs considered
KATHRYN CRANDALL/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Hospitals have become increasingly aggressive in soliciting donations from wealthy patients, hiring private consulting firms to implement wealth screening programs and training doctors specifically to ask for money. BY CORYNA OGUNSEITAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Grateful patient programs, in which doctors request donations from wealthy patients, have become increasingly popular in hospitals across the country. While some feel the program provides an important source of revenue to hospitals, critics claim the practice compromises the doctor-patient relationship. Yale Law student Julian Prokopetz LAW ’15 coauthored an article that appeared in the journal PLoS Medicine on Feb. 11, exploring how grateful patient programs fit into the national health care debate. Prokopetz talked with the News about the strengths and weakness of the program and what the practice signals about the American healthcare system. did you get interested in QHow grateful patient programs in hospitals?
A
I used to work in Brigham and Women’s Hospital [in Boston] in the clinical research center, and we’d been doing some work with the bioethics center talking about ideas for new papers. My
co-author, Lisa Lehmann, mentioned that she had herself been contacted about fundraising and knew other doctors who had been contacted about fundraising. Different people felt different ways about it: Some doctors were very comfortable with it, others were not so comfortable with it. She was just surprised that more had not been written about it given how prominent it is.
even though it’s legal for hospitals to use that information for fundraising purposes, that they should voluntarily adopt a policy of not doing so. They should seek patient consent before using that information for fundraising in order to preserve confidentiality and trust in the doctor-patient relationship, and to avoid undue strain on physicians to do things they’re not comfortable with.
Q
Q
In the article you mentioned that certain “development policies” would fix the problem of ruining the doctor-patient relationship through fundraising. What policies in particular are you referring to?
A
The law used to prevent certain types of activities that we thought were problematic. But now, it’s perfectly legal for development officers to screen patients, and identify wealthy ones and proactively notify their doctors and request that those doctors get involved in fundraising. The way the law changed is that now information on patients’ treating, condition and department of service is freely available for fundraising and development purposes without patient notification or consent. What we’re saying is that
Do you think the fact that doctors are fundraising speaks to larger systemic issues with our health care system?
A
We actually note in the article that while we focus on the American doctors and hospitals, similar things are going on in other countries like the UK. They have a single payer government system, but because the hospitals are privately owned and they are independent medical associations, they do their own fundraising. The issue of fundraising comes up anywhere you have private associations. I think the reason fundraising has intensified in recent years is that we have seen an emphasis on cost cutting on the medical reimbursement side of things. Government payers are paying less
than they used to, and insurers are shrinking their networks. To help make up some of that gap, doctors have been doing more fundraising, particularly at academic medical institutions, where they do have both the research and training initiatives as well as providing basic care. They also tend to take a lot of very wealthy, very high profile patients.
concierge programs where donors get special services while they’re in the hospital, and they do special training programs with doctors where they teach the doctors how to ask for money.
Q
Do you think these programs implicitly encourage doctors to treat wealthy patients differently than poor patients?
you think that fundraising The reality is that a lot if this QDo programs should end, or would Ais already happening. When you rather see those reformed?
A
I think fundraising programs can be a great way for hospitals to raise revenues for things like academic research. I think also that many patients really do enjoy giving back to institutions, whether because they see them as important in the community or because they themselves have benefited from the care. We’re not saying that fundraising shouldn’t happen. Institutions should be very careful about the way they approach it. At the moment, programs are getting more and more aggressive, and there are a number of private consulting firms that offer to help make the programs more aggressive that offer wealth screening, software tools, the VIP
Beyoncé had a baby, the hospital shut down an entire floor. When very important people are treated, the hospitals do offer special services. Whenever a known donor is there, someone flags it down and everyone makes sure to be extra nice. They sometimes feel conflicted as to how much they should be treading on the needs of other patients in order to keep these donors happy. One thing we’re concerned about potentially happening is less appropriate requests by these patients. If a wealthy donor starts requesting, say, prescription narcotics, you would hope that a physician would have the integrity to refuse these requests, but we have to be aware of psychological biases at play and the desire not to harm cer-
tain financial interests. In order to avoid putting doctors in that situation, we don’t want them to be actively soliciting donations in an affirmative, active way. you think this practice has QDo any implication outside of the health care system?
A
I think this is part of a trend in most capitalist societies where money can buy greater access. Those who can afford to pay more for a certain service get a better version of that service. Sometimes that results in the service getting worse for those in the lowest tier because they’re the ones producing the least money for the operator of that service. We just want to make sure that we don’t make the individuals expected to donate feel uncomfortable, we don’t want to make their doctors feel uncomfortable, and we don’t want to end up with a system that focuses so much on the financially well off patients that it doesn’t give other patients the attention that they deserve. Contact CORYNA OGUNSEITAN at coryna.ogunseitan@yale.edu .
IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES
NBA Milwaukee 130 Philadelphia 110
NBA Golden 104
SPORTS QUICK HITS
State
Detroit 96 NBA Dallas 110
y
New York 108 NCAAM No. 4 Syracuse
Maryland 55
FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports
SARAH HALEJIAN ’15 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Halejian, a Wychoff, NJ native, earned Ivy League co-player of the week honors, her third time winning the award this season. The junior guard scored 18 points against Cornell on Friday before pouring in 28 against Columbia the next night.
JUSTIN SEARS ’16 MEN’S BASKETBALL The sophomore forward was named to the Ivy League honor roll for his performance in the Bulldogs’ games against Cornell and Columbia this past weekend. Sears, who hails from Plainfield, NJ, had 32 points and 13 rebounds over the two games.
57
“We have such a young team...and our depth really paid off.” COURTNEY RANDOLPH ’14 WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 · yaledailynews.com
Sherrod ’15 named to Whiffs MEN’S BASKETBALL
Bulldogs open season BY GREG CAMERON STAFF REPORTER For its first game of 2014, the Yale softball team traveled south this weekend to escape the snow and play in the Norfolk State Spartan Clash in Virginia Beach.
SOFTBALL
Jones, saying that Sherrod is an important leader and that his locker room presence is essential to the team. Though basketball takes up about 25-30 hours per week, Sherrod has been able to carve out another six to eight hours for music, whether singing or playing the drums. He was part of Living Water, a Christian a cappella group, during his first semester of freshman year, but he no longer sings with the group. “Academics and basketball are a
The Bulldogs (1–2, 0–0 Ivy) dropped close games to Wagner (2–0, 0–0 Northeast) and Norfolk State (1–6, 0–0 Mid-Eastern) on Saturday before rallying to beat Fairleigh Dickinson (1–2, 0–0 Northeast) 4–1 on Sunday. “I think we definitely came back the second day and really played like the team we can be,” said captain and centerfielder Tori Balta ’14. “We played up to our potential the second day.” Pitcher Kristen Leung ’14 got the win for Yale, allowing one earned run and fanning four in her 5.1 innings pitched. Newcomer Lindsay Efflandt ’17 recorded the save with 1.2 scoreless innings. Earlier in the day against Norfolk State, Efflandt pitched another two innings in relief and allowed just one unearned run. Yale outhit its opponent in all three games but could only come up with the offense to win on its third try. The Bulldogs left 28 runners on base in the three games. Catcher Sarah Onorato ’15 said that although the team lacked timely hitting, the number of hits the offense put up in total bodes well for the future. “A lot of times you see teams having trouble getting going offensively in the beginning of the season, and the fact that we came out hitting and were able to put some hits on the board is good,” Onorato said. “Now, we need to focus on trying to get those runners in when they’re in scoring position.” Balta went five for 12 overall batting leadoff, and first baseman Lauren Delgadillo ’16 led the team with three RBI’s. Wagner took a 2–0 lead early on Saturday with a run in each of the first two innings. Yale
SEE SHERROD PAGE 8
SEE SOFTBALL PAGE 8
KATHRYN CRANDALL/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Forward Brandon Sherrod ’15 (No. 35), the Elis’ fourth-leading scorer at 7.5 points per game, was named a new member of the Whiffenpoofs yesterday. BY GRANT BRONSDON STAFF REPORTER In the movie “High School Musical,” lead character Troy Bolton, played by Zac Efron, has to balance playing on his school basketball team with starring in the school’s musical. Though Bolton manages to pull it off, he is a character in a movie. But Yale men’s basketball forward Brandon Sherrod ’15 accomplished an even more impressive feat in real life this week, when he was named a member of the Whiffenpoofs class of 2014-’15.
“I’m definitely stoked,” Sherrod said. “It’s an amazing experience, and not many people get this chance. I’m nervous for a new chapter in my life, but excited at the same time.” Many Whiffenpoofs choose to take a year off from Yale and travel with the group instead of attending school. When asked whether he would continue to play basketball next year or take a gap year, Sherrod declined to comment. Sherrod started 13 games this season before transitioning into his new role as sixth man for the second-place team in the Ivy League. Head coach
James Jones said his new role is to be a spark plug off the bench for the team, both offensively and defensively. His contributions off the bench have been invaluable for the Elis. He averages 7.5 points per game, while shooting nearly 50 percent from the field. “Brandon is a tremendous part of our team,” said head coach James Jones. “When he plays well, it’s hard for us to lose a basketball game. We have a great deal of confidence in him.” Guard Javier Duren ’15, the team’s second-leading scorer, agreed with
Women’s lax wins season opener BY ASHLEY WU STAFF REPORTER The women’s lacrosse team clamped down its defense in the second half to defeat Holy Cross on Saturday morning in the team’s season opener at Reese Stadium.
WOMEN’S LACROSSE Heading into the first game of the season, the Bulldogs (1–0, 0–0 Ivy) faced a tough Crusaders team (0–3, 0–0 Patriot) that had already competed in two games prior to its matchup with the Elis. “Our goal was to play up-tempo and make Holy Cross play fast,” head coach Anne Phillips said in an email. “We are a faster, deeper team and we wanted to use that to our advantage. We also wanted to score first.” Yale started the game off strong, scoring twice in the first two minutes to take a 2–0 lead. The lead, however, would be shortlived, as Holy Cross rallied to tie the game at two goals less than five minutes later. The Crusaders pushed their momentum throughout the rest of the half, holding the Bulldogs to only one more goal for the rest of the opening
period while scoring five more themselves. Heading into halftime, Holy Cross held a 7–3 advantage, challenging the Elis to rally in the second half. “The first half of the Holy Cross game was a shock to us,” said midfielder Erin Magnuson ’15. “We came out strong, going up 2–0 in the first 10 minutes, but then started to get sloppy. We had 11 turnovers [in] the first half, and that was our downfall. I think a lot of us were too amped up in the first half, which prevented us from playing calm and smart.” Goalkeeper Erin McMullan ’14 said the Elis struggled to maintain possession and committed unforced turnovers. She noted, however, that the second half was a completely different story. According to Phillips, the team reset for the second half, putting away its opening game jitters. The Bulldogs dominated the second half 7–1 on the scoreboard en route to a big opening day win. Attacker Jen DeVito ’14 said that although the team started off shaky, a shift in energy and momentum in the second half allowed Yale to take the lead and keep it. “After halftime, we knew that we were not playing our game,” Magnuson SEE WOMEN’S LACROSSE PAGE 8
STAT OF THE DAY 10
Elis place third in upset BY SYDNEY GLOVER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After three days of intense competition, the women’s swimming and diving team blew away five other Ivy League schools with an upset third place finish in the Ivy League Championships this past weekend.
SWIMMING The Bulldogs’ competition began
on Thursday with a shaky start in the 200-yard freestyle relay. But in the next event, the 500-yard freestyle, Eva Fabian ’16 pulled out a victory with a time of 4:44.00, less than half a second ahead of the second-place Penn swimmer. Kina Zhou ’17 made the next big contribution to the Elis, taking third in the 50-yard freestyle, right behind Princeton and Harvard. Lilybet MacRae ’17 continued her year of spectacular diving with a first place finish in the one-meter div-
ing final. She scored a 310.35, the only diver to break 300-points in the finals or preliminaries, and was less than two points behind the meet record of 312.05, set in 2009 by Princeton diver Katie Giarra. At the end of day one, the Bulldogs were in third with 351 points, while Princeton was in first with 441 and Harvard in second with 424. Day two began with second- and third-place finishes in the 1000-yard SEE SWIMMING PAGE 8
ELENA MALLOY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s swimming and diving team came in third at the Ivy League Championships, behind Princeton and Harvard.
GOALS SCORED BY MIDFIELDER ERIN MAGNUSON ’15 IN THE WOMEN’S LACROSSE TEAM’S FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON, A GAME-HIGH. Tagnuson was fourth on the team in goals last season, her sophomore campaign.