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

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · VOL. CXXXVI, NO. 43 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

CLOUDY CLOUDY

58 43

CROSS CAMPUS Free lunch. An entire week

of lectures for European Economic History (ECON 186) was cancelled this week due to errors in room booking. Students and professor arrived at the course’s usual lecture hall on Tuesday to find the space already claimed by another event.

BROADWAY REP SHOW GOES ON TO NEW YORK

GIFTS

FINANCE

BANQUET

Administration pushes to close funding gap for new colleges

HARP OUTRAISES, OUTSPENDS ELICKER

Muslim community celebrates holiday, discusses outreach

PAGE 6-7 CULTURE

PAGE 3 NEWS

PAGE 3 CITY

PAGE 5 NEWS

E D U CAT I O N

Future of education in flux

Candidates pitch poverty solutions POVERTY FRONT AND CENTER FOR THE NEXT MAYOR BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER STAFF REPORTER

Class and sweaters. Among

the commonalities that knit Yalies together is a fondness for schlepping to and fro in the dead of winter wrapped in preppy sweaters. Hillflint, a startup touting “luxury sweaters,” has expanded their offering of Ivy League raglans to Yale. The first of their “soft as butter,” “delivered by Christmas” items includes a set of “flagship Australian Merino Wool” class sweaters customized by graduation year. Perfect for pairing with your Nantucket reds, all in true East Coast private school style. Each wool-wear experience will cost you $99.00.

Creature from the Trash Lagoon. Students on their

way to class Tuesday were assaulted by the sight of a creature covered in plastic bags and carrying the sign, “it’s GROWING in your kitchen.” The ‘Bag Monster’ was part of a campaign from Sustainability Service Corps urging students to sign a sustainability pledge. Boo State? Halloween specials

are being offered in the baked goods section of Blue State. Those getting a start on their trick or treating will find vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream frosting and candy corn decorations at the coffee shop this week.

further education improvements. Both Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10 and Toni Harp ARC ’78 — the two mayoral candidates — have detailed education platforms that include strategies to build upon the reform efforts already underway in New Haven’s School Change Initiative, a program championed by current Mayor John DeStefano Jr. Implemented in 2010, the School Change Initiative is meant to eliminate the achievement gap, cut the

Behind the hot-button campaign issues that have dominated the New Haven mayoral race lies a nagging fact: more than onequarter of the city’s residents lives in poverty. The wealth disparity among inner-city residents looms large among the challenges facing the candidate who emerges victorious from the Nov. 5 election, whether that is democratic-endorsed Toni Harp ARC ’78 or petitioning Independent candidate Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10. Both Harp and Elicker boast ambitious agendas promising redress for the city’s most salient problems. These include safer streets, higher-quality education accessible to more young people and economic development initiatives that will lure new industry to the city as a means of both refurbishing aged infrastructure and employing an inner-city population that has struggled to stay afloat during a 30-year-long exodus of

SEE EDUCATION PAGE 4

SEE POVERTY PAGE 8

TASNIM ELBOUTE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER, ALLIE KRAUSE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

T

he new mayor will take the helm during a transitional moment for education in the Elm City. POOJA SALHOTRA reports in the first of a series of five stories that examine major issues leading up to the mayoral election. Twenty years ago, New Haven education was characterized by crumbling school buildings, astonishing high school dropout rates and low standardized test scores that trailed

national averages. But today, New Haven is in the midst of a nationallyacclaimed education reform movement, and the community is looking to the next mayor to pave the way for

Yale moves away from private equity BY ADRIAN RODRIGUES STAFF REPORTER For the first time in eight years, the Yale Investments Office aims to decrease investments in private equity. Yale’s investment strategy under Chief Investment Officer David Swensen has traditionally favored private equity

investments, which are typically investments in funds that buy ownership interests in companies not publicly traded on the stock market. But for the fiscal year that began July 1, the Yale Investments Office lowered its target allocation toward private equity from 35 percent of the Yale endowment to 31 percent, accord-

ing to a statement released last month. While financial experts interviewed noted the change was slight, they added that the shift away from a high-risk asset could indicate a longterm trend. The decrease in private equity allocation may have been caused by the relative success of other asset classes

last year or by the fallout of the European debt crisis, said Andrew Lo ’80, a finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He added that the current “crisis-du-jour” financial system is more volatile than before, which may be causing investors to avoid investments that are illiquid, meaning not eas-

Library grows ever larger.

Yale was fortunate enough to acquire yet another catalog of ancient but respected literature as Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya, of Keio University in Japan, lent what may be the largest set of privately owned Middle English texts to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Among the 51 items are three copies of The Canterbury Tales — made without the aid of a printing press — for an English 125 reading experience like no other.

Back for more. James Ponsoldt ’01 who directed the recent film “The Spectacular Now (2013)” visited campus this week for a Master’s Tea in Morse and a screening of his 2012 film “Smashed.” Back in the day, Ponsoldt was quite the campus personality: Yale College Council President, varsity wide receiver, as well as managing editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1990 The dedication of the William Sloane Coffin ’49 common room is held in Rosenfeld Hall. Over 100 attend. Coffin served as the University chaplain from 1958 to 1975. Submit tips to Cross Campus

crosscampus@yaledailynews.com

ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus

YCC examines STEM weaknesses

ily sold for cash, such as private equity. “In the grand scheme of things, this is a small change, but at the same time, because of the illiquid nature of private equity, small changes tend to indicate significant views,” Lo said. “It’s the kind of thing SEE EQUITY PAGE 4

City sees 17th homicide

REPORT GAGES STUDENT RESPONSE TO STEM, IDENTIFIES DISSATISFACTION BY WESLEY YIIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In a report released Tuesday night, the Yale College Council’s science and engineering subcommittee identified key complaints from the student body about science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) departments on campus. The YCC’s 21-page report — titled “Report on Undergraduate STEM Experience” — drew from a spring 2013 survey of 542 undergraduates, and focused on problems within STEM fields at Yale. Over 70 percent of students surveyed were STEM majors, while the rest were non-STEM or undecided. The report identified five major suggestions for administrators in STEM fields — increasing grading transparency, making end-of-term evaluations more comprehensive, implementing midterm course evaluations, improving introductory classes and increasing the number of qualified professors. The report found that students are largely in support of implementing more midterm course evaluations in the STEM departments, with 42 percent of students responding that last semester’s end-of-term course evaluations played a large role in their

course decisions this semester. Students also gave largely mediocre ratings to introductory STEM courses — on a one to 10 scale, introductory physics courses received the lowest score of 5.64, and introductory chemistry courses received the highest score of 6.60. The free response section of the report also indicated that bad experiences in introductory courses discouraged many students from majoring in science fields. According to YCC academics chair David Lawrence ’15 and report coauthor Cory Combs ’14, the report aimed to evaluate all students’ perceptions of STEM fields, not just students majoring in STEM fields. “There’s so much discussion [about] the STEM experience at Yale,” Combs said. “We wanted to get a more data-driven analysis.” Lawrence and Combs both said the report was assembled to facilitate constructive discussion between students and administrators. The subcommittee spoke with professors and directors of undergraduate studies in the STEM departments, and Combs said that the group is in the process of figuring out which recommendations from the report to prioritize and pursue — though they have not finalized SEE STEM PAGE 4

MAREK RAMILO/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The murder of Deran Maebery marks the third homicide in three weeks in the Elm City. BY MAREK RAMILO STAFF REPORTER Just two days after New Haven saw its 16th homicide of the year, a 21-year old Elm City resident was gunned down at the city’s Westville Manor Public Housing complex on Monday evening before succumbing to his injuries at Yale-New Haven Hospital. At 6:18 p.m., New Haven Police Department officers were called to the 45 Wayfarer St. to respond to reports of gunfire and a shooting victim. They

found Deran Maebery in front of the residence, shot. The victim was rushed to the hospital to have his gunshot wounds treated, but the medical staff was unable to save him. At approximately 8:00 p.m., NHPD detectives arrested 20-year old New Haven resident Trey Mims for Maebery’s murder, but later found Mims to be innocent after conducting interviews and gathering additional evidence. By 11:20 p.m., Mims had been SEE HOMICIDE PAGE 8


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