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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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “The Ward 1 alderman's job is to represent the interests of the people yaledailynews.com/opinion
GUEST COLUMNIST N I C K D E F I E S TA
O
of an elite university. In a seminar with a professor known to reach out to struggling students, I felt ignored compared to those who had a better handle on the material. My favorite memory from the first months of freshman year was when I visited my high school friend at Northeastern University. In other words, it was very easy to feel that Yale was not, in fact, where I was supposed to be. Everybody else, so seemingly happy and at home, appeared a better fit for Yale. It was hard not to think I should have attended school with my friends at the University of Washington. This sentiment is nothing new — many college students feel this way at some point. University resources, from residential college deans on down, are there to help us face this reality, which is decidedly less shiny than University literature makes it out to be. But being told that Yale was where I was supposed to be only increased the pressure to fit in. Instead, I wish someone had told me: “You don’t belong here. Not yet.” As it turns out, the speech I needed to hear was similar to one recently suggested by Kevin Carey in the Chronicle of Higher Education. After witnessing a Stanford convocation address that told new students they all deserved to be on campus, Carey proposed an alternative: “Welcome, Freshmen. You Don’t Deserve to Be Here.” In it, he argues that Stanford students don’t deserve their spots until they’ve been earned, through service and self-discovery. I wish we had heard a message along these lines as we were welcomed to Yale. College is meant to be a place for all of us to discover ourselves, build our own homes and grapple with life’s challenges. Feeling like we’re in the wrong place is normal, an inherent part of the process. Three years after being overwhelmed by homesickness, I began my final year with hugs, kind words, a dinner held in my brother’s honor by my roommate. Had I lost Lukas at the start of freshman year I might have been set adrift. But this summer, as I stepped onto Yale’s campus, I realized Amar’s words finally ring true. It took me three years to reach this point, and that’s OK: I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Cut King’s race to the bottom
ANNELISA LEINBACH/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR
B
eware citizens of California, Florida, Oregon, Arizona, Ohio, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island and other states that have passed laws to reduce cruelty to farm animals and impose higher food safety standards. If U.S. Representative Steve King (R-IA)’s amendment to the Farm Bill — which will be debated in the House and Senate Farm Bill Conference Committee beginning today — becomes law, the farm animal welfare and food safety laws you passed, often by huge margins, may be toast. If enacted, the King Amendment, known as the “Protect Interstate Commerce Act,” would prohibit any state from imposing higher agricultural standards or conditions on foods produced or sold in other states. King argues that commerce is inhibited when standards differ among states. But he disregards one of the bedrock principles of his party: each state’s constitutional right to pass laws to protect its citizens. The amendment is so vaguely worded that experts say it would repeal decades’ worth of state
NICK DEFIESTA is a senior in Berkeley College and a former city editor for the News. Contact him at nick.defiesta@yale.edu .
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COPYRIGHT 2013 — VOL. CXXXVI, NO. 43
'UNDERGRAD_14' ON 'GOP FOR WARD 1?'
G U E ST C O LU M N I ST V I V E CA M O R R I S
Where we belong n Aug. 17, three days before I was to leave Seattle for New Haven, my 16-year-old brother died. The week that followed seemed to last both forever and but an instant: sob-filled phone calls, flowers and food, a never-ending revolving door of well-wishers. I made a mental list of things I came across, like the Japanese maple in front of our house and my 13-yearold dog Shady, which had, somehow, outlived my brother. Visions of Christmases with my two siblings and their kids became wishful thinking, glimpses at a future that would never come to pass. I don’t know how to answer when asked how many people are in my family. Everything about my relationships felt more significant, from hugs that lasted a few extra seconds to words chosen carefully to talk about what had happened. The biggest change of all, having been so recently reminded of life’s fragility, was in the way I said my goodbyes. On Aug. 23, my parents drove me to the airport and bid me my hardest farewell as I began my final year at Yale. Nearly three years before that flight, I had left my beloved Seattle, four family members in tow, to start my bright college years with a FOOT trip. Shortly afterwards, my class crammed into Woolsey Hall for our convocation ceremony. I don’t remember much from the proceedings — Dean Mary Miller taught us something about art history, and I might have been seated beside my suitemate Jack — but one moment has resonated with me over the past three years. Delivering the keynote address, law professor Akhil Amar told the assembled group not to fear: “You are where you’re supposed to be.” At that moment, I involuntarily shuddered in relief. Even after a few days, I had already started to feel a little out of place at my new home. Most of the people around me seemed like they had dressed up fairly regularly before college; I owned a total of one dress shirt. In the moment, it was comforting to know that my seat at Yale was not an accident. But Amar’s words were precisely the wrong thing to hear. While I left convocation feeling consoled by what Amar said, his assurance was of little help weeks later when the realities of freshman year set in. As I watched new friends find their homes by rushing a cappella or joining theater productions, I struggled with homesickness and navigating the halls
living in Ward 1. No more, no less.”
laws approved by voters regarding the intensive confinement of farm animals, shark finning, puppy mills and horse, dog and cat slaughter for meat. It would also repeal certain state laws protecting the environment, workers’ rights and food safety. California’s Proposition 2, for example, bans some of the cruelest factory farm practices including the extreme confinement of laying hens, mother pigs and veal calves. These humane laws — that currently impose higher standards on all growers that want to sell their eggs in California — would be nullified if the King Amendment passes. Likewise, California’s requirement that oysters from the Gulf of Mexico are processed to eliminate deadly bacteria before being sold to California citizens would be nixed. Under the King Amendment, Louisiana’s law that allows the sale of unprocessed oysters would supersede California’s stricter law, and prevent California from safeguarding its citizens. The King Amendment essentially sets up a “race to the bottom” in terms of farm animal welfare, food safety, farm work-
ers’ rights and environmental laws related to agriculture. This race to the bottom will surely benefit King’s industrial agriculture contributors, from whose lobbyists King received over $265,000 in 2012. But somebody has to pay the price. And those somebodies are farm animals, farm workers and us (as citizens and as eaters). The reason states pass agricultural regulations is because they think the federal standards are too low. Thus, the practical result of the King Amendment would be to strip agricultural regulatory power from the states. This consolidation of farm animal protection in federal hands is particularly galling given that farm animals are excluded from the definition of “animals” covered by the federal Animal Welfare Act. Wayne Pacelle ’87, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, says the King Amendment is “one of the most destructive and far-reaching anti-animal welfare provisions we’ve seen in decades.” The only people who benefit from the King Amendment are the stockholders of industrial
agribusinesses — like Smithfield Inc., which was sold to Chinese investors last month for $4.7 billion dollars — who seek lower animal welfare, health and environmental standards to boost their profits. The rest of us — people who eat, the farm animals, farm workers, the environment, and the state and local governments that have to pay for the environmental cleanup and health costs that result from lower standards — lose big. The government shutdown fight is now behind us, but the partisan fights over the behemoth five-year farm bill are heating up again. There is a lot at stake, and compromises will have to be made to get the bill passed. But lawmakers should not compromise on unnecessary cruelty. The noxious King Amendment needs to go. We can do better as a society and as a nation than to embark on a farm animal welfare and food safety race to the bottom. VIVECA MORRIS is a junior in Ezra Stiles College. Contact her at viveca.morris@yale.edu .
Reform Credit/D/Fail A
t the end of next week, students will be bombarded with emails reminding them of the Nov. 8 deadline to convert their courses from the Credit/D/Fail option to a letter grade. The current policy was set in 2004, as part of a faculty decision mandating that students could no longer fulfill distributional requirements with courses taken Credit/D/Fail. But a problem with this policy has become evident — the deadline for conversion is far too early. In most classes, grades at this point in the semester are not necessarily indicative of final grades. Many classes have second or third midterms remaining. Other classes assign grades based on cumulative assignments near the end of the semester. Some professors even take into account improvement throughout the semester when calculating final grades. With over a month remaining in the semester, students’ grades are bound to change. Next week’s deadline forces students to make early decisions regarding courses they have elected to take Credit/D/Fail. My classmates will carefully examine problem sets, papers and exams in an attempt to project what their final grades will likely be. Since most Yale students place a high value on their GPAs, they may
keep classes Credit/D/Fail but ultimately end up happy with their performances. W i t h o u t an accurate grade projecDIANA tion available, ROSEN many students will opt to play Looking Left it safe and not convert their grades. Once the conversion deadline passes, incentive to perform well in classes being taken Credit/D/Fail drops tremendously. This is especially true in cases where the student was seriously considering converting the grade, and thus was putting in significant effort for the first part of the semester. Students in this position may feel that the amount of work they put in prior to the deadline will be enough to keep them above the D cutoff. If the deadline to convert from Credit/D/Fail to letter grades were pushed to a later point in the semester, students would likely work harder in their courses for a longer period of time. It is reasonable to assume that some students would choose to convert to letter grades after having put in this
additional work. The YCC has been submitting recommendations for years on this topic. In 2007, they proposed that students should be able to wait to convert to a letter grade until after final course grades were available. Four years after that, they proposed that the deadline to initially declare a course Credit/D/Fail be three weeks later. And in 2012, the YCC proposed that the deadline to convert a class to a letter grade be pushed back. This year, the YCC has requested that the Teaching, Learning and Advising Standing Committee put Credit/D/Fail policy reform on the agenda for their 2014-'15 meeting. It’s clear that the student body is not content with the current policy. All three of the previously proposed YCC policies were rejected. A common administrative response to the suggestions was that they did not focus on the role of the Credit/D/Fail option in encouraging academic exploration. According to administrators, the suggestions were more concerned with protecting students’ GPAs. The Credit/D/Fail option does primarily exist to allow students to explore different subjects, and that is how most use the system. This does not mean, however, that policies regarding Credit/D/ Fail should ignore the fact that
students care about maintaining their GPAs. As much as some faculty and administrators may wish that students would focus less on their grades, the fact of the matter is that our GPAs do matter. Given that they are used in determining admission to graduate school, post-graduate employment and more it would be concerning if students were not worried about their grades. The administrative committees that continue to reject Credit/D/Fail reform proposals need to consider the possibility that GPA protection is not inherently a bad reason to reform the system. It can be argued that pushing back the conversion deadline will lead to grade inflation. But it can also be argued that the reverse is the case. If fewer classes are taken Credit/D/Fail, professors might end up distributing more B or B+ grades. The fact of the matter is, it’s nearly impossible to predict what the exact result of this policy change would be. What is clear, however, is that students are unhappy with the present policy. It is time for the administration to seriously consider the proposals the YCC is handing them. DIANA ROSEN is a sophomore in Pierson College. Contact her at diana. rosen@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
NEWS New colleges push toward $500 million
“Fundraising is very, very time consuming.” ARLEN SPECTER U.S. SENATOR
Harp widens fundraising lead
BY MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS STAFF REPORTER One month after a $250 million gift jumpstarted the development of Yale’s two new residential colleges, the University is working to close the gap to its $500 million fundraising goal. Although University Vice President for Development Joan O’Neill declined to say precisely how much the University has left to raise, she said less than $75 million separate the Development Office from its target. O’Neill added that despite the lack of a hardset deadline for the completion of fundraising, she hopes to collect all of the necessary funds by the end of Yale’s fiscal year in June 2014. Both O’Neill and University President Peter Salovey said the recent gift — donated by mutual fund billionaire Charles Johnson ’54 — has brought new energy to the project, which began in 2008 but floundered during the financial crisis and ensuing economic slowdown. The sudden $250 million boost toward the University’s goal has shown potential donors “a light at the end of the tunnel” for the new residential colleges, Salovey said. “The announcement gave people a clear sense that we have a very targeted goal to raise in order to move forward on the colleges,” O’Neill said. “That’s very motivational, it gives [alumni] a clear sense of how they can make a difference.”
The extension of [residential colleges] 13 and 14 is more than just bricks and mortar. MARY MILLER Dean, Yale College Still, Yale does not plan to break ground on the colleges until February 2015, according to a University-wide email from Provost Benjamin Polak sent earlier this month. The two new colleges are estimated to be completed in 2017. The announcement of the Johnson gift informed the Yale community that there was still $80 million to raise at the end of September. In the hours following the announcement, Salovey received a call from a personal friend of Johnson’s pledging a further $5 million to the residential colleges, leaving $75 million left to raise. Although she did not provide the specifics of the remaining sum, O’Neill said she hopes to have more news soon. Other staff members at the University’s Development Office declined to comment on the status of fundraising for the colleges. Though many alumni were on campus earlier this month for Salovey’s inauguration, O’Neill said the weekend was not a fundraising event and that she had not expected donors to commit to making major gifts. Still, O’Neill said that expanded access to Yale, in particular through the new colleges — which will be entirely funded by donations — was a theme of the inauguration. But in the following weeks, Salovey has been focused on fundraising, adding that he has spent “several days on the road.” The new residential colleges have likely been a primary topic of discussion, O’Neill said. At the same time, the University continues to advertise opportunities to name physical spaces in the new colleges, which it refers to as the “North College” and the “South College,” on the website of the Development Office. Among the spaces listed are the North College West Tower, which a donor can name for $100 million, the South College Tower, for $50 million and a fitness center for $1 million. O’Neill said some of these spaces have already been tentatively reserved for naming by major donors to the colleges. “We have some that are on hold while the donors are thinking about what they may want to do,” O’Neill said. “Sometimes they’ll decide that they want to name it for themselves, sometimes they’ll want to name it for a [relative or someone they admire.]” O’Neill declined to say which spaces have been reserved. She also declined to say whether the University has made any progress in naming the colleges. Beyond physical spaces, development efforts for the colleges have focused on securing funding to support the additional 800 students who will live in the new colleges. “The extension of [residential colleges] 13 and 14 is more than just bricks and mortar,” Yale College Dean Mary Miller said. “Perhaps the single most important consideration for me is making sure the funding is in place to underpin the expansion of the new colleges for financial aid.” Miller, along with Polak, chairs a committee charged with preparing the University for the influx of new students. Johnson’s net worth is $5.6 billion, according to Forbes. Contact MATTHEW LLOYD-THOMAS at matthew.lloyd-thomas@yale.edu .
TASNIM ELBOUTE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Mayoral candidate Toni Harp ARC ’78, whose donations total $503,496, has outraised and outspent her competition. BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER STAFF REPORTER One week before the election, mayoral campaign coffers revealed on Tuesday show democraticendorsed candidate Toni Harp ARC ’78 with a handy fundraising lead over her opponent, Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10. Harp raised $104,835 in the final fundraising period of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed Tuesday afternoon. That is more than triple the funds won by Elicker in the same threeweek window between Oct. 4 and Oct. 27. Bound by public campaign finance rules that limit individual contributions to $370 and prohibit special interest and PAC money, Elicker raked in $33,441. Harp has now surpassed half a million dollars in total donations, raising a total of $503,496 since entering the race in April. Elicker came a few hundred thousand dollars short of that figure, raising an aggregate $308,481 over the course of the campaign. In addition to outraising her opponent, Harp has also outspent him. Harp’s filings report a current campaign balance of $8,324, while Elicker has $24,000 on hand, revealing divergent expenditure levels in the weeks leading up to the election. “We raised what we needed to raise, and we’ll keep raising money
up until Election Day,” Jason Barlett, Harp’s campaign manager, said. He added that fundraising drives over the past few days have continued to replenish funds, and said he was confident the campaign would have enough cash on hand to deliver a victory at the polls. Elicker emphasized that his campaign continues to be funded from within New Haven, saying that 86 percent of his contributions were from city residents. He contrasted that figure to Harp’s base of financial support, which he said came from individuals and groups from out of town expecting political favors in return for their donations. Elicker said his campaign is on more secure financial footing than Harp’s. His careful management of expenditures, he added, proves he would be a more fiscally prudent mayor. “I think it’s incredibly important for a candidate to run a campaign similarly to how they would run the city, and so we have worked very hard to make sure that we never went into the red,” he said. At the beginning of the month, Harp’s campaign was running a negative balance, a fact Harp dismissed at a debate last week by saying the alleged deficit was insignificant given that campaign had not yet concluded. In the past three weeks, Harp received $92,465 from individuals and $12,120 from political action
committees, including strong financial support from local labor unions backing the democratically endorsed candidate. Local 34, the New Haven Central Labor Council and AFSCME 269 each contributed $1,500.
As much as our opponent likes to tout his New Haven fundraising, it comes primarily from one neighborhood. JASON BARTLETT Manager, Toni Harp campaign Elicker’s donations came from individuals concentrated within New Haven in addition to a small smattering of donors from the suburbs. The average donation to his campaign was roughly $114. Top donors giving the maximum $370 included Yale professors Jacob Hacker GRD ’00, Paul Bloom and Justin Neuman, as well as Yale School of Medicine professor Katherine McKenzie. Elicker criticized Harp for taking PAC money and assembling an economic development campaign team that includes “people who have been involved in scandals in New Haven.”
His criticism refers to campaign support Harp has drawn from two figures under scrutiny in the 1990s for allegedly corrupt dealings in city hall. Anthony Avallone, a former Connecticut state senator and city development commissioner, resigned in 1992 after he was implicated in multiple zoning and taxrelief scandals. Sal Brancati, a former development chief under outgoing New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., left city hall around the turn of the century amid corruption scandals involving officials taking advantage of public posts to enhance their personal wealth. Bartlett dismissed the criticisms, saying Harp’s breadth of fundraising support is proof of her accomplishments across the city and the state. “As much as our opponent likes to tout his New Haven fundraising, it comes primarily from one neighborhood,” Bartlett said, referring to East Rock, which Elicker represents along with the Cedar Hill neighborhood on the board of aldermen. “We have campaign support from all neighborhoods and from across the state, and we have strong labor support.” Harp’s individual contributions are capped at $1,000. Contact ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER at isaac.stanley-becker@yale.edu .
Firefighter agreement hot off the press BY LARRY MILSTEIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After three years of negotiation, a tentative oral agreement concerning a new five-year contract has been reached between the city of New Haven and the local firefighter union. The potential contract — which addresses issues related to health care, pension and mandatory staffing — is “in the final inning” of completion, said firefighter union president James Kottage. Still, he noted that some problems related to the language of the contract must be resolved before it is enacted. City Hall spokeswoman Anna Mariotti, said that it would be premature to label the finalized negotiation as anything more than a tentative agreement. “It is [currently] not a contract, it is not legal, it is not voted on, it is not in effect,” Mariotti said. Some of the tentative agreement’s more notable aspects deal with pension reform, health care coverage and mandatory staffing. Mariotti could not comment on the specific amount saved under the new contract. Kottage explained that the union was firmly against any tier policy in which some members would receive more benefits than others. “Everyone currently, young and old, senior and not senior, would have the same benefits,” Kottage said. Though retired firefighters will not have changes in their pension plans, future firefighters will have their pensions reflect the base pay and will feel a large brunt of the cost cuts. The tentative agreement also outlines a shift in health care coverage from conventional preferred provider organization (PPO) to a healthcare savings account (HSA), according to city officials. Under the new plan, individuals would be respon-
FIRSTNAME LASTNAME/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A tentative agreement between the city and firefighter union will affect pensions, health care coverage and staffing levels. sible for managing their funds rather than using a co-pay system, as is currently in place. The HSA will be partially funded by the city through deductibles and if enacted, the firefighter union will be the first union in New Haven to have all active members under this type of plan. Finally, if the tentative agreement is passed, mandatory staffing levels will shift from 73 firefighters on duty to 72. Since this change will be implemented across four divisions, it will yield a net decrease of four firefighters and will save the city around $560,000, Kottage said. “We do think that the tentative agreement is good because it is fair to workers but it also helps save the city money,” Mariotti said. However, unless a consensus can be reached in the next couple weeks on some unresolved phrasing and terminology throughout the contract, the negotiation risks going in front of a panel of arbitrators who would then hand down a rul-
ing at the end of November or early December. As for meeting an exact deadline, union vice-president Frank Ricci said that the union will continue working with the city to ensure the terms of the written contract reflect the oral agreement. While Kottage and Mariotti describe the contract as “fair” given the tough economic times, the three-year negotiation has not been entirely uncontentious. Though he acknowledged that it is difficult to make financial decisions in tough economic times, Kottage said that the mayor could have done more to prioritize the fire service. “Sometimes things get a little personal … when the time [came] to make tough decisions, you know, it felt like the mayor backed away from the fire service a little bit,” Kottage said. Still, he noted that the union endorsed DeStefano in the previous election and that they have always
maintained a good relationship with the mayoral office. Mariotti said that the tentative agreement is comparable to similar contracts that have been reached with the firefighter unions in the past, such as the one between the city and the police department from March of this year. Firefighters are the primary focus, but the contract also focuses on ways the city can cut costs in pensions and healthcare. After the contract wording is finalized and approved by both negotiating parties, the next step will be to inform union members about the details, Kottage said. “Once they are educated, I believe it will pass by a large margin,” he added. The previous firefighter contract, which gave way to the current contract negotiations, expired on June 30, 2011. Contact LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ALBERT EINSTEIN PHYSICIST
STEM satisfaction probed EFFECT50 OF CLASS EVALUATIONS ON COURSE INTEREST 44.75%
40
EQUITY FROM PAGE 1
41.99%
30 20 10.31%
10 2.95%
0
No effect
STEM FROM PAGE 1 plans to engage with administrators. Combs said he was impressed by the thoroughness of students’ responses in the free response sections, as many students provided thoughtful answers but seemed to realize the difficulties of resolving large bureaucratic issues. For example, Combs said, many students expressed a desire to see more standardized and transparent grading in their STEM courses, but also acknowledged that this could lead to more “grade obsession.”
Small effect Some effect Large effect
One recommendation that emerged entirely out of responses in the free response section was the suggestion to increase the number of qualified STEM professors on campus. According to the report, a large percentage of students commented on teacher quality, with many pointing to uninspiring and uninterested professors as a major problem within STEM education at Yale. Adrien Gau ’17, who is currently enrolled in introductory classes in the chemistry and geology and geophysics departments, said science courses are taught in an “inherently differ-
ent” way from other Yale courses. Although she finds the courses interesting, she said, they tend to assume a lot of prior knowledge, which alienates many students from the STEM fields. Despite having a good experience in STEM courses overall, ecology and evolutionary biology major Alaric D’Souza ’14 said he felt that teaching in many of the departments could be improved. “I don’t think the teachers’ records are looked at enough when they are considered for positions,” D’Souza said. D’Souza also said that STEM courses, especially larger lec-
Yale downsizes private equity
SOURCE: YCC REPORT
tures or introductory courses, may benefit from breaking free of the typical midterm-andexam structure. For instance, he said, one course he has taken at Yale replaced the usual end-ofterm exam with a final paper that allowed students to engage with scientific research and expand their writing and analytical skills. The report, edited by Lawrence, was written by 12 members of the YCC science and engineering subcommittee. Contact WESLEY YIIN at wesley.yiin@yale.edu .
that does bode some kind of longer-term trend. I would certainly take note and keep a watchful eye on that part of the investment universe.” Other financial experts interviewed were more cautious, asserting that the change was too small to suggest that Yale is moving away from illiquid investments. William Jarvis ’77, managing director of the Commonfund Institute, said 31 percent of the Yale endowment is still a significant investment in private equity, adding that it would have been hard for Yale to continue increasing its allocation toward that asset class. A 2012 report by the Commonfund Institute found that in fiscal 2012, institutions with endowments over one billion dollars invested an average of 16 percent of their assets in private equity. The Yale endowment was valued at $20.8 billion as of June 30. MIT finance professor Jean-Noel Barrot said Yale’s share of private equity has dropped, but only back to its level in 2010. “Until we see this share going down more, I would be a bit cautious in forecasting a long term shift in strategy,” he said. However, Wick Sloane SOM ’84 and former chief financial officer of the University of Hawaii said he is still uncomfortable with the level of risk that Yale undertakes in its investments. In the financial world, the “riskfree” benchmark is con-
sidered to be U.S. Treasury securities, which have a 30-year return rate of 3.62 percent, he said. In order to achieve returns higher than that number, endowments are investing in more illiquid assets and taking on additional risk, Sloane added. “Who gave you the right to take this endowment and chase returns nearly four times higher than the risk-free rate?” he wrote in an email to the News. “No one did.” Sloane added the decrease in private equity asset allocation is “a step in the right direction.” S e v e ra l financial experts interviewed said other institutions might follow Yale and decrease their investments in private equity as well. Private equity is a particularly difficult area to invest in because strong returns can take eight or nine years after the initial investment to materialize, Jarvis said. He added that it is dangerous to look at changes in endowment allocation at a fixed point in time. He cited Yale’s investment in timber, which began in the early 1990s, but did not generate large returns until the early 2000s. “You’re watching where the puck is, not where the puck is going to be,” he said. In fiscal 2013, the endowment’s private equity assets returned 14.4 percent. The entire endowment posted a return of 12.5 percent. Contact ADRIAN RODRIGUES at adrian.rodrigues@yale.edu .
Candidates compare education plans EDUCATION FROM PAGE 1 high school dropout rate in half and ensure that students are academically prepared to succeed in and graduate from college. Elicker and Harp both said that the current education landscape is miles ahead of what it was twenty years ago, but they have articulated different approaches to solving remaining problems including an achievement gap along race and class lines. Justin Elicker’s vision for stronger schools includes three areas of focus: early-childhood education, character education and transparent policymaking. “I think we have spent a lot of time focusing on the outside of schools,” Elicker said — referring to DeStefano’s $1.5 billion campaign to rebuild all of New Haven’s school buildings. “As mayor I would address the inside of schools, making sure that kids are getting the best education possible.” Harp’s campaign similarly includes a focus on widening access to early-childhood education, but differs in its other tenets. Harp’s main strategies include holding every school accountable, giving students higher education or career experiences and rethinking adult education. “We need to make sure that every student is given a pathway to success, whether that is through taking college classes in high school or getting the work experience they need to find a job,” she said.
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
Hundreds of scientific studies have linked quality early childhood education with positive outcomes including decreased juvenile arrests, lower high school dropout rates and a higher likelihood of future employment. Experts interviewed said access to a quality preschool education is critical in determining whether a child will ultimately graduate from high school and attain a successful career. Given this wealth of data suggesting that investments in early childhood education yield positive results, both candidates said uni-
versal preschool will be one of their top priorities. Under DeStefano’s leadership, preschool education has become an area of focus. DeStefano established a council dedicated to increasing the quantity and quality of early childhood programs in New Haven — and since 1995 the number of children getting a Pre-K experience has jumped from 63.2 percent to 73.9 percent, the highest of any urban district in the state. Still, the high cost prevents many low-income families from sending their kids to preschools. According to Connecticut Voices for Children, 86 percent of all infants and toddlers from lowincome families are not served by state or federal subsidies for early care and education. “Kids from low-income families are coming into kindergarten with lower vocabularies than their peers,” said executive officer of ConnCAN Jennifer Alexander. “Providing high quality preschool will help set them on the right track.” For Harp, expanding early education is one way she will solve what she considers the biggest challenge the district faces: the achievement gap. Harp’s early education plan calls for a citywide initiative that combines funds from Head Start, special education and school readiness as well as unrestricted funds to create a central facility where anyone, regardless of family income, can access quality Pre-K education. Harp said combining these different citywide funds will make Pre-K available for all children in the city. Like Harp, Elicker said that in order for every child to be able to attend preschool, there ultimately must be more slots available. But in the interim, since this expansion would require additional funds from the state and federal governments, he said the city should try to make the present system easier for parents to maneuver. “Right now, navigating the system is a bureaucratic nightmare,” he said, adding that he has spoken to parents who are confused by the current enrollment process. He explained that parents are required to go to different locations
in the city for an interview depending on whether the education option is funded by Head Start, School Readiness or a Magnet program. The leaders of the different programs are not in communication with each other, Elicker said, so parents may not be told about the school that is most appropriate for their child. In order to make the current system run more efficiently, he proposes the “No Wrong Door” policy, where parents can walk into any school and enroll their child in preschool. Superintendent of NHPS Garth Harries ’95 agreed that the current system has inefficiencies, and said that in the last year, a redistricting committee has focused on clarifying the enrollment process. “Obviously the programs are different so they each have to be managed differently,” he said. “But when the net result is that the parents are confused about what their options are, we need to address that.” Both Elicker and Harp have expressed their dedication to expanding early childhood education in New Haven, but political figures like Sen. Chris Murphy and Yale’s labor unions said Harp’s experience at the state level will help her implement her proposals. In an official endorsement, The New Haven Register said Harp, unlike Elicker, has built strong relationships with Gov. Dannel Malloy’s administration and the Board of Aldermen. In this week’s debate between Ward 1 aldermanic candidates, Sarah Eidelson said that Harp’s recent role in securing a $750,000 grant to support youth violence programs demonstrates that she can initiate change. Elicker supporters said that his experience in the city of New Haven gives him a better idea of the education issues specific to the Elm City. Several Yalies said that Elicker’s efforts to interact with both students and residents leave him prepared to represent New Haven and address issues including early childhood education. “I honestly haven’t even seen much of Toni Harp’s platform on education, but Elicker is very
accessible and his education platform is provocative,” Ward 1 Alderman candidate Paul Chandler ’14 said. “He is community-oriented, which will help him get the job done.”
DIVERGING AREAS OF FOCUS
While both candidates agree that access to early education is critical, they have different ideas of how the city should invest in education reform. Harp said that more resources should be directed to improving adult education opportunities. Often times, kids who drop out of school later realize that they need an education to succeed and they decide to go back to get a degree, Harp said. Currently, New Haven has over 2,000 students in adult education programs, and while regular classrooms spend 17,000 to 18,000 dollars per student, the city only spends approximately 800 for adult students, she said. “I believe people deserve a second chance and that our school system needs to give adults the kinds of skills they need to move forward with their lives,” Harp said. She added that she did not think that Elicker had ever articulated a policy on adult education. While Harp plans to direct resources towards adult education, Elicker said that one of his main focuses as mayor would be character education, an idea that writer Paul Tough pioneered in his book “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.” Tough argues that character traits like grit, perseverance and optimism are better predictors of success than math and reading test scores, Elicker said. Elicker said skills like anger management, honesty and diligence will help students develop tools to succeed academically. Implementing character education in schools, Elicker said, would require everyone who plays a role in a child’s development to work together. “It isn’t like you teach character education in a class,” he said. “This needs to be the culture of the whole school.” Elicker added that some schools in the district including Achieve-
ment First and New Haven Academy — have integrated personal development into their education systems and have been successful, but that the district should work to systematically incorporate the curriculum into all schools. Harries has also talked about implementing personal development into NHPS, and five parents interviewed at a recent Title I meeting said that they agree that schools should integrate character development into their curriculums. Jessie Lopez, the parent of two NHPS students, said that she supports character education as a way for students to learn skills beyond test taking and homework. When asked about the value of character education, Harp said that she was not sure whether such a program would be impactful in New Haven. “Honestly, I’m not really sure what Elicker means by character education,” she said. “And I haven’t seen any numbers that show it would work with the population we have here.”
HYBRID BOARD OF EDUCATION
When voters fill out their ballots on Nov. 5, they will not only be selecting a mayoral candidate, they will also vote on changes to the city charter that affect the education system. One charter revision question on the ballot asks voters whether they support changing the makeup of the Board of Education from a mayor-appointed model to partially elected board. Currently, New Haven’s Board of Education consists of the mayor and seven members appointed by the mayor. If voters approve the charter revision, however, the Board would be partially elected, comprised of the Mayor, four appointed members, two elected members and two non-voting student representatives. Both Harp and Elicker said they support an elected Board of Education, as elections increase transparency and give community members a greater voice in education reform initiatives. However, Harries said an elected board may politicize education, giving special interest groups a chance to manipulate the system. Hybrid school
boards, he added, serve as a good compromise. While the mayoral candidates will not determine whether the makeup of the Board will change, the extent to which they have addressed the hybrid board reveals how they will approach other aspects of school reform, said Yale’s Director of Education Studies Elizabeth Carroll. Both candidates said that they support the charter reform on the ballot, though only Elicker incorporates the hybrid board as part of his education platform. “Toni has stated that if voters decide to revise the charter she will obviously go along with it, but she doesn’t seem to view it as a key priority,” Carroll said. “Elicker’s support for transparent policymaking is directly tied in with the city’s charter reform, which makes it seem like his platform is New Haven-focused whereas it seems like Harp could be running on the same platform in any small city.” A lack of enthusiasm for a hybrid board could be well founded, Carroll added, noting that the School Change Initiative was created and implemented by a school board appointed by the mayor. Additionally, a report by the Center for American Progress found that mayoral governance has improved urban school districts — including New Haven — by narrowing the district-state achievement gap andgiving districts an ability to leverage revenues to support K-12 education. Currently, New Haven is the only district in Connecticut with a fully appointed board, so a transition to a hybrid board would align with state trends. Whether Harp or Elicker takes office in January, the city will continue to see education reform, and gradually, the city can continue to build off of what was started through the School Change Initiative, said Director of Public School Partnerships Claudia Merson. “Education reform isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon,” she said. “And I’m optimistic that the next mayor will make new strides.” Contact POOJA SALHOTRA at pooja.salhotra@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 5
NEWS
“If there hadn’t been women, we’d still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.” ORSON WELLES AMERICAN ACTOR AND DIRECTOR
Eid Banquet celebrates Muslim community BY JI WON LEE STAFF REPORTER Over 500 students and faculty members crowded into Commons on Tuesday night for a dinner in celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid-al-Adha. Hosted by the Yale Muslim Students Association and the University Chaplain’s Office, the 12th annual Eid Banquet gathered Muslims and non-Muslims together for a two-hour dinner that featured short speeches by students and faculty, as well as a keynote address by Omid Safi, an Islamic studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The event celebrated the second of two religious holidays with the name Eid honored by Muslims each year. Eid-al-Adha means the “festival of the sacrifice.” Though the holiday specifically honors the submission of the prophet Abraham to God, the event generally promoted a spirit of gathering and inclusiveness by sending invitations to all Yale undergraduates. The dinner was attended by guests from the local Muslim community, as well as prominent members of the Yale community such as Yale College Dean Mary Miller, University President Peter Salovey, and Salovey’s wife Marta Moret SPH ’84. “To me, [Eid] means togetherness,” said Yale Muslim Students Association president Didem Kaya ’16 at the start of the dinner. In his keynote speech, Safi
said he believes that having faith in God should involve extending love to all of humanity, and that fighting injustice in society is the key to loving people. Citing Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of radical love in action, Safi called on the dinner’s attendees to “go to that difficult and uncomfortable place” to make morally righteous choices. Safi also criticized the current American government, which he said spends too much money on military endeavors, while it should instead be focusing on improving the lives of citizens in other respects — such as solving problems in education, healthcare, student loans and environmental issues. “Love and empire don’t mix. Justice and empire don’t mingle,” Safi said. Other speakers at the dinner addressed the importance of religious diversity and of having an open and supportive community at Yale. University Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86 said that she believes religious pluralism and practice are transformative experiences that are key to higher education. Goff-Crews added that the University is dedicated to providing an environment in which students can freely explore religious diversity and develop the religious literacy that is necessary in today’s international society. As Omer Bajwa, the coordinator of Muslim life in the Yale Chaplain’s Office, explained the
meaning of the holiday of Eid, he emphasized the importance of the lessons of faith, gratitude and charity. Student speakers also made appearances at the dinner. Muneeb Mohideen ’15 delivered a reading from the Quran, and Ishrat Mannan ’17 and Shuaib Raza ’14 gave reflection speeches on their experiences at Yale. Raza said that the large amounts of support from the Chaplain’s Office and the Muslim community at Yale have helped him grow and experience a sense of unity among friends. Students interviewed after the dinner said that they found the event meaningful, and that the keynote speech — which touched on the responsibility of individuals to ensure justice in society — resonated with them as Yale students. “I am always impressed with the number and diversity of guests who celebrate the Eid Dinner,” said Iwona Chalus ’16, a student who attended the dinner. “To me, it’s a further proof of the unity of the Yale community.” Abrar Omeish ’17 said that the event was a good chance for people to become more aware of Muslim culture, especially because the Muslim community is not very highly represented in Yale’s student body. The dinner began at 6:30 p.m. with a welcome speech by Kaya, and lasted until around 9 p.m. Contact JI WON LEE at jiwon.lee@yale.edu .
CARLY LOVEJOY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The 12th annual Eid Banquet featured three student speeches as well as a keynote address by Omid Safi.
Journalist describes undercover slaughterhouse reporting BY NICOLE NG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Chronicling his stint as a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat inspector, journalist Ted Conover spoke on Tuesday about his experiences immersing himself in the topics he writes about. At a Morse College master’s tea on Tuesday afternoon, Conover — a non-fiction writer and participatory journalist — spoke to an audience of roughly 40 students and faculty members about how he temporarily adopts new identities and professions in order to present truthful experiences through his writing. In his most recent long-form story, Conover spent two months as a USDA meat inspector in order to present an account of the everyday lives of slaughterhouse workers. “I don’t make the decision to try to sneak into another world lightly, but I think there are some very important places in American life from which the public is excluded,” Conover said. “The public has a strong interest in what goes on there, but it’s very difficult to obtain if you announce yourself as a writer or journalist.” When asked by Morse College Master Amy Hungerford to describe the planning of his slaughterhouse piece, Conover
said he was looking for a way to inconspicuously enter a slaughterhouse — and that he applied for the USDA inspector position after learning that all U.S. slaughterhouses are required to operate with an inspector, and that he qualified for the job simply by holding a college degree. Conover said he wanted to write his story about the day-today aspects of the slaughterhouse industry to learn how its employees live and think about the nature of their work. He added that he did not want to write anything like Upton Sinclair’s 1906 exposé on the faults of the industry, but rather an everyday account of working in a slaughterhouse. “By putting myself in that situation, I understand a bit of that pain, that life,” Conover said. “You don’t understand completely, but you learn more than if you had never gone or just called someone on the phone.” When Hungerford asked Conover what he learned through his experiences in participatory journalism, Conover said he was surprised by the connections he was able to build with other individuals. He found that he could spend time with other slaughterhouse workers if he set aside his college degree and adopted a “we’re all in this together” type of mentality, he said.
But because the institutional nature of slaughterhouses can change a person’s behavior, Conover said he often struggled between feeling a part of the industry and staying true to his own self. “I don’t think you can feel you really belong if you’re undercover, because you can’t express yourself in a full and honest way,” Conover said. “It’s a form of research I don’t recommend, because it’s hard over time to not be able to feel you belong or tell your friends back home.” Conover’s finished piece opens with an account of the last minutes of a cow’s life. But though Conover recognized inhumane animal treatment as an important issue, he said he chose to represent it as an underlying message rather than an overt theme. “The idea that you can write more even-handedly and speak to more people was a really insightful way of thinking about writing,” said Leland Whitehouse ’14, a student present at the talk. “You can channel your outrage in a way that makes it more effective than just angry and visceral.” Conover stressed the importance of being honest with readers to gain their trust. Though readers criticized him for not becoming a vegan after his stint in the slaughterhouse, Conover
ALEXANDRA SCHMELING/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Journalist Ted Conover spoke at a Morse College master’s tea about his long-form, immersive journalism. explained that he did not want to pretend to have moved onto a higher moral plane. Journalism, he said, is never objective, and it is futile to ask journalists to completely distance themselves from their stories. Arielle Stambler ’14, another student at the talk, said
Conover’s advice greatly resonated with her. “Whenever you’re writing anything, I think that you automatically bring a whole set of preconceived notions, and those notions may be proven or disproven by the experience you have as a journalist,” Stambler
said. Conover graduated from Amherst College and was a Marshall Scholar. He is currently a writer-in-residence at New York University. Contact NICOLE NG at nicole.ng@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
ARTS & CULTURE
“That’s always — that’s been another dream of mine, to do a Broadway play. An awardwinning Broadway play.” JANET JACKSON AMERICAN SINGER AND ACTRESS
Rep play advances to Broadway
Residents create maps of Elm City BY HELEN ROUNER STAFF REPORTER
YALE REPERTORY THEATER
Brooklyn-based playwright Will Eno will debut his play, “The Realistic Joneses,” on Broadway in March 2014. The play is the first Yale Repertory Theatre’s Binger Center for New Theatre production to advance to the big stage since the center’s founding in 2008. BY ERIC XIAO STAFF REPORTER For the first time in its history, the Yale Repertory Theatre’s Binger Center for New Theatre will send a show to Broadway. After being named one of the New York Times’ Top Ten Productions of 2012, “The Realistic Joneses,” a play by Brooklyn-based playwright Will Eno that had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre last year, will be staged on Broadway in March 2014. It will be the first ever Rep-commissioned production supported by the theater’s Binger Center for New Theatre to advance to Broadway since the
Center’s founding in 2008. The Binger Center allots resources to the commissioning, development and production of plays and musicals at the Rep and across the U.S. Director of the New Play programs at the Binger Center Jennifer Kiger said she commissioned Eno to write the play partly because of his ability to convey broad human experiences through a simple array of characters and sets on stage. “I am intrigued by [Eno’s] ability to write about very large ideas, like who we are and why the universe works the way it does, and crystallize them into a small human scale,” Kiger said. Eno said his play revolves
around the anxiety of individuals who struggle to cope with challenges such as illness and mortality, noting that this anxiety is a force that can both unite and divide people. He said he thinks many audiences are able to relate to the events of the play; unlike much of his work, “The Realistic Joneses” does not contain a single supernatural element. “Joneses” is the most realistic play he has ever written, Eno said. “The circumstances of the characters in the play are things that we all have to face,” Eno said. “The main thing was to try to come up with distinctive responses to the pretty common problems the characters, and all
the rest of us, face.” Playwright David Adjmi, whose 2012 play “Marie Antoinette” was commissioned by the Rep, said that Rep-commissioned artists’ works tend to present general themes in surprising ways. Though every playwright has a different artistic style, Adjmi said the universality of the themes explored in the pieces supported by the Binger Center unite the diverse body of commissioned work. Kiger said the Binger Center’s process for commissioning artists is unique because the opportunity to write a play for the Rep constitutes only a part of the lasting relationship the theater
A Tuesday talk at the Yale Center for British Art explored in detail an 18thcentury British sculpture. The lecture, titled “Love and Death,” zeroed in on British sculptor Joseph Wilton’s marble bust of landowner Thomas Dawson, completed around 1770. Matthew Hargraves, curator for collections research at the YCBA, discussed the piece in front of an audience of several dozen Yale students, faculty members, YCBA affiliates and members of the general public. “Love and Death” was the latest installment in the YCBA’s “Art in Context” series — a lecture series which has remained a staple at the museum for more than two decades, said Linda Friedlaender, YCBA’s curator of education and organizer of the series. “[The series] allows us to invite scholars coming from many different worlds … and let them really focus on an individual object that they know a great deal about and ‘open out’ that object in new and interesting ways for viewers who come,” YCBA Director Amy Meyers said. The bust is surrounded by portraits of the upper echelons of 18th-century British society — works replete with trappings of feminine aristocracy such as lavish ruffles of silk and satin, and elaborate headwear. One of King George III’s closest companions, Dawson ran in the same social circles as the women whose portraits adorn the gallery’s walls. But the bust, Hargraves explained, is not merely a depiction of a wealthy aristocrat. He said the bust possesses features unusual for its time, adding that the work’s unique characteristics initially drew him to the piece. Unlike analogous contemporary busts that contain an element of self-
sufficiency, Hargraves said, Wilton’s bust of Dawson seems to “need something outside of itself.” Hargraves also emphasized the piece’s twofold meaning — on one hand, it showcases Dawson mourning the loss of his first wife; on the other, it represents a new kind of man, one who was spontaneous, natural and in touch with his feelings. Cyra Levenson, the YCBA’s associate curator of education, said the the “Art in Context” lecture series reveals the unique underpinnings of museum objects — the kind of details that visitors may often overlook.
of any other theater in the country that would have funded a production as idiosyncratic, challenging and expensive as his play, “Marie Antoinette.” “We have an incentive and an obligation to take risks that other theaters wouldn’t take,” Bundy said. “We can’t be reckless or foolhardy about it but if a great university can’t take risks, who can?” The next Rep production supported by the Binger Center, “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls” by Meg Miroshnik DRA ’11, will open on Jan. 31, 2014. Contact ERIC XIAO at eric.xiao@yale.edu .
ERIC EPSTEIN Starter, “I Map New Haven” Epstein said that the idea for the project grew out of a conversation he and Fox had about new technologies that have caused hand-drawn maps to disappear from use. In May last year, Fox and Epstein collaborated on another project in which they and a third artist posted large planks covered with chalkboard paint on a brick wall. On the planks, they repeatedly copied the words “Before I die I want to,” and passers-by wrote their responses on the boards. As a part of this year’s CityWide Open Studios, Epstein worked on a similar project in which he posted boards bearing the words “New mayor, remember to.” “We like to engage people in playful dialogue,” Epstein said. Epstein said that “I Map New Haven” will likely continue until its one-year anniversary in May. The “I Map New Haven” exhibit at Artspace’s Crown Street Window and Project Room closed last Sunday. Contact HELEN ROUNER at helen.rouner@yale.edu .
BY HAYLEY BYRNES STAFF REPORTER
You really begin to see them in a new context — begin to see the narrative, the history, living in an object. CYRA LEVENSON Associate curator of education, Yale Center for British Art “It makes you realize how many stories there are behind these objects we see every day,” Levenson explained. “You really begin to see them in a new context — begin to see the narrative, the history, living in an object.” Friedlaender noted that she particularly enjoys recruiting faculty members from a variety of disciplines to participate in the series. By drawing experts from diverse fields such as geology, chemistry and anatomy, she said, the museum hopes to enrich visitors’ experiences. The next gallery talk in the “Art in Context” series will be held on Nov. 5. Contact SARA JONES at sara.l.jones@yale.edu .
the production.” Yale School of Drama Dean James Bundy DRA ’95, who is also the artistic director of the Rep, highlighted the importance of creative risk-taking in the theater’s selection process for commissioning artists. Kiger said she offered the commission to Eno partially because he wanted to take a completely unexpected approach in writing “Joneses” at a time when he had already established a predictable artistic style with audiences. She added that since the Center’s founding, it has encouraged artists to be daring and inventive in introducing new ideas to the theater world. Adjmi said that he did not know
Some [participants] are artists, and some are cartographers.
Filmmaker explores housing case
YCBA talk explores 18th-century bust BY SARA JONES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
aims to foster with playwrights. She noted that she had been an admirer of Eno’s work for over a decade before she commissioned him to write for the Rep, adding that she generally reads several works by a given artist before discussing the possibility of a commission. The Binger Center’s overall mission is designed to lend support to the artists during the entire writing process, Kiger said, adding that she thinks such thorough support is generally lacking in American theatre. “A lot of times, what is missing is what happens between the commission and the premiere,” she said. “For us, it is as much of a commitment to the process as to
For some New Haven residents, a photograph of a pizza or a spray-painted dinosaur can represent the Elm City as accurately as a conventional map. “I Map New Haven,” a community project started by local artists Alyson Fox and Eric Epstein, challenges New Haven residents to create maps that represent the ways they experience their city. Some of the maps were on display earlier this month in the Crown Street Window and Project Room — a venue owned by Artspace, a New Haven studio, exhibition space and gallery. The exhibit is part of Artspace’s City-Wide Open Studios festival, which has been showcasing local art during the month of October. Epstein and Fox launched the project in May by distributing self-addressed squares of cardstock bearing a blank map of New Haven on one side, and a poem instructing local residents to customize the map on the other. The artists have been scanning the maps they have received and uploading them to the project’s blog. Prospective participants can also view the poem and download blank maps electronically. Most of the submissions they received were anonymous, though about a quarter included the name or neighborhood of the map’s creator. The “I Map New Haven” exhibit featured the map submissions Fox and Epstein received before the middle of September. The artists have received a total of 92 maps since May, almost all of which are posted on the project’s blog. One participant turned his or her map into a “New Haven Monopoly” board, featuring properties like “Barcelona Wine Bar” and utilities like “IKEA: Furnish entire apartment,” as well as a “Go to Yale” square where a “Go to jail” square would appear on a standard monopoly board. One abstract submission depicts the underlying geology of New Haven. In another, a participant wrote about a
memory involving a horse in the margins of the map, marked the spot where the memory was formed and drew a horse’s head into the map’s outline. The submissions display the wide range of participants’ ages and artistic abilities. Epstein, a New Haven architect and product designer, said that some residents told him they have hesitated about participating because they do not consider themselves artistic, but insisted that the project is not about showcasing artistic talent. “Some people see it as a canvas; some see it as a map,” he said. “Some [participants] are artists, and some are cartographers.”
KEN YANAGISAWA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Curator for Collections Research Matthew Hargraves offers insight on British sculptor Joseph Wilton’s marble bust as part of the “Art in Context” lecture series.
Filmmaker and New Haven resident Lisa Molomot found inspiration for her 2013 documentary, “The Hill,” from an unlikely source — her real-estate agent. When she moved to New Haven in 2001, Molomot soon learned that the city government planned to demolish 123 homes to make space for a magnet school in the Elm City’s Upper Hill neighborhood. Residents of the area — many of whom are AfricanAmerican and low-income — proceeded to challenge the government’s decision in court. Molomot documented the residents’ struggle in her hour-long movie “The Hill.” “[The film] was a way to get to know New Haven,” Molomot said. “It was a way to make sense of the city.” Despite the film’s political and racial undertones, Molomot said her work is not concerned with New Haven politics at large. The film is “a human story,” she said, tracing a particular event at a particular time. Ruth Drews, a local pastor residing in Upper Hill and a community member featured in the film, said the legal battle between the residents and the city was underreported in local media outlets, making Molomot’s film an important historical record. “There are some people that live nearby and didn’t know all this was happening,” said Anstress Farwell, president of the New Haven Urban Design League — a local organization that supports projects that aims to create a sustainable city by tackling issues such as historical preservation of New Haven sites and street safety. “It just shows the communication barrier in the city.” Farwell was also featured in the film, as the group helped organize community members during the lawsuit. Though residents failed to stop the demolition of their homes, Drews said she thinks they “won in every way except
WILLIAM FREEDBERG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
In “The Hill,” Lisa Molomot documents the planned demolition of 123 Upper Hill homes and the challenges raised by their residents. the court case,” adding that public opinion was on their side. Despite substantial urban restructuring efforts, including the ongoing Downtown Crossing project, local authorities have not attempted to demolish any residential homes since the proceedings in Upper Hill. “I would like to think that the government of New Haven has learned its lesson,” Drews said. The construction of the John C. Daniels magnet school was part of an extensive fifteen-year long citywide school construction program. Farwell questioned whether
the magnet school benefits the neighborhood, as the school does not draw exclusively from the local student population. Since its release, Molomot and Farwell have organized screenings of “The Hill” throughout the city, often in nearby schools and local libraries. “I think for young people especially, the film actually has more meaning because they can actually change the world,” Molomot said. The two have tried to raise funds for a screening of the documentary at a prominent venue, but adequate funds for such a
screening have not yet been secured. The Yale Law School plans to host a private screening of “The Hill,” examining the legal rationale behind the residents’ defeat. Farwell encouraged student groups on campus to host viewings, and Molomot said she hopes to screen the movie at Yale in the future. “The Hill” won Best Documentary Feature at the Greenpoint Film Festival earlier this month. Contact HAYLEY BYRNES at hayley.byrnes@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
ARTS & CULTURE
“That’s always — that’s been another dream of mine, to do a Broadway play. An awardwinning Broadway play.” JANET JACKSON AMERICAN SINGER AND ACTRESS
Rep play advances to Broadway
Residents create maps of Elm City BY HELEN ROUNER STAFF REPORTER
YALE REPERTORY THEATER
Brooklyn-based playwright Will Eno will debut his play, “The Realistic Joneses,” on Broadway in March 2014. The play is the first Yale Repertory Theatre’s Binger Center for New Theatre production to advance to the big stage since the center’s founding in 2008. BY ERIC XIAO STAFF REPORTER For the first time in its history, the Yale Repertory Theatre’s Binger Center for New Theatre will send a show to Broadway. After being named one of the New York Times’ Top Ten Productions of 2012, “The Realistic Joneses,” a play by Brooklyn-based playwright Will Eno that had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre last year, will be staged on Broadway in March 2014. It will be the first ever Rep-commissioned production supported by the theater’s Binger Center for New Theatre to advance to Broadway since the
Center’s founding in 2008. The Binger Center allots resources to the commissioning, development and production of plays and musicals at the Rep and across the U.S. Director of the New Play programs at the Binger Center Jennifer Kiger said she commissioned Eno to write the play partly because of his ability to convey broad human experiences through a simple array of characters and sets on stage. “I am intrigued by [Eno’s] ability to write about very large ideas, like who we are and why the universe works the way it does, and crystallize them into a small human scale,” Kiger said. Eno said his play revolves
around the anxiety of individuals who struggle to cope with challenges such as illness and mortality, noting that this anxiety is a force that can both unite and divide people. He said he thinks many audiences are able to relate to the events of the play; unlike much of his work, “The Realistic Joneses” does not contain a single supernatural element. “Joneses” is the most realistic play he has ever written, Eno said. “The circumstances of the characters in the play are things that we all have to face,” Eno said. “The main thing was to try to come up with distinctive responses to the pretty common problems the characters, and all
the rest of us, face.” Playwright David Adjmi, whose 2012 play “Marie Antoinette” was commissioned by the Rep, said that Rep-commissioned artists’ works tend to present general themes in surprising ways. Though every playwright has a different artistic style, Adjmi said the universality of the themes explored in the pieces supported by the Binger Center unite the diverse body of commissioned work. Kiger said the Binger Center’s process for commissioning artists is unique because the opportunity to write a play for the Rep constitutes only a part of the lasting relationship the theater
A Tuesday talk at the Yale Center for British Art explored in detail an 18thcentury British sculpture. The lecture, titled “Love and Death,” zeroed in on British sculptor Joseph Wilton’s marble bust of landowner Thomas Dawson, completed around 1770. Matthew Hargraves, curator for collections research at the YCBA, discussed the piece in front of an audience of several dozen Yale students, faculty members, YCBA affiliates and members of the general public. “Love and Death” was the latest installment in the YCBA’s “Art in Context” series — a lecture series which has remained a staple at the museum for more than two decades, said Linda Friedlaender, YCBA’s curator of education and organizer of the series. “[The series] allows us to invite scholars coming from many different worlds … and let them really focus on an individual object that they know a great deal about and ‘open out’ that object in new and interesting ways for viewers who come,” YCBA Director Amy Meyers said. The bust is surrounded by portraits of the upper echelons of 18th-century British society — works replete with trappings of feminine aristocracy such as lavish ruffles of silk and satin, and elaborate headwear. One of King George III’s closest companions, Dawson ran in the same social circles as the women whose portraits adorn the gallery’s walls. But the bust, Hargraves explained, is not merely a depiction of a wealthy aristocrat. He said the bust possesses features unusual for its time, adding that the work’s unique characteristics initially drew him to the piece. Unlike analogous contemporary busts that contain an element of self-
sufficiency, Hargraves said, Wilton’s bust of Dawson seems to “need something outside of itself.” Hargraves also emphasized the piece’s twofold meaning — on one hand, it showcases Dawson mourning the loss of his first wife; on the other, it represents a new kind of man, one who was spontaneous, natural and in touch with his feelings. Cyra Levenson, the YCBA’s associate curator of education, said the the “Art in Context” lecture series reveals the unique underpinnings of museum objects — the kind of details that visitors may often overlook.
of any other theater in the country that would have funded a production as idiosyncratic, challenging and expensive as his play, “Marie Antoinette.” “We have an incentive and an obligation to take risks that other theaters wouldn’t take,” Bundy said. “We can’t be reckless or foolhardy about it but if a great university can’t take risks, who can?” The next Rep production supported by the Binger Center, “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls” by Meg Miroshnik DRA ’11, will open on Jan. 31, 2014. Contact ERIC XIAO at eric.xiao@yale.edu .
ERIC EPSTEIN Starter, “I Map New Haven” Epstein said that the idea for the project grew out of a conversation he and Fox had about new technologies that have caused hand-drawn maps to disappear from use. In May last year, Fox and Epstein collaborated on another project in which they and a third artist posted large planks covered with chalkboard paint on a brick wall. On the planks, they repeatedly copied the words “Before I die I want to,” and passers-by wrote their responses on the boards. As a part of this year’s CityWide Open Studios, Epstein worked on a similar project in which he posted boards bearing the words “New mayor, remember to.” “We like to engage people in playful dialogue,” Epstein said. Epstein said that “I Map New Haven” will likely continue until its one-year anniversary in May. The “I Map New Haven” exhibit at Artspace’s Crown Street Window and Project Room closed last Sunday. Contact HELEN ROUNER at helen.rouner@yale.edu .
BY HAYLEY BYRNES STAFF REPORTER
You really begin to see them in a new context — begin to see the narrative, the history, living in an object. CYRA LEVENSON Associate curator of education, Yale Center for British Art “It makes you realize how many stories there are behind these objects we see every day,” Levenson explained. “You really begin to see them in a new context — begin to see the narrative, the history, living in an object.” Friedlaender noted that she particularly enjoys recruiting faculty members from a variety of disciplines to participate in the series. By drawing experts from diverse fields such as geology, chemistry and anatomy, she said, the museum hopes to enrich visitors’ experiences. The next gallery talk in the “Art in Context” series will be held on Nov. 5. Contact SARA JONES at sara.l.jones@yale.edu .
the production.” Yale School of Drama Dean James Bundy DRA ’95, who is also the artistic director of the Rep, highlighted the importance of creative risk-taking in the theater’s selection process for commissioning artists. Kiger said she offered the commission to Eno partially because he wanted to take a completely unexpected approach in writing “Joneses” at a time when he had already established a predictable artistic style with audiences. She added that since the Center’s founding, it has encouraged artists to be daring and inventive in introducing new ideas to the theater world. Adjmi said that he did not know
Some [participants] are artists, and some are cartographers.
Filmmaker explores housing case
YCBA talk explores 18th-century bust BY SARA JONES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
aims to foster with playwrights. She noted that she had been an admirer of Eno’s work for over a decade before she commissioned him to write for the Rep, adding that she generally reads several works by a given artist before discussing the possibility of a commission. The Binger Center’s overall mission is designed to lend support to the artists during the entire writing process, Kiger said, adding that she thinks such thorough support is generally lacking in American theatre. “A lot of times, what is missing is what happens between the commission and the premiere,” she said. “For us, it is as much of a commitment to the process as to
For some New Haven residents, a photograph of a pizza or a spray-painted dinosaur can represent the Elm City as accurately as a conventional map. “I Map New Haven,” a community project started by local artists Alyson Fox and Eric Epstein, challenges New Haven residents to create maps that represent the ways they experience their city. Some of the maps were on display earlier this month in the Crown Street Window and Project Room — a venue owned by Artspace, a New Haven studio, exhibition space and gallery. The exhibit is part of Artspace’s City-Wide Open Studios festival, which has been showcasing local art during the month of October. Epstein and Fox launched the project in May by distributing self-addressed squares of cardstock bearing a blank map of New Haven on one side, and a poem instructing local residents to customize the map on the other. The artists have been scanning the maps they have received and uploading them to the project’s blog. Prospective participants can also view the poem and download blank maps electronically. Most of the submissions they received were anonymous, though about a quarter included the name or neighborhood of the map’s creator. The “I Map New Haven” exhibit featured the map submissions Fox and Epstein received before the middle of September. The artists have received a total of 92 maps since May, almost all of which are posted on the project’s blog. One participant turned his or her map into a “New Haven Monopoly” board, featuring properties like “Barcelona Wine Bar” and utilities like “IKEA: Furnish entire apartment,” as well as a “Go to Yale” square where a “Go to jail” square would appear on a standard monopoly board. One abstract submission depicts the underlying geology of New Haven. In another, a participant wrote about a
memory involving a horse in the margins of the map, marked the spot where the memory was formed and drew a horse’s head into the map’s outline. The submissions display the wide range of participants’ ages and artistic abilities. Epstein, a New Haven architect and product designer, said that some residents told him they have hesitated about participating because they do not consider themselves artistic, but insisted that the project is not about showcasing artistic talent. “Some people see it as a canvas; some see it as a map,” he said. “Some [participants] are artists, and some are cartographers.”
KEN YANAGISAWA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Curator for Collections Research Matthew Hargraves offers insight on British sculptor Joseph Wilton’s marble bust as part of the “Art in Context” lecture series.
Filmmaker and New Haven resident Lisa Molomot found inspiration for her 2013 documentary, “The Hill,” from an unlikely source — her real-estate agent. When she moved to New Haven in 2001, Molomot soon learned that the city government planned to demolish 123 homes to make space for a magnet school in the Elm City’s Upper Hill neighborhood. Residents of the area — many of whom are AfricanAmerican and low-income — proceeded to challenge the government’s decision in court. Molomot documented the residents’ struggle in her hour-long movie “The Hill.” “[The film] was a way to get to know New Haven,” Molomot said. “It was a way to make sense of the city.” Despite the film’s political and racial undertones, Molomot said her work is not concerned with New Haven politics at large. The film is “a human story,” she said, tracing a particular event at a particular time. Ruth Drews, a local pastor residing in Upper Hill and a community member featured in the film, said the legal battle between the residents and the city was underreported in local media outlets, making Molomot’s film an important historical record. “There are some people that live nearby and didn’t know all this was happening,” said Anstress Farwell, president of the New Haven Urban Design League — a local organization that supports projects that aims to create a sustainable city by tackling issues such as historical preservation of New Haven sites and street safety. “It just shows the communication barrier in the city.” Farwell was also featured in the film, as the group helped organize community members during the lawsuit. Though residents failed to stop the demolition of their homes, Drews said she thinks they “won in every way except
WILLIAM FREEDBERG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
In “The Hill,” Lisa Molomot documents the planned demolition of 123 Upper Hill homes and the challenges raised by their residents. the court case,” adding that public opinion was on their side. Despite substantial urban restructuring efforts, including the ongoing Downtown Crossing project, local authorities have not attempted to demolish any residential homes since the proceedings in Upper Hill. “I would like to think that the government of New Haven has learned its lesson,” Drews said. The construction of the John C. Daniels magnet school was part of an extensive fifteen-year long citywide school construction program. Farwell questioned whether
the magnet school benefits the neighborhood, as the school does not draw exclusively from the local student population. Since its release, Molomot and Farwell have organized screenings of “The Hill” throughout the city, often in nearby schools and local libraries. “I think for young people especially, the film actually has more meaning because they can actually change the world,” Molomot said. The two have tried to raise funds for a screening of the documentary at a prominent venue, but adequate funds for such a
screening have not yet been secured. The Yale Law School plans to host a private screening of “The Hill,” examining the legal rationale behind the residents’ defeat. Farwell encouraged student groups on campus to host viewings, and Molomot said she hopes to screen the movie at Yale in the future. “The Hill” won Best Documentary Feature at the Greenpoint Film Festival earlier this month. Contact HAYLEY BYRNES at hayley.byrnes@yale.edu .
PAGE 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” WOODY ALLEN AMERICAN SCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR
20 years after DeStefano, poverty still key issue POVERTY FROM PAGE 1 manufacturing jobs. But in the 20 years since Mayor John DeStefano Jr. took office in 1993, a billion-dollar school change process and a series of investments in a nowthriving downtown district have done little to reduce the poverty rate, which has changed little over the same two-decade time span. According to data compiled by the local nonprofit DataHaven, the percentage of people in the city of New Haven living in poverty today is virtually the same as it was in 1990, hovering at just over a quarter of the population. Outside city limits, conditions are better. Greater New Haven — a geographical region comprising the city as well as inner ring towns such as Hamden and outer ring suburbs such as North Haven, Milford and Bethany — is one of the more affluent areas in the country, ranked by DataHaven 59th among 366 metro regions nationwide. That wealth creation doesn’t reach all people, said Mark Abraham ’04, the executive director of DataHaven. “Connecticut as a whole and New Haven, too, have some of the highest-value industries in the U.S.” Abraham said. “But … for [inner-city residents] the picture looks very different.” Abraham explained that while Connecticut maintains high value-industries in areas like finance, higher education and health care, a large portion of people in the inner city struggle to find jobs in those industries. Elicker said that has to change, describing poverty as the biggest challenge facing the city. Harp has made a similar message a focal point of her campaign. “I went across this city, and there were very few places that
felt like they got their due,” Harp told a throng of supporters at her primary election night victory party. “Under my leadership, everyone will get their due.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Twenty-six percent of municipal residents live at income levels below the federal poverty level, DataHaven numbers indicate. That is compared to 14.3 percent nationwide and 9.5 percent in Connecticut. The state’s poverty level is the ninth lowest in the country, according to the Census Bureau. The contrast makes the portrait of the inner-city all the more bleak: In the fall of 2012, 31 percent of people living in New Haven’s low-income neighborhoods said they did not have enough money to purchase food. In addition to being a social and economic crisis in and of itself, Abraham said basic destitution is also at the heart of the city’s other principal ills. So direct is the link between poverty and education that eligibility for free and reducedprice lunch is a reliable indicator of reading levels in the New Haven Public Schools. A meager 10–25 percent of third-graders with free or reduced lunch are at or above the expected reading level, compared to 40-55 percent among third-graders with fullpriced lunch. “The concentration of poor families in certain areas of the city leads to poor-performing schools,” Abraham said. “These are the social costs of economic segregation.” High densities of low-income housing in certain areas of the city further contribute to this form of segregation, he said. John Bradley ’81, executive director of the New Haven-based supportive housing and service organization Liberty Community Services and the associate mas-
ter of Branford College, said his organization cannot serve a fraction of the individuals who come through its doors. New Haven is alone among cities in Connecticut in appropriating funds — $1 million each year — for shelters and other services for the homeless, a figure that is still dwarfed by the over $10 million in funds that service organizations receive from the state and federal government. Christian Community Action, a food pantry and nonprofit service organization in the city, operates on a budget of $1.4 million, said the group’s executive director, Bonita Grubbs. She said current funding, which comes mostly from private donations, is not enough to meet the needs of city residents in crisis conditions. The basic inadequacy of existing services makes “longterm strategies to address the trauma resulting from impoverishment” necessary, she said. New Haven Community Services Administrator Althea Marshall Brooks said the city’s inner-city population continues to struggle under the weight of unemployment and homelessness, despite sustained service initiatives on the part of the city. She said the city’s steep property taxes — in part the result of a shortage of taxable properties — have left a considerable number of residents unable to afford housing within the city, particularly among families and couples in recent years. Especially worrisome, she added, is the accumulation of individuals released from prison who return to the inner city and struggle with collateral issues in housing and employment.
WHAT’S TO BE DONE?
Jobs, housing, education, public health, public transportation, community building — social service providers and research-
ers interviewed provided a score of different starting points for addressing the underlying problem of poverty. “I grew up in New Haven; I’ve lived here all my life,” Bradley said. “It’s a constant revelation to me just how poor people in the city are. It’s a huge challenge for any mayor, or any leader of the city. It’s about figuring out how to move the needle on poverty when a lot of that is affected by global and national trends.” Bradley said city leaders should focus on building job opportunities available in New Haven’s “new economy,” one that no longer provides noncollege-educated residents with decent manufacturing jobs. Both candidates said the city’s poverty problem is not intractable. Elicker said he would start with education, making sure even the city’s poorest youth have the skills to get a job. “The key to breaking the cycle of poverty is education,” Elicker said. He added that the more time students living in poverty can spend at school, the better their chances of transcending the circumstances into which they are born. Early childhood education would be one of his principal priorities as mayor, Elicker said. He said mental health services in city schools as well as vocational and technical education are critical to preparing students for the workforce. Students’ family incomes can no longer be an excuse for school failure, Elicker said, adding that education should be a way out of economic disadvantage rather than another casualty of poverty. Harp said she would take a multipronged approach, looking to education and job training but also doubling down on economic development. “We have to support the small businesses that emanate from the University and the commu-
Homicide count matches 2012 HOMICIDE FROM PAGE 1 released from custody and cleared of any charges. “We originally thought we had apprehended our suspect at the scene,” Department Chief Dean Esserman said at a Tuesday press conference held to recap the previous night’s events. “Detectives and neighborhood community officers worked throughout the night. When we first took him into custody, we realized, after long interviews, that we had the wrong person.” A press release issued by the NHPD after the shooting but before Mims’ release said that Westville Manor residents were cooperative with officers at the scene, and it was their input, in part, that led NHPD authorities to seek and bring Mims in from a nearby apartment. Investigators are looking into any possible connections between the incident, its perpetrator and reports of a skirmish at the complex that took place before the shooting.
“Although no motive has been established in this senseless crime, Detectives are investigating an earlier dispute that had taken place in [the] same location,” Department spokesman David Hartman said in the press release. “This is not to suggest the victim had been involved in that dispute.”
I wish I could promise or see a day that there’s going to be no violence in this city. I don’t see that day right now. JOHN DESTEFANO Mayor, New Haven Esserman said that NHPD officers continue to search for the true suspect behind Monday night’s homicide. Maebery is the city’s 17th homi-
cide victim of 2013 and the third in three weeks. Erica Robinson, a 26-year old West Haven resident, was killed on Saturday at the Key Club Cabaret on Saint John Street. Nathaniel Bradley of Hamden was shot and killed less than two miles from Yale’s campus on Oct. 16. At Tuesday’s press conference, Esserman announced that police had issued a warrant for the arrest of Adrian Bennett, the 28-year old New Haven resident now suspected of murdering Robinson and shooting five others at the local adult entertainment club early Saturday morning. “We have been tracking [Bennett] since Saturday,” Esserman said. “Today I ask him to turn himself in, to surrender to New Haven Police for the safety of this community and, in fact, for his own safety.” Esserman added that FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, state authorities and various local citizens have assisted NHPD detectives in efforts to identify and find Bennett. Also speaking at the press con-
ference was Mayor John DeStefano, who discussed six pieces of proposed legislation to increase the city government’s power over local entertainment venues in an effort to complement ongoing police efforts to increase public safety at Elm City bars and nightclubs. DeStefano’s proposals included stricter liquor licenses on bars and licensing and training programs for club security guards. DeStefano is also seeking injunction to have the power to shut down bars for public safety reasons. “As I look at homicides, look at shootings, shots reported — they’re all heading in the right direction, down by substantial margins [in the last two years,]” Destefano said. “I wish I could promise or see a day that there’s going to be no violence in this city. I don’t see that day right now.” The 2013 New Haven homicide count has already matched the total of 17 committed in all of 2012. Contact MAREK RAMILO at marek.ramilo@yale.edu .
nity here in New Haven that can employ residents,” she told the News. “It’s not just about jobs in New Haven but jobs for residents of New Haven.” The city should do a better job of branding itself by marketing its unique strengths as a midsized city on the waterfront with world-class educational institutions in order to attract more business, Harp said. Bradley said that means capitalizing on the city’s strengths and replicating successful ventures of the past. “We want to look to people who have some connection to New Haven and are looking for the intellectual capacity that resides here,” Bradley said. “That’s what our unique feature is, and it’s where we’re going to find new business.” Given the high dropout rates in New Haven Public Schools, more pathways to “job-readiness” should be developed, Harp said. She cited the model of Gateway Community College, which offers a series of degree and certificate programs that coordinate with employers to make sure students get the skills to make them competitive in the new workforce that Bradley described.
LENDING A HAND
Both candidates said the need to address poverty animates their entire agenda. But they also said
improving residents’ lives hinges on the city finding more secure fiscal footing of its own. Harp said she has the clout in Hartford to lobby the state for more resources to address financial inequities between the inner city and more affluent suburbs. Elicker accused Harp of failing to advocate for New Haven’s financial interests at the state capitol in her capacity as an 11-term state senator. He said the city’s persistent requests for more regional resource sharing and state funding have fallen on deaf ears. Grubbs, who said Christian Community Action seeks frequent opportunities to testify at the state capitol, praised Harp as an ally of the city’s social service providers. Though she declined to say for whom she would be voting on Nov. 5, Grubbs said Harp has a clear understanding of the needs of the poorest city residents. “What’s best is when the people seeking help with us are involved in the process of testifying,” Grubbs said. “All of the folks in the New Haven delegation have been receptive to them, but to say there’s more that needs to be done, well, that would be a major understatement.” Contact ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER at isaac.stanley-becker@yale.edu .
BY THE NUMBERS ELM CITY POVERTY 26 31 16 Percent of New Haven residents living below the federal poverty line
Percent of low-income city residents without means to buy food Percent of low-income city residents without means to find shelter
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
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BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Low of 43.
WHICH DAY?
High of 64, low of 55.
High of 69, low of 48.
DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 5:00 p.m. “Communicating Science to the Public.” Robert Bazell, Yale adjunct professor and former NBC chief science and health correspondent, will host a talk about scientific conversation with the public. There will be an information session about becoming a speaker in the Science in the News lecture series. Free to the general public. Bass Center for Molecular and Structural Biology (266 Whitney Ave.), Rm. 305. 6:00 p.m. “Power of the Presidency: Lithuania’s Seat as President of the Council of the European Union.“ The Yale International Relations Association Global Perspectives Society is hosting a panel with the ambassadors to the United States from Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine. William L. Harkness Hall (100
THAT MONKEY TUNE BY MICHAEL KANDALAFT
Wall St.), Sudler.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31 4:00 p.m. “The Most Unequal Country in the World: Inequality and Methods of Redress in Post-Apartheid South Africa.“ Come for a conversation with Jeremy Seekings, political studies and sociology professor from the University of Cape Town. Venue subject to change. Open to the general public. William L. Harkness Hall (100 Wall St.), Rm. 207.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 11:00 a.m. “Gamma Rays and Garden Flowers: American Horticulture Encounters the Atomic Age.” Helen Curry, history and philosophy of science professor from Cambridge University, will host a talk about atoms in agriculture as part of the Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series. Open to the general public. Institution for Social and Policy Studies (77 Prospect St.), Rm. B012.
SCIENCE HILL BY SPENCER KATZ
8:00 p.m Yale Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale. Guest conductor Krzysztof Penderecki will join the largest performing group at the Yale School of Music for an evening performance. Pieces will include “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima,” an original Penderecki composition. Open to the general public. Woolsey Hall (500 College St.).
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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
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NATION WASHINGTON — Move over, website woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with a difficult new health care problem — a wave of cancellation notices hitting small businesses and individuals who buy their own insurance. At the same time, the federal official closest to the website apologized for its dysfunction in new sign-ups and asserted things are getting better by the day. Medicare Chief Marilyn Tavenner said it’s not the administration but insurers who are responsible for cancellation letters now reaching many of the estimated 14 million people who buy individual policies. And, officials said, people who get cancellation notices will be able to find better replacement plans, in some cases for less. The Associated Press, citing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, reported in May that many carriers would opt to cancel policies this fall and issue new ones. Administratively that was seen as easier than changing existing plans to comply with the new law, which mandates coverage of more services and provides better financial protection against catastrophic illnesses. While the administration had ample warning of the cancellations, they could become another public relations debacle for President Barack Obama’s signature legislation. This problem goes to the credibility of one of the president’s earliest promises about the health care overhaul: You can keep your plan if you like it. In the spring, state insurance commissioners started giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for 2014, since the coverage required under Obama’s law is more robust. Some states directed
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Protests after boy shot by deputy
insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected. The cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders, and they’ve been complaining to their lawmakers — who were grilling Tavenner on Tuesday. “Based on what little information the administration has disclosed, it turns out that more people have received cancellation notices for their health care plans this month than have enrolled in the (health care website),” said Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. He cited a news report of 146,000 cancellations in his state alone. Up and down the dais, lawmakers chimed in with stories of constituents who had received similar notices. Republicans offered examples of people being asked to pay more. Democrats countered by citing constituents who had been able to find lower-cost coverage than they have now. Ranking Democrat Sander Levin of Michigan said one of his constituents has been paying $800 a month for a BlueCrossBlueShield plan and managed to find comparable coverage for $77, after tax credits that lower the premiums. Still, Levin added, “this has become a matter of legitimate discussion.” It could take months to sort out the balance of individual winners and losers. There’s not a central source of statistics on how many people have gotten cancellations. Even the number of people who buy insurance individually is disputed. It isn’t the administration’s fault, said Tavenner. “In fact the issuer has decided to change the plan; (they) didn’t have to.” Obama’s promise dates back to June 2009, when Congress was starting to grapple with overhauling the health care system to cover uninsured Americans.
Police officers stand at attention outside of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s department in Santa Rosa, California.
BY TERENCE CHEA ASSOCIATED PRESS SANTA ROSA, Calif. — More than 1,000 people marched Tuesday to protest the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy by a Northern California sheriff’s deputy in an encounter that sparked community outrage and an FBI investigation. Officers stood on rooftops and others wearing helmets stood guard at barricades that kept the protesters away from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office in Santa Rosa. The protesters, including middle- and high-school-age students and members of the Occupy Oakland movement, assembled in downtown Santa Rosa before marching through streets with signs and hooded sweatshirts bearing photos of the boy. “Andy Lopez did not have to die,” they chanted during the nearly threehour, peaceful demonstration. No arrests were made.
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Lopez was shot and killed Oct. 22 by Sonoma County Deputy Erick Gelhaus, a firearms instructor who authorities said mistook a pellet gun carried by Lopez for an assault rifle. Investigators say the hoodie-wearing teen didn’t comply with commands to drop the gun and was turning toward deputies while raising the barrel when he was shot multiple times. The incident remained under investigation by the FBI, Sonoma County prosecutors and Santa Rosa police. Victor Manieri, 15, a freshman at Elsie Allen High School, left school early to join the march. He said he knew Andy and wanted to show support for his family. “I disagree with what that cop did that day,” Manieri said. “There are other methods such as using a Taser that would paralyze him, not take away his life.” Mitzi Reyes, 16, a junior at Elsie
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Allen, marched with her mother and two younger brothers. They also knew Andy and his family. “I’m here today because I want to get justice not only for Andy but for other people that have died for no reason,” she said. The shooting has generated several protests in Santa Rosa, located about 50 miles northwest of San Francisco. On Sunday, more than 1,000 people turned out for a service to remember Lopez. Sonoma County Assistant Sheriff Lorenzo Duenas said Gelhaus, 48, has been a Sonoma County firearms instructor and rangemaster for 19 years and has trained his law enforcement colleagues in the use of force. He is one of 26 such instructors for the county. Gelhaus also teaches pistol, carbine, shotgun and rifle lessons for Gunsite, a private company in Arizona, according to the company’s website.
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
SPORTS
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” MICHAEL JORDAN HALL OF FAME BASKETBALL PLAYER
Yale drops CCSU
Gatti talks ESPN ESPN TALK FROM PAGE 12 The two keys to her success, Gatti said, were conviction and communication. When meeting with the president of ESPN on one occasion, Gatti disagreed with the direction that the company was going. Still, she made her feelings known, even though she thought that the president might fire her that day. Gatti also addressed the lack of diversity that still affects ESPN and the sports industry in general, especially in the play-by-play booth. She added that she has ranted to others at ESPN about improving the diversity of the network’s on-air talent for years. “Her frank discussion of the diversity issues in sports and media were an important reminder that these issues still persist today,” Evan Frondorf ’14 said in a message to the News. According to Gatti, the love of sports that delivered her to ESPN began early in her life. She recalled watching Eagles games every Sunday afternoon with her father and brothers.
None of us dreamt that we would become what we’ve become today. ROSA GATTI Former vice president, ESPN
MARIA ZEPEDA/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs outshot the Blue Devils 17–3 on Tuesday night and the Blue Devils did not put a shot on target all night. MEN’S SOCCER FROM PAGE 12 games. Remarkably, Brown did not need to make a single save to keep the Blue Devils off of the scoreboard. Yale outshot CCSU 17–3 in total behind excellent ball movement according to Tompkins, and not a single one of the Blue Devils’ shots was on target. Brown credited his defense for making it an easy night for him. “Our defense held them to zero shots on goal,” Brown said. “You can’t ask for anything more from your back line.” Tompkins said both Alers and defender Philip Piper ’16 have been critical to the recent uptick in Yale’s defensive performance. The coach added that the two have been stalwarts at the rear of the Yale squad,
and Tompkins said that the defense has been improving throughout the season.
We really needed that win, and it’s great to do it in such convincing fashion. MAX MCKIERNAN ’14 Captain, Men’s soccer “It takes a while for a team to gel defensively,” Tompkins said. “I think our guys have done a really good job with it. All of our defenders have been outstanding.” Yale will conclude its season facing
off against three Ivy League foes as it clings to a puncher’s chance at the conference title, three points behind first-place Penn. Captain and midfielder Max McKiernan ’14 said he saw Tuesday night as a great step in the right direction. “We really needed that win, and it’s great to do it in such convincing fashion,” McKiernan said. “We competed on every play tonight and didn’t allow any lapses like we did last Saturday. I think it’s a good springboard for Columbia.” McKiernan and the rest of the Bulldogs will have a chance to build on their momentum at Columbia (7–4– 2, 1–1–2) on Saturday at 4 p.m. Contact JAMES BADAS at james.badas@yale.edu .
But she never considered sports as a career until she graduated as a member of Villanova’s first coed class, after which she took a job with the school’s athletic department in a secretarial role. After the sports information director there resigned in the middle of football season, she was appointed temporary sports information director and ultimately kept the job on a permanent basis. She became one of the first female sports information directors at any major university — a role that she later filled at Brown. But when ESPN approached her, she found the job appealing enough to lure her away from
Brown. “[The ESPN president] wanted women and people who were diverse on his team,” Gatti said. “And he supported the people he hired against a lot of politics and complaints.” Working at ESPN, however, was no walk in the park. Gatti said that she worked out of a trailer for a year while the company got on its feet. It was not until 1985 that the network broke even, losing a staggering $100 million up to that point. Despite the fact that ESPN is so wellknown now, the thought of a cable network devoting all of its programming to sports seemed ludicrous at the time. “None of us dreamt that we would become what we’ve become today,” Gatti said. Gatti also spoke about ESPN’s culture and brand, citing the network’s decisions to build its on-air talent and showcase its anchors, especially its SportsCenter hosts, as central to the company’s growth. “We in effect became very much a part of American culture primarily through our commentators,” Gatti said. The marketing angle ESPN pursued was another reason the network has been able to assert itself so effectively, Gatti added. She said that when ESPN elected to change its marketing agency to the one employed by Nike, the agency sat down with the commentators and employees of ESPN to determine the company’s true ethos. Together, they decided to frame the company as the center of the sports universe, a choice that spawned the influential “This is SportsCenter” ad campaign that has endured for 19 years. “I thought how much she emphasized women’s roles in society in general was really influential,” Erica Borgo ’14 said. “Talking about how she as a female was able to influence that industry was really motivational.” Gatti retired in February of this year as senior vice president, communications counsel and corporate outreach at ESPN. Contact GRANT BRONSDON at grant.bronsdon@yale.edu .
Elis strong in Princeton Chase
Terriers bite Bulldogs
KAMARIA GREENFIELD/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Yale’s varsity eight was the top finisher among Ivy League women’s crews at the PrincWOMEN’S CREW FROM PAGE 12
JENNIFER CHEUNG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs’ loss to Boston University on Saturday marked their second straight loss in Boston. WOMEN’S H0CKEY FROM PAGE 12 ahead when forward Maddie Elia scored on a rebound at the 6:48 mark. Yale answered soon after, though, as forward Stephanie Mock ’15 notched her first goal of the season at 12:31. Forward Paige Decker ’14 was credited with the assist as her shot was sent back by BU goaltender Kerrin Sperry, only to be cleaned up by Mock. The 1–1 tie held steady through the end of the second period and well into the third. At 6:08 in the third period, the Terriers lit the lamps once more for what would end up being the deciding goal on the day. BU forward Sarah Lefort managed to beat Yale goaltender Jaimie Leonoff ’15 for her team-leading third goal of the season.
The Bulldogs were unable to fight back, as the 2–1 tally would last until the final horn. Not to go unnoticed was the play of Leonoff, as her 36 saves kept Yale afloat. Her play also helped kill three BU power plays over the course of the game. Though the penalty kill was effective for the Elis, the team struggled to take advantage of its own opportunities. Yale ended the day 0 for 6 on power play opportunities, signaling the potential for a disconcerting trend for the Bulldogs. Yale was also shut out on power plays (0 for 5) in the team’s opening loss to Boston College on Oct. 19. Leonoff said the key to turning these close losses into close wins is in paying attention to the details.
“The games always come down to minor details,” Leonoff said. “It is just really important that we capitalize on the other team’s mistakes and limit our own mistakes.” The Bulldogs will seek to right their wrongs this weekend as conference play gets underway with back-toback road outings against St. Lawrence (2–6–0, 1–1–0) and Clarkson (6–2–1, 1–1–0). “The key for this weekend is staying disciplined in our defensive zone as well as playing our style of fast-paced hockey.” Tomimoto said. The puck will drop at St. Lawrence at 7 p.m. on Friday. Contact JAMES BADAS at james.badas@yale.edu .
ing can be crazy,” Lips said. “We kept a calm approach, which benefited us.” Yale also beat out Ivy League crews from Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn and Columbia. Harvard did not send a women’s boat to the regatta. The fall season showed an improvement for the Elis varsity eight, which lost to Princeton at last year’s Princeton Chase as well as at the Ivy League championship last spring. “This year we have a little more experience,” said head coach Will Porter. “Last year we were relatively young and this year we’ve grown up a little bit. We’re more fit than we were last year, and we have a ways to go with that. I attribute it also to being a little more mature.” Three other boats raced in the varsity eight event for Yale and finished 10th, 18th and 35th out of the 52 boats racing. The team’s B boat was ahead of the A boats from three Ivy League squads. Porter said that Yale does not race a fours boat at the Princeton Chase because the boat gets enough fall experience at the Head of the Housatonic and Head of the Charles each year. Virginia’s team displayed absolute domination in the eights race with three boats placing in the top five. The Bulldogs now enter a long training period until March, when they will travel to Texas during spring break for
the Longhorn Invitational. Yale is one of six teams to be invited, including Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa. This season will be Yale’s first time competing in the event.
Obviously we still have some distance to close and we’ll be working all winter on that, but it was really fun to get our nose out there early on in the [season]. MADDIE LIPS ’14 Captain, Women’s crew “[Over the winter] we’re going to work on raising our fitness level, that’s a huge priority,” Porter said. “We’ll work on gaining strength … developing camaraderie and building the strength of our team. Like most teams, the harder you train together, the more you develop trust.” After the Longhorn Invitational, Yale will begin Ivy League competition in Philadelphia against Penn and Columbia at the end of March. Contact GREG CAMERON at greg.cameron@yale.edu .
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KENDALL POLAN ’14 VOLLEYBALL The Cardiff, Calif. native was named the Ivy League Player of the Week on Tuesday, recognizing her play in Yale’s 3–0 sweep of Brown on Saturday. Polan, a setter, recorded three service aces and delivered 31 assists in the match.
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HEATHER SCHLESIER ’15 FIELD HOCKEY Schlesier, a goalkeeper from San Diego, Calif., earned a spot on the Ivy League Honor Roll for her performance in Yale’s 1–0 shoot-out loss to Penn on Saturday. The junior did not allow a goal in regulation or overtime before surrendering two in the shoot-out.
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“Last year we were relatively young, and this year we’ve grown up a little bit.” WILL PORTER HEAD COACH, WOMEN’S CREW YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
Yale blanks Blue Devils MEN’S SOCCER
ESPN exec visits Yale BY GRANT BRONSDON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER This year marks the 40-year anniversary of Title IX, a federal mandate that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in collegiate and high school athletic programs across the country. The sports industry as a whole, however, has come a long way in the past four decades, according to former ESPN senior vice president Rosa Gatti. Gatti broke through the gender barrier, becoming one of the first women hired by ESPN. Gatti, who recently retired from the Connecticut-based company after 33 years, spoke Tuesday afternoon at a Davenport College Master’s Tea about the role of women in sports, her career as a female pioneer in the sports media industry and the now-ubiquitous ESPN. “Girls and women never thought about sports as a career,” Gatti said of her childhood in the 1960s. “It just didn’t cross our minds.” Gatti said that when she began at ESPN, she faced more than her
fair share of adversity as a rare female employee in a male-dominated arena. Women were often characterized as emotional when trying to make their cases at the company and were at times isolated from their male counterparts, according to Gatti.
Girls and women never thought about sports as a career. It just didn’t cross our minds. ROSA GATTI Former vice president, ESPN “I almost threw in the towel multiple times,” Gatti said. “There were a lot of guys of my generation who were brought up and weren’t accustomed to hearing women in business. It was like their mom talking to them.” SEE ESPN TALK PAGE 11
MARIA ZEPEDA/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
With a 2–0 victory at Central Connecticut State University last night, the men’s soccer team ended its two-game losing streak. BY JAMES BADAS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After four games without a win, including a 3–2 overtime defeat to conference foe Penn (6–7–1, 3–0–1 Ivy) a weekend ago, the men’s soccer team was in dire need of a victory. The Bulldogs got just that Tuesday night with a commanding 2–0 victory over Central Connecticut State on the road. Yale (4–9–1, 2–1–1) has been a team of intense moments and thrilling drama all season, as 10 of their past 11 games heading into Tuesday night had been separated by one goal or less. Tuesday’s action saw
Yale win with relative ease, though CCSU (7–7–1, 4–0–0 NEC) held its own early on. “These games are always tricky,” said head coach Brian Tompkins. “If you suffer a hangover effect from a difficult loss, it may carry into your next game. But the guys were tremendous today.” The Bulldogs did not break through until the 42nd minute of action, when forward Scott Armbrust ’14 connected on his first goal of the season. Defender Henry Flugstad-Clarke ’17 set up the goahead goal with his first career assist. Another career first took place in the 56th minute when forward Keith Bond ’16
found the back of the net for the first time with the Elis. This time, it was defender Pablo Espinola ’16 with the assist for the Bulldogs. “We had a lot of players step up today and have big games, particularly Pablo and Keith,” defender Nick Alers ’14 said. “It’s great to have guys playing with confidence.” The two Yale goals were more than enough for goalkeeper Blake Brown ’15 and the Bulldog defense. Brown secured his third shutout of the season, all of which have come within the past five
Elis top ivy competition
SEE MEN’S SOCCER PAGE 11
Upset eludes Bulldogs BY JAMES BADAS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In yet another Beantown showdown, the women’s ice hockey team fell just short of upsetting No. 12 Boston University. The Terriers squeaked out a 2–1 victory against the visiting Bulldogs, who had previously fallen 4–3 to No. 6 Boston College.
KAMARIA GREENFIELD/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s crew varsity eight posted a time of 14:45.063 at the Princeton Chase. BY GREG CAMERON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
The women’s crew varsity eight finished in second place at the Princeton Chase on Sunday, building on its strong finish at the Head of the Charles regatta the week before.
Yale (0–2–0, 0–0–0 ECAC Hockey) is still seeking its first victory on the young season, but the team showed promise on Saturday afternoon. BU (3–1–1, 0–0–0 Hockey East) found itself in an unfamiliar position when it entered the second period in a scoreless tie. The Terriers had scored in three of four first periods prior to Saturday. Captain and defenseman Tara Tomimoto ’14 acknowledged that Saturday’s play was not Yale’s finest, but said that it was encouraging nonetheless. “It’s nice to know that we can be within striking range of two nationally-ranked teams even though we weren’t playing our best hockey,” Tomimoto said. In the second period, BU jumped SEE WOMEN’S HOCKEY PAGE 11
WOMEN’S CREW
JENNIFER CHEUNG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s hockey team fell 2–1 at Boston University on Saturday, dropping the Elis to 0–2 overall.
STAT OF THE DAY 4
With this result, the Elis varsity eight finished its fall season without losing to an Ivy League crew. The only collegiate team to top them was Virginia, whose varsity eight finished first among collegiate boats at both the Head of the Charles and the Princeton Chase. “It was a really good finish to our fall season,” captain Maddie Lips ’14 said. “I think we’re off to a good start. Obviously we still have some distance to close and we’ll be working all winter on that, but it was really fun to get
our nose out there early on in the [season].” Yale finished the course in 14:45.063, ten seconds behind Virginia’s time of 14:34.417, and Princeton finished its three-mile home course in 14:50.893 for third place. The event was a head race, with teams staggering their starts in the order of last year’s results. The Bulldog A boat was the third to start, a few seconds after Princeton. The Elis were able to pass Princeton in the final stretch of the race, but not before the two boats crashed as they glided together. Yale crossed the finish line just ahead of the Tiger boat. Lips said that the team’s composure during the race was key to the Bulldogs’ success. “It was a little bit breezy, and you’re trying to navigate around different boats so head racSEE WOMEN’S CREW PAGE 11
CONSECUTIVE WEEKS THAT A YALE VOLLEYBALL PLAYER HAS HELD AT LEAST A SHARE OF IVY LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS. Captain Kendall Polan ’14 was named Ivy League Player of the Week after recording 31 assists in Yale’s 3–0 sweep of Brown on Saturday.