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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 77 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

CLOUDY CLOUDY

31 27

CROSS CAMPUS Is it? Yes it is. It is indeed

Chicken Tender Thursday.

Load up your plate at a dining hall near you.

Step 1: Be a good person.

Despite the efforts of the Whiffs/Whim ’n Rhythm to convince us otherwise, experience matters on applications. But every junior at this school was, at some point, a freshman. So they’re all at least partially qualified to submit something before the Freshman Counselor application deadline tomorrow.

Do you love Yale? Another major application due tomorrow is for a shot at joining the Yale Tour Guides, who collectively form the face of Yale for visitors. If you’re sweet enough to make ’em swoon, give it a shot.

NOT POSTPONED DEMOCRACY FUND MEETS AT LAST

COMPLICATIONS

FEARLESS

Report shows rise in Adverse Events across Connecticut

MCDB PROF ASKS TAYLOR SWIFT TO BE IN CLASS VIDEO

PAGE 3 CITY

PAGE 3 SCI-TECH

PAGE 5 SCI-TECH

BY RACHEL SIEGEL AND VIVIAN WANG STAFF REPORTERS Hours before Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway informed the campus community of the death of Luchang Wang ’17, the student herself had posted a suicide note on Facebook. In her message, she bid goodbye to her loved ones and to Yale.

The end of Wang’s note — in which she discussed her fears about taking time off from Yale and not being allowed to return

— casts new light on a campus debate about how the University handles cases of mental illness, withdrawal and readmission. While some students have criticized the University’s policies as cold and demanding, others have emphasized the complex confluence of factors that led to Tuesday’s tragedy.

In a Wednesday phone interview, Officer Daniel Hill of the California Highway Patrol confirmed that at approximately 10:29 a.m. on

Tuesday, the CHP received calls regarding a “despondent female” who had crossed over the rail of the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped into the bay below. Hill said the California Coast Guard was called in to check the area but that a body has not been recovered.

“Our officers were able to locate a piece of property — a backpack — which contained identification that was matching [Wang], but we cannot confirm that the person that jumped was the same per-

Yale slides in donation rankings

Twitter account for Feb Club Emeritus, through which alumni worldwide can relive the best month of their Yale careers, announced that nearly 900 Elis are signed up to attend a Feb Club Eve Bash at the Yale Club of New York City (which, incidentally, is located right across Vanderbilt Avenue from Grand Central).

Our heroes. Somehow, it has

just come to our attention that Karaoke Heroes on Crown Street hosts Student Thursdays every week from 7:30 p.m. through midnight.

Get a head start on the weekend (with discounted drinks) for us — we’ll be stuck on York Street producing Friday’s paper.

Everything is awesome. For

anyone looking for a more constructive, kid-friendly way to spend the evening, the Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library is hosting a LEGO Club meeting at 4 p.m.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1976 Campus lobbyists call upon Congress for reform in federal financial aid programs.

Follow the News on Twitter.

@yaledailynews

ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus

PAGE 10 SPORTS

son because we don’t have the body,” Hill said.

WITHDRAWAL, THEN UNCERTAINTY

Students interviewed who had been close to Wang said she had mentioned suicide before. One of her friends, who asked to remain anonymous, said Wang was severely mentally ill and had struggled with issues of mental illness her whole life.

Caroline Posner ’17 said Wang had openly addressed

mental health before, including in their first conversation with one another.

According to Posner, Wang initially started at Yale in the fall of 2012, but then withdrew, re-enrolling in spring 2014 to finish her freshman year. In the fall of 2013, Wang lived and worked in New Haven, Posner said.

Wang’s friend added that Yale’s policies regarding withdrawal and readmission SEE WITHDRAWAL PAGE 4

Konowaloff claims ownership of Night Cafe, again

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK AND RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTERS

that Yale’s performance in the rankings is only a partial picture of all fundraising success.

“I do not think the slight dip in cash receipts in the last year is a significant trend for the future,” Vice President for Development Joan O’Neill wrote in an email.

“It is important to note that we had an excellent year last year in terms of new commitments — raising $502 million against our goal of $400 million.”

O’Neill said many of the schools ahead of Yale in the sur-

“The Night Cafe,” the painting Yale University Art Gallery Chief Curator Laurence Kanter called one of Vincent Van Gogh’s most “personal and profound achievements,” is yet again the subject of an international legal dispute.

On Monday, French citizen Pierre Konowaloff filed a brief with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, appealing a March 2014 summary judgment by U.S. District Court Judge for Connecticut Alvin Thompson. That judgment dismissed claims by Konowaloff that he is the rightful owner of “The Night Cafe” and that Yale should return the painting and pay damages of $75,000.

Konowaloff’s claim to the painting stretches back nearly a century. He is the great-grandson of Russian industrialist Ivan Morozov, from whom the painting was seized by the Bolsheviks during the 1918 Russian Revolution. It was then transported to the United States in 1933, when Stephen Clark 1903 acquired the painting.

He later bequeathed “The Night Cafe” to Yale.

Although Thompson’s decision was based on the act of state doctrine — which holds that American courts should not hear cases involving political or governmental issues in another country — Konowaloff’s brief notes that he is restricting his argument to the 1933 sale of the painting, which he says was illegal.

“We’re not saying that Yale is an embezzler, but that it stands in the shoes of an embezzler,” said Allan Gerson LAW ’76, chairman of the firm AG International

SEE DONATIONS PAGE 6

SEE VAN GOGH PAGE 4

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Back on track. Literally.

Around the corner. The

Edward Columbia ’18 discusses returning to squash after a gap year.

Student death raises questions on withdrawal policies

Fire away. Today, Yale for North Korean Human Rights will screen “The Interview,” the infamous movie that almost never was. After the credits roll, the group will lead a discussion on the more serious side of the situation in North Korea. No word yet on whether or not James Franco will make an appearance to defend his work.

The Wednesday evening derailment of a Harlembound train in Grand Central tangled up an entire slate of Metro-North New Havenbound trains into the night.

Many were canceled and more were delayed; relatively minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately, no one involved was injured during the accident, and the line has since resumed normal operations.

SQUASH

BY TYLER FOGGATT AND LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTERS For the first time since 2005, Yale did not rank in the top 10 for annual fundraising among colleges and universities nationwide.

Total cash donations to Yale in the 2014 fiscal year dropped to $430.31 million from $444.2 million in 2013 — causing Yale to slip from ninth to 15th nationally — according to the annual survey released Wednesday by the Council for Aid to Educa-

tion. Although overall contributions were at their highest in history at a national level, Yale’s fundraising revenue continued a downward trend following its high-water mark in 2011, when it raised $580 million.

Still, administrators and experts cautioned against drawing conclusions from the annual data, arguing that Yale continues to be highly successful in its fundraising efforts. The CAE calculates only the cash receipts received by the University and not the commitments or pledges for future donations, meaning

Sustainability goals mostly on track

BY JED FINLEY STAFF REPORTER

tion has resulted from factors outside the University’s control.

“This slight increase can be attributed to the colderthan-average winter experienced in New England,” Chapman said. “The cold weather necessitated an increase in the generation of steam to heat campus and a curtailment of natural gas as a fuel source. As an interruptible natural gas customer, Yale voluntarily switches from natural gas to oil, a more carbon intensive fuel source, in times of unusually high demand.”

Despite this hiccup in the three-year plan, Chapman maintains there is a larger trend toward lowering Yale’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The office recognizes, she added, that the emissionsreduction path will likely be made up of a series of victories and setbacks that will ultimately lead to the goal of an overall net reduction of emissions by 2020.

Yale’s Sustainability Strategic Plan 2013–2016 is on track despite an increase in greenhouse gas emissions by the University in 2014, according to a report by the Office of Sustainability.

The report tracks the progress of Yale’s Sustainability Plan in its first year and reveals that the University has achieved, or is on target to reach, its goals for the three years. These aims include cultivating environmentally conscious practices across Yale’s offices, departments and professional schools, as well as reducing the use of paper in office supply purchases by 10 percent.

However, there have also been several setbacks. Chief among these is a 3.38 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions, despite the plan’s goal to reduce emissions by 5 percent by 2016.

Director of the Office of Sustainability Virginia Chapman said the devia- SEE SUSTAINABILITY PAGE 6

Esserman to advise St. Louis

BY NOAH KIM STAFF REPORTER New Haven Police Department Chief Dean Esserman will be one of a handful of current and former police chiefs from across the country involved in a yearlong assignment to offer technical assistance and advice to St. Louis County.

In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., the U.S. Department of Justice has taken action in the hope of fixing issues of use-of-force doctrine and racial discrimination. Attorney General Eric Holder recently asked

the Community Oriented Police Service — a component of the Justice Department dedicated to community policing — to provide technical and advisory services to St. Louis County. The Police Service, in turn, has transferred the task to the National Police Foundation of Washington, D.C. — a non-partisan research organization dedicated to advancing policing, of which Esserman is a national board member.

The level of assistance the selected officers will provide has not yet been determined, but Esserman said he plans to travel to St. Louis County later in the

year for a series of two- to threeday trips.

“I’m honored that New Haven police have been asked to be part of the assembled team,” Esserman said.

NHPD spokesperson David Hartman said that he believes Esserman’s past record as an advocate of community policing puts him in a good position to offer assistance to a region where issues of racial discrimination and use-of-force doctrine have persisted for several decades but only recently come to light. City SEE ESSERMAN PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS

NHPD Chief Dean Esserman will offer technical assistance and advice to the St. Louis Police Department.

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “This woman was precious and now she is incomprehensibly yaledailynews.com/opinion

gone."

'WARCOLLEGER' ON 'WANG '17 REMEMBERED AS BRILLIANT, SELFLESS'

The contours Gratitude following Juno of liberalism T T

his week, New York Magazine published a piece titled “Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say,” by Jonathan Chait. It was in equal parts insightful and frustrating, like much of Chait's work. In the piece, he explores the growth of politically correct culture beyond academia and laments the stifling effect it has on public discourse.

While reading the article, I was struck by a particular point he made in the middle of the essay. He bemoans how the American right has successfully implanted the idea “that liberals and ‘the left’ stand for the same thing.” To Chait, these are actually two distinct intellectual traditions, with liberals drawing from the Enlightenment tradition that prioritizes individual rights and freedom of expression, while leftists are more influenced by the Marxist tradition that prioritizes class solidarity above abstract “universal” principles.

Chait makes the point that while both of these traditions may want broadly similar things in the modern political system — a “society more economically and socially egalitarian” — they actually have deeply divergent philosophies underlying them, philosophies that are necessarily in conflict.

As a result, while the ends may be the same, the means diverge drastically.

This column is not the forum for a debate between these two viewpoints, although I do not think anyone will be surprised to learn I lean more to the liberal side than the leftist. But I think it is interesting that I so rarely hear this distinction articulated in campus political discourse.

For that matter, I rarely hear any distinctions made between the various progressive philosophies held on this campus.

Liberalism is not monolithic, but too often on campus it is treated as one-dimensional.

Instead, liberalism contains many different movements that often do not overlap. At Yale, rather than acknowledging the fundamental differences between distinct liberal philosophies, a single metric is used to evaluate all people on the left: Those with more radical views are “more liberal,” and the liberalism of those with more mainstream opinions is called into question. The problem, I think, has its roots in the intense partisanship of the American political scene.

Because we live in such divided times, we are hypersensitive to deviations from the party line. Differences in opinion tend to get buried in service of maintaining unity against the greater threat, in this case conservatism and the Right. But while this may be a necessary tactic on the national stage, in an overwhelmingly progressive environment like Yale, this

tribalism simply leads to apathy.

I am obviously generalizing, but many times commentaISA QASIM tors in these pages have bemoaned The the disenPasserby gaged attitude of the average Yalie towards political questions. I suspect that a substantial cause of this indifference comes from the mistaken assumption that the left is ideologically settled. In reality, there is a massive debate to be had, amongst progressives of different persuasions, as to what the ideal society looks like and how to institute it in our world. If I were to guess, I would say that most Yalies hold views roughly similar to the ones ascribed to liberals by Chait. But there is also a vocal population that more or less ascribe to a leftist point of view. Even if the campus is overwhelmingly liberal, that means very different things to different people. Here there is a ripe opportunity for intellectual engagement and argument.

Of course, these discussions do happen, to various degrees, around campus. But, if my experience is any indication, the participants rarely realize the depth of their disagreement. We are so focused on the fact that we are not conservative that we forget to ask each other how we individually define liberal.

The reason this is so unfortunate is that it leaves us with nothing to talk about, and no way to grow. Most of us are not policy experts. Most of us will vote the Democratic ticket in 2016. And in reality, these particulars of the moment will not be overly useful to us over the course of our lives. College has traditionally been a time for defining one’s political beliefs.

But that can only be done if you have something to define your beliefs against. Right now we graduate hundreds of students who are vaguely liberal, but do not have a rigorous sense of what that means.

Well, let’s define it for each other. Right now, I would say I am a progressive liberal in the Enlightenment tradition. I am open to that changing, but it will only happen if people disagree with me. So let’s find a time to meet and talk it out.

If this discussion happens all over campus, everyone will walk away more passionate about their politics and firmer in their convictions.

he reactions on Monday afternoon were loud and they were immediate.

From my perch in Blue State, I could see three different tables simultaneously open Martha Highsmith and Maria Bouffard's email about the snow day. The room all but erupted in cheers; people closed their books and headed off to liquor stores to stock up on storm provisions. I immediately posted a flippant Instagram. Everything was perfect.

Enormous storms at Yale, and particularly blizzards like Nemo and Juno, seem like a blessing to the overworked campus. Some of my fondest memories from sophomore year involve trekking up to the Divinity School quad and sledding so vigorously that I somehow wound up slightly frostbitten and mysteriously bruised. Being able to bask in one another’s company in this beautiful place, with some of the pressure of classes and homework temporarily removed, is an enormous gift.

But Monday, the feeling of elation with which we greet these natural disasters felt a bit out of place when compared with the feelings of dread they inspire in the greater community. Juno might not have lived up to its hype in New Haven, but had it, the storm would have devastated the area. At the same

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ble arms of Yale’s campus (and backup generator), to forget the fact that storms like the one that hit us yesterday (or, well, didn’t really) can deeply affect and trouble the lives of those living very close to us.

As just one example, I know a lot of classmates expressed dissatisfaction at the fact that the dining halls and libraries would be closed for at least the early parts of Tuesday. As we stood in line to get brown paper bags full of provisions, more than one person expressed incredulity that at an institution like Yale, we were being asked to get by for two meals with just granola bars and small pre-wrapped sandwiches.

But we ought to remember that the dining halls, like the libraries, like almost every single facility we make use of, are staffed by people. And more often than not, the men and women who make our meals possible have to travel some distance to get here; this storm had the power to damage their homes, to make their drives or bus rides to Yale treacherous (Governor Malloy issued a travel ban) and to force their children to stay home from school. None of us should begrudge them the need to stay safe at home.

As normal life resumes, I think it’s important that we take some time to remember the precautions Yale takes to make sure that, when these storms hit, we

ISA QASIM is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College. His column runs on alternate Thursdays.

Contact him at isa.qasim@yale.edu .

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have the luxury of experiencing them as no more than a blip on our radar. Even during Sandy, which cost the country about $50 billion, Yale never lost power.

On Monday, amid increasingly hysterical national warnings of record-breaking blizzards, the dining hall staff took the time to compile pretty plentiful goodie bags (I honestly think the breakfast I ate in my suite on Tuesday morning was more filling and nutritional than the breakfast I eat on a typical weekday).

Master Marvin Chun sent Berkeley College an email telling us that members of staff spent Monday night on campus to ensure that everyone got enough food. Men and women were shoveling and plowing the snow all day; they were still at it when I fell asleep, and they were at it when I woke up. Juno was fun, and there was never a moment, either in this storm or in any of the preceding ones, when I felt anything less than completely safe. And as recognition of that, I’d invite everyone to take a minute to express their gratitude to someone who ensured that it could be enjoyable and not frightful.

VICTORIA HALL-PALERM is a senior in Berkeley College. Her column usually runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact her at victoria.hall-palerm@yale.edu .

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EDITOR IN CHIEF Isaac Stanley-Becker

time that I was gleefully predicting class cancellations, my mother was texting me VICTORIA anxiously HALL-PALERM to make sure I had Notorious VHP a batterypowered flashlight and had charged my electronics in case of a power failure.

Or thinking back to Nemo: it’s hard to disentangle my vivid memories of making snow angels with my suitemates from the knowledge that five people in Connecticut alone died as a result of that storm. In Massachusetts, 400,000 people lost power. In New York, the police needed to go on expeditions to rescue ambulances that were trapped on the Long Island Expressway.

None of this is to deny that getting to play hooky from school for two days is anything less than great. Even during Hurricane Sandy, when I didn’t leave my room for three days, my suite holed up in the fortress that is Yale and binge-watched Pretty Little Liars. I think it solidified our friendship for the remainder of the year. But it’s easy, swaddled in the safe and impenetra-

I

For more snow columns

woke up Tuesday morning and my street was covered in snow. The world was bright and blindingly beautiful, so my housemate and I grabbed our coats and boots to go outside. We walked a block to buy milk, eggs and orange juice. Our shoes left fresh prints on the ground.

The next day, remembering that moment, I wanted to write a snow column. I wanted to write about how my street sparkled in a way that was almost otherworldly, so beautiful and bright.

I wanted to write about orange juice and the pattern of our footprints on the ground.

My snow column would have quoted Kurt Vonnegut, who describes the feeling I wanted to capture in an essay I’ve written about in this paper already, but will cite again because the phrase sticks: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” The column would have tried to connect that sense of fleeting contentment to something more universal than my mid-morning grocery run. Like being a senior, this pre-post-grad anxiety, the need to feel secure.

What came out was this

instead: not exactly a snow column, but a call for more of them.

I edited the opinion section of this MARISSA n e w s p a p e r years ago, MEDANSKY two which means encounLittle Fables I’ve tered more of these 700word pieces than I care to admit: columns, from my tenure and beyond, about almost every conceivable issue. I have some feel for the rhythm of what appears here.

People submitted all kinds of snow columns two years ago, back when I was at the News building reading them every night. These columns did not all take snow as their subject, but each attempted to sift some larger truth from a topic as mundane as the weather. These were little moments made big: the death of a pet, the fear of eating alone, the sound of the Harkness bells.

These were the columns online

readers most often charged as indulgent: too trivial, irrelevant to others, missing the point. I have always disagreed. Consider all those genre paintings from art history class, with boys in hats and women in white aprons, and how they find beauty in domestic scenes of kissing and baking bread. Snow columns, too, make meaning in the everyday.

The process of looking inside for them reminds us that we matter.

SNOW COLUMNS SIFT SOME LARGER TRUTH FROM A TOPIC AS MUNDANE AS THE WEATHER Now there are fewer snow columns. This feels strange and stodgy to say — I’m two years out, not two decades — but I notice this trend all the same.

What happened? Maybe it’s global warming. Maybe we took

those online comments to heart.

There’s another matter, too, which is that the world seemed to simmer all December and boil over this past week, if not before.

The sky gets dark so early in the wintertime; just these four days have been hard. Right now, stopping to notice the pattern of footprints on the ground seems challenging and frivolous at the same time. But weeks like this are why we need snow columns more than ever, not to indulge or distract us, but to keep us moving on.

Snow columns cannot save us — no column can do that — but there is value in taking the time to reflect. There is worth in letting your experience be heard (if not to write and publish, then just to share out loud). And there is peace, however brief, in finding words for the the way the world looks Tuesday morning, when your street is bright and blindingly beautiful and covered in snow.

MARISSA MEDANSKY is a senior in Morse College and a former opinion editor for the News. Contact her at marissa.medansky@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” WINSTON CHURCHILL FORMER U.K. PRIME MINISTER

CORRECTION TUESDAY, JAN. 27

A previous version of the article “A paradox of approval with the HPV vaccine” misstated the gender of Anees Chagpar.

It also mistakenly stated that Cervarix, an HPV vaccine, can only be used by women, when in fact, both genders may use it.

Democracy Fund may extend reach

BY ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTER The Democracy Fund, New Haven’s public campaign financing program, took a step last night toward extending its services to races for the Board of Alders.

The fund’s board met Wednesday night, after last week’s meeting was postponed when the absence of secretary William Wynn prevented the board from achieving a quorum. The fund, which was established in 2006, aims to support clean elections by offering grants and matching funds to candidates who do not accept donations from PACs or corporations and do not accept private donations exceeding $370.

At yesterday’s meeting, the board discussed extending the fund to include more local elections — namely races for alder, city clerk, voter registrar and probate judge — in addition to mayoral and state-level races, including state senators and representatives.

“We’re trying to get an understanding of under what circumstances the Board of Alders would allow an expansion of the fund,” Fund Administrator Alyson Heimer said.

Heimer prepared a questionnaire, which was up for discussion at the meeting, for the Board of Alders to gauge their interest in using the fund. After a brief review, the fund’s board members unanimously approved the questionnaire and moved to send it to the alders.

As administrator, Heimer must file a request regarding the expansion to present to the alders by the end of the month. The Democracy Fund board entered into an executive session, separate from the review, last night and discussed the potential format of such a presentation behind closed doors.

At last week’s informal meeting, members of the fund’s board agreed that the Board of Alders would likely have questions about the impact on the city budget if the proposal to extend the Democracy Fund to Board of Alders races were to pass.

Yesterday, Democracy Fund Chair Jared Milfred ’16 suggested that a report he prepared last year, which includes an analysis of the costs of aldermanic

races, could be utilized to supplement the fund’s presentation to ease any concerns about the increased costs of an expansion.

In the report, Milfred found that the average amount spent on an aldermanic race was $3,367 — less than 1 percent of the Democracy Fund’s current operating budget of $342,581 for the 2015–16 fiscal year. There are 30 members of the Board of Alders.

Heimer will meet with Mayor Toni Harp today to discuss the fund’s place in the 2015 budget. She said she does not foresee requesting any additional funding from the Board of Alders.

Meetings between the fund’s board and the Board of Alders will also help determine whether the Democracy Fund will extend only grants, only matching funds or both services to Board of Alders candidates, Milfred said. While grants are direct donations to campaigns, through matching funds, the Democracy Fund matches private donations from $10 to $25 on a 2:1 basis.

At the meeting last night, Heimer also proposed that the fund update its grant and matching fund amounts to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index. Although the fund’s bylaws call for a re-evaluation of these amounts every four years, some figures have not been updated since 2008.

In 2012, the Democracy Fund increased both the maximum amount that a candidate may spend on their campaign and the maximum grant a candidate may receive from $15,000 to $19,000.

The maximum personal donation that a candidate may accept was also increased from $300 to $370.

However, the matching fund cap has not yet been increased.

Currently, the matching fund cap is set at $25. But this value should be increased to $30, according to Heimer, to reflect cost-of-living adjustments.

“I propose that we take this issue up at the next meeting,” Democracy Fund Co-Chair Gerald Martin said. “I don’t want to leave the next meeting without having reached a decision on this.”

Contact ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .

Yale-NUS to hold first student elections

BY PHOEBE KIMMELMAN AND SPANDANA BHATTACHARYA STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Under the guidance of a newly ratified constitution, Yale-NUS students will host their first student government elections on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5.

And with campaigns underway, candidates are trying to craft the identity of a school only four semesters old.

Yale-NUS’s first student constitution, which was ratified on Nov. 21 by roughly 244 affirmative votes, representing 76.7 percent of the Yale-NUS student body, outlined the procedures for putting together an elected student body. This new student government will include representatives from each class and each of the three residential colleges, in addition to four “representatives-atlarge,” who lack any particular affiliation.

Speaking on behalf of the student-led Elections Committee, Jason Carlo Carranceja YNUS ’18 said speeches for these elections began after students confirmed their candidacies last week. There are 21 student candidates in total for next week’s elections, for only 11 spots.

Campaign speeches and debates will take place at a forum on Jan. 31. Carranceja also said this first student government will have unique responsibilities, such as organizing school-wide discussions about creating an honor code and the move into Yale-NUS’s new campus this fall.

“The very first student government will have the additional task to shape the way the student government, student body and administration interact,” Carranceja said. “Many roles and powers are yet to be defined, and so it will be up to this first group of students to negotiate them.”

Many roles and powers are yet to be defined, and so it will be up to this first group of students to negotiate them.

JASON CARLO CARRANCEJA YNUS ’18 Carranceja said that though the student government elections will be almost entirely student-orchestrated, the Dean of Students’ Office has been advising the Elections Committee.

Yale-NUS Student Life Manager Chris O’Connell and YaleNUS Dean’s Fellow Daniel Gor-

JASON YEO/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale-NUS will hold its first student government elections on Feb. 4 and 5. don said they have played a minimal role in planning the elections.

Students interviewed said solidifying school identity should be one of the primary tasks of the new student government. Jolanda Nava YNUS ’17 said she believes the student government will be tasked with developing a cohesive school-wide identity, in addition to cultivating identities for each of the three residential colleges.

Similarly, Raeden Richardson YNUS ’17 said he thinks cultivating a college-wide identity that underscores administrative transparency should be a priority for the new student government.

But David Chappell YNUS ’18, who is currently a candidate for residential college representative, said he felt the campaign process lacked excitement.

“Other than some cheesy posters in lifts, there isn’t a huge election process in the

community, at least in my opinion,” he said.

Chappell also said because he initially opposed ratifying the constitution, he was reluctant to run for a position in the upcoming elections. The constitution was drafted by only a small number of Yale-NUS students, Chappell said, and did not adequately represent the views of the entire student body. But after he was asked by many of his peers, he agreed to throw his hat in the ring.

Because Yale-NUS is so young, he said it will still be important to work within the guidelines of the ratified constitution to channel feedback from students to the administration.

“I want the student government to be as effective and representative as possible, and the constitution in the form it was last semester was not conducive to that,” he said.

Similarly, Nur Qistina Binte Abdul Wahid YNUS ’17, who is a class representative candi-

date, said she thinks the student government will help Yale-NUS tackle one of its most significant challenges: facilitating open communication between the student body and the administration. To this end, she said she thinks the student government’s required general assembly meetings, where students will raise issues and concerns, will help facilitate this dialogue.

Richardson said it is also important for students to remember their power in shaping the future of Yale-NUS with these elections.

“We need reminders of the gravity of what we are doing, of how the decisions we make now will echo through the generations of students following in our path,” he said.

Contact PHOEBE KIMMELMAN at phoebe.kimmelman@yale.edu and SPANDANA BHATTACHARYA at spandana.bhattacharya@yale.edu .

With improved reporting, adverse events increase

BY AMAKA UCHEGBU STAFF REPORTER More comprehensive reporting mechanisms have led to an increased number of reported complications in hospitals across Connecticut, according to a recently released Adverse Events Report.

The report, compiled each year and comprising data from the year prior, documented 534 adverse events at all inpatient and outpatient facilities in 2013, as compared to 244 in 2012.

Yale-New Haven Hospital’s rate of adverse events, which range from a fall to the effects of malpractice, rose to 22.9 per 100,000 patient days, the total number of days all admitted patients spend in the hospital.

The year before, that number was eight per 100,000.

“We’ve been very aggressive with amping up efforts to track adverse events,” said Joshua Copel, Yale School of Medicine

professor of obstetrics, gynecology, reproductive sciences and pediatrics.

Copel said that measures to improve reporting involve coaching physicians on what questions might come up and how to answer them when informing a patient about an adverse event. These measures may make physicians more comfortable, and thus more likely to report adverse events.

Copel added that actors have come in to train the physicians, and coaches are available to accompany physicians while they disclose a complication.

According to the report, the incidence rate of three of the four most common adverse events as a whole has remained roughly stable, with falls, perforations and objects left in the body after surgical procedures listed as the most common causes of complications. But because of an expanded definition of “pressure ulcer,” more commonly known as

bedsores, overall rates of adverse events have risen significantly.

Although they are becoming rarer, falls were still the most prevalent adverse event.

At Yale-New Haven, bedsores caused 70 of the 94 adverse events that the hospital reported in 2013.

Those numbers may seem large, but Yale Medical Group Chief Medical Officer Ronald Vender MED ’77 said that clinicians are encouraged to report every adverse event, even those that do not reach patients’ attention.

He added that even though staff and physicians are trained in creating “a culture of safety,” accidents still occur. Thus, every major complication undergoes a formal, comprehensive and standardized investigation, he said.

“A key principle of achieving high reliability is to increase reporting,” said Michelle Sharp, director of communications and

public affairs at the Connecticut Hospital Association. “We expected to see the number of reported events rise.”

While the hospital encourages all parties involved in health care to report complications, patients are not always aware of when adverse events happen, and thus are not always able to report incidents, Copel explained.

He added that many errors do not harm patients in any way, and so they are not always reported. While Copel noted that some people think physicians should report every error, others think that reporting is only necessary when harm has occurred.

Vender said that while Connecticut as a state has higher than average adverse report incidents, Yale-New Haven’s rates of complications are below the state average.

“If you look at the larger hospitals in the state, we have better performance, despite doing

more complex and difficult cases than other hospitals,” he said, referring to the high number of endoscopies performed at YaleNew Haven. That procedure, which involves passing a tube down a patient’s digestive tract, can lead to perforations.

A key principle of achieving high reliability is to increase … reporting.

MICHELLE SHARP Director of communications and public affairs, Connecticut Hospital Association Sharp noted that the addition of extra categories in the database of complications may have led to a higher number of cases across the state. The report expanded the documentation of bedsores to accommodate those that are “unstageable” — sores

so obscured by dead tissue that the depth of the wound is indeterminable. This added 226 more incidences that were not recorded before.

Vender said the hospital itself keeps track of all adverse events in real time, and that this report, conducted by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, may not be the most reflective of current adverse event reporting levels because it is over a year old. Since the report only discusses issues that occurred in 2013, it does not consider changes that have been made since then, including changes that came out of a two-day conference on quality and safety in September 2014.

Events at Yale-New Haven accounted for 19 percent of the total number of adverse events that occurred at acute care hospitals in the state in 2013.

Contact AMAKA UCHEGBU at amaka.uchegbu@yale.edu .

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PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking.” JOSÉ SARAMAGO PORTUGUESE NOVELIST

Death of Wang ’17 sheds light on withdrawal policies WITHDRAWAL FROM PAGE 1 prevented Wang from seeking appropriate and necessary treatment.

“She was routinely lying to her therapist,” the friend said.

“It was very common for her to express suicidal ideations and then she immediately followed that up, explaining that if we reported her she would be kicked out of Yale and have no reason left not to kill herself.”

Under Yale’s current leave of absence and withdrawal policies, students may elect to take a leave of absence until the 10th day of a new semester. Students who take leaves of absence may return to campus easily, often simply by emailing their residential college dean.

But after 10 days, the process of leaving Yale becomes far more complicated. Students who wish to take time off must withdraw from the University, and they must apply for readmission before they are allowed to return. Although most students who apply for readmission are accepted, according to the University’s policies, readmission is not guaranteed.

Applicants must fulfill certain requirements before applying for readmission; according to the requirements listed online, the readmissions committee expects them to have been “constructively occupied” during their time away from campus. Students who withdrew for medical reasons are often mandated to complete the equivalent of two term courses. In addition, students must demonstrate “the ability henceforth to remain in academic good standing.”

Readmission is considerably more difficult for students who

withdraw for a second time.

Yale’s readmission policies, as specified in the Yale College Programs of Study handbook, state that it will only be allowed under “unusual circumstances, ordinarily of a medical nature.”

Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs for Yale College Pamela George, who chairs the Committee on Readmission, said it is vital that Yale’s guidelines concerning withdrawal and readmission be clear and accessible.

But she also said that the readmission policies have been in place for decades and are ready for reevaluation.

“There is definitely room for immediate improvement,” she said in an email.

For Wang — who had already withdrawn from the University once during her freshman year — the uncertainty of being readmitted again appeared to play a role in her decision not to withdraw a second time, according to her Facebook note.

“Dear Yale: I loved being here,” she wrote. “I only wish I could’ve had some time. I needed time to work things out and to wait for new medication to kick in, but I couldn’t do it in school, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave for a full year, or of leaving and never being readmitted.”

Chief of Yale Mental Health and Counseling Lorraine Siggins could not be reached for comment, nor could Director of Yale Health Paul Genecin.

Students interviewed who have gone through the withdrawal process, but are not familiar with Wang’s situation, said Wang was not alone in having fears of being denied readmission.

Rachel Williams ’17 said that

while she did not personally know Wang, she could relate to the fear of not being readmitted following her own withdrawal in February of 2013. Williams said that while those who knew her and were familiar with her treatment, such as psychiatrists and professors during her time off, sent letters of recommendation during the readmission process, the final decision was left almost entirely to George and Siggins, with whom Williams had only one 20-minute meeting before her return in the spring of 2014.

It is vitally essential … to have clear guidelines [that] support a student’s personal growth.

PAMELA GEORGE Chair, Readmission Committee Williams said that while she could not speak with absolute authority, she got the sense from speaking with others that students who withdraw from the University are not given very many more chances before they are permanently dismissed as students. A large part of this, Williams said, is due to a lack of transparency throughout the process.

“I have gotten the feeling, ‘I better not [mess] up again,’ so I can see why [Wang] would have been afraid,” Williams said. “I would be terrified.”

Wang’s concern that she would not have had enough time for new medications to take effect is also indicative of the unsympathetic nature of Yale’s

policies, Posner said.

“What Yale did was force her to choose between trying to juggle that huge burden while surviving at school with her symptoms not fully managed — a cruel, impossible demand — or leaving without certainty of ever being allowed back,” she said.

“Yale, like our society, which is still grossly under-equipped for treating mental illness, shares culpability for her death.”

Another student who withdrew for medical reasons and was then readmitted said they had nearly been driven to suicide two years ago by the financial burden and anxiety imposed

by Yale’s withdrawal policies.

The student, who asked to remain anonymous, said that while they were not familiar with Wang’s story, the thought that Yale’s policies might have played a role was devastating.

“Make no mistake — the withdrawal and readmission policies are hostile to students with mental illness,” the student said.

CONSIDERING CONTEXT

However, other students who were close to Wang said that attributing her death to Yale’s mental health policies alone is a gross oversimplification.

Tammy Pham ’15, a close friend of Wang’s who was among the first to respond to her Facebook post, said that while much attention has centered on the difficulties of readmission and Wang’s mention of withdrawal in her suicide note, she does not want people to ignore other factors that may have led to the tragedy.

“I can’t speak for [Wang], but from our conversations, [difficulty with withdrawal] wasn’t

the only reason,” Pham said. “I don’t want her story to become, ‘She died because Yale failed her, and if Yale had had a better policy she wouldn’t have died.

That’s the vibe I’ve been getting recently, which is very upsetting, because it shows a deep misunderstanding of depression.”

Another friend of Wang’s, who wished to remain anonymous, said that those close to her felt she seemed fixated on the idea of suicide, despite having received medical treatment in the past, and that Wang “was very careful not to preclude [suicide] as a possibility for herself.”

In evaluating the factors that led to Wang’s death, cultural perceptions of mental illness are just as important as Yale’s individual policies, Pham said. She added that while Yale’s policies certainly merit reform, stigmas around taking time off from Yale can be just as off-putting as fear of being denied readmission. “[Fear of being denied readmission] played a big role in how she felt about taking time off,” Pham said. “But to take that a step further and imply that Yale singlehandedly caused this or could have prevented it is just untrue. There are so many deeper problems at play here, and it’s unfair to blame any one institution or person for this.”

Concerns about campus stigmas surrounding withdrawal were also raised by other students. Williams said she could relate to Wang’s apparent thoughts that leaving Yale was too terrible of an option to consider.

“Yale is a part of our lives — why do we get deluded into thinking that Yale is our whole life and that we can’t tolerate

existing outside of it?” Williams said. “[Wang’s suicide] was a source of feeling like you don’t have choices and that she couldn’t pick the choice not to be here.”

Holloway said that during his time as master of Calhoun College, students often fought hard against the idea of leaving Yale.

Holloway said that while the residential college dean and master should always try to reassure students that taking time off is an acceptable option, they often meet the most resistance from students themselves.

“That was always my experience in Calhoun, that usually it’s the students who are desperate not to leave, for a whole range of reasons,” he said.

Asian American Cultural Center Head Coordinators Hiral Doshi ’17 and Jessica Liang ’17 said the cultural house has pushed for more awareness surrounding the stigmatization of mental illness within the AsianAmerican community. Doshi said that sometimes members of the community are discouraged from opening up to their own families or voicing personal issues to others, which makes a safe environment at Yale that much more important.

“We understand what our community is going through and we don’t have the resources to be able to address this issue properly,” Doshi said. “We don’t want to see anything happen like this ever again.”

A memorial service for Wang will be held on Jan. 31 at 2 p.m. in Battell Chapel.

Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu and VIVIAN WANG at vivian.y.wang@yale.edu .

“Night Cafe” at center of legal battle, again

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Night Cafe,” which came to the United States in 1933, has been in Yale’s possession for over 50 years.

VAN GOGH FROM PAGE 1 Law, which is defending Konowaloff. “For purposes of titlement, your title to is it is only as good as the person who gave it to you.”

University Spokesperson Tom Conroy said Yale has been the rightful owner of “The Night Cafe” for more than 50 years and that Konowaloff’s appeal is frivolous. YUAG Communications

Director Joellen Adae provided no further comment.

According to the brief, Clark “managed to acquire the painting by a surreptitious scheme to make it appear as if the transaction had been solely between him and the Knoedler Gallery in New York.”

But, the brief continues, Clark in fact colluded to “pay off corrupt Soviet officials to engineer the ‘sale.’”

Gerson added that he and his client had recently obtained documents from Russia which support their position, revealing that there had been no approval of the painting’s sale to the Knoedler Gallery nor to Clark. Unlike most documented sales of paintings in Russia in the early 1900s, the sale of “The Night Cafe” does not contain multiple signatures. In light of these documents, Gerson said his client

is entitled to a trial which “deals with the question of title laws.”

Yale first sued Konowaloff in 2009, asserting rightful ownership. In his response later that year, Konowaloff claimed that the Russian government had seized the painting in violation of international law and that Russia’s subsequent failure to pay Morozov upon his death in 1921 made Konowaloff the painting’s right-

ful owner.

But Yale Law School professor James Whitman suggested that Konowaloff’s renewed effort to obtain the painting may be in vain.

“As far as I know he lost in federal court in Connecticut on the standard reasoning, which is that the Act of State doctrine prevents the court from inquiring into questions of title based on international law. If there’s some rea-

son to think he would have better luck in a [New York] state court I simply don’t know what that reason would be,” Whitman said in an email.

“The Night Cafe” was painted in 1888 in Arles, France.

Contact FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu and RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” CARL JUNG SWISS PSYCHIATRIST

Mindmap aims to curb psychosis

BY APARNA NATHAN STAFF REPORTER A new program may make it easier for young people in New Haven and the surrounding areas to navigate the early stages of psychosis.

The Specialized Treatment in Early Psychosis (STEP) clinic at the Connecticut Mental Health Center launched the Mindmap public information campaign a week ago today, which seeks to improve outreach to young adults and bring patients into treatment more quickly. The program is intended to address the issue that, while the onset of many mental illnesses is during early adulthood, patients often only enter treatment later in adulthood, said Vinod Srihari, professor of psychiatry and director of STEP. Social media and community outreach will play a major role in the campaign, aiming to educate the public about psychosis and facilitate the connection of patients with treatment.

“Most serious mental illnesses are chronic illnesses of the young,” Srihari said. “There’s a long window of opportunity lost with many illnesses, and we very much intend this demonstration to be relevant to other serious mental illnesses that onset during this period.”

The project is spearheaded by researchers from the CMHC, a hospital administered by the Yale University Department of Psychiatry and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services (DMHAS). It will reach out to the surrounding communities of Bethany, East Haven, Hamden, New Haven, North Haven, Orange, West Haven and Woodbridge.

In addition to increasing outreach, Mindmap will allow patients to have fast access to STEP, a novel clinical program within CMHC that gives patients comprehensive treatment early in the course of their psychosis.

With new, more flexible screening methods, patients will not have to wait more than one or two days to be screened, said Jessica Pollard, professor of psychiatry and clinical director of STEP. For example, people who are hospitalized will be screened before being discharged — currently, patients who have been admitted to a hospital for psychiatric reasons must wait to be discharged to be screened for admission to a mental health treatment program. STEP’s staff will also arrange meetings with patients at their own doctor’s offices if they are reluctant to come to a mental health facility. The program currently serves 25 patients and has been enrolling one to two new patients per week since beginning Mindmap.

The motivation for the campaign grew out of the realization that, despite STEP’s successful model, the program was not getting patients into treatment as soon as researchers wanted, Pollard said.

“The duration of untreated psychosis is measured in years, which is just horrible when you think about what that’s like for the person suffering from the illness and their family,” she added.

Reducing the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is one of the main goals of Mindmap, Srihari said.

Because the onset of most cases of psychosis occur during early adulthood, the campaign is targeting that demographic.

Social media is a particularly effective channel to reach this age group, said Jessica Goldman, young adult coordinator at the Connecticut branch of the National Association of Mental Illness. Mindmap will expand upon already-existing services for young adults, said Mary Kelly Mason, public relations manager at the DMHAS. “The campaign is going to reach out to people we have not had mental health services for

Land easements approved

before,” Mason said.

Mindmap is modeled after the Early Identification and Treatment of Psychosis (TIPS) project, a Scandinavian approach that utilizes education about early signs of psychosis to reduce DUP. Researchers from TIPS are consulting on the Mindmap project.

Mindmap is being implemented as part of a study investigating whether this new public information campaign can improve outcomes for psychosis patients and shorten DUP. The study is being funded by a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health over five years, and is being carried out in conjunction with the Prevention and Recovery in Early Psychosis program at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. Similar to CMHC, MMHC is a public-academic collaboration between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. PREP, where the Mindmap campaign will not be implemented, will serve as the control site for the study.

Launched last Thursday, the campaign will run for three years, after which the researchers will measure its effects, looking specifically at DUP as an indicator of successful outreach to patients.

Researchers hope that Mindmap will be able to improve the speed of diagnosis and treatment for other mental illnesses as well.

Pollard noted that there is a lack of proactive, preventative treatments for mental illness and outreach is rarely structured to reach young people.

The DMHAS will be following the work conducted by STEP and seeing if it is replicable, Mason said. If the model proves to be successful and cost-effective, it may be considered for Hartford Hospital, which also serves psychosis patients, Srihari added.

STEP was founded in 2006.

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER At their first meeting of the year last night, the New Haven Community Development Committee approved a series of measures permitting the development of privately owned land.

The committee voted to approve a petition to terminate the Land Disposition Agreement of 1970, a city ordinance that requires a downtown building to have affordable housing. The vote, city officials said, is in sync with Mayor Toni Harp’s broader plans for developing the city’s suburbs and downtown.

“The mayor is very clear that her goal is that the operations of the city treat each neighborhood equitably, and that we allocate our time to make sure that what we’re doing has impacts across the entire city,” said New Haven Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson SOM ’81.

One such neighborhood discussed is the area around 76 Sherman Ave., the site of a building that is still under a Land Disposition Agreement. The LDA mandates that 50 percent of the building be affordable housing and also gives the city the right to refuse any sale of the property. The building, which has 22 housing units, is currently owned by Deutsche Bank.

James Segaloff, a lawyer for Deutsche Bank, requested that the Board of Alders terminate the LDA, allowing the bank to sell the building to any buyer without interference from the city. Segaloff said the owners do not currently have any buyers in mind, though they are trying to sell the build-

Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .

ing.

Ward 6 Alder Dolores Colon, who sits on the committee, questioned whether current tenants would be notified of the changes resulting from the termination. Still, after deliberations, the committee voted to approve the proposal, pushing it to a full vote by the Board of Alders.

[The mayor’s goal] is that the operations of the city treat each neighborhood equitably.

MATTHEW NEMERSON SOM ’81 Economic development administrator, New Haven The next item on the agenda was presented by Director of the City Plan Department Karyn Gilvarg.

The proposal would authorize Harp to sign easement documents for land containing the Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway — a multipurpose bicycle path that was constructed over an old railway line. This would allow the city to further develop this public space on land that is privately owned and extend the path to the harbor.

The construction of the canal line has been a goal of the City Plan Department since 1999. The line currently runs 18 miles through the city, extending to Hamden, Conn. The railway, which used to run from New Haven to Hampton, Massachusetts, is used by many city residents to commute, Gilvarg said.

“I use the bike trail almost every day,” said New Haven resident Wendy Hamilton, who attended the hearing.

“It’s a beautiful bike trail.

If you can’t connect it with the harbor I’m going to use it anyway.”

The canal trail cuts through land owned by Yale on Temple Street, Hillhouse Avenue and Prospect Street.

Yale has already signed easement for the public use of that land.

Another request came for the approval of access easement of land on 46 River St. The land has been used by the chemical company DuPont since 2002. The extension of the easement, which allows DuPont to conduct environmental cleanup on the site, was necessary for DuPont to continue to use the land until their contract is complete.

Colon questioned why the site had taken DuPont so long to clean up. Economic Development Officer Helen Rosenberg, who attended the meeting to propose the access easement, attributed the slow process to lack of funding, noting that DuPont had not yet received the $8.1 million needed to complete the project. She added that DuPont is in the process of applying for the funds from the city.

Near the end of the hearing, Hamilton gave a speech before the committee calling for the construction of housing for the homeless on the River Street Project Area.

Harp will deliver a state of the city address on Monday.

By the end of February, Harp will present a budget for the 2015 year, Nemerson said.

Contact FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu .

MCDB class hopes to “Shake it Off ”

BY STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTER Molecular, cellular and developmental biology professor Joseph Wolenski is writing song lyrics for his next biologythemed parody music video, set to feature his undergraduate lab students and — if she agrees to Wolenski’s multiple email requests — seven-time Grammy award winner Taylor Swift.

Last spring, Wolenski’s semester-long sequence of two courses, “Experimental Techniques in Cellular Biology” and “Experimental Strategies in Cellular Biology” (MCDB 344L and MCDB 345L, respectively), composed of fewer than 20 students drawn from a pool of competitive applicants, started the tradition of putting the skills and vocabulary they learned during lab to song lyrics. Their final product, “Talk Nerdy” — a parody of Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty” — received more than 6,000 hits on YouTube and has been entered into a competition for a Lab Grammy award by BioTechniques, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It includes biology-related lines like “You got the plasmid I want, mutagenesis. Our antibodies ain’t big, but you know what is.”

Despite the limited amount of time students had to make the video, Wolenski called it a success and said he plans to make this year’s video project even better. He said the class hopes to make a “Shake it Off” parody featuring Swift.

“The students are what keep me alive, you know, motivated and energized,” Wolenski said, adding that these music videos are a new way to interact with the students while still promoting the ideals of education and learning.

Wolenski has sent at least two emails to try to contact Taylor Swift’s management team and has been encouraging his students to do the same. He said he is hopeful that the project will pan out because Swift is known for reaching out to fans and because she lives nearby in New York City. The class only requests 10 minutes of her time, he added.

JOSEPH WOLENSKI

This year’s popular MCDB lab course seeks to make a video featuring Taylor Swift.

Although last year’s video only featured teaching fellows and students in the class, Wolenski said he wants this year’s video to be a campus-wide production — especially if Swift is involved. He said he hopes to include Yale cheerleaders, dancers from Rhythmic Blue and possibly even a cameo from University President Peter Salovey.

Wolenski added that he hopes undergraduates will get on board in using social media like Facebook or Twitter to show support for the video and start a campaign to lure Swift to campus.

Yale College Council President Michael Herbert ’16 said that for the time being he is

unsure whether YCC would “lead the charge” on trying to get Swift to come to campus. But if the campaign gains momentum, he could see the YCC jumping in, he said.

Wolenski’s daughter, Rebecca Wolenski ’16, who had a short cameo in the video last year, said that while she has not tried to help her father in contacting Swift, she finds his mission both inspiring and amusing.

“I think it’s hilarious,” she said. “If [Swift’s appearance] actually happened, that would be amazing, but who knows how many of her emails are actually read. I’m just so happy that he dreams big and tries.”

Students from the class interviewed said the video-making process was a fun way to form a tight-knit class community. Despite the advanced topics that it features, the video will make science more accessible to a wider audience, said Jenny Wu ’15, who wrote the “Talk Nerdy” song lyrics. Wolenski’s approach shows students that classes covering difficult subjects can also be fun, Wu said.

Kyle Krzesowik ’15 said the video project never took away from actual work time. The class met in lab from eight to 10 hours a week and worked on ideas for the music video while waiting for experiments to finish.

Wu, who cited Wolenski’s courses as two of her favorites at Yale, said it was unlike any stereotypical “insular or isolated” lab experience.

“It’s really important to make [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] more accessible to people in general,” Wu said. “I’ve always been especially interested in the intersections between science and art, which is one of the reasons I loved this project.”

If Swift cannot come to Yale, Wolenski said, she could send in a video to be edited by the class.

Regardless of the outcome, Wolenski said, he has multiple back-up plans, which include

contacting relatively newer pop sensations Meghan Trainor and Ariana Grande. If the class does luck out, though, Wolenski said he already has some ideas about what the video’s first lines could be. One option is “I’ve got plenty on my brain, that’s what my neurons say.”

Swift’s agents could not be reached for comment.

Special registration procedures apply for MCDB 344L/345L, and interested students must contact the instructor at least 18 months in advance, according to the course website.

Contact STEPHANIE ROGERS at stephanie.rogers@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“If we expect others to rely on our fairness and justice we must show that we rely on their fairness and justice.”

CALVIN COOLIDGE FORMER PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Donations to Yale fall far below peers GRAPH UNIVERSITY DONATIONS

DONATIONS FROM PAGE 1 vey — including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Cornell, Duke, USC and Northwestern — are in the midst of capital campaigns or have just finished them, so their higher fundraising revenue reflects the payments on significant campaign gifts. She added that many of the pledges made in Yale’s most recent capital campaign, Yale Tomorrow, have already been paid since the campaign ended in 2011.

Although fiscal 2014’s total included Charles Johnson’s ’54 $250 million donation, the largest gift in Yale history, the University’s cash donations still dropped by roughly 3 percent compared to the previous year.

“One of the challenges when [a school] receives a large gift is that the typical donor may say something like, ‘they have gotten that big gift and don’t need our small donation anymore,’” said Timothy Winkler, CEO and founding partner of the Winkler Group, a fundraising consulting firm. “Those larger gifts for that reasoning can be a blessing and a challenge. […] They put an extra imperative on Yale’s development office to continue articulating its message about why it is still worthy for support.”

Harvard, with a fundraising total of $1.16 billion, took in the highest total donations in the history of higher education, breaking Stanford’s previous record of $1.03 billion, set in 2012. Stanford had ranked number one in fundraising for the past nine years.

In contrast with Yale’s calculation, Harvard’s fundraising record does not include the $350 million donation it received in September 2014, the largest in the university’s history.

Experts interviewed also estimated different reasons for Yale’s drop in donations, and the stark difference in performance from Harvard and Stanford.

Assistant Director of the Yale Alumni Fund Susan Frankenbach said since Harvard has a larger graduate population than Yale, there is a smaller pool of alumni for Yale to solicit donations from.

Director of Cornell’s Higher Education Research Institute Ronald Ehrenberg echoed this statement, noting that Harvard and Stanford both have “massive” business schools in comparison to Yale’s relatively small School of Management, and business school graduates are among the most generous and common donors. He added that Harvard’s law school is also larger than Yale’s, creating another donation disparity between the two schools.

“If I was the Yale Administration, I would not be concerned,” Ehrenberg said. “$400 million is extraordinary.”

Despite the drop in donations

$1.16 billion

Harvard University

$928.46 million

Stanford University

$731.93 million

University of Southern California Northwestern University

$616.35 million

Johns Hopkins University

$614.61 million $546.09 million

Cornell University

$529.39 million

University of Texas at Austin University of Pennsylvania

$483.57 million

University of Washington

$478.07 million

Columbia University

$469.97 million

New York University

$455.72 million

University of California at San Francisco Duke University

$444.94 million

University of Michigan

$437.38 million $432.60 million

Yale University

$430.31 million

to Yale, charitable contributions to institutions around the country collectively were at a historic high this year, growing by 10.8 percent to $37.45 billion in 2014.

Experts interviewed attributed this rise in nationwide philanthropy in higher education to a variety of causes, ranging from the strong stock market performance to successful fundraising techniques used by development offices.

Ann Kaplan, who directed the CAE survey, said a large percentage of this year’s national increase in giving is likely due to a rise in personal and institutional wealth, which is often reflected in the strength of the stock market and index funds performance. During the 2014 fiscal year, the New York Stock Exchange increased 19.8 percent and the Standard & Poor’s

0

$469.97 million

200fundraising400 600 800 1000 1200 professionals. […] may not have gone to the school or as well, because they connect with

500 Index increased 21.4 percent.

O’Neill agreed, adding that people are also increasingly interested in the future of academic institutions.

“The rise in charitable donations to colleges in general can be attributed to many factors including greater optimism in the economy and an increase in personal wealth for some donors, as well as a commitment to the importance of education,” O’Neill said. “At Yale we have seen particular and significant interest by our donors in supporting financial aid and outstanding teaching.”

Winkler said another factor contributing to the rise in giving may be due to the strategies employed by colleges and universities to recruit charitable gifts.

“Historically, higher ed has recruited and retained the best

They also seem to be on the leading edge of whatever are the most effective tactics in the profession,” he said. “We are starting to see that spike in giving right now.”

The CAE survey also noted that the top 20 fundraising institutions in the country — representing less than 1 percent of the 3,000 colleges surveyed — received nearly 30 percent of all gifts to higher education. Kaplan said this skew may reflect that larger institutions can recruit gifts from a wider base of donors beyond its alumni base.

“One reason is that [the top 20 schools] are a lot more than teaching institutes: they have art museums, hospitals that do medical research, they spend more money,” she said. “They can make the case for support that goes beyond their teaching mission, so people that

are not interested in educational philanthropy can still make a gift.”

Roger Noll, an economics professor at Stanford who studies alumni fundraising, told the News last February that Stanford oftentimes receives donations from individuals who did not graduate from the university. Stanford’s close proximity to Silicon Valley has been one of the primary causes of Stanford’s fundraising success, Noll said, and the university’s top fundraising years typically coincide with booms in the information technology industry.

Noll added that while many Stanford graduates do become employees and founders of Silicon Valley firms and give back to the university, many Silicon Valley workers who did not graduate from the school choose to donate

ESSERMAN FROM PAGE 1

SUSTAINABLITY FROM PAGE 1

YALE DAILY NEWS

New Haven Police Department Chief Dean Esserman has refocused on community policing and neighborhood involvement. so that community members can call officers they know when they require assistance, as opposed to the New Haven police force as a whole.

Last March, the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers honored Esserman with the Community Policing Award for his “current, past and continuing efforts in promoting the concepts of community policing, youth empowerment and community service”.

Despite this recent national recog-

the university by attending open lectures and forming friendships with faculty members.

In addition, Stanford just concluded its Stanford Challenge campaign in December 2011 — a five-year fundraising initiative that raised $6.23 billion for the university.

Still, Hesel said this data reflected the growing divide between wealthy institutions and schools in greater need. Although charitable giving to higher education is at an all-time high, Hesel said most schools across the country are not seeing the type of donations being received at the top.

Contact TYLER FOGGATT at tyler.foggatt@yale.edu and LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu .

Yale sticks to sustainability plans

Justice Dept seeks policing advice Hall spokesperson Laurence Grotheer added that Esserman’s commitment to this style of policing has engendered trust and cooperation and resulted in lower crime rates throughout the city.

Esserman helped establish community policing in New Haven in the 1990s under then-Chief Nicolas Pastore before leaving to head the police department in Providence, Rhode Island, where he oversaw a 30 percent drop in overall crime. He returned to become chief in New Haven in 2011 amid calls for a return to the neighborhood-walking-cop style of community policing that had been abandoned in previous years. With strong encouragement from the Board of Alders and Mayor Toni Harp, Esserman has refocused the NHPD’s efforts to emphasize neighborhood involvement.

Community policing is a method of policing that seeks to correct what Esserman sees as the unanticipated consequence of new technology such as police radios and scanners.

“What happens now is you call 911, and a police officer you don’t know shows up at the door,” Esserman said.

“Police officers lost the relationships that were so important in helping them service their communities. They became anonymous.”

New Haven is the only city in America that still requires every recruit to engage in active foot patrol in a particular neighborhood or area in the city. In addition, the department has replaced radios and walkie-talkies with cell phones and business cards

$478.07 million

nition, Esserman recently garnered criticism after Harp sent him a letter of reprimand in response to his conduct at September’s Yale-Army football game, where he reportedly shouted at an usher during an argument over seating arrangements.

In addition to serving as the NHPD Chief, Esserman teaches a Yale College seminar on “Policing in America”.

Contact NOAH KIM at noah.kim@yale.edu .

Students surveyed largely agreed that the University’s greenhouse gas emissions should decrease.

Fossil Free Yale Project Manager Mitch Barrows ’16 said the goals of the University’s sustainability efforts and the goals of Fossil Free Yale, the undergraduate organization committed to divestment, diverge considerably. He said that while the University’s efforts are well-intentioned, administrators are nonetheless avoiding larger issues of social and climate justice.

“What the University is doing and what Fossil Free Yale [is] asking for are two different things,” Barrows said. “I think they’re using the sustainability initiatives not to address broader issues that Yale has the capacity and the obligation to address; they’re using sustainability as an excuse to avoid the larger questions.”

Brad Gentry, associate dean for professional practice and co-director of the Center for Business and the Environment, said lowering greenhouse gas emissions is not an easy task, especially considering that the University has already taken the biggest possible steps it can to reduce emissions. He added that further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions can be accomplished by building new structures and maintaining existing structures with sustainability in mind.

Another success laid out by the Office of Sustainability report is the efficacy of LEED certification programs for ensuring energy-efficient buildings on campus.

LEED certification is an initiative designed

by the U.S. Green Building Council that requires certain sustainable attributes like energy and water conservation. According to Chapman, LEED certification provides a third-party verification of Yale’s own sustainability design requirements for construction projects.

Gentry noted that while the facilities office is tasked with meeting the sustainability goals set out in the three-year plan, he believes academic and outreach departments are taking a growing role in supporting these efforts.

The report recorded the greatest successes in cultivating environmentally conscious behaviors among Yale’s departments, offices and professional schools.

According to Chapman, with the aid of the office, people all across the University have become increasingly accustomed to these practices and behaviors. For example, the goal of cutting paper use in offices by 10 percent laid out in the three-year plan has been exceeded in the first year alone — demonstrating the substantial support for sustainable practices across the University.

Gentry said that cumulatively, the University is halfway through its three-year plan, and preparations are beginning for the next phase of sustainability initiatives.

He said that students from Yale’s professional schools have been researching similar initiatives at peer institutions, corporations and cities, in order to decide on the best way for Yale to move forward.

Contact JED FINLEY at james.finley@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

AROUND THE IVIES

“Justice is truth in action.”

BENJAMIN DISRAELI FORMER

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

T H E C O L U M B I A S P E C TAT O R

Advisory committee to tackle issues of race Students and faculty welcomed Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s announcement, emailed to students on Friday, calling for the creation of a student-faculty advisory committee on race, ethnicity and equal justice. The committee is convened by newly appointed Executive Vice President for University Life Suzanne Goldberg, marking her first public action since assuming the new role last Tuesday.

The announcement comes after a month marked by protests following juries’ decisions not to indict the police officers that killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Students scrutinized limited and delayed administrative responses.

“I’m really happy to hear that the president wants to convene a larger committee to look at this problem with some perspective and kind of get all different stakeholders involved,” George Aumoithe, a student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Students of Color Alliance, said.

According to members of the alliance, GSAS administrators told their group in a meeting in December that they would be eliminating the position of dean of diversity. The alliance held a speakout on College Walk protesting the decision and black trauma in academic spaces, according to Ouleye Ndoye, a GSAS student and a member of the Students of Color Alliance.

Members of the alliance have said administrators later reversed that decision.

“The whole point of the protests from our perspective was the concern that one of the main things we were saying is you can’t just recruit for diversity. You

also have to sustain it,” Aumoithe said.

He said he would like the COLUMBIA committee to address Columbia’s “traditionally antagonistic relationship” with the surrounding neighborhood, and for Columbia to more fully include campus workers of color into the Columbia community.

According to Ndoye, who is also the students of color cocoordinator for the Graduate History Association, while Columbia actively recruits students of color, it struggles to retain them, which creates an obstacle to true diversity.

“We hope to see the Professors in leadership roles, as well as the administration, support and retain students of color once they make the decision to enroll at Columbia University,” Ndoye wrote in an email to Spectator.

Kevin Fellezs, an assistant professor of music and AfricanAmerican Studies, said he hoped the committee would address the systemic issues that students and faculty of color face, not just issues of representation.

He said the committee still needs to define the terms of its mission.

“How it defines diversity, for instance, will signal more clearly the kinds of actions it plans to consider, the sorts of issues it decides to tackle, and the type of policies it hopes to implement,” Fellezs said in an email.

Students and faculty also stressed that the committee should include participation from students.

“I applaud the committee’s commitment to student involve-

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Many students expressed enthusiasm for the newly announced committee on race, ethnicity and equal justice. ment, and hope that there is both undergraduate and graduate student participation as the two student populations have different issues and concerns,” Fellezs said.

University Senator Ramis Wadood said he is excited that the university is targeting such an important issue, but wants to ensure that the committee is student-driven.

“I know obviously with Goldberg’s committee there’s going to be administrative oversight — it was commissioned by the president — but it’s intended to

have students in the committee,” Wadood said.

At December’s University Senate plenary, Wadood and fellow senators Jillian Ross and Marc Heinrich announced plans to create a USenate commission comprised of faculty, administrators and students on the status of underrepresented minorities.

Wadood predicted that the commission, which plans to be formalized and running by the end of the semester, would be “very closely related” to the committee convened by Goldberg.

“The last thing we want is for there to be separate conversations going on about the same issue,” Wadood said.

“From what we know so far, the committee that President Bollinger commissioned is going to focus on programming, as he said in his email, and our committee is really focused on institutionalizing this conversation,” he added.

Wadood said he would like to see the committee confront mental health issues that students of color face, which are reinforced

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by systemic issues with hiring.

“Students who identify a certain way are more comfortable speaking to clinicians or psychiatrists who can fully understand where they’re coming from,” he said.

“It starts on an administrative level with hiring those people, with reading those groups, but most fundamentally, it just requires the university listening,” Wadood added. “The university really needs to sit back and let the students be the leaders of this conversation on campus.”

OPINION.

BY CATIE EDMONSON

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I don’t listen to Katy Perry. She doesn’t do it for me. I’m more Beyoncé.”

MICHAEL BENNETT SEATTLE SEAHAWKS DEFENSIVE END

Elis face two top-10 foes

Duren and Sears star in Ivy games M. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 10 ball to the rim so that I can rebound it.”

Sears and Duren have contributed roughly 57 percent of the team’s points scored this year, but even with two of the most dominant players in the league, both are just part of an offense that happens to be clicking at the right moments.

Montague noted that it is fun to play with the two because they are unselfish and make scoring easier for everyone.

Duren added that the team is extremely versatile, and that the offense can come from anyone on any given night because

the Elis share the ball well.

“We’re looking for each other, everyone’s unselfish, Javier’s been passing the ball well and the coaches have been harping on us to reduce our turnovers,” Sears said. “Put all those together, and that’s why we’ve had so much success.”

The team will look for Duren and Sears to continue to play well, anchoring the team’s offense, as the Bulldogs head to New York with matchups against Columbia and Cornell this weekend.

Contact ASHLEY WU at ashley.e.wu@yale.edu .

HOPE ALLCHIN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Elis currently sit comfortably in the eighth spot in the ECAC, the last playoff-securing ranking.

W. HOCKEY FROM PAGE 10 a better showing than they did the last time they played against these teams. The Bulldogs were shut out at home 3–0 on Oct. 31 by St. Lawrence and then defeated 2–1 by Clarkson the next day.

“We did not play our best hockey the last time we faced off against these two teams at the beginning of the year,” forward Janelle Ferrara ’16 said. “This weekend we hope to show them what Yale hockey is really about and get two big league wins out of it.”

Staenz echoed her teammate, agreeing that both teams were beatable for the Elis.

In order to prepare for the games,

the team is focusing on consistency, players said, in the hopes of avoiding another weekend performance like that against Brown.

“We [are working] on coming to practice prepared just like we would be in a game,” Staenz said. “The main focus will be speed and drive.”

That being said, Yale had one of its most successful periods last Saturday, opening the second game with five goals within the first 15 minutes.

The Elis currently claim eighth place in the ECAC and are comfortably holding that spot, the last one that secures a playoff position. With 12 points, they are one behind Dartmouth and five ahead of ninth place Rensselaer.

“Saturday was a turning point in our season and now we’re grinding out until playoff time,” captain and defenseman Aurora Kennedy ’15 said.

“We need to put everything we have into every game to get ourselves in the best position for playoffs. There won’t be any easy games from here on out, but we’re more than capable of beating any team in this league.”

For the rest of the season, Yale will only play conference opponents, giving it an opportunity to move up further in the ECAC. Officials will drop the puck against Clarkson at 7 p.m. on Friday.

Contact HOPE ALLCHIN at hope.allchin@yale.edu .

JANE KIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

After averaging 1.9 blocks per game a year ago, forward Justin Sears ’16 has moved his average to 2.6 per contest.

Tennis men sweep, women split TENNIS FROM PAGE 10

JOEY YE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The men’s team swept its opponents, defeating Buffalo, Colgate and Monmouth.

A standout performance from the weekend came from No. 4 singles player Martin Svenning ’16, who held on in three sets to secure the win over Buffalo’s Amar Hromic.

“I think this weekend was important for setting the tone for future matches and definitely shows that we have the potential to compete against top teams,” Stefan Doehler ’18 said. “[Svenning’s match] really fired us up for the rest of the matches on the weekend and was an awesome result for our first season match.”

The next day, the team dominated Colgate 7–0 and followed that up with a 6–1 win over Monmouth to finish the weekend with three wins.

The Elis only dropped the doubles point against Monmouth, although the freshman pair of Fedor Andrienko ’18 and Doehler still took its game.

Doehler credits the team’s excitement and support for much of the success this weekend. He also believes that the players’ persistence and grit helped them focus for every point and come back against Monmouth.

“We made sure to keep the energy going throughout the weekend, something that really helped motivate and push ourselves to compete even harder,” Doehler said. “All of us did a great job of firing one another

up, whether from an adjacent court or watching from the stands. Sometimes the matches are won from the sidelines just as much as they are from on the court.”

The women’s team also had a good weekend, although they had a rough start, facing No. 16 Michigan at the Wolverines’ home court. Although the Bulldogs put up a good fight, especially with a No. 3 doubles win, they ultimately fell 4–0 to Michigan, with three singles games abandoned after the Wolverines clinched the match.

No. 48 Yale then faced No. 42 Utah in a consolation match on Sunday.

The team started off well, securing the doubles point before winning the match with three victories in the singles games.

“I would say that we had a great end to the weekend, and we learned a lot about what we need to improve on for the rest of the season so far,” Ree Ree Li ’16 said. “We can take confidence in the way we bounced back this weekend.”

Carol Finke ’18 gave a great performance for the Bulldogs against Utah, helping to win the doubles point with her partner Sherry Li ’17 7–6. She then pulled through in the No. 6 singles position to give Yale the fourth point necessary for the 4–1 victory.

Players on both teams commented on the support they received from

their teammates and its importance for the team’s success.

“We’ve all been working pretty hard for the spring,” Ree Ree Li said.

“Every member, even those cheering us on, were really involved. Even though the first day didn’t go the way we wanted, we were able to move forward [and win on Sunday].”

In practice this week, the women’s team will be focusing on gaining match experience. According to Li, the Bulldogs hope to become more comfortable with the new rule change, in which there is no advantage, just the deuce point.

“Unfortunately these next few blizzard-filled days are making it challenging to get out to the courts to practice,” Doehler said. “The whole team is taking every opportunity we can to get better.”

This includes lifts, fitness and morning practices for the men’s team, which is also honing its players’ doubles skills and playing with different lineups. According to Doehler, the Elis are encouraged by the success in doubles play this weekend.

One of the main goals for the men’s team, which will take on Fairfield and Iowa this weekend, is to stay healthy.

Yale had several players sidelined throughout the fall season, and the players are working to prevent injuries in order to field the best team they can.

“Another goal is trying to become ranked again after dropping off after a disappointing run the last school year,” Doehler said. “We’ve been working extremely hard on and off the court since the fall, and after a good display this weekend we are definitely poised to make a great run this season.”

The women’s team also has big goals in mind, including winning the Ivy League. Last season, the Bulldogs failed to clinch the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years.

Since Ivy League play doesn’t begin until the first weekend in April, Yale has time to take advantage of every opportunity to increase its rank. This includes several tournaments, with trips to New York, Alabama and Texas.

“We’re all really excited for the season,” Li said. “We’ve been training really hard for the season, and it’s the biggest team we’ve had. We’re all looking forward to competing next to each other and playing some incredibly good sets in the hopes of having a great 2015 season.”

The women’s team will have the weekend off before competing in the ECAC championship in Ithaca, New York the weekend of Feb. 6.

Contact HOPE ALLCHIN at hope.allchin@yale.edu .

Freshman talks young squad, team goals SQUASH FROM PAGE 10 body on the team, have a lot to work on and a lot to improve on. One thing that I really respect and love about our coach, Dave Talbott, is that he facilitates that. I’ve had conversations with Dave about what I specifically need to work on and he’s been on the same page with me figuring out how we’re going to do that and making adjustments accordingly and making sure that I and every other individual gets what he needs to better the team.

Q

How has the team been affected, both on and off the court, by the losses of Kah Wah Cheong ’17 and Zac Leman ’16 due to injuries?

A

Those are two excellent players, both in the top half of our ladder, who unfortunately have had very serious injuries. We’re rallying behind both of them because they’ve had suc-

cessful surgeries and they’re doing very well physically and, in terms of attitude, they’re dealing with a hard situation very well. It’s put pressure on everyone else to really step up and to push himself harder. However, I think after the first wave of shock and concern swept through when we learned about Kah Wah’s injury, the team has been pretty strong-minded that it’s not going to keep us from having a good season and a strong fight for the titles. does it feel being one of five QHow freshmen playing in the team’s top nine?

A

Great. I love that there are so many freshmen. I think it speaks to the potential of the team and I’m happy to be part of that group. These are guys that, in a sense, I’ve grown up with and have known for a long time.

We’re a good group in and of ourselves

but we’re also freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors — you’re all teammates [and] there’s no real distinction at the end of the day. are your expectations going QWhat forward, both for yourself and the team?

A

Our expectations … are that we continue to perform better and better. We’ve been concentrating on making fine adjustments as individuals and as a team to perform better and edge our way to victory in tight matches. We have tough competition coming up, close matches, a very challenging National Championship that’s still a few weeks off, but our goal is to win these matches — all of them — and to do so making the adjustments we’ve come up with in the last month or so.

Contact GRIFFIN SMILOW at griffin.smilow@yale.edu .

WA LIU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

After losses to No. 1 St. Lawrence and No. 2 Trinity, the Bulldogs are now on a two-game winning streak.

YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST Increasing clouds, with a high near 29.

Wind chill values between 5 and 15.

TOMORROW

SATURDAY

High of 33, low of 9.

High of 20, low of 8.

THINK ABOUT IT BY FRANCIS RINALDI

ON CAMPUS THURSDAY, JANUARY 29 4:00 PM Pierson College Master’s Tea with Jack Hedin. As a part of the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s 2014-2015 Chewing the Fat speaker series, Pierson College welcomes Jack Hedin to a Master’s Tea. Pierson College (261 York St.).

5:30 PM Performance, Musical Arrangements that Inspired Whistler. James Abbot McNeill Whistler believed that painting and music were interwoven, each with its basic elements composed into “glorious harmonies.” Student musicians play a selection of musical arrangements that inspired Whistler and his art. Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.).

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 1:30 PM Lecture, Jan Steen’s “Card Players” and Dutch Genre Painting. John Walsh, B.A. 1961 and Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and specialist in Dutch painting, offers a series of lectures that explores the art of the Dutch Republic during its extraordinary flowering in the 17th century. This picture from the Rose-Marie and Eijk Otterloo Collection shows an overdressed soldier being gulled by a girl in an elegant looking house of ill repute. Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.).

SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 1:00 PM Conversation, Cover to Cover: A Discussion among Book Artists. Artists featured in two exhibitions, the Gallery’s Odd Volumes: Book Art from the Allan Chasanoff Collection and Artspace’s CT (un)Bound, participate in a Hayden visiting artist panel to discuss the fascinating field of book art. Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.).

7:00 PM A Separation (Iran, 2011). The Yale Film Society and Films at the Whitney host a screening of this Golden Globewinning Iranian drama, which explores marital conflict and family dynamics against an volatile political and religious backdrop.

The film is 123 minutes in lenght. Whitney Humanities Center, Auditorium (53 Wall St.).

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To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE JANUARY 29, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Some portrait frames 6 Noble __ 11 Singsong syllable 14 With 15-Across, accounting unit 15 See 14-Across 16 Like some aces 17 Manage 18 Walking __ 19 Sound after a satisfying swig 20 Scotch cocktails 22 Zenith 23 “I won’t hurt you” 26 Not as deliberate 28 Toothbrushendorsing org.

29 With 31-Across, anathema 31 See 29-Across 32 Worlds 35 __ legend 37 Question about change, which hints at the hidden feature of four two-part puzzle answers 42 Blue Grotto locale 43 “Ramona and Beezus” co-star Gomez 44 With 47-Across, some receivers 47 See 44-Across 49 Set-__ 50 Malady in the 2000 film “Memento” 52 Like the best occult films 55 It’s about a foot 56 Yield figures 58 Figure under a line 59 Fife-and-drum drum 60 Two cents 64 Bardic before 65 With 66-Across, National Book Award-winning novel by Don DeLillo 66 See 65-Across 67 “M*A*S*H” titles 68 Private 69 Mount

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1/29/15

By Marti DuGuay-Carpenter

DOWN 1 Pigs out (on) 2 Center of gravity?

3 Presidential nickname 4 Petrol unit 5 Gave up a seat 6 One of six British kings 7 Year in Tuscany 8 “Wait for me” 9 Pension law signed by Ford, briefly 10 Jordan neighbor: Abbr.

11 Gillette razor 12 Hole enlarger 13 Cleave 21 Comes to the surface 22 Harsh-sounding, to some 23 Traffic stopper?

24 Notion 25 “Elf” actor 27 Shoshone Falls river 30 Shroud city 33 Chinese evergreen 34 Zoo security features 36 Droopy-eared hound

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9 3 6 5 9 3 4 2 5

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38 Wonderful container?

39 Bordeaux bean?

40 “The Dukes of Hazzard” officer 41 Tammany Hall caricaturist 44 Mortarboard frill 45 “That upset me!”

46 Speakers of Tolkien’s Noldorin language 48 Costing more

1/29/15

51 Corporate raider Carl 53 Jockey’s handful 54 “This __ a drill!”

57 Mechanical repetition 59 Prefix with light or night 61 “Easy as __!”

62 Wear and tear 63 Former Ohio governor Strickland

4 8 6 3 8

1 5 7 6 2

3 6 4 8 3 1 9 4 3 7

IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

NBA Cavaliers 99 Trail Blazers 94

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NBA Raptors 119 Kings 102

SPORTS QUICK HITS

PATRICK GRAHAM ’01 COACHING IN THE SUPER BOWL There will be a Yale tie in this year’s Super Bowl, as Graham is a linebackers coach for the New England Patriots.

In 2012, Graham became the first Yale graduate to appear as a coach in the NFL title game in the Patriots’ 21–17 loss to the New York Giants.

y

NBA Knicks 100 Thunder 92

NHL Devils 2 Maple Leafs 1

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports

JUSTIN SEARS ’16 IVY RECOGNITION The junior from Plainfield, N.J. was named Ivy League co-Player of the Week after scoring 27 points and recording nine boards in a 69–65 win over Brown on Saturday. Sears made all seven of his free throw attempts in the second half to help the Elis hold on to the win.

“We hope to show [St. Lawrence and Clarkson] what Yale hockey is really about and get two big league wins.”

JANELLE FERRARA ’16 WOMEN’S HOCKEY YALE DAILY NEWS · THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Powerful offense led by dynamic duo MEN’S BASKETBALL

BY ASHLEY WU STAFF REPORTER The men’s basketball team boasts the highest-powered offense in the Ivy League, which has helped the Bulldogs to an undefeated start in conference play. That stellar offense, in turn, has been largely due to the play of point guard Javier Duren ’15 and forward Justin Sears ’16.

Yale (13–6, 2–0 Ivy) is the only team thus far that came away from its completed travel series unscathed, as both Harvard and Columbia suffered losses in their second weekend of Ancient Eight play.

“We are playing Bulldog basketball on both sides of the ball,” Duren said.

“On offense, we’re moving the ball.

We’ve had some really, really great offensive possessions … We work on getting certain shots in practice, so it helps a lot when you can replicate that in a game and get guys to where they are most comfortable on the floor.”

The experienced core of players on the court has resulted in the highestscoring offense in the league at 70.0 points per game. Yale is shooting 71.7 percent from the free throw line, the third-best rate in conference, to go along with 36.4 percent from beyond the arc, second best in the Ivy League.

More importantly, the Elis currently have a 1.09 assist-to-turnover ratio, buoyed by the team’s leagueleading 14.6 assists per game.

“In practice, we really work on reversing the ball, basically having everybody touch [the ball],” guard Jack Montague ’16 said. “When we move the ball like we have been doing in games, it’s really hard to guard … the defense is not used to guarding for 25 or 30 seconds into the shot clock, and it’s really helped our offense.”

It also helps that the Elis have two of the most prolific scorers in the conference, who have combined for five Ivy League Player of the Week awards.

Both Duren and Sears have stepped up their games during the conference portion of the season, with Duren averaging 21.5 points per game and Sears tallying 21.0 points per game.

BY HOPE ALLCHIN STAFF REPORTER After a frustrating series against Brown, the Yale women’s hockey team is out to prove what it is capable of as it takes on a set of ranked opponents this Friday and Saturday.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY The Elis (9–11–1, 6–8–0 ECAC) fell to the Bears — one of the lowest ranked teams in the ECAC — last weekend, but they rebounded by dominating the second game of the series 6–3. The team hopes to capitalize on that momentum as it heads to New York to take on No. 8 Clarkson and No. 9 St. Lawrence this weekend.

“On Saturday we came out with a lot of energy because we wanted to prove that we are a better team than what we showed on Friday,” defenseman Kara Drexler ’18 said. “This upcoming weekend we want to continue

playing with a high intensity and good energy and communication on and off the ice.”

According to forward Phoebe Staenz ’17, the Golden Knights and Saints are both quick, aggressive and physical teams, which makes them difficult opponents.

Clarkson is returning from a tough pair of away games against No. 3 Wisconsin this past weekend, in which the team earned a tie and loss. This was the first loss for the Golden Knights since Dec. 5. Clarkson has an aggressive offense, with 779 shots this season, second in the ECAC and 30 ahead of St. Lawrence.

St. Lawrence is also a formidable scoring opponent, topping the ECAC with 78 goals this season. Currently on a five-game win streak, the Saints did not allow their opponents to score more than two goals in any of those games.

The Bulldogs are determined to have SEE W. HOCKEY PAGE 8

WILLIAM FREEDBERG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Point guard Javier Duren ’15 has made 70 starts in his Yale career, the second-most on the team behind swingman Armani Cotton ’15.

The two together have proven to be a dangerous combination. Against Brown last weekend, Duren and Sears combined for 51 of the team’s 69 points, or 73.9 percent. Spending more than three quarters of the game together on the court, Duren and Sears carried the team in the second half, feeding off each other’s game.

“We definitely complement each other,” Sears said. “If I catch the ball in the middle, I draw a lot of double teams, so I can kick it out to [Duren].

He’s done a great job of penetrating and then looking for me, whether it be going up to the rim or just getting the

Edward Columbia ’18 has played a big role on the Yale men’s squash team this season. After taking a gap year to study theater in New York City, Columbia currently starts for the Bulldogs and has contributed a number of important wins, including two victories this past weekend against George Washington and Navy. Columbia spoke with the News about his experience adjusting to collegiate squash and playing as part of a young team, and about the Elis’ hopes for the rest of the season.

sional. A lot of the guys I would have faced at the world juniors those three years are currently at the top of their college teams, so … I feel as though I’m back in an intense, highly competitive squash arena with some of these same guys.

But — I think this is more important — I really feel like I’m on a squash team now. I played on my high school team but mostly I was an individual squash player. When you play for your country, that’s also a team, but for the first time and what I value most about college squash is that I feel as though I’m on a team, part of a group — the cliché is ‘part of a unit,’ — but I really value that.

SQUASH

are your feelings about the team’s perQWhat formance at this point in the season, as well

BY GRIFFIN SMILOW CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Q

How has the transition to collegiate squash been for you [after taking a gap year]?

The summer after my senior year — that would be the summer of 2013 — I played in my third Junior World Championships for the U.S. [team] and then I was done with junior squash because I turned 19. When I think about college squash, it’s a continuation of that very intense competition but at a higher and more concentrated level. A lot of the same guys I would have competed with and did compete with as a junior are people that I’m facing in college squash. What’s happened in the last six or seven years is colleges have looked to recruit outstanding squash players from all around the world, and those players as a result choose to go to college in the U.S. rather than going profes-

HOPE ALLCHIN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Clarkson, Yale’s opponent on Friday, has taken 779 shots this season, the second most in the ECAC.

SEE M. BASKETBALL PAGE 8

Columbia ’18 talks squash, future

A

Bulldogs face top of ECAC

Tennis teams get big wins to open spring

BY HOPE ALLCHIN STAFF REPORTER Yale tennis kicked off the spring season this weekend with three wins for the men’s team and one for the women’s team.

TENNIS

Everybody is working very hard and people are competing at such a high level at what is a very densely packed month-and-a-half of matches. We have had exciting upset victories and disappointing losses so it’s been a mix.

We’ve had both those things and we’ve had less exciting matches in which we’ve performed well and gotten the job done. I think people are really excited for this coming weekend because these are really big matches, especially for the Ivy League, and we’re excited for what lies ahead in the next four weeks. The sky is the limit when it comes to Nationals and the Ivy League title, so there is that sense of daring and positivity.

In terms of my own performance, I, like every-

The men’s team hosted Buffalo, Colgate and Monmouth, winning all three meets this Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, the women’s team traveled to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association kick-off weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the team split two matches, defeating Utah and falling to Michigan.

“We are all excited about this successful, victorious opening weekend,” captain Zachary Krumholz ’15 said. “Our ability to focus and compete at such a high level during our first match provides us with confidence and optimism for the season.”

The men’s team in particular had big wins, although they started out Saturday with a narrow 4–3 victory against Buffalo.

In the match, the Bulldogs took the numbers one, four and six singles rounds, and had already swept the doubles games to earn that point for the win.

SEE SQUASH PAGE 8

SEE TENNIS PAGE 8

as your own?

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STAT OF THE DAY 3

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Elis defeated No. 42 Utah 4–1, including a doubles victory by Carol Finke ’18 and Sherry Li ’17.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS ON THE YALE WOMEN’S HOCKEY TEAM WHO HAVE AT LEAST A DOZEN ASSISTS. Forwards Janelle Ferrara ’16, Phoebe Staenz ’17 and Jamie Haddad ’16 have 13, 13 and 12 assists, respectively. Ferrara and Staenz rank in the top 10 in the ECAC, while Haddad ranks 14th.