NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 88 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
COLD CLOUDY
15 4
CROSS CAMPUS
SURVIVING, LIVING YALE AFTER SEXUAL VIOLENCE
NOT GOOD ENOUGH
SCAN-CASTLE
INADEQUATE MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES FAIL STUDENTS
PATIENTS, PARENTS EMBRACE NEW PEDIATRIC MRI.
PAGE B3 WEEKEND
PAGE 2 OPINION
PAGE 5 SCI-TECH
Profs spar on Charlie Hebdo, free speech
Luck ’n love. You’ll need the
former today (Friday the 13th) and the latter tomorrow (Valentine’s Day/Iraqi Communist Martyrs’ Day) — and if you have enough charm for both, well, congratulations.
PARTY EMERITUS Alumni celebrate Feb Club in over 115 cities around the world. PAGE 7 UNIVERSITY
Sandy Hook Commission draft emphasizes mental health
And then there’s Monday.
Perhaps the most important of the next three days, President’s Day is a federal holiday, i.e., grounds to have no classes. But Yale insists on pressing on, so press on we shall (unless we get hit by a lot of snow for the third Monday in a row — keep your fingers crossed, folks).
BY SKYLER INMAN STAFF REPORTER
Muhammad in satirical publications can be construed as racism. Unlike Pope Francis, who is also often the subject of satire but who can be identified easily with such visual elements like the tiara and crosier, Muhammad is not easily identifiable due to the lack of visual representation in the Islam tradition. As a result, Muhammad is often drawn as some “stupid-looking Middle Easterner, with one or two or five wives around him,” Griffel said. Such representation is racist, Griffel argued, and shows the oppressed con-
Two years and two months after the fatal shooting of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the 16-person Sandy Hook Advisory Commission has released a draft of its final report suggesting changes to school security and mental health policies across the state. The 256-page report, which the commission expects to present to Gov. Dannel Malloy in March, offers recommendations to revise current legislation on school safety, mental health and gun violence prevention. Since Malloy created the commission in January 2013, the group has heard testimonies from over 100 experts. In its current form, the draft lists its final recommendations to the governor, including 12 recommendations for improving school safety, 30 for reducing gun violence and 53 for improvements to mental health care in the state. “This report cannot bring back their loved ones who died, nor can it heal the wounds of the living,” the report said. “But the commission hopes that this report will provide some solace by proposing recommendations that may help other children, parents, teachers and communities avoid
SEE CHARLIE HEBDO PAGE 6
SEE SANDY HOOK PAGE 6
For the last-second planners.
Naturally, Yalies everywhere will be trying to show off how cultural they are on Saturday. And fortunately for them, there will be no shortage of opportunities to do so: YSO, Yale Ballroom and Shades are all staging Valentine’s events. Even more Shades. And if
you’re not necessarily trying for sophisticated, there’s the “50 Shades of Grey” movie and Sigma Chi’s parties this weekend. Sorry for throwing shade. Romantic ritual. Yesterday, YaleNews took a crack at answering “Why we embrace the ritual of Valentine’s Day” by sitting down with sociology professor Jeffrey Alexander for a Q&A. “It’s a way to liven up a dark winter,” Alexander says. That’s one way to put it. “Love Actually” in actuality.
Apparently, the 2003 rom-com took place in London, which is also where the Yale in London 2015 summer program will take place, believe it or not. If you end up bored enough on Saturday night, could be worth trying your luck across the pond. Deadline is Sunday. Enough is enough. Yesterday, Ashton Carter ’76 was confirmed by the United States Senate as the next Defense Secretary, a little more than two months after being nominated for the post by President Barack Obama. Don’t worry, we’re not even going to try to spin this one into a Valentine’s Day thing. It begins. Today marks
the start of Harvard’s inevitable colonization of Yale’s Computer Science Department. Information sessions about CS50 staffing opportunities will take place at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
An alternative. Fortunately,
there’s another place to be at 4 p.m.: the Yale Economic Review’s event with economist Jeffrey Sachs, who will be speaking on climate change. Stop by if you would rather not feed the Harvard machine/ need material for your PLSC 214 policy memo.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1948 The Whiffenpoofs and Pundits announce “Whoosh!” a collaborative musicomedy. Follow the News to get the news.
@yaledailynews
ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus
ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Roughly 50 students and professors gathered to discuss the satire of Charlie Hebdo, especially with regard to Islam.
BY ANDI WANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER “Compared to Charlie Hebdo, I much prefer Charlie Chaplin, who never mocked the poor, the suffering and the suppressed,” professor of Hebrew language and literature Hannan Hever said Thursday evening. Hever was part of a discussion with five other experts in political theory, religious studies and international relations on the January massacre of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine. The discussion in Linsly-Chit-
tenden Hall drew roughly 50 students and professors to address the magazine’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad and the massacre at its office on Jan. 7. While Hever claimed that satire is sometimes used as a form of political oppression from the privileged, panelist and diplomat in residence Charles Hill said freedom of all speech, with the exception of hate speech, is essential to modern societies. Professor of religious studies and international and area studies Frank Griffel, another panelist, echoed Hever and said the visual depiction of
Yale Health to push MyChart patient portal BY AMAKA UCHEGBU STAFF REPORTER While Yale Health patients have been able to schedule appointments online since the beginning of 2014, this semester, Yale Health plans to make a renewed push to convince students to use the service. MyChart is a part of Yale Health’s year-old Electronic Medical Record system, Epic, which facilitates information sharing between physicians and hospitals, as well as
allowing more departments to move away from paper records. Through MyChart, patients can see their medical records and lab results, book appointments and securely message their clinicians, all online. While MyChart has been functional since Jan. 27, 2014, in two months, Yale Health plans to send a campus-wide email, which will include a link that allows students to easily activate their MyChart accounts, to encourage more people to use it.
Pushback stalls grad housing plan BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER In a move that may complicate Yale’s plans to move graduate student housing around the corner from the Hall of Graduate Studies on York Street to a lot on Elm Street, the Board of Zoning Appeals postponed a hearing scheduled for Tuesday after a city zoning official raised concerns about Yale’s request. The graduate housing — expected to rise six stories, with the first two devoted to commercial space — would contravene current zoning regulations for the parking lot, neighboring Tyco Printing, where Yale plans to the build the dormitory. Yale has applied for a variance from the board, which would allow the University to proceed with the construction in spite of the zoning violations. Before Tuesday’s hearing, Deputy Director of Zoning Thomas Talbot submitted a report arguing against
“[MyChart] offers an electronic solution to an electronically savvy population,” said Chief of Student Health and Athletic Medicine at Yale Health Andrew Gotlin, explaining that the ability to navigate health services online would be particularly convenient for college students. According to Yale Health Medical Director Michael Rigsby MED ’88, only 30 percent of Yale Health patients have activated their MyChart accounts. While every stu-
dent has an account created for them automatically, only those who have activatived their accounts can use them. Activation is simple — users follow an online link and enter a user name and password when prompted. Of the 30 percent of those who have activated accounts, only 40 percent are students, meaning that only 20 percent of Yale’s student population uses MyChart. According to Rigsby, the age range that typically takes advantage of
MyChart “defies assumptions.” “I get an awful amount of patients in their 60s and 70s that use MyChart,” said Rigsby. Rigsby said the low usage of MyChart among Yale students is disappointing, given the striking advantages it offers. Having greater access to individual health information empowers patients to make decisions for themselves, he said. Joel Bervell ’17, who had SEE MYCHART PAGE 4
FFY postpones Global Divestment Day action
Yale’s request for a variance. Yale’s attorneys subsequently asked the board to postpone the hearing to next month’s meeting. University spokesman Tom Conroy said the University requested the hearing be postponed so that it could “work to address comments made by city staff.” Conroy did not explicitly mention Talbot’s report. At issue in the zoning dispute is the question of whether the board should grant a variance, an exception from the rules governing municipal land use, or Yale should be required to petition for wholesale changes to the regulations for the lot. Talbot argued that Yale should do the latter, according to the New Haven Independent. Yale, meanwhile, has argued that the irregular shape of the parking lot where it plans to build the housing creates a par-
With the first-ever Global Divestment Day scheduled for this weekend, Fossil Free Yale is looksing to revive the campus push for divestment. But it remains unclear if, and when, their efforts will come to fruition. In fact, the event, which was meant to be held on Saturday, has been postponed indefinitely. FFY Project Manager Mitch Barrows ’16 said the delay is due to unfavorable weather conditions and other logistical issues, including some cancellations from speakers and performance groups. The postponement was made final as of Thursday evening. Meanwhile, on Thursday morning, 40 students from Divest Harvard, Harvard’s own
SEE GRAD HOUSING PAGE 4
SEE DIVESTMENT PAGE 4
BY JED FINLEY AND LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTERS
WILLIAM FREEDBERG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
An action in honor of Global Divestment Day, originally scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed indefinitely.
PAGE 2
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “Chocolate is always the answer.” yaledailynews.com/opinion
'MEROPE' ON 'TO ENGAGE COMMUNITY, ELM
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NEWS’
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Unfulfilled promise
The care Yale needs The third in a three-part editorial series on how Yale treats students who need mental health care
I
n a column in today’s News (“Unfulfilled promise” Feb. 13), a student recounts her battle — because it can only be justly called a battle — to get therapy at Yale Mental Health & Counseling. Three years ago, she was told her problems weren’t severe enough for immediate treatment. When she returned for help this semester, she asked to be switched to a female therapist because she wanted to talk about a repeat incident of sexual assault. She waited a month for her request to be processed — only to be reassigned to another male, wasting weeks of her time and leaving her with a result that made her question her decision to seek institutional support in the first place. Her case is not isolated. “Every Yale student enrolled in a degree program is eligible for counseling at Mental Health & Counseling completely free of charge regardless of whether they have waived Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Care coverage.” This is the official line — the language Yale puts on its website. And for the most part, it’s true. The University is committed to providing care to every student who needs it, without financial barriers. But many students’ experiences tell another story. Long waits for appointments, last-minute cancellations, unclear caps on numbers of visits. These stories are swirling on campus, leading students to say that if you truly need mental health services, you should go to a private provider, unaffiliated with the University. It’s not hard to see why. One student, who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, said her appointments simply weren’t long enough. Thirty-minute sessions, with delays and interruptions, in truth offered little more than 20 minutes of time with a psychiatrist. Her private sessions last 45 minutes. Sometimes, even getting in the door proves difficult. After beginning treatment, one student said, her therapist canceled her second and third sessions. The week after, she walked into the office to find that she wasn’t even on the calendar.
According to the Yale College Council, 39 percent of undergraduates use MH&C’s services before graduating. Work remains in removing the stigma associated with seeking therapy at Yale, but this statistic indicates that many students do take the first step to find help. These stories, and the University’s policy to limit some students to only 12 sessions a year, suggest that MH&C isn’t equipped to meet student demand. The result is that students are not getting the care they need. “I technically still have one session left but I’ve been afraid to go,” said a student who was recently told her sessions were capped at 12. “What if I use it up on a good week, you know? Like what if I have a really terrible week, or I start having panic attacks again, and I call them and they’re like ‘sorry, you’re out.’” Ultimately, we are at a loss to suggest specific funding increases. Neither Paul Genecin, director of Yale Health, nor Lorraine Siggins, chief of Mental Health & Counseling, responded to requests for information about the share of Yale Health’s budget devoted to mental health resources, and whether those numbers have changed in the past two decades. Last April, Genecin told the News that the problem was not MH&C’s ability to provide crucial services, but rather unrealistic student expectations. He drew a comparison to Disney World, where customers are expected to wait in line for several hours; when the wait turns out to be only an hour, they are elated. But there’s a world of difference between waiting for roller coasters and waiting for mental health care. Depression and anxiety can be intractable difficulties. But it's not acceptable for people to go through Yale living with these burdens, without assistance, simply because Yale Health has failed them, or because the services our University offers have been so discredited that no one uses them at all. Timely intake procedures and reliable, consistent treatment should be the norm, not the elusive hope.
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ZISHI LI/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR
I
t is notoriously difficult to get regular therapy at Yale Mental Health & Counseling if you haven’t been reported for contemplating suicide or an alcohol or drug incident. Barely a month into my freshman year, I was raped by an upperclassman. I told few people, didn’t press charges and never confronted the person. I mostly felt stupid for allowing myself not to see the warning signs that he was going to pursue me regardless of my response. I didn’t want to ruin his life or try to send him to jail. I just wanted back my peace of mind and a sense of faith in the world. I realized holding a grudge against him and constantly being angry would just be unproductive. So I sought therapy. Mental health help, I was told, is incredibly accessible at Yale. I got an initial appointment after a few weeks of waiting and cried to my therapist for half an hour. At the end, she told me the office sees two types of people. The first group is people they're really, really happy to see because these people need help immediately, she said. The second group is people they don’t think need them as much, she added. Although she expressed gratitude that even people in this second group come to MH&C, what I heard was that they view people in two categories: those who want to kill themselves and those who don’t. But you’re in the middle somewhere, she told me. You’re not in the first group, but I’ll bump you up from the second group so you’re not left waiting too long to get a therapist. After pouring my heart out, I was told I wasn’t fully deserving of immediate therapy. Hearing a therapist talk about me like that was the last thing I needed. I understand that, given limited resources, it is essential to consider the relative urgency of each case. If there aren’t enough therapists, the office is forced to create hierarchies that prioritize the most pressing patients. But I wonder why this problem even exists in the first place. To ensure they receive care, some of my friends have exaggerated the magnitude of their problems during their initial assessment. As a freshman, when I heard this, I felt like someone was telling me that my problems weren’t real enough. And even if it was a problem, I really didn’t want to have to hear about why I didn’t meet this
arbitrary threshold. So I left, more shaken than I’d ever been, and didn’t go back. But a few months ago, I was assaulted again by the very same person. I’m a senior now. Though he had graduated, we were at the same conference for a shared extracurricular. Over the years, I had convinced myself that I could get over the first assault — maybe it was an honest mistake on his part — and that it was better to try to gain back whatever sense of normalcy I could. And so, three years later, at the very beginning of this semester, I found myself once again bracing for an intake session at MH&C. After talking about the assault and an assortment of other issues, I was told I could only get biweekly therapy, not weekly therapy. I asked if I could see the therapist weekly — based on the calendar, biweekly therapy meant only a few sessions, and I strongly felt I needed a weekly appointment.
IN MANY AREAS OF STUDENT LIFE, SATISFYING MOST PEOPLE IS SUFFICIENT. BUT "MOST" DOESN'T CUT IT FOR MENTAL HEALTH But the therapist disagreed. He said that, based on our discussion, he didn’t see a need for me to receive weekly therapy. When I pushed back, he ultimately said he did not have space in his calendar and could not refer me directly to one of his colleagues. If I wanted to find another therapist who had the time to meet weekly, I would have to be placed back in the general pool — a process that he warned could take months. That stung. It took a lot for me to find the courage to seek mental health help again, and I was told once again I was mistaken: I didn't need it as much as others did. My therapist also told me I would have the option to switch to a female therapist. I initially declined but, after thinking about it for a day, I called the office and asked to switch to a female thera-
pist given the nature of my experiences. To my surprise, I was told I would be put back in the general pool of people waiting to be matched with a therapist, and that it might take weeks or even longer to get someone. It didn’t matter that I had already waited for a therapist. But I acquiesced. Fine, I said. I’ll wait for a female therapist. A full month later, just this past week, I finally got a call back. I had been reassigned — to another male therapist. When I first heard, I assumed it must have been an innocent bureaucratic mistake. Maybe the receptionist had forgotten to record my request. I called MH&C to explain my situation: I have unique issues that I talked about with my first therapist (hint: assault) and requested a female therapist. I was originally told my request would be granted if I waited a few weeks, I reminded them. But they had recorded the request, and because it’s a “common request,” they couldn’t fulfill it. They considered all the factors, the receptionist said, and decided that they wouldn’t be able to give me one — after four weeks of silence and me waiting without therapy. Unbelievably, she offered me the opportunity to restart the process and take my chances once again. Some friends told me to go to SHARE instead. But the things I wanted to talk about were much more than just issues of sexual assault. I was fighting a lot more with my boyfriend and taking out my frustration on him. I couldn’t enjoy my main extracurricular activity anymore because I associated the activity with my assailant. I resented our mutual friends for still talking to him. And ultimately, I felt this deep sense of injustice. He had assaulted me twice, and explicitly admitted to the second instance. But it seemed like no one was truly holding him accountable. Even I failed to hold him accountable the first time when I let myself become friends with him again. I just felt depressed. The crushing disappointment permeated every aspect of my life. Perhaps SHARE could help me. But even if SHARE were capable of addressing issues beyond sexual assault, that does not excuse MH&C from its self-professed responsibilities. MH&C’s website explicitly advertises a list of 19 issues with which students
often come to them — sexual assault being one of them. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable for expecting that they meet their own standards. It’s not Yale’s job to ensure everyone’s always happy. That’s impossible. But they have a minimum obligation to provide some help to those who actively seek it out. When we leave our parents’ homes, we are trading a trust in them for a trust in our University to provide a minimum level of care. This University pledges to pursue excellence in all it does. In many ways, it achieves that, from world-class faculty to a vibrant extracurricular scene. In some cases, when we fall short, it’s tolerable: When Yale loses to Harvard in football, it’s disappointing. But when our mental health facilities are subpar, it’s tragic. The stakes make it a totally different ball game. In many areas of student life, satisfying most people is sufficient. If most people are satisfied with the dining hall food, the University succeeds. If most people are happy with their living arrangements, that seems pretty good. But “most” doesn’t cut it for mental health. I don’t know the statistics, but I’d hazard a guess that not even “most” people get the help they want. To be fair, I’ve had friends who have had amazing experiences with MH&C — once they’re finally in the system. The therapists are well-meaning and hardworking. There just need to be more of them so that when someone actively seeks mental health care — something the University should be encouraging, not discouraging — it’s easily accessible. According to the Yale College Council, roughly 40 percent of undergraduates will go to MH&C at some point during their undergraduate career. As shockingly simple as it sounds, we really need more therapists to meet this need. The existing shortage has created a perverse catch-22: If you say you’re desperately upset and potentially suicidal, you may get kicked out, but if you say you need help but can still get by, you may not get any. Let’s fix that and serve all students who seek therapy, not just those who alarm the therapists at MH&C. In the meantime, I’ll be continuing to play phone tag to schedule my next appointment. The writer is a senior in Yale College.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2013 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
FRIDAY FORUM
BILL NYE “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.”
G U E ST C O LU M N I ST AU ST I N B RY N I A R KS I
I
Male seeks matchmaker
think it’s safe to say that at this point we’ve all got our stock answer to the question, “Why did you choose Yale?” Some might say it was the allure of the residential college system. Others might wax probiotic about New Haven’s handful of frozen yogurt enterprises. A lucky special few will inhale, stare blankly for a moment, and simply say, “DS.” Today, the day before Valentine’s Day, I offer my own reason for matriculating: The New York Times wedding announcement. If you’re at all familiar with the paper of record, you know that the Times style section is home to the coveted “Weddings & Celebrations” desk, wherein newly wedded couples are profiled mere days after they say “I do,” for all the world to glower enviously at their luck in finding one another. Like getting into a David Brooks seminar, The New York Times announcement is a coveted feat, since around 200 couples apply for only 40 spots every week. But thankfully, the Grey Lady has our backs. Your chances of getting a spot will be significantly higher if you’ve attended an elite university. That’s right, Yale. Congratulations. Your degree is a golden ticket into an issue of The New York Freaking
Times. I cannot wait for my wedding to be fit to print. But here lies the rub. How am I supposed to get a wedding announcement without a wedding? Without a ring by spring? Without a significant other? Sure, I chose Yale to get the wedding announcement, but while Yale is necessary, it isn’t sufficient. I can’t marry Harkness Tower or the Nathan Hale statue. I need another person to acquire true love, and I haven’t found one yet. Is that the fault of my own, or is Yale to blame? I posit that Yale is, indeed, to blame. The current dating infrastructure is lacking. Tinder and its various cousins are too impersonal and creepy. Not enough Yale students use Twitter to “slide into one’s Direct Messages,” as it were, and a Facebook message soliciting any romantic social encounter is decidedly lame. I once tried speed dating here, but no one took interest in me and everyone kept calling our dates “rush meals.” (Semantically, I guess it made sense, but I still find “speed” a little less evasive than “rush.”) And the only number I’ve ever exchanged was with someone while in line for coffee — that classic rom-com cruising spot — when I corrected a barista in saying I wanted three vanilla bean
scones as opposed to just one. Yale needs someone who can do all of this busy work for me. Rather, for us. Like most complex problems at Yale, there are a few simple policies that could be easily implemented in the short term to adorn the collective naked ring finger of Yale’s undergraduate population, at least until the administration can pursue more systemic changes. Yale needs a professional matchmaker, and pronto. Dean Holloway is down with genderneutral housing for sophomores, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t be down for my eternally blissful domestic partnership. Further, I would argue that Yale could probably benefit from having its name in the Times every so often for reasons better than the ones that have spurred recent coverage of the University. I’m sure U.S. News and World Report factors in that kind of thing when they’re crunching their numbers. And think of the children of these Y-sweater-clad couples. Can you say “double legacy?” Cue a matchmaker. Matchmaking as an art has been around for hundreds of years, just like Yale, so it’s brand-consistent. Present in numerous cultures, spanning from the Hindu astrologist to the Jewish shad-
chan, I see no reason our very own “yenta” couldn’t preside over Yale’s storied hookup culture. If you’ve ever seen Mulan, Bravo TV or Fiddler on the Roof, you’re familiar with the character. I can see it now: a mystical figure, maybe wearing lots of rings, in a cubicle in the Office of Career Strategy, conducting interviews and matching students as if their last names were McKinsey or Bain. What if we used Symplicity to court each other? I have a hunch that a page-long cover letter could be a lot more informative than an unsatisfyingly brief Tinder description. This is as much a part of my post-grad plan as securing a nice career — just because “Loving Husband” isn’t something I can put on my CV doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be of Yale’s concern. Yale is always wondering how she can better advise her students, and I think romance is a worthy next frontier. Find me a find, catch me a catch. Hire a matchmaker, and make this company of scholars a company of spouses. And let’s get my wedding in The New York Times. AUSTIN BRYNIARSKI is a junior in Calhoun College. Contact him at austin.bryniarski@yale.edu .
GUEST COLUMNIST IKE LEE
We are not MIT D
ear YES-W participants, Welcome to three days of excitement at Yale. I hope the Admissions Office and city treat you well, and that evidence of Yale’s prowess as an emerging STEM powerhouse impresses you. By the time you leave, you’ll have a better idea of whether you’d like to call New Haven home for the next four years. Before you decide, though, I need to tell you some things you won’t hear this weekend. I’ve spent the past two years pitching similar points to individual prefrosh, and it’s time these words are printed. Though I’m not a STEM major, I have taken a third of my credits in STEM and used to sit on a student advisory committee for the sciences. I speak as someone who has directly benefited from Yale’s sincere decadelong investment in its STEM programs. Yet sincerity and investments do not create miracles, even at Yale. Undergraduates continue to face a variety of difficulties as Yale experiences STEM growing pains. These headaches are significant enough that I emphatically reject any claim that students will “sacrifice nothing” by choosing to study STEM at Yale. What are these sacrifices? Let’s start with teaching, the most serious of them all. Yale has one of the lowest STEM faculty-to-student
ratios in the country. Individual attention from tenured faculty is plentiful, but many forget that smaller departments and fewer professors increase the probability of subpar teaching with no alternatives. Most introductory lectures are offered once per semester and are rated poorly by students. With few professors in the teaching rotation, many required courses have developed disappointing reputations. The story doesn’t end there; upperlevel classes are not immune, especially in engineering. Evaluations for the core requirements of the five engineering majors are pitiful — one department clocks in at just 2.9/5. To be fair, course evaluations are flawed in many ways, but most engineering majors are taking average classes and receiving average instruction at best. Lest you think that course difficulty may factor too prominently in these ratings, consider the fact that many work-intensive math and physics courses garner consistent student praise. Limited faculty size also means limited research opportunities. Don’t get me wrong: Yale has hundreds of labs with more spots than there are students to fill. The common adage on campus is, “If you want to work in a lab, you can.” But what kind of lab? There is a shortage of breadth in Yale’s lab
offerings. Leaving aside the colossal opportunities in the biological sciences, students in computer science, mathematics and chemical and environmental engineering have told the News that there are too few professors conducting research in certain areas of interest. Yale professors are experts in their areas, but other parts of the discipline may be entirely unrepresented. Beyond the classroom, Yale trails far behind its peers in matching its students to postgraduate opportunities in STEM. Though a liberal arts education focuses on the educational experience rather than the job hunting process, seniors should not face the daunting prospect of navigating employment opportunities alone. In short, Yale lacks the industry connections to find proper placements for its students. As a friend once bluntly said to freshmen, “Don’t even think about internships in industry before junior year. You can’t find them.” The Office of Career Strategy does not care for engineers, and even recent efforts by the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design to host STEM industry career fairs has been wholly inadequate. Last semester, a whopping seven recruiters came to the event, and two of them were from the U.S. Armed Forces. Seniors are encouraged to attend networking events on other campuses, but logistics are hard to coordinate and Yalies
are always second in line behind the host school’s own students. Now, what’s a high school senior to do? I am not saying you shouldn’t come to Yale to study science and engineering. That would be preposterous. But I implore you to weigh your rosy impressions from YES-W (which, to be sure, are fair in their own right) against the realities I have portrayed. Economics 101 tells us to pit risks against benefits. The troubles I identified are not overwhelming and Yale STEM alumni still end up in top graduate schools and great entry-level positions. I’d even wager that most of those graduates would still choose Yale if they had the chance again. Realize that if you come to Yale for STEM, you will fight for your education. The University is serious about its improvement efforts, but does not currently live up to the glowing picture that YES-W paints. As you fight, however, you’ll be rewarded with an unrivaled undergraduate experience. You’ll live in residential colleges built for luxury while analyzing Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 between psets for fluid mechanics. You’ll surely fall for Yale before you leave. But this is not Stanford or MIT, and it will never be. Just know that.
B
poisoned water near fracking wells. It will not address questions of climate justice. Moreover, spillover potential from sustainability is finite. Even assuming that every Yale student commits to spreading a culture of sustainability, and even assuming that they successfully share these lessons with everyone they meet, there are people and places that we will not reach. Perhaps more importantly, spillover takes time. And we don’t have time. Local solutions are no longer enough. Climate injustice is built into the very infrastructure of our country, and we must pursue every solution at every level available. That is part of the reason that divestment is such a powerful tool. It strengthens the voice of institutions and communities in the climate movement. Participating in a global movement carries those voices and perspectives to the international level, increasing the range and speed of spillover. More than that, though, divestment challenges the root of the climate problem. Rather than addressing the immediate causes or symptoms of climate change, divestment addresses the reason why these crises exist in the first place. In chal-
T
o people of the Christian faith, Jesus is crying out: For the sake of our neighbors everywhere — for future generations and the global poor — we must act urgently on climate change. A few months ago, I would write considering how the Bible compels us to protect God’s creation. I might focus on the human vocation as stewards for God’s garden (Genesis 2:15), of God’s covenant with all creatures through Noah (Genesis 9). I would end with the first verse of Psalm 24: “The Earth is Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all that live in it.” I would write that this calls Christians to action on climate change. But not so anymore. As a recent graduate, I’ve been working with a church office in Massachusetts to organize churches around the issue of climate change. I have since become acutely aware that climate change is not simply an environmental issue. Climate change is the gravest social justice issue humankind has faced. Climate change amplifies every other injustice; it disproportionately threatens the most vulnerable. If we care about hunger, we must reckon with the fact that climate change will reduce agricultural yields and make food prices skyrocket. Similar links exist between climate change and nearly every other social issue, from refugees to public health to national security. As Christians, we are called by Jesus to perform the Works of Mercy — to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless. Climate change undermines all of these. To ignore climate change is to work against our present and future neighbors, and against ourselves.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE DEFINING MORAL CRISIS OF OUR ERA
lenging the fossil fuel industry, it criticizes a system that privileges profit over the environment, a system that puts a price tag on human life. It challenges the displacement of the worst impacts of the extraction and burning of fossil fuels onto the communities with the least power. It allows us to imagine a better future. Divestment fills a space that sustainability cannot. It is important to address the energy crisis from an energy perspective. But we also need to address the social and economic foundations of the climate crisis. To pretend that sustainability could ever be enough distracts from the urgency and depth of what is truly a global problem. We can no longer afford to live in the Yale bubble and pretend that isolated individual or community actions are enough. We need to engage in collective action that rises above the level of energy discourse to challenge the foundation of the energy crises. We need to divest. HANNAH NESSER is a junior in Branford College and a member of Fossil Free Yale. Contact her at hannah.nesser@yale.edu .
PATRICK CAGE is a 2014 graduate of Yale College and a former member of Fossil Free Yale. Contact him at patrick.cage@yale.edu .
IKE LEE is a senior in Ezra Stiles College. Contact him at ike.lee@yale.edu .
Sustainability isn’t enough cities are leveled by superstorms and agricultural yields are dangerously impacted by record-breaking droughts. The harms of the fossil fuel industry are real and immediate. We must act now. Every solution available to us that does not further endanger the environment or its inhabitants must be immediately and aggressively pursued. Actions that promote sustainability are a critical tool, and President Salovey’s sustainability plan is an important contribution. If Yale could establish a culture of sustainability and conservation, our campus would use less energy. And, taking an optimistic perspective, students might bring those behaviors and attitudes to their own communities and workplaces, expanding the benefits of sustainability. But those benefits are inherently limited. If Yale decreases its consumption of fossil fuels, it will contribute to a necessary movement toward energy conservation, but it will not alleviate the air quality problems caused by the Bridgeport coal-fired power plant. It will not address the destruction of land caused by mountaintop removal in Appalachia. It will not address the
God and money
The longer that Exxon Mobil (and Yale) profiteer by burning away our future, the more severe climate change will become. Fossil fuel companies have a stranglehold on our politics, our universities and the limits of our imaginations. Unless we create systemic change, the world will lose. Given this, we are called to do more than change our light bulbs, drive a Prius and buy carbon offsets. We are called to take up the prophetic task, to testify to hope and light, to cast off the yoke of fossil fuel companies through divestment. Others have elaborated why divesting from fossil fuels is the cornerstone of the movement for climate justice. Here at Yale, particularly, divestment is the opportunity that we have been given to shine our light brightly to the world. Jesus tells us, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.” As Yale students, we have been blessed beyond our own understanding. From a Christian perspective, this includes the charge to steer the Yale name and a $24 billion endowment away from a morally bankrupt industry. That matters. For most of us, there will never be a comparable chance to strive for justice and atonement at such a significant scale. Where our treasure is, so our hearts will be also. It is high time we divested our school’s endowment from an industry whose core business model makes the planet into a vision of hell. It is high time we put our hearts in solidarity with the poor and with future generations, with the planet and with those who depend upon it. This movement needs the Christian moral voice to move forward. Climate change is the defining moral crisis of our era. From abolition to the civil rights movement to the push to end child labor, every social movement in the U.S. has gained steam when Christians brought a moral voice because churches set the moral norms in this country. Imagine what it will look like when people of faith everywhere begin to realize that divestment is the frontline of contemporary discipleship. The fossil fuel industry will become a pariah and we will live up to the dictates of our faith. We will give our descendants a full future on a living planet, instead of apologies and grief. For reasons that have more to do with political alignment than faith, Christianity is often placed at odds with climate action. But Christianity is fundamentally about truth — “the truth will set you free” — and climate change is a fact, backed by rigorous science. Acting on climate change aligns with all the values and teachings that Jesus represents. So let us not be too comfortable in the state of the world as it is. Let us hunger and thirst for climate justice, before billions of our neighbors hunger and thirst in earnest.
GUE ST COLUMNIST HANNAH NE SSER
efore I came to Yale, my family moved. Two years later, I still haven’t unpacked. Boxes and books have accumulated over the years, and I have no idea where to find anything, let alone enough space to move around. The obvious solution would be to unpack and clean my room. But whenever I try to start, I feel completely and totally overwhelmed. I have no idea where to begin. I feel the same way about climate change, but worse. You can tackle a dirty room with an organizational scheme, some determination and a rainy afternoon. I wish I could think of such a simple solution to the harms caused by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. The problem is so big that sometimes, I don’t know where we can possibly begin. We no longer have the luxury of waiting to act. While a dirty room is inconvenient and frustrating, the extraction and burning of fossil fuels threatens human life. Mountaintop removal, fracking and other extraction and refinement operations poison the air, water and land of communities with the least political, economic and social power. Island nations are disappearing,
GUEST COLUMNIST PA T R I C K C A G E
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“If you have a little extra parking, I err on the side of getting rid of it in favor of having some more greenery.” MICHAEL KING HISTORIAN AND BIOGRAPHER
Hearing for new graduate student housing postponed
JANE KIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The construction of new graduate housing may be postponed due to a report filed by Deputy Director of Zoning Thomas Talbot. GRAD HOUSING FROM PAGE 1 ticular “hardship” in following the regulations, thus requiring a variance. Ward 2 Alder Frank Douglas, who attended Tuesday’s hearing along with Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson ’12 before learning that the discussion of Yale’s request had been postponed, said he has not yet fully formed an opinion on the proposed housing. He said
he might have some concerns with the plan. “I’m up for development in our city if it’s feasible for the city and the people,” he said. “There’s a lot of concerns that I have — parking, traffic and other issues — that need to be talked about.” He added that he would discuss the plans with his constituents in the Dwight neighborhood, adjacent to Yale’s campus, before making a decision on whether to support
the proposal. The availability of parking has proved a contentious issue. The proposed housing would include no parking spaces, even though zoning regulations stipulate that a building of that size must include 145 spaces. Matt Nemerson SOM ’81, New Haven Economic Development Administrator, said parking concerns are not likely to derail the project. He added that the city
encourages developers to build “as little parking as they can” for projects downtown,, where space is sparse. Talbot, on the other hand, wants Yale to demonstrate that the downtown area will be able to handle an increase in vehicle circulation and demand for parking due to new retail on the lot. He is also disputing Yale’s claim that the proposed housing will not adversely affect the current char-
FFY seeks to revive divestment push DIVESTMENT FROM PAGE 1 divestment group, staged a sit-in in the building holding the office of Harvard President Drew Faust, beginning at around 10 a.m., according to the Harvard Crimson. As part of Global Divestment — a two-day coordinated outreach effort spanning campuses and communities in five continents — FFY had organized a series of events to rally support for its cause, including performances from student groups, guest speakers and a collaborative art installation. The event aimed to be the largest mobilization of students, faculty and alumni for the cause since the Yale Corporation announced its decision not to divest six months ago, in addition to signaling new goals beyond institutional divestment for the campus organization. Still, the stakes remain high for FFY as it fights to remain active and relevant in spite of the Yale administration appearing unlikely to reverse the August decision. “[The event] here on campus will reflect the growing movement as we recognize that we are participating in a global day of action,” FFY member Maya Jenkins ’18 said. “Globally, the divestment campaign is really turning up the heat against fossil fuels by changing the traditional conversation around them.” Still, FFY Communications Coordinator Chelsea Watson ’17 said the event, which was supposed to be held on Saturday, is more than the activities on the schedule. Rather, it signals a shift in the way in which FFY will both be articulating its goals and engaging with the administration. FFY has pivoted from grounding its argument solely on emissions and climate change, and has made “climate justice” — viewing climate change as an ethical issue — a central part of its revised campaign, Watson said. FFY member Elias Estabrook ’16 said FFY’s new proposals will focus not only on emissions but also on the harms done by the lobbying presence that fossil fuels companies have in the political system, as well as the public health consequences from climate change. Estabrook cited the particularly high asthma rate in New Haven as an example of the harm from the fossil fuel infrastructure surrounding the city.
In addition to signaling a new broader focus for the group, Saturday’s event would have also marked a new strategy for the organization to not only rally support on campus, but also leverage power from groups around the country. Lev Gray ’18, who said he planned to attend the FFY event, said it would serve to highlight how divestment is a crucial issue not only at Yale, but throughout the world. “FFY is not just acting on its own but is part of a larger movement,” FFY member Phoebe Chatfield ’18 said. “There is divestment happening on town level, state level, campus level — the movement has become global and the problems we are talking about are global as well.” Though FFY is continuing to revise its proposal, Watson said the tone of the campaign has evolved from the previous year. Rather than crafting policies and proposals for approval by the Yale Corporation, she said FFY is looking to confront the administration directly. Chatfield added, however, that the group has also partnered with the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility — a committee of eight professors, students and alumni that evaluates ethical issues surrounding the University’s investments — and met with the members of the committee to receive advice on making divestment a reality. Though she remained optimistic that Yale would divest, FFY does not have a formal timeline in which they expect this change to occur. Further, it appears unlikely that the University will change its decision in the near future. “After much deliberation, the [Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility] did not recommend divestment of Yale’s investments in fossil fuel companies for reasons given in its report,” University President Peter Salovey wrote in the campus-wide announcement in August. “In making these decisions, the Committee applied the standards and process that the Yale Corporation has long maintained for considering ethical principles in investing the University’s endowment.” Salovey could not be reached for comment on Thursday. ACIR Chair and Yale Law School professor Jonathan Macey LAW ’82
said that though he commends FFY’s actions to raise awareness on the issue of global warming, he does not think the demonstrations are likely to change the analytical approach used by the Yale administration and Yale Corporation in reaching its decision. Rather, he said ACIR will continue to work with FFY to find common ground and will continue the dialogue with members of the University regarding shareholder resolutions related to climate change. However, representatives from 350.org, a pro-divestment organization that is helping to lead the event, dismissed the suggestion that FFY should be discouraged after Yale voted against divestment in August. “Every day that Yale doesn’t divest is a day that [Chief Investment Officer] David Swensen and the Board of Trustees are betting on the side of fossil fuel companies who are burning the planet,” 350.org co-founder Phil Aroneanu said. “As with any political decision, a ‘no’ can be reversed with stronger demands, more education and engagement and more strategic pressure.” Aroneanu cited Swarthmore as an example of a university where the administration rejected discussion of fossil fuel divestment, but recently reopened the question at the trustee and administrative levels after facing student pressure. Watson said that even if the corporation does not divest in the near future, FFY serves a critical role for other campuses and the broader movement. She said campuses such as Norfolk State University have reached out to members of FFY asking for advice and using its proposal as a model. “Even if the CCIR said no, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been significant impact,” Watson said. “Even when success may not be happening vertically, it is happening horizontally.” Instead of holding its own Global Divestment Day event, on Saturday FFY will join another student group on campus, Rise Up Singing, a folk music sing-a-long group, in honor of the worldwide event. Contact JED FINLEY at james.finley@yale.edu and LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu .
acter of the area, citing its height as proof that it would appear out of place. Talbot’s report stands in contrast to the expressed support of other city officials. Nemerson praised the plan, adding that the two stories of retail would add to downtown’s tax base. Other downtown business owners — including the owners of Tyco, Ivy Noodle and Maison Mathis — wrote letters to the
zoning board in favor of the proposed housing, arguing that it will have a positive impact on the downtown business community. Lauren Zucker, Yale’s director of New Haven affairs, and City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg did not respond to requests for comment. Contact NOAH DAPONTESMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu .
Yale Health promotes online scheduling MYCHART FROM PAGE 1 never heard of MyChart and could not find out anything about it online when he researched it, agreed. Many students view an appointment as a timeconsuming inconvenience, and thus end up simply Googling their symptoms online, he explained. Being able to securely message clinicians instead of searching online will help students better understand what is going on when they are sick, so that they know when they need medical attention, he added. Rigsby also said that being able to see one’s own medical records is a good way for patients to catch mistakes in record keeping. “There aren’t tons of mistakes, but we do hear for patients who say, ‘Hey that doesn’t look right,’” Rigsby said, adding that he had had one patient note that she had received an additional vaccine that was not listed in her record, as she had received it after her vaccination record was submitted. Gotlin said that MyChart’s direct scheduling capabilities make it particularly useful. Direct scheduling, which is yet to be piloted, allows students to book appointments, view immunization and lab records and print these documents without asking permission from physicians. Currently, the majority of communication between students and healthcare staff is over the phone, Gotlin said. Since students spend their days in and out of classes, it is difficult for clinicians to call students back at a time convenient for the student, he added. According to Director of Yale Health Paul Genecin, MyChart is particularly helpful for students with chronic conditions. One student, who suffers from a chronic health condition known as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome — a condition in which the nervous system has trouble sending messages to other body systems, particularly the cardiovascular system — agreed. Because not all communication between patients and health care providers is recorded, she said, it is easy for confusion to arise. The student needed her vitals
checked every week by a nurse at Yale Health, but the nurse would change the day or time of the appointment without updating it officially. The student would then get voicemails informing her of incorrect appointment times. “I would hear two different sets of information about when my appointment is,” she said, adding that although she can only speak of her experience with one nurse, she felt that miscommunication is prevalent at Yale Health because communication is not always recorded. According to Rigsby, the messaging component of MyChart can help rectify those miscommunications. Having a written trail of clinical discussions is helpful because it is easier to follow up on things, and those conversations can become part of medical records, he added, noting that everything is updated in real time. Rigsby emphasized that urgent medical problems should not be communicated to physicians through MyChart.
There aren’t tons of mistakes, but we do hear patients who say ‘Hey that doesn’t look right.’” MICHAEL RIGSBY MED ’88 Medical Director, Yale Health “As convenient as MyChart messaging is, it is not instant messenger,” he said, explaining that MyChart is not able to provide urgent medical advice because answers are typically received in two to three days. While Genecin and his team are looking forward to sending a campus wide email to students , they are also considering other methods to increase student participation. Gotlin said that Yale Health is looking into having clinicians activate students’ accounts for them when they come in to see their doctor or nurse, in order to make things easier for them. Contact AMAKA UCHEGBU at amaka.uchegbu@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 5
NEWS
“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” DAVID MITCHELL ENGLISH AUTHOR
Due to an editing error, a previous version of the article “Students upset by pass-fail labs” neglected to mention that students in independent study courses receive a written, end-of-term evaluation in addition to the pass-fail assessment.
An MRI scanner, for kids only, unveiled at YNHH BY ERIN WANG STAFF REPORTER Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital is now home to a largerthan-life “Scan-Castle” — a new $6 million beach-themed pediatric MRI scanner. The scanner, which opened two weeks ago, is the same topof-the-line model that the hospital has used for many years on both adult and child patients, but it is the first in Connecticut to be used only for children. The suite is visually appealing and child-friendly, looking like a giant sandcastle with a sandy seaside mural covering every wall. The scanner is the fastest and quietest model currently on the market, which makes the process more comfortable for children and reduces the need for anesthesia. Children often have to be sedated because they are unable to stay still during scans, but this model is able to take clear images even with movement from the patient. “MRI scanning is becoming a more and more important part of pediatric healthcare,” chief of pediatric imaging at YNHH Rob Goodman said. “We could squeeze all the children into the old scanner which was shared with adults, but we believe that the children should get a dedicated scanner.”
What kid doesn’t love the beach? JEFFREY WEINREB Director of Medical Imaging, Yale-New Haven Hospital The new MRI suite — which includes an intake room, an area where professionals help children relax before the scan, sedation and recovery areas and a reading room — cost $6 million to design and build. The entire project took roughly two years to finish. Goodman said that YaleNew Haven had to appeal to the state Department of Health in order to acquire the new MRI scanner. He added that convincing the state that the hospital needed a new piece of equipment and could not use the scanners they already had was a difficult process, but the state ultimately approved the proposal. Several other hospitals in the nation have already established child-friendly MRI suites featuring circus or pirate themes. Other ideas were considered during the design process at YNHH, but the team ended up settling on a beach theme
because they thought it would be easier on the eyes. “What kid doesn’t love the beach?” asked director of medical imaging at YNHH Jeffrey Weinreb. Children now come directly to the Children’s Hospital to receive an MRI scan, where they are met by a pediatric nurse. All the staff members are highly trained to care for children, so the children receive much better service in the suite, Goodman said. They are given a tour and an explanation of the scanner before the procedure, and parents watch the scan from beach chairs, while technicians watch through a window with lifeguard signs painted around it. After the scan is over, the children take home a beach ball or another beach-themed toy. The new MRI Scan-Castle has been extremely well-received so far, Goodman said. He noted that children seem to be calm and relaxed and fewer require anesthesia. Parents have been reassured as well by the childfriendly suite design, which is a far cry from the radiology suites that previously served both adults and children. According to Weinreb, upon entering the previously used MRI suites, parents used to get nervous — seeing so many very ill adult patients did not help to calm parents’ nerves. A bonus feature of the new suite is a brand new set of Cinemavision goggles, which the hospital purchased for $70,000. The goggles allow claustrophobic children to relax by making them feel like they are in a movie theater rather than lying inside a large magnetic scanner. Children can choose a DVD from the hospital’s collection or even bring one from home. According to Maureen Perachio, MRI manager at YNHH, sometimes the movie lasts longer than the scan, and the children want to stay even longer in the MRI suite. Currently, the scanner handles about 40 patients per week, but Yale-New Haven hopes to attract more patients in the area and eventually expand its operating hours. News of the scanner is currently spreading by word of mouth, especially through the oncology department, according to Goodman. He said that he would like to feature the ScanCastle on I-95 billboards in the future. MRI services at the Children’s Hospital are provided from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. Contact ERIN WANG at erin.wang@yale.edu .
Bradley looks to add routes to Europe BY NOAH KIM STAFF REPORTER After seeing a 10 percent increase in passenger traffic over the past year, Bradley International Airport is aiming to develop new routes to London and other European locations, including Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Dublin. Despite having the word “international” in its name, the airport currently only services domestic routes. Allan Blair, former president and CEO of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, said he has high hopes that the European deals under discussion will move forward within the next few months. He said he has been working alongside several other economic development experts to bring an international carrier to Bradley for a tour of the airport. “I have to say that the conversations that I’ve been involved in took place between people at very high
positions,” he said. “This is way beyond speculative talk.” Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin Dillon said an improved economy nationwide has offered Bradley an opportunity to expand their offerings and start flights to Europe.
This allows airlines to increase seat numbers, which in turn leads to lower fares. ALLAN BLAIR CEO, Western Massachusetts EDC Blair added that he believes international routes at Bradley would be economically beneficial to the surrounding region as a whole. “If you look at other airports which established direct links to Europe in their early years such as Atlanta, for example, their finan-
cial growth tends to increase almost exponentially,” Blair said. “This allows airlines to increase seat numbers, which in turn leads to lower fares.” Bradley and the Western Massachusetts EDC have been working for years to help convince international airlines to operate out of Bradley, Blair said. If the deal moves forward, the new European service would be Bradley’s first international route since Northwest Airlines flights to Amsterdam were discontinued in 2007, after only 15 months. Several European Yale students interviewed said the new service would be particularly beneficial to them, as many must take twohour shuttles to John F. Kennedy International Airport to travel home. Hertfordshire, England resident Frankie AndersenWood ’18 welcomed the news, adding that she has had multiple issues with transportation to and from JFK. “JFK is very difficult to get
to,” Andersen-Wood said. “Twice my shuttle has not turned up. The first time I could have missed my flight, and the second time I was forced to decide between sleeping in the airport overnight or getting a car to New Haven.” Elizabeth Casey ’18, who lives in Stoke-on-Trent, England, said traveling to England currently takes an inordinate amount of time. Casey said that, if she leaves campus at midday, she does not arrive back home in the U.K. until late the following night, when factoring in the travel time to JFK, the flight time, the trip from London to her home city and the time difference. “Any way the trip could be made shorter would be so welcome,” Casey added. Of five U.K. students surveyed, all said they would utilize Bradley, assuming that prices were comparable to those at JFK. Contact NOAH KIM at noah.kim@yale.edu .
City’s small business center gets a boost BY JIAHUI HU AND ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTERS City Hall’s Small Business Service Center will soon double in size — from one to two employees — in an effort to catalyze the Elm City’s entrepreneurial scene. The Board of Alders voted last week to install a new administrative assistant within the service center, which primarily focuses on helping homegrown businesses in New Haven develop business plans and acquire permits and licenses. Currently, the center, a subsidiary of the Economic Development Administration, is directed by Jacqueline James, who has served as the center’s only employee since its inception last July. In the state of the city last week, Mayor Toni Harp emphasized the importance of small business development in spurring the local economy and lower the city’s 6.2 percent unemployment rate. She lauded the center’s efforts in this endeavor, noting that it has serviced 200 small businesses and assisted in the launch of 23 new ones thus far.
James said the new hire will help widen the center’s reach even further, as the employee will staff the office when James is away on site visits. “This is a positive thing for the small business community in New Haven,” Ward 18 Alder Salvatore DeCola said. “One person can’t do it alone.” City Hall Spokesperson Laurence Grotheer said the new city employee will alleviate pressure on James as the Small Business Service Center’s sole representative. In its current organization, the center cannot operate, Grotheer said, when James is out of her office on site visits. The new administrative assistant will be able to keep the center open during business hours while James is away. “The new administrative assistant will contribute to the small business sector of the economy by allowing the office to stay open full time,” Grotheer said. “It’s a problem that we have to close when the director is out.” Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson ’12 said that the alders’ support of the Small Business Service Center is consistent
with the mayor’s vision of diversifying employment in New Haven — a goal she outlined in the State of the City. She added that the initiative could benefit recent Yale alumni looking to stay in New Haven and start small businesses after graduation. Twenty-seven alders voted in favor of establishing the position while only three voted against the motion. Ward 12 Alder Richard Spears, Ward 21 Brendy Foskey-Cyrus and Ward 10 Anna Festa, the three who voted against creating the position, all cited possible tax hikes as their primary concern. Festa added that the position was not necessary, noting that, using technology, business owners could contact James if she were not physically in the office. “I don’t think it’s important right now because everyone is easily accessed through a smartphone,” Festa said. Festa added that even if she thought the position were necessary, she would have wanted the board to wait to vote until March, when the mayor’s budget will be released. The position, which will pay a salary of $39,210
per year, is currently being funded from now until the end of the fiscal year in June through a special fund. DeCola added that the alders would closely reexamine the administrative assistant position during budget talks later this spring. Ricky Evans, the owner of Ricky D’s Rib Shack, was one of 26 city residents who participated in the Small Business Service Center’s “Passion to Profit.” Evans said the program, free for all successful applicants, taught important technical business practices. Evans added that he is still working with the Small Business Service Center to plan a food truck festival on the New Haven Green. He said that even though James is the sole runner of the center, she has consistently made herself available. “They provided good resources,” Evans said. “They helped us with business plans and pointed us in a good direction.” Contact JIAHUI HU at jiahui.hu@yale.edu and ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu.
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FROM THE FRONT Profs debate Charlie Hebdo
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.� SOREN KIERKEGAARD DANISH PHILOSOPHER
Commission recommends safety measures SANDY HOOK FROM PAGE 1 similar tragedies.� President and owner of the East Haven-based Security Academy of Connecticut Vincent Riccio, who testified in front of the commission in August of last year, said the most important criteria to ensure comprehensive school safety are a secure front entry and doors that can be locked from the inside. Current practices in New Haven Public Schools require front doors of all schools to be locked after the start of the school day, and for a member of security to allow entrants in through a secure buzzer system. Riccio added, however, that a secure front entry alone is not enough to prevent an event like the Sandy Hook shooting. He underscored the importance of interior locks on all doors within the school building. “Typical active shooter incidents do not involve intruders as it occurred with Adam Lanza� he said, referring to the Sandy Hook shooter. “About 80 percent of these events happen by students at that school.� According to the current draft of the report, the testimony and other evidence presented to the commission revealed that there has never been an event in which an active shooter has been able to breach a locked classroom door. An NHPS representative could not be reached for comment on whether the district requires schools to have interior locks on classroom doors. In addition to these physical security measures, the report’s school safety recommendations also include the formation of “school security and safety� committees on each campus. These committees would include representatives from several different backgrounds, including law enforcement, mental health, and the school’s own teachers, staff and parents. In the report’s recommendations for gun control legislation, the commission endorsed a handful of changes in addition to those previously issued in the 2013 interim report. Of the commission’s 15 recommendations from the interim report, state officials have adopted two in their entirety: making background checks mandatory for firearm purchases and outlawing the sale or possession of magazines with a capacity for more than 10 bullets. State legislators also changed the state’s gun laws to ban the retail sale of military-style weapons. With these legislative actions, Connecticut became the third state, in addition to New York
CHARLIE HEBDO FROM PAGE 1 dition of Muslims in European countries. But Hill disagreed, arguing that the modern world is founded on a series of principles such as human rights, democracy, equality and freedom of speech. Hill said the idea of the freedom of speech is so essential that societies must be careful in banning any expression unless it crosses the red line of hate speech, which in his view constitutes a very tiny portion of all expressions. More simply put, “Speeches and expressions gotta be allowed!� Hever argued that satire must not be understood as merely a literary genre, but must be considered in broader social and political contexts. The core of satire, he said, is self-ridicule and equality between two sides of the communication. Often, this balance is absent in satirical material about Islam, Hever said. The key difference, he said, is that the authors of these satires are often in a “power position� compared to the marginalized status of the Muslim population in European countries. Still, it is simplistic to say that these satires on religion are offensive and worthless to the society just because religion is a private practice, panelist and political science professor Andrew March said. Religion, though practiced privately, always has a huge presence in the public sphere and therefore is worthy of constructive conversations and discussions, he said. On the other hand, some of the discussions are just “intellectually and aesthetically tasteless,� to the point that they are not worthy of praise or attention. Ugonna Eze ’16, the speaker of the Yale Political Union and moderator of the event, said the panel had achieved its goal of providing a more nuanced perspective on the satirical material of Charlie Hebdo. “Much of the conversation about Charlie Hebdo has been black and white,� he said. “We hope to avoid that.� Hugh Sullivan ’18 said the panel made him think about Muslims as an unprivileged and alienated group in the context of freedom of speech for the first time. Shreyas Ravishankar ’17 said he really appreciated the cultural and literary perspective the panelists provided. “I have come to realize that every perspective has its meaning and contribution to the understanding of a complex issue like this,� he said. Contact ANDI WANG at andi.wang@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS
The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission released a 256-page report. and Colorado, to pass measures limiting magazine capacities since the December 2012 shooting in Newtown. But, since 2013, no strong legislative champions have come to the forefront to make more changes in Connecticut. The 2013 State Scorecard released by The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, gave Connecticut an “A-� rating, placing it in the top 10 states with the strongest gun control laws. Some security experts like Riccio, however, have said that state-by-state gun legislation is ineffective at best. “Reasonable gun control cannot happen in Connecticut. It has to happen on a national level,� Riccio said. “Whatever law you pass in Connecticut is immediately circumvented by the laws that are in place in surrounding states.� In its lengthiest section, the commission’s latest report tackles the topic of mental health in Connecticut, separating its more than 50 recommendations on the topic into six subcategories, covering issues from barriers to access, to the overlap of mental illness and violence. Hedy Kober, Yale professor of psychiatry and
psychology, said both financial issues and social stigma are problems that can keep patients from getting psychiatric help. In addition to recommendations on reducing these barriers, the report also emphasized the difficulty of predicting acts of violence based on mental health diagnoses. Kober echoed this sentiment. “Not all school shootings have been perpetrated by individuals who would qualify for a mental diagnosis,� Kober said. “There are some things for which there are data, and we can all agree on that. But something like whether school violence is necessarily related to mental illness? Until someone does a really comprehensive study on that, we don’t know.� Both Kober and the commission underscored that people with mental health challenges are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. The draft of the report, which the commission will discuss Friday morning, is expected to be presented to Malloy after further edits. Contact SKYLER INMAN at skyler.inman@yale.edu .
5IF :BMF "OBUPNJDBM 4PDJFUZ IBT JEFOUJÆFE UIF GPMMPXJOH IJQ :BMF TUVEFOUT CFUXFFO UIF BHFT PG BOE BT IFBMUIZ BOE FMJHJCMF TVCKFDUT 8F XPVME MJLF UP DPOEVDU GVSUIFS FYBNJOBUJPO BU TPPOFTU BWBJMBCJMJUZ Abigail Carney ’15 (x2) Adam Echelman ’17 Adam Smith ’16 Adlon Adams ’15 & Clemens Barth ’15 Alex Simon ’17 Alexandra Torresquintero ’16 Allison Williams ’10 (x4) Alonzo Page ’15 Anderson Cooper ’89 Anya Richkind ’16 Ari Zimmet ’17 Austin Bryniarski ’16 Brandon Blaesser ‘15 Cambrian Thomas-Adams ’13 Caroline Smith ’14 (x2) Caroline Warner ’15 Carolyn Collado ’16 (x2) Celine Cuevas ’15 (x2) Chief Ronnell A. Higgins Chris Morse ’15 (x3) Christopher Leet ’17
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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NEWS
“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” MARK TWAIN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Tesla sparks legislative debate BY MALINA SIMARD-HALM STAFF REPORTER Roughly 70 car dealers descended upon the Connecticut State Capitol on Wednesday to protest legislation that would allow Tesla Motors to sell its vehicles in-state without having to partner with independent dealerships. Connecticut State Sen. Art Linares proposed a bill in January that would “make it easier” for electric cars like Tesla’s, broadly, to bypass franchise dealerships. Nearly 40 other states — including Washington, Massachusetts and Ohio — have implemented policies to allow Tesla to sell vehicles directly to consumers. Opponents of the bill say that such legislation would adversely affect both car buyers and local dealerships, which they claim are better equipped to sell the cars and protect consumer rights. Representatives from Tesla could not be reached for comment this week. “Granting Tesla a corporate loophole is a risky business and will circumvent longstanding consumer protections and jeopardize local businesses that have operated under these laws in good faith for over 40 years,” Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association President James Fleming said in a public hearing statement at the State Legislative Office Building earlier this month. At that public hearing, the General Assembly’s Transportation Committee discussed the bill. The hearing included testimony from Tesla officials, Linares and dealers. Though Linares acknowledged the important role car dealerships play in Connecticut, he added that the state should be more willing to make electric vehicles available. He also noted that the bill specifies Tesla as the main brand that would be exempt from normal dealership standards — he referenced a personal experience traveling out-of-state to New York to purchase a Tesla vehicle directly from a company-owned store as one that could be avoided by passing his
recommendations. But Fleming countered that new legislation is not necessary to increase accessibility to electric cars. “We want the public to know that local Connecticut dealers are ready and willing to sell Tesla immediately,” Fleming continued in the statement. “We currently offer many electric vehicles through our dealerships and we are strong supporters of growing that market. We additionally have worked with the State of Connecticut to expand electric charging stations and promote incentives.” He added that this legislation could set a dangerous precedent for other car companies. Almost all of the 270 dealerships in the state are family-owned, Fleming said, and such legislation could change the car-marketing landscape. Also on Feb. 6, Rep. Tony Guerrera told the Associated Press about the potential course of allowing Tesla to open a limited number of stores — tentatively no more than 10 — in Connecticut. Though Tesla executives approved of the thought, he said, Connecticut dealership representatives balked at it. To further oppose the bill’s passage, CARA launched an online campaign at TeslaCrash.com, which features the tagline “Don’t Let Tesla Crash into Connecticut’s Consumer Laws.” Several other state legislatures are also debating similar issues. For example, on Oct. 21, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law to clarify and strengthen existing policy allowing direct auto sales. But Dave Murray, Snyder’s deputy press secretary, said the passage of the bill would not have made an extensive impact on car companies either way. “Had [Gov. Snyder] vetoed the bill, it would not have changed the way Tesla wants to do business,” Murray said. Tesla is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and currently has company stores in about 20 states. Contact MALINA SIMARD-HALM at malina.simard-halm@yale.edu .
Alumni create their own Feb Club BY PATRICK PEOPLES STAFF REPORTER February is not known for being the most lighthearted of months. But one alumni group has been serving up an antidote to the mid-winter blues for several years now. The Feb Club Emeritus, based on the similarly named campus event organized for seniors, is an alumni organization that brings together Yale graduates from six continents and more than six class decades for parties in over 115 cities across the world. The group was born in 2008, during a class of 1987 lunch, when Tim Harkness ’87 discussed his desire for a lowkey social gathering to bring together alumni with varied interests. Harkness told the News that the original plan provided for 28 parties in 28 cities, but rapidly grew to include 35 cities and over 3,000 alumni. “We were brainstorming about getting our class to meet — one joke led to another to another and pretty soon we were organizing Feb Club parties all over the world,” Harkness said, noting that the success of the club has been far beyond what he had initially expected, a testament to the capability and passion of Yale alumni. The original on-campus Feb Club, which hosts parties every night of February for graduating seniors, was a key inspiration for Feb Club Emeritus, according to the group’s website. Further, many of the members of the alumni group were involved in the initial creation of the senior Feb Club while they were at Yale. The party locations range from New York City to Kigali, Rwanda, Harkness said. Alumni have hosted from distilleries in Brooklyn, manors in Mississippi, yachts off the coast of South Africa, karaoke houses in London and even a Bedouin tent in the Jordanian desert. “My father went to one in Australia, there were people from four different decades doing all sorts of things. They had fried crocodile, a couple of beers and just sat around in a pub for the evening,” Harkness said. Erin Coffey ’09, who has been
attending Feb Club Emeritus events in Philadelphia for several years, said she enjoys the parties primarily for the inter-class, cross-generational interactions that they foster. A highlight of the parties is drinking from the Mory’s Cup — a glistening silver chalice filled to the brim with a strong alcohol blend, said Ed West ’79. Eric Peterson ’99, former Student Activities Committee and Spring Fling Committee chair, also said the Mory’s Cup is a particularly vivid memory of his. “Partaking in the delightful but totally anachronistic Mory’s Cups, it is a little strange. You get a funny look from the bartender when you say ‘I’m going bring in some giant silver chalices to make punch in with ice cubes the size of a Solo cup and then were going to pass them around and it’ll all
be free’ — it’s very Yale,” he said. Peterson, who works for New York City Parks, recalled a particularly memorable party he hosted in Central Park. The event, in breach of fire code, was attended by several hundred alumni who stayed late into the night. Peterson said the event was “epic” and is talked about to this day. Coffey said the Feb Club Emeritus events are a window into Yale’s past and a way to see how different generations shape the University’s identity — but they are also a reminder of what Yalies share, even after decades. Since 2008, the organization has hosted over 30,000 alumni from as far back as the class of 1954. The Feb Club Emeritus will host their finale on Saturday, Feb. 28 at Mory’s. Contact PATRICK PEOPLES at patrick.peoples@yale.edu .
KEN YANAGISAWA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The Feb Club is a group that hosts nightly parties for seniors during Februrary.
PAGE 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
NEWS
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” MOTHER TERESA HUMANITARIAN
New city crowdfunding tool spurs excitement BY HAN-AH SUMNER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Elm City’s latest technological innovation, Ignite! New Haven, has spurred excitement among residents and community leaders aiming to help the city solve the problem of perennially underfunded community projects. City Hall’s Office of Development and Policy worked with Citizinvestor, a civic engagement platform for government projects, to create Ignite! New Haven. Founded Dec. 8, the crowdfunding web platform has piloted three projects: the creation of a New Haven public kitchen and a Youth Lacrosse League, as well as building new, more secure bike racks. So far, the projects have attracted a total of $2,068 from organizations and individual local donors. Ignite! New Haven hopes to continue working on projects in partnership with city organizations like
Elm City Cycling and CitySeed — which organizes a local Farmers’ Market — to expand funding options for innovative projects. “It’s part of the mayor’s idea to build community through these collaborative arrangements and emphasize the many things that people have in common in New Haven,” said City Hall spokesperson Laurence Grotheer, adding that the project was conceived as part of Mayor Toni Harp’s larger goal to strengthen community relations by matching investors with entrepreneurs and innovators. Many city officials, including Grotheer, said Ignite! New Haven can be thought of as New Haven’s version of crowdfunding for civic-minded projects. The interactive site allows people who want to invest in the New Haven community to donate to specific projects or propose their own. Currently, apart from the three existing projects, two more have been
suggested — one called “Veterans with Vision” and a second, a fundraiser for the Augusta Lewis Troup School Band to compete at a Six Flags competition. Members of the site can “like” projects and donate.
[New Haven] is a fantastically sized community. DOUG HAUSLADEN’04 Director of Transportation, Traffic and Parking, New Haven The crowdfunding platform extends existing city efforts to improve community collaboration. According to New Haven Director of Transportation, Traffic and Parking Doug Hausladen ’04, New Haven is an ideal city in which to roll out the plat-
form. “We are a fantastically sized community — one that is small enough that you can have an impact and large enough that the impact matters,” Hausladen said. Hausladen pointed to the Secure Bike Racks project as one that the city itself has not been able to accomplish but will likely come to fruition through Ignite! New Haven. The project aims to increase the number of bike racks in residential areas. According to Hausladen, when the city tries to fund such projects, it comes up shorthanded because his budget is often allocated towards other needs such as traffic lights and public safety infrastructure. With Ignite! New Haven, targeted buy-in allows the community to fund those ideas. “You’re never going to see a salary for a staff member on there — our taxes pay for that,” Hausladen said.
Film conference tackles modern media consumerism
Another effort — the New Haven Public Kitchen project, led by Nadine Nelson, social entrepreneur of Global Local Gourmet — reaches out to lowincome communities by broadening people’s ideas about and fostering a more interactive relationship with food. Other projects, like the Youth Lacrosse League, in which police officers mentor kids in lacrosse, directly reach out to impoverished communities. Sergeant Albert McFadden of the New Haven Police Department said that, because lacrosse is such an expensive sport, lower-income kids interested in lacrosse need the additional funding. He added that the program gives kids something to do and helps them see a different side of police officers. Media coverage of Ignite! New Haven is crucial in attracting more donations, Hausladen said, but the platform has not been able to draw significant atten-
KEN YANAGISAWA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
BY CAROLINE WRAY STAFF REPORTER Pornography, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” the aesthetic of Nintendo games and Sacha Baron Cohen are just a few of the topics slated for discussion in an upcoming film conference: “Eye Candy.” Organized by the class of second-year graduate students in Yale’s Film and Media Studies program, “Eye Candy” aims to examine the cultural impact of film and digital media in the modern world. Taking place in the Whitney Humanities Center, the conference begins tonight and will end on Sunday. Over the course of the weekend, 20 academics — many of whom are visiting from peer institutions such as Brown and New York University — will share their research in one of five panel discussions. These panels are titled “Auteurs and their Visual Universe,” “New(ish) Media,” “Insatiable Appetites?”, “Capitalism Across Genres” and “Border Crossings.” “We’re hoping to straddle the divide between the humanities and social sciences and really dig into the political aspects of consuming media,” said Masha Shpolberg GRD ’19, one of the five conference organizers. Shpolberg and her co-organizers said they hope the opening event of the conference, a keynote address titled “The Cops and the Commons: Life, Love and Value After Ferguson,” will reflect the conference’s goal of examining the political implications of modern media forms. They added that they selected Nicholas Mirzoeff, a professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU, as the keynote speaker because of his prominence in the field of Media Studies. Mirzoeff said that in his address, he
hopes to “raise the stakes” of how students and academics study media, adding that he wanted to inspire awareness, understanding, participation, conversation and persistence among conference attendees as they contemplate the role of media in political issues. He noted that he especially wants media scholars at the university level to be engaged in such discussions. “Universities are no longer places where we can pretend not to be part of social movements of our time,” he said. Swagato Chakravorty GRD ’19, another conference co-organizer, pointed out that “media studies” can often be confused with fields like journalism or linguistics because of the term’s vague definition. He said he thinks it is important to better specify the topics that fall under disciplines such as Film Studies, noting that current modes of viewing film have strayed from traditional filmstrips and moved into the digital. The conference will aim to address this concern, Chakravorty added. Mirzoeff said he believes that the current influx of digital media forms in everyday life is of profound historical significance. “Just as when books were first printed in late 15th early 16th century, nobody could have some of the uses of print culture that we now think of as normal … no one has a serious sense of what this social and technological change is going to mean in the long term,” Mirzoeff said. In addition to the panels and speakers, a screening of the 1966 Czech film “Daisies” will take place tonight. Conference co-organizer Ila Tyagi GRD ’19, whose master’s thesis in American Studies traced patterns of women’s eating behavior in film, said “Daisies” differs drastically from American film. She explained that it
is almost impossible to find an American film that includes women eating unless the woman is pregnant, is eating in the context of sexual foreplay, or has been starving for an extended period of time. “Daisies,” Tyagi explained, features two teenage girls eating an extravagant feast and then having a food fight. Shpolberg noted that the director of “Daisies,” Vera Chytilová, made and released it during Czechoslovakia’s communist era and was consequently forbidden to make films in her country for nine years. Shpolberg lauded the film’s political commentary as well as its ability to simultaneously attack consumerism and communism. Conference co-organizer Regina Karl GRD ’19 said she was particularly looking forward to Film and Media Studies professor Ronald Gregg’s closing remarks for the weekend, titled “Eye Candy XXX: Endless Eroticism and Interactivity in Post-Porn New Media.” Karl said she thinks that although discussing pornography in an academic context can make people uncomfortable, it provides a wealth of observable and compelling information on media consumption. “Pornography can really show us how we perceive of the ‘right to look,’ and how we can sometimes abuse it, or need it, or have an urge for it,” Karl said. “But we’re not just going to talk about things that your eyes might want to look at.” The Film and Media Studies program will co-host another conference at the end of the month on French post-war cinema and culture. Contact CAROLINE WRAY at caroline.wray@yale.edu .
Contact HAN-AH SUMNER at han-ah.sumner@yale.edu .
Tap season prompts discussions on reform BY JON VICTOR STAFF REPORTER
“Eye Candy”, an upcoming film conference, aims to examine the cultural impact of film and digital media in the modern world.
tion thus far. He added that the platform also relies on social media and direct outreach to appeal for donations. Nelson said she has been using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, personal notes and cards to get the word out about her New Haven Public Kitchen Project. “Anything new takes some time for people to understand and grasp,” Nelson said. Hausladen said he hopes Ignite! New Haven will ultimately become a model for other cities. “We are always hoping to be on the cutting edge of technology,” he said. For the moment, the scope of Ignite! New Haven is more narrowly focused, but according to Grotheer, the mayor hopes that, over time, the programs will grow in scope and size.
With the spring semester comes the beginning of an annual process both infamous and mysterious: secret society tapping. The approach of the next round of taps has brought with it differing opinions on whether the system needs to be amended. Among the ideas suggested by students to reform the tap process have been providing the option for students to either opt in or out of consideration by societies and shortening the period that societies are given to contact juniors. One vehicle for potential reform could be the Society Assembly, a University-sanctioned body whose duties include setting a start date for the tap process. “Being in a secret society is optional, but going through the tap process is not optional,” said Viveca Morris ’15, a staff columnist for the News. “It’s relatively easy to defend societies, but I’ve never heard anyone give a good defense of the tap process.” According to Morris, students should have to opt in if they wish to be considered for membership in secret societies. She added that, as a junior, she did not want to participate in the tap process because of its exclusionary nature. But Aaron Gertler ’16, who is not in a society, said giving students the opportunity to opt out of consideration — being eligible for selection unless they specify otherwise — would be a better system to prevent any cases in which an interested junior might forget to opt in before a deadline. He added that creating an opt-out system would be easily implemented by contacting the entire class, something the University already has the capacity to do. “The things that make [society] fun can also make it exclude people,” he said. Laura Miyares ’16 agreed with
Gertler that students should be able to opt out of the tap process, though she granted that someone who is tapped always has the option to turn down the offer. One member of a “Big Three” society — Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key or Wolf’s Head — who asked to remain anonymous because he did not want to violate the trust of the other members of his society, said the tap process is in need of reform and that there have been conversations within his society about improving it. Because so many seniors ultimately join societies, there should be debate both within the groups and across campus on how to improve the tap process, he added. Still, he said does not believe there is a formal movement in place to change the process. He also said secret societies cause students added stress by contacting them earlier than is necessary, and that there should be less time allotted for societies to vet their potential taps. Gertler, however, disagreed, saying that societies should be allowed to take their time with their selections since choosing the next class is an important decision, given the amount of time that the incoming class will spend together during their senior year. Looking back on the experience, seniors interviewed expressed differing views on extent to which societies caused anxiety for juniors going through the tap process. While Madeleine Witt ’15 said that she knows people “who are still traumatized from not being tapped,” Gertler and Christofer Rodelo ’15 said that, in their social circles, conversations surrounding secret societies were not that common. Founded in 1832, Skull and Bones is Yale’s oldest secret society. Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu .
KEN YANAGISAWA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Yale students suggest reforms for the secret society tap process.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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AROUND THE IVIES
“If an alien came to visit, I’d be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation.” NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON AMERICAN ASTROPHYSICIST
T H E C O L U M B I A D A I LY S P E C TAT O R
In Barnard survey, 20 percent report sexual assault BY ELIZABETH SEDRAN Barnard released the results of the 2014 campus climate survey on Wednesday night. This is the first time the results of the report have been issued to the entire community. Barnard’s campus climate survey asks students about their awareness of campus resources for mental and physical health and their experiences with derogatory treatment based on race, sexuality and gender. Thirty-four percent of students filled out the survey, and
20 percent of participants reported experiencing sexual assault in COLUMBIA some form. While 95 percent of students who took the survey indicated they would file an official report through at least one of the available mechanisms, only 50 percent reported awareness of the Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment.
Barnard has administered the campus climate survey to the student body since 2012, and this year’s results were announced the night before Thursday’s town hall, hosted by Barnard’s Student Government Association to discuss the campus climate. “It is important to note that this survey was tailored to the Barnard campus. As a result, any comparison of the Barnard survey results to other published data is not practical because there is not a uniform measure currently in use,” the
survey states. “Rather, the Barnard results can be helpful for benchmarking Barnard student experiences across years here at the College, such as assessing awareness of resources and likelihood to report information.” Columbia will be administering two campus climate surveys next year, one of which will be created by the Association of American Universities. At Monday’s SGA meeting, Amy Zavadil, Barnard’s Title IX coordinator, said that Barnard will not participate in the AAU survey.
While 93 percent of students reported knowing about Barnard Primary Care Health Service, only 53 percent reported familiarity with the Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center — a smaller percentage than the number of students who reported familiarity with Well Woman or the weekly SGA meetings. Only 36 percent of participants in the survey reported that they would be comfortable helping someone locate information and resources for sexual assault.
While not all categories of the survey were broken down by race, 26 percent of students of color reported experiencing someone making derogatory comments, jokes or gestures based on race, as opposed to 15 percent of white students. White students reported more instances of experiencing sexual assault where alcohol is involved and more instances of giving into sexual play as a result of pressure. The 2015 campus climate survey will be administered to students after spring break.
T H E D A I LY P R I N C E T O N I A N
T H E H A R VA R D C R I M S O N
Univ. moves to create gender-neutral bathrooms
Protesters occupy Mass. Hall
BY CORINNE LOWE The University is in the process of creating more gender-neutral, single-stall bathrooms around campus, according to Michele Minter, vice provost for institutional equity and diversity. “There’s just been a lot of interest from students over the past couple years to have more gender-neutral bathrooms, as well as interest from our Office of Disability Services,” Minter said. The buildings of interest are academic, athletic and other non-residential buildings, Assistant Vice President for the Office of Design and Construction Anne St. Mauro said. The conversion process can better accommodate the needs of gender non-conforming students and disabled or older people who need a caretaker to come into a bathroom with them, as well as the parents of young children of a different gender who want their children to accompany them, Minter explained. “So, for example, it’s my understanding that the E-Quad has very few gender-neutral bathrooms, so that’s an area where there’s clearly need,” Minter said. “So that becomes a priority.” The Office of Design and Construction conducted a survey over the summer that entailed identifying, mapping and photographing every single-occupant bathroom on campus, St. Mauro said. “It took quite a while to get through that,” St. Mauro said, explaining that they had to
identify whether each bathroom was identified as neutral, men’s or women’s and also determine whether each of them met handicap accessibility requirePRINCETON ments. However, making these conversions required first receiving approval from the state, as these conversions don’t comply with state building codes, St. Mauro said. “It was quite challenging to figure out how to make these conversions because they were not in line with New Jersey design standards,” Minter said. The code requires buildings that house more than 50 occupants to have designated men’s and women’s restroom facilities, according to St. Mauro. While the state has agreed to allow the conversions, they require separate paperwork for every single building where a bathroom conversion is taking place. “It was based in trying to describe the way the modern world functions right now. There are many people with many different needs,” St. Mauro said in explaining the University’s rationale for their requested variation from code. “Frankly, drawing the line between men and women in certain instances doesn’t make any sense for single-occupancy rooms.” The University is in the process of submitting paperwork for each proposed conversion, and they do not yet know when the physical conversion process can begin, St. Mauro said.
BY MARIEL KLEIN AND THEODORE DELWICHE Roughly 40 students demanding that Harvard divest from fossil fuels occupied Massachusetts Hall, home to the office of University President Drew G. Faust, at about 10 a.m. Thursday morning, and many remained there late that afternoon, refusing to leave the building. To stage their protest, the group of students walked through three sets of doors to enter the hallway outside the offices of Faust, Provost Alan M. Garber and other officials Thursday morning. After entering, the protesters put up a banner advocating for divestment in the hallway. By 10:10 a.m., Harvard University Police officers had arrived at Mass. Hall. Faust offered to meet with the protesters at a location outside of Mass. Hall later Thursday “on the condition that they exit the building,” according to an early afternoon statement from University spokesperson Jeff Neal. But according to Anna RileyShepard, a member of activist group Divest Harvard who stormed Mass. Hall on Thursday, the group responded by saying that it would not exit the building. Instead, the protesters suggested counter-proposals, including meeting with Faust inside Mass.
Hall or sending two delegates to another location to meet Faust while the rest of the HARVARD protesters remained outside her office, where they staged the sit-in. The 40 students executed their plan, which Divest Harvard member Canyon S. Woodward said has been in the works since last fall, by all walking in through the final locked door behind an administrator at once. On Thursday morning, Woodward would not disclose how long the students planned to sit-in in Mass. Hall. Talia K. Rothstein, a co-coordinator for Divest Harvard partaking in the Thursday demonstration, said Thursday morning that the group did not have any immediate plans to leave. Protesters secured access to a bathroom in the building on Thursday morning, but lost it in the afternoon, when they were deliberating what counter-proposals to offer Faust. Harvard Police blocked the bathroom and told the occupiers to use one elsewhere as they needed, Rothstein said. “We are taking precautionary measures,” she added, regarding the challenge of continuing the
sit-in without access to a bathroom. “We’re doing fine so far.” A Harvard Police officer stationed at the door of Mass. Hall was blocking access to the building beginning at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday’s sit-in falls on the eve of Global Divestment Day, planned by activists to push for divestment from fossil fuels. It is not the first major protest that the Divest Harvard campaign, which has been active for more than two years, has executed at Mass. Hall — last spring, several members blocked the front entrance of the administrative building. One of its members was arrested, but Harvard did not press charges. Faust has repeatedly argued against divestment, characterizing it as neither “warranted or wise” in an Oct. 2013 open letter. Woodward said Thursday morning that the group would stage another protest in April “if this action comes to a close in the next week or so.” Woodward, who stormed Mass. Hall, described the protesters as “cheerful” Thursday morning. At 10:30 a.m., Woodward said Faust was not in her first-floor office. “We’re trying to put as much pressure on them as possible,” he said that morning. “We are going to reiterate our call for divestment — we’re no longer settling for a meeting — we have to take action now.”
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
SPORTS
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” WAYNE GRETZKY FOUR-TIME STANLEY CUP CHAMPION
Bulldogs aim to keep perch atop league M. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 12 points per game. But in their 52–50 loss against Harvard on Saturday, the Bulldogs scored a season-low 11 points in the first half and finished the game shooting a season-worst 31.5 percent from the field. The team will have an opportunity to rediscover its offensive flow against two of the league’s worst defenses. Princeton has allowed 65.6 points per game, a total aided in large part by deadly perimeter shooting; opponents have shot 37.5 percent from behind the arc against the Tigers. Penn has featured an even worse defense, giving up 67.3 points per game. “We just didn’t trust our stuff enough [against Harvard],” Jones said, referring to the team’s first conference loss of the season. “We were trying to hit a home run on every play as opposed to moving the ball side-to-side. If we get Justin [Sears ’16] in the post off of one pass, it’s very difficult to score down there … so we have to make sure we move it before getting him the ball.” One bright spot last weekend was the Elis’ defensive efforts, which forced Harvard into 14 turnovers and limited the Crimson to just 52 points. The Bulldogs look to duplicate those efforts this weekend, as the Elis head to
face two of the top three shooting teams in the conference. The Tigers lead all schools with a 44.7 percent mark from the field and an impressive 38.6 percent from behind the arc. The Quakers trail by less than a percentage point, shooting 44.0 percent from the floor. “Defense is a big part of our team identity, so it’s something we need to do every night, especially against these two teams that can get hot really quick,” forward Matt Townsend ’15 said. “If we can hold the Killer P’s each to scoring in the low 50s, we’ll have a great chance to be successful.” In the team’s only conference loss this season, the Elis were outrebounded heavily on the boards, which occurs rarely. The Bulldogs, in fact, have the best rebounding margin in the league at +5.7. Princeton, on the other hand, posts a –3.0 margin while Penn has a slimmer, but positive, +2.7 margin. “[Rebounding’s] really been one of our strengths this year and when we’ve outrebounded our opponent, our record has been very good,” forward Sam Downey ’17 said. “Being able to generate more shots off rebounds on the offensive end as well as holding the other team to one chance per trip will be a big key this weekend and the rest of
the year.” The stats back up Downey’s claim, as the Elis are 13–1 in contests this season in which they have outrebounded their opponents. Yale will need to look out for a trio of Tigers, guard Spencer Weisz and forwards Hans Brase and Steven Cook, who all average double digits in points per game. For the Quakers, guard Tony Hicks leads the way, averaging 13.4 points per game. Both of Yale’s foes this weekend rely on underclassmen, while the Elis’ lineup is heavy on experienced upperclassmen. Guards Javier Duren ’15 and Armani Cotton ’15 and forwards Townsend and Sears all started extensively last season and play a huge role for Yale this year, combining for 42.6 points per contest, or 61.6 percent of Yale’s offensive output. The Bulldogs travel south to Penn on Friday night for a 7 p.m. tip before their pivotal matchup against thirdplace Princeton on Saturday night at 6 p.m. Both games are available on the Ivy League Digital Network. Contact JAMES BADAS at james.badas@yale.edu and ASHLEY WU at ashley.e.wu@yale.edu .
JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Elis shoot 37.2 percent from downtown — second in the conference to Princeton, which shoots 38.6 percent.
Men’s hockey travels upstate M. HOCKEY FROM PAGE 12
SAMANTHA GARDNER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Yale will take on Union, the 2014 national champions, on Friday in upstate New York.
on the year and is currently tied for third in the national standings. As noted by defenseman Ryan Obuchowski ’16, the team has been focusing on breaking down opposing offenses in preparation for this weekend’s matchups. “We have focused this week on finding our opponents and eliminating them from the play so they can’t get a chance,” Obuchowski said. “Eliminating guys is a big focus for us because we did a poor job of it Saturday night, and the teams we play this weekend have high-powered
Yale seeks sweep at home W. HOCKEY FROM PAGE 12 with an average of 3.12 goals per game. Yale is also ranked No. 6 in power-play goal percentage. “At this point in the year we know our X’s and O’s, it’s just about going out and playing the best team game we can,” Kennedy said. “Both RPI and Union are relentless teams that work for everything, so it’s always a hard fought battle against them. We’re looking forward to it.” Yale beat both of these teams in the same weekend in early December, marking the last time the Elis have swept a weekend. The Bulldogs have played fairly inconsistently since the start of the second half of the season, dropping a game to Brown, currently sitting in last place in the conference, three weeks ago. But the next week, the Bulldogs dominated last’s year national
champions, Clarkson. Forward Jamie Haddad ’16 attributes some of the inconsistent play to the team’s tendency to play to its opponents’ level instead of Yale’s own pace. “We’re a lot calmer under pressure,” Haddad said. “We still struggle with playing to our opponents’ ability. You make progress, then you have setbacks. It’s an upward trajectory.” The Elis have some of their most explosive offensive drives when they are fired up, like in their rematch against Brown and last Saturday’s matchup against Dartmouth. In the Dartmouth game, the Bulldogs scored four goals in the final 10 minutes. This season is the first time that the Bulldogs have swept the Big Green in program history and their first win in Hanover since 2006. Yale hopes to keep the momentum going into next
weekend, players said. “We came out with a lot of energy and confidence,” forward Phoebe Staenz ’17 said. “Dartmouth made us angry and aggressive through [the team’s] chippy and arrogant play. [We’re] hoping to play the same way and continue our great playing habits for the upcoming weekends.” The Bulldogs currently sit in seventh place in the ECAC with 16 points, and they still share the position with Dartmouth, who picked up a win against the Bears on Friday. Although they are now too far down in points to host in the playoff quarterfinals, earning an advantage over the Big Green would help the Elis gain a more desirable postseason position. The game against RPI will begin at 7 p.m. at Ingalls Rink. Contact HOPE ALLCHIN at hope.allchin@yale.edu .
LAKSHMAN SOMASUNDARAM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs have struggled with consistent play this season, losing to last-ranked ECAC competitor Brown one weekend and defeating the 2014 national champions, Clarkson, the next.
offenses and a lot of movement … this weekend will be a big test for our defensive zone coverage.” When Yale faced RPI earlier in the year, the Bulldogs came away with a decisive 5–2 victory off of a strong performance by goaltender Alex Lyon ’17. The Engineers are currently on a fourgame slide, most recently having lost to both Clarkson and St. Lawrence. Yet, despite its recent struggles, RPI is only four points back from the Bulldogs and were on a three-game winning streak until the last two weekends. The Engineers are led this season by a pair of senior forwards, Jacob Laliberté and Matt Neal, who
currently lead the team with 16 and 15 points, respectively. In order to remain in contention for an NCAA tournament spot, the Bulldogs must continue to work on an offense that has been showing some improvement over the last few games. At the other end of the rink, Yale has maintained stellar defense throughout this season, with both the lowest goals against average, 1.65, and penalty minute average, 6.57, in Division I hockey. The team also can rely on Lyon, the nation’s fourth-ranked netminder, to back up the Elis’ defense. As forward and current Yale
point leader John Hayden ’17 noted, the team has been striving to increase its goal-scoring opportunities this season. “Our focuses this week have been getting back to our tight defensive play and continuing to develop our offensive game,” Hayden said. “Offensive production can improve through chemistry with linemates and continuing to work on scoring situations.” The puck is scheduled to drop at 7 p.m. on both nights in New York. Contact ALEX WALKER at alex.e.walker@yale.edu .
Elis host Ivy-best Princeton
YALE DAILY NEWS
Yale is last in the Ivy League in three-point shooting, hitting on only 26.2 percent of its long-range shots. W. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 12 aging 11.5 points per game and leading all active Yale scorers. Following Simpson are guards Whitney Wyckoff ’16 and Sarju, who average 9.8 and 9.3 points per game, respectively, in conference play. Friday’s opponent, Penn (12–7, 3–2), defeated Columbia but lost to Cornell at home last weekend. The Quakers, who won the Ivy League title a year ago, currently average 59.7 points and 14.9 turnovers per game, just slightly higher than the Bulldogs’ average of 14.4 turnovers per game. Averaging 10.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, sophomore center Sydney Stipanovich leads the team in both categories and ranks sixth in the Ivy League in total rebounds. Senior guard Kathleen Roche will likewise be an offensive threat, as she is second on the squad with an average of 9.6 points per game. The Bulldogs will then play No. 16 Princeton (21–0, 5–0) the following day. Although back-toback games are standard in the Ivy League, this is only the second time that the team’s freshmen will have experienced this.
While Penn is a good team, holding a winning record in Ivy play, Princeton is one of the best teams in the country. Predicted to finish first in the Ivy League, Princeton is the only undefeated team left in Division I women’s basketball. It boasts the leaguebest offense at 78.6 points per game — 12.5 points more than second-place Brown — and the league-best defense, allowing just 52.0 points per contest. Of Princeton’s five conference victories, all have been by at least 18 points, most notably a 96–46 shellacking of Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Tigers have four players who average 9.6 points or more, led by senior guard Blake Dietrick’s 15 points per game and junior guard Michelle Miller’s 12.6 points per game. Yale’s pressure defense has been crucial in the Bulldogs’ recent performances. In their last game against Harvard, the Elis caused 23 turnovers and picked up 12 steals, four of which came from center Emmy Allen ’16. However, the Bulldogs fell victim to Harvard’s Erin McDonnell, who scored a season-high 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from
behind the three point line. In comparison, Yale was only 5-of21, or 23.8 percent, from long range. In anticipation of this weekend’s games, team has been practicing its offense to target Princeton and Penn specifically, according to Simpson. “Losing to Harvard last weekend was definitely devastating for us, and coming into practice this week, we are really working on cleaning up some areas of our offense to ensure we can execute against Princeton and Penn effectively,” Simpson said. Simpson added that the team is looking forward to playing at home again, especially against two major competitors. This Saturday’s game against the Tigers will be Yale’s annual “Pink Night and Youth Day” celebration, and all proceeds from ticket sales go to the Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. for both games. Daniela Brighenti contributed reporting. Contact JULIA YAO at julia.yao@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
Sunny and cold, with a high near 15. Wind chill values between -10 and zero. Northwest wind 9 to 13 mph.
SUNDAY
High of 28, low of 13.
High of 14, low of -3.
OVER AND OVER BY ALLEN CAMP
ON CAMPUS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 4:00 PM Bitcoin: Building the Digital Economy. Patrick Murck, executive director, The Bitcoin Foundation, will speak as part of a talk organized by the Yale Politic and the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), Aud. 4:00 PM Blue Feather Performance in the Nave. Blue Feather, Yale’s student-run Native American drum group, will perform in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library in celebration of the reopening of the Nave. (120 High St.). 6:00 PM Rethinking Race in America with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is well regarded for his incisive commentary in the areas of race, politics, social issues, and culture. Coates is speaking as part of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. Sheffield-Sterling-
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Strathcona Hall (1 Prospect St.), Rm. 114.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 8:00 PM Yale Symphony Orchestra: Valentine’s Day Concert. The YSO brings you a seasonally appropriate evening of music spanning over one hundred years of musical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s iconic love story. Woolsey Hall (500 College St.). 8:30 PM Yale Ballroom presents “Winter Ball.” Come fall in love with all four styles of ballroom dance. Free admission. Davenport College (248 York St.), Common Room.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15 6:00 PM Why Theology Needs Women’s Voices: Female Doctors of the Church. Join us for dinner and a lecture with Elizabeth A. Dreyer, professor emerita of religious studies at Fairfield University, and adjunct professor at the Hartford Seminary. St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center (268 Park St.), Dining Hall.
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Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Isaac Stanley-Becker at (203) 432-2418. Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.
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Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Word with cake or meal 4 Doctrinal suffix 7 Pat Nixon’s real first name 13 Classic sci-fi play 14 Tres equivalent 15 Clinton’s birth name 16 Bush spokesman Fleischer 17 Part of DAR: Abbr. 18 Busy enterprise? 19 *Site of preserved ancient gaucho weapons? 22 Grouse 23 Humana option 24 Cut (it) 27 Blitz 31 MLB “minors” 32 *Hip curriculum? 36 Banned chem. pollutant 37 Protective bauble 38 Capital SE of Tallahassee 40 GPS datum 41 *Second-hand seat? 45 Canadian sentence enders? 46 Worse 47 __ Men: “Who Let the Dogs Out” band 49 Andalusian aunt 50 Emerald City princess 54 *Heroine in a reprised fairy tale? 59 “Ditto” 61 Thought 62 French handle? 63 Modernize, in a way ... and when divided into three parts, a hint to the answers to starred clues 64 Functions 65 One of quarterback Archie’s boys 66 Lover’s request 67 Stylish, once 68 Symbiont on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
2/13/15
By Mark McClain
DOWN 1 Colgate competitor 2 Halos 3 8-Down, e.g. 4 Culinary author Rombauer 5 Sexy, in some ads 6 San Diego Marine Corps station whose name means “sea view” 7 Trick 8 Arizona natives 9 Archie’s wife 10 Himalayan canine 11 Spoil 12 ’70s White House daughter 14 Indian lentil stew 20 Taking everything into account 21 Versailles rulers of old 25 Evergreen bean 26 Capital where Pashto is spoken 28 Rhyme $yndicate Records founder 29 Certain IRAs 30 Driller’s prefix?
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4
7
6 4 ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
32 Biblical spy 33 Home of the Beef, an indoor football team 34 Makes more baskets than 35 Fund drive appeal encl. 39 Eponymous brewer Bernhard 42 Roast, in Rouen 43 Atomic number 77
7 2 6
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44 “‘Tis true, sorry to say” 48 Certain choristers 51 Subdivided 52 Scratch 53 Blend 55 Not a happy fate 56 Function 57 Mandatory item 58 It can be natural 59 Vex 60 Agnus __
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SPORTS AVERY VELLA ’18 JUNIOR OLYMPIAN Vella is not on campus this weekend — instead, he will be fencing in the Under 20 Epee tournament at the 2015 Junior Olympics in Richmond, Va. Vella participated in Yale’s efforts at the Ivy League Round-Robins a week ago, with Vella picking up a win over No. 8 Princeton.
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BRIAN HOGAN ’16 A BLUR IN THE WATER Hogan won the 1,000-yard freestyle in Yale’s meet on Saturday against Brown with a season-best 9:14.33 time, the third-fastest time in the Ivy League this year. For his efforts, Hogan was named the ECAC Division I Swimmer of the Week in the New England region.
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“This weekend will be a big test for our defensive zone coverage.” RYAN OBUCHOWSKI ’16 MEN’S HOCKEY
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
Bulldogs face important road trip MEN’S BASKETBALL
BY JAMES BADAS AND ASHLEY WU STAFF REPORTERS
KEN YANAGISAWA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Yale’s offense is the best in the Ivy League, averaging 69.1 points per contest.
The Yale men’s basketball team travels to Penn and Princeton this weekend, looking to bounce back from its first Ivy League loss last weekend and retain its place at the top of the conference. In the first half of Ancient Eight play, the league has showcased remarkable depth and volalility. Yale will have to contend with an inconsistent Penn team (7–12, 2–3 Ivy), a squad that defeated Cornell by two but fell to Harvard by 25 and Columbia by 27. The Bulldogs then head to New Jersey to face Princeton (10– 11, 3–2), which sits in third place after a loss last weekend at Cornell a day after defeating Columbia. As both Penn and Princeton can attest, the Ivy League this year has been rife with upsets. Road teams have winning records this year in conference play at 13–10. In order to win the Ivy League, therefore, head coach James Jones believes depth is crucial to overcoming the doubleheaders that teams play every weekend. “That’s the beauty of this conference, you have to have depth,” Jones said. “You have to have people to come in and give guys a rest when you play Friday and Saturday night.” The Elis have demonstrated a deep, productive roster thus far, with seven players averaging five or more points per game and with nine players averaging more than 10 minutes per game. That figure could soon become 10 players as Jones is looking to reintegrate guard Nick Victor ’16, a starter a season ago, into the regular rotation. Penn and Princeton each have only eight such players averaging double-digit minutes per game this season. Moreover, Yale has been one of the most consistent teams this season on offense, leading the league with 14.2 assists and 69.1 SEE M. BASKETBALL PAGE 10
Elis shoot for offense BY ALEX WALKER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After splitting last week’s contests against Harvard and Dartmouth, the Yale men’s hockey team looks to sweep its next two games, with just six left in the regular season.
MEN’S HOCKEY The Bulldogs (13–7– 3, 8–6–2 ECAC) travel to New York on Friday where they face the 2014 national champions, Union (14–12– 2, 6–9–1). The next night, Yale will take on Rensselaer (9–20–1, 7–9–0), currently in ninth place, one spot above Union in the ECAC stand-
Elis take on Union, RPI
ings. According to forward Ryan Hitchcock ’18, both games will prove to be a significant test for a Bulldogs squad looking to improve on its current standing in a fourway tie for third place in the league. “RPI is a team that’s seeing a lot of recent success and should be a good test for us,” Hitchcock said. “Union is the defending national champion and returned a lot of its players from last year, so they are definitely a team that’s dangerous.” Yale was unable to handle Union earlier this year when the Dutchmen visited Ingalls, falling 3–1 in a match that snapped Yale’s season-high
three-game winning streak. Despite its current positioning in 10th, Union is only five points behind the Bulldogs. Similar to the Elis, the Dutchmen split their games last weekend, falling to second place St. Lawrence but upsetting Clarkson, one of the teams currently tied with the Bulldogs for third. To compound Yale’s worries, Union has both the second- and third-best scorers in the nation on its side. Daniel Ciampini sits just one point behind current NCAA leader Jack Eichel with 42 so far this season. Meanwhile, Mike Vecchione has 40 points SEE M. HOCKEY PAGE 10
DREW MEGERIAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs have excelled defensively this season, but are beginning to focus on breaking down offenses, according to three players interviewed.
STAT OF THE DAY 1.65
BY HOPE ALLCHIN STAFF REPORTER Looking to improve its ECAC standing, the Yale women’s hockey team returns home this weekend, after two away, to take on a pair of conference competitors.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY The Elis (11–13–1, 8–10–0 ECAC) will face Rensselaer and Union in one of the team’s last weekends of regular season play. In preparation for the playoffs, the Bulldogs are focused on making each game count. “With four games left in the regular season, we’re just focusing on our game,” captain and defenseman Aurora Kennedy
’15 said. “We learn from every weekend and use every week to try to become a better team.” This set of games presents a great opportunity for Yale. RPI is currently in the midst of a four-game losing streak, all against conference opponents, two of which Yale recently beat. In addition, the Engineers on average allowed more than three goals per game, one of only two teams in the league to do so. Meanwhile, Union has not won a game since its 2–0 shutout against Maine on Dec. 12. The Dutchwomen also sit last in the ECAC in goals and assists, scoring only an average of 1.17 goals per game. The Bulldogs excel in that category — they are now ranked No. 7 in the nation SEE W. HOCKEY PAGE 10
LAKSHMAN SOMASUNDARAM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs defeated both Union and RPI last December, marking their most recent sweep of the season.
Yale hosts Penn, Princeton BY JULIA YAO STAFF REPORTER Despite a loss to Harvard last weekend to snap a seven-game winning streak, the Yale women’s basketball team still retains the number two spot in the conference. But the Bulldogs have a tough task ahead of them this weekend, as they welcome undefeated Princeton and fourth place Penn to John J. Lee Amphitheater.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Even with a game-high 14 points from guard Nyasha Sarju ’16 and forcing 23 total turnovers, the Bulldogs (11–9, 5–1 Ivy) lost to the Crimson 65–55 in Lavietes Pavilion. Prior to the loss, the Elis stood 5–0 in the Ivy League, the team’s best start since the 1979– 80 season when the team held a 7–0 conference record. “We are looking to bounce back this weekend,” guard Lena Munzer ’17 said. “We know we have two tough teams coming here, but we just need to focus on our game and doing the right thing. During conference [play], it’s easy to get caught up in who we’re playing, but it’s important that we put the focus on us and what we can do to get better.” In the contest against Harvard, the Bulldogs were also hampered by a major freethrow disparity. Yale got to the charity stripe just nine times — making only four of those attempts — while Harvard had 23 foul shots. Even after the loss, however, Yale remains optimistic in no small part due to its record in New Haven. The team has a 7–1 record playing in front of the home crowd at John J. Lee Amphitheater and just a 4–8 mark in other venues. “We have been pretty good at home so we hope that continues,” head coach Chris Gobrecht said. Guard Tamara Simpson ’18 has been especially good in Ivy play for the Bulldogs, averSEE W. BASKETBALL PAGE 10
YALE DAILY NEWS
Saturday’s opponent, No. 16 Princeton, is the only undefeated team in Division I women’s basketball.
THE GOALS AGAINST AVERAGE OF THE YALE MEN’S HOCKEY TEAM THIS SEASON. The Bulldogs boast the lowest goals against average in NCAA Division I hockey this season as well as the lowest penalty minute average at 6.57 minutes per game.