Today's Paper

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 90 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SNOWY CLOUDY

23 8

CROSS CAMPUS

INTERSTELLAR BRIGHT STARS, DIM GALAXIES

STAY MEASLES-FREE

GRADUATE HOUSING

State legislators propose bills aiming to increase vaccinations in CT.

TWO APARTMENT BUILDINGS TO BE RENOVATED.

PAGES 10–11 SCI-TECH

PAGE 3 SCI-TECH

PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY

Faculty criticize ethics code draft

Break out the beads. It doesn’t quite look like the French Quarter up here, what with all the snow on the ground, but today is Mardi Gras. Still, the dining halls don’t seem to have gotten the hint, so head up Whalley Avenue for Popeyes to get your Cajun culture fix today.

He’s back. Headlining the

YPU’s event today is former Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who will be reflecting on his term in office and the role of brokenwindows policing in crime reduction efforts.

Familiar face. The trip to Princeton trip last weekend was a kind-of homecoming for hoops star Justin Sears ’16, so myCentralJersey.com took the chance to profile the forward yesterday, noting how far he has come since his days at Plainfield High School.

Dynamic duo. Two of Yale’s heavyweight professors — Akhil Ahmar ’80 LAW ’84 and Bob Woodward ’65 — collaborated in a crowdpleasing PLSC 233 lecture on Monday.

Good luck. Yesterday, Mohegan Sun reported that its monthly revenue from slot machines was up last month, bringing in $44 million. Before you head out there for the senior trip, 2015, remember: The casino always wins.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1983 Plans for a $4 million office building in Science Park are announced, generating momentum for the University’s high-tech real estate project.

Follow along for the News’ latest.

@yaledailynews

y MORE ONLINE goydn.com/xcampus

SAE sanctions: Drastic or insignificant?

tent and the method of its creation, but also with the fact that it was written at all. With concerns about its vague and broad language, as well as its overstepping the authority supposedly vested in the newly formed Faculty Senate, faculty SEE FACULTY PAGE 4

SEE SAE PAGE 4

Let’s be real. But as much

stringing us along by withholding the names of this year’s Spring Fling performers, the YCC did announce a new event by campus-wide email last night. “A Night at the Planetarium,” a semi-formal event at the Leitner Family Observatory & Planetarium is set for Friday night. This sounds interesting — you’ve bought yourself a little time to drop the headliner, YCC.

PAGE 12 SPORTS

Despite a college-wide email announcing penalties imposed upon the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity for violating University sexual misconduct policies, including a ban from campus, the sanctions may not be as harsh as they sound.

The fraternity is banned from campus until August 2016. However, SAE’s house is located off-campus on High Street.

While the penalties also included a ban on communication via Yale email systems and bulletin boards, as well as a prohibition on the use of the SAE name in connection with Yale, several expressed doubts as to whether the fraternity would feel any tangible effect.

“SAE is a very popular place and I don’t think it would hurt their numbers in terms of a rush class or whatever open parties they throw in any significant way,” said a high-ranking officer in one of Yale’s fraternities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Eight of nine students interviewed said they do not expect the sanctions — announced by Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway on Friday — to deter people from attending parties at the High Street house, which are unaffected by the sanctions.

All of Yale’s 11 fraternities have their houses off-campus. Connor Durkin ’16, the president of the Alpha Delta Phi frater-

Assuming you don’t get tired of it after going to Popeye’s, more fried chicken is on the line in this year’s Final Cut competition. Announced in an email from Yale Dining yesterday, next Tuesday’s event will pit student cooks against each other in a battle of beans and broccoleaf. The residential college with the most attendees will win itself a chicken tender dinner.

Give us a Chance. Despite

After defeating George Washington, Bulldogs fall to Harvard.

BY JON VICTOR AND VIVIAN WANG STAFF REPORTERS

Do it for the tenders.

as everyone loves chicken tenders, pizza will always reign supreme in New Haven.

A feature in Connecticut Magazine’s next issue breaks down the state’s best spots, naming all the usual suspects — Pepe’s, Sally’s, etc. — among a few dark horses like Tarry Lodge and Nica’s Market.

MEN’S TENNIS

YALE DAILY NEWS

A committee created by University President Peter Salovey drafted a new Faculty Standards of Conduct document.

BY EMMA PLATOFF STAFF REPORTER The comment period for the recently drafted Faculty Standards of Conduct has ended, but some faculty members may have more to say.

The draft document — created by

an ad hoc committee convened by University President Peter Salovey and Provost Benjamin Polak last May — was presented to faculty for comments and suggestions in January, with the comment period expiring yesterday. In recent weeks, some faculty members have taken issue not only with the document’s con-

CS grad students call for larger department

BY STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTER Expressing dismay with the state of their department, 19 Computer Science graduate students released an open letter today urging the administration to dramatically increase the size of the department’s faculty.

In the works since September, the letter, which is published as

a column in today’s News, notes that the department employs the same number of faculty as it did in 1989 — 20. The administration’s lack of attention to the department, the letter states, precludes it from competing with Computer Science Departments at peer institutions.

Unless the administration takes decisive action soon, the reputation of Yale’s Computer

Juniors allowed to opt out of society tap

BY LARRY MILSTEIN AND JON VICTOR STAFF REPORTERS For the first time in recent history, the class of 2016 has been offered the chance to “tap out” of senior societies.

In an email sent to members of the junior class Monday evening, Junior Class Council President Emily Van Alst ’16 invited students to opt out of society tap — the spring semester process in which senior members of a society select a crop of new inductees. The announcement comes in response to recent calls to reform the tap process, which has been criticized in the past for its lack of transparency and the pressure it places on juniors.

Though students interviewed were largely supportive of the new option, others questioned how it would be carried out in practice.

“There’s no reason why you should have to participate if you don’t want to,” Kimaya Abreu ’15 said. “There can be some awkwardness about declining to go to an interview, and I think people might know from the get-go if they don’t want to be

involved.”

The message to juniors, which was just three sentences long, allowed students to exclude their names from consideration by replying directly via email. The specifics, including how and when these names would be transferred to members of senior societies, were not included in the body of the announcement.

Rachel Tobin ’15, co-secretary of the Senior Class Council, said the idea came in response to the criticism being voiced by both juniors and seniors regarding the selection process.

“There were a number of complaints because people were being looked at by societies when they didn’t want to be … They thought that was going against their personal wishes and did not want to be involved in the process whatsoever,” Tobin said. “After ... hearing complaints about going through the process, we realized that as seniors we should do something.”

She added that SCC partSEE SOCIETIES PAGE 6

Science Department will be “unequivocally” damaged, said co-signatories Debayan Gypta GRD ’17 and Aaron Segal GRD ’17, the letter’s co-authors.

“Faculty is the number one issue,” Segal said. “That is the silver bullet that would fix everything wrong with the computer science department right now. We would have more Ph.D. student slots, and we could sup-

port more courses with more faculty.”

Without sufficient faculty, the department is struggling to provide a breadth of courses, Gupta said. Because all professors are required to teach undergraduate courses, many professors are spread too thin to teach the higher level courses they would like to. This especially creates a problem for master’s

students, who are only at Yale for one year. They pay large tuition fees and expect to take specific courses, but upon arriving on campus, learn that some of those courses are only offered once every three years, Gupta said.

Moreover, the Computer Science Department normally has SEE LETTER PAGE 6

Senator, students discuss affirmative consent

ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

State Sen. Mae Flexer proposes a “Yes means Yes,” or affirmative consent, standard for sexual consent in Connecticut.

BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE STAFF REPORTER In the midst of pushing for her bill that establishes a “Yes means Yes” standard for sexual consent in Connecticut, State Sen. Mae Flexer visited campus yesterday.

Roughly 35 students gathered in the

Branford Common Room with the Yale College Democrats and Students against Sexual Violence at Yale to talk about the legislation as well as Yale’s sexual climate. Flexer, a Democrat, along with State Rep. Gregory Haddad, who is also a Democrat, is proposSEE CONSENT PAGE 6

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “Take it for what is, not what you wish it to be.” yaledailynews.com/opinion

GUE ST COLUMNIST RASMUS KYNG

Falling behind O in computer science A

s graduate students in computer science, we are dismayed by the faculty shortage facing our department.

Computer science is increasingly shaping every aspect of our daily lives. Many of the largest companies created in the last few decades have computer science and information technology at the core of their business. A deep and diverse subject, computer science has led to great advances in human understanding. Computer science is essential to everything from law to physics, from genetics to economics, from linguistics to engineering.

As a result, the best universities in the world are now judged by the quality of their computer science departments. The flagship computer science programs at Stanford and MIT have helped propel these universities to the top of recent university rankings.

An education in computer science is not only essential to a 21st century liberal arts education, but can also translate into rewarding employment opportunities, or empower entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into startups. Alumni earn and donate large amounts of money to their alma maters, and the abundance of private and government research grants means that computer science departments are financially sound.

In light of these facts, we are distraught by the condition of Yale’s computer science department. Our department lacks enough faculty to offer the breadth and depth of classes expected at a modern university, let alone a worldclass research institution.

Over the past 25 years, computers have changed the world, yet our department is the same size it was in 1989. Our professors are among the best, but there are simply not enough of them. Yale's computer science department is ranked 20th by US News & World Report. We have 20 professors. The median faculty size of the top 20 computer science departments in the country is 48. With Harvard announcing plans to increase the size of its already larger department by 50 percent, Yale is going to be left even further behind.

With so few professors, Yale’s department has no choice but to ignore entire areas of computer science.

Our ability to offer classes at an undergraduate level is minimal. Core computer science classes at Yale are seeing

enrollment numbers higher than ever before, but we barely have enough faculty to teach the basics. Moreover, fewer faculty advisors means fewer graduate students, and the faculty shortage also translates into a shortage of teaching fellows.

The situation is even worse for graduate students. It is rare for the department to offer more than a single graduate-level course on any subject. Yale has become a risky choice for graduate students who often have to hinge their entire degree on a single faculty member. Fewer and fewer students are willing to take this risk; this year, only two students accepted their offers to attend Yale’s PhD program, compared to five last year and 10 the year before. Despite excellent faculty and students, the faculty shortage has made it increasingly difficult for Yale to compete with other top-tier universities.

It is only the sheer quality and hard work of our professors that has kept our department one of the best in the country. However, among graduate students in computer science, there is a pervasive feeling that the administration simply does not care about the subject. Despite an excellent publication record, the small size of our department means Yale is not seen as an exciting place for computer science. We have ceded the battle to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell. The list goes on.

Most alarmingly, Yale appears to be satisfied with this future.

Yale needs a strong computer science department in order to fulfill its core mission of education and research. We are ready and eager to make sure that our department is among the best in the country. We do not object to experimentation with innovative teaching practices, nor to the responsible use of undergraduate labor. But Yale must face reality: hiring one or two professors is not enough. Our situation is beyond such palliative measures. Only a radical expansion of the computer science faculty will make it possible for our department to tackle the challenges ahead.

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

n Feb. 3, Dean Jonathan Holloway sent out an email to the undergraduate student body inviting them to partake in the 2015 Yale Enrolled Student Survey. Consisting of 32 questions on topics ranging from advising to alcohol, as well as some demographic questions, the survey touched upon most aspects of students’ academic and social experiences.

Significantly, the survey offered a rare window into which specific aspects of academic and campus life are currently of interest to Yale’s administration.

While the administration has been clear about its general goals for the University (using slogans such as “a more unified Yale”), it is often reticent to reveal more specific priorities or upcoming initiatives that have not yet been finalized. By analyzing the questions asked by the most recent survey, we can begin to guess what the administration cares most about at the moment.

So, what does the survey tell us about the administration’s priorities? First of all, the overwhelming focus of the survey is the experience of students in the classroom and with Yale faculty.

Over half of the survey’s questions touch on academics in some way or another. An entire section is devoted to whether students have developed strong and productive relationships with faculty members. Another section asks whether students have regularly “been excited by a class” or “applied what you learned

SUBMISSIONS

All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words and guest columns to 750. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters and columns before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission.

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COPYRIGHT 2015 — VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 90

in class to a problem or issue outside of class.” Several portions of the survey focus on which pedagogical methSCOTT stuGREENBERG ods dents have encountered The Segue in courses and what skills they have taken away.

It is exciting to see that the administration is interested not only in “academic excellence” as a catchall phrase, but also about the specific classroom experiences and faculty relationships that undergraduates have during their four years here. Too often, we assume that Yale’s academics are some of the best in the country without examining what gaps exist in our education and how our professors could improve their pedagogy and their interactions with students. In addition, even as students often prioritize extracurricular activities and social life over academics, it is good to know that the administration’s priorities remain focused on the central rationale of our University community: teaching and learning.

Another aspect of the administration’s priorities revealed by the recent survey is an extensive focus on diversity and identity. At least six questions on the survey ask students to comment on whether they “inter-

act with people whose background differed from your own (e.g. racially, economically, politically),” “had meaningful and honest discussions about inter-group relations” and “felt insulted or threatened based on your social identity (e.g. sex, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or values).” Other than academics, diversity is the most common theme of the survey’s questions.

It is somewhat disturbing that the Yale administration sees fit to ask more questions about diversity and identity than any other topic besides academics. Obviously, an important part of the University experience is bringing together individuals of different backgrounds and helping them understand each other.

Yet, too often, we focus on identity politics as the be-all and end-all of social interactions; we pay more attention to people’s identities and backgrounds than the ideas they put forth to one another and the experiences they build together. The survey’s extensive focus on diversity and identity might indicate a diminished focus on all of the other important aspects of social life on campus, potentially reflecting a skewed set of administrative priorities.

Finally, it is instructive to examine what sorts of questions were left off the Yale Enrolled Student Survey. While the survey touches on extracurricular activities, student work, stress and time management, almost

no questions were devoted to asking students about their personal development over their time at Yale. One question asks if students have “reconsidered [their] position on a topic after evaluating the arguments of others” and a couple more questions touch on teamwork, leadership, self-esteem and interpersonal conflicts. Besides these few questions, however, the survey shows little interest in asking students whether their Yale experiences have helped them grow personally.

The absence of questions about personal growth may represent a blind spot on the part of the administration. The University experience aims to help students develop, not just academically, but holistically. Therefore, a survey that touches on most aspects of student life but not students’ personal development will deprive the administration of important and relevant information about the student body.

Ultimately, we should be humble about extracting broad conclusions about administrative priorities from a 32-question survey. Yet, by thinking about what the administration is likely to be concerned about, Yale students can also enrich our conversations about what parts of our community we should focus on and strive to improve.

SCOTT GREENBERG is a senior in Ezra Stiles College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at scott.greenberg@yale.edu .

THAO DO/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

GUEST COLUMNIST DANIEL KHALESSI

RASMUS KYNG is a PhD student in computer science. Contact him at rasmus.kyng@yale.edu .

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SPORTS Grant Bronsdon Ashton Wackym

Surveys and priorities

Twenty-one graduate students in computer science have signed this letter. Their names can be found on the online version of this column.

Editorial: (203) 432-2418 editor@yaledailynews.com Business: (203) 432-2424 business@yaledailynews.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF Isaac Stanley-Becker

'YOKEL' ON 'YALEPROPAGANDA'

What would Rumi say?

O

n Feb. 10, three American college students were murdered by a neighbor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The FBI and police are continuing to investigate the motives behind the killings. So far, the media has posited two explanations: The neighbor either killed the students over their Islamic faith or a parking dispute.

It is difficult to explain how a parking dispute would lead a person to conduct a brutal execution-style killing of three people. According to a local towtruck driver, the perpetrator had parking disputes with numerous people. “This guy towed an obscene amount of cars. It got to the point where we stopped answering his calls,” the driver said to the Wall Street Journal.

The claim that the suspect held a parking dispute with many of his neighbors further raises the question of why he specifically gunned down the three students.

However, the conversation we as a society need to have is about much more than a parking dispute.

In recent months the national media has covered people being profiled, bullied and killed because of who they are. From

Ferguson and New York to even the student held at gunpoint at Yale, these events speak volumes to the challenges our society faces in weaving a fabric of peaceful coexistence.

After his son’s assassination, Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. remarked, “You know there were more fingers on that trigger than one.”

The wisdom in King's statement still carries tremendous relevance by prompting us to ask: Are there other fingers on the trigger when such heinous crimes are committed against people because of who they are?

They include the fingers of our politicians who support unencumbered access to guns without the necessary background checks to ensure public safety.

They include the fingers of those who distort religion to justify killing fellow human beings, thereby perpetuating further hatred against innocent people who view religion as a source of compassion. And finally, they include the fingerprints of those who remain silent while their fellow Americans are persecuted on the basis of the color of their skin, the heritage of their ancestors, the person they love or their

belief in God. The shooting in Chapel Hill is inextricably linked to a much broader conversation in our society about tolerance for others. However, the specific type of intolerance that many in the media point to as the driving force behind the crime is Islamophobia, the prejudice or fear of Muslims. From the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to the present rise of ISIS, many commit the logical fallacy of perceiving the actions of those who wrongfully commit violence in the name of Islam as representative of Islam and every Muslim.

How can humanity cleanse itself of hatred and violence?

One answer can be found in the writings of the 13th century Persian philosopher and current best-selling poet in the United States, Jalal ad-Din Rumi. A devout Muslim and scholar of Islam, Rumi wrote “The Masthnavi,” which drew inspiration from the text of the Quran. Rumi says, “Listen with the ears of tolerance. See through the eyes of compassion. Speak with the language of love.”

Rumi’s writings support peaceful coexistence rather than hate and division. One of Rumi’s

most famous statements elucidates this point: “Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” In the aftermath of the recent shootings, let us put Rumi’s words into practice and recognize that love and peace are the best responses to hate and violence.

The pilgrims came to this beautiful land to escape religious persecution and violence.

The Founding Fathers codified this spirit in our Constitution, ensuring that there would be no laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Our constitutional democracy survived through the Civil War, which tested our true commitment to freedom and liberty over the entrenched institution of slavery. More than 150 years have passed since the time of Lincoln, yet we still have a long way to go. All Americans are part of our democracy. If we are truly upholding our Constitution as our forefathers intended, this nation should belong to all of us. And out of many, we are one.

DANIEL KHALESSI is a master's student at the Jackson Institute. Contact him at daniel.khalessi@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS CORRECTION MONDAY, FEB. 16

“Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: It is character.” ALBERT EINSTEIN PHYSICIST

Yale woos top science students

A previous version of the article “City to appoint assistant fire chief” incorrectly stated Battalion Chief Tom Neville’s name as Tom Newville.

Vaccine exemption policies get second look

BY APARNA NATHAN STAFF REPORTER As the recent measles outbreak brings the vaccine debate into the national spotlight, Connecticut legislators are attempting to address the issue at the federal and state levels.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut announced in last Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he will be introducing a federal bill to educate parents on the risks of not vaccinating their children. State Rep. Matt Ritter has called for a study of Connecticut’s vaccine exemption policies and how they compare to policies in similar states.

Both initiatives aim to reverse the increasing vaccination exemption rate in Connecticut.

“Bad science has led some people to believe that there is some risk to vaccinating your child,” Murphy said at a press conference on Friday at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “That is totally untrue. The risk is leaving your child unvaccinated.”

Murphy’s legislation would give incentives to states that provide additional information to parents who are seeking an exemption for their children.

Five percent of the vaccination funds for states — which rely in part on federal government funding for their vaccination programs — would be conditional upon distribution of information to parents or requirements to visit a doctor before requesting an exemption.

Policies that require consultation with a doctor before claiming a non-medical exemption have been implemented in individual states.

In Washington, the policy decreased the state’s opt-out rate by 25 percent, according to a column in the Los Angeles Times.

Ritter noted the discrepancy between getting a medical exemption — which requires a visit to the doctor’s office — and getting a philosophical or religious exemption, which only requires the parent to sign this name.

“We should just expect the same standard of information for a philosophical or religious exemption as we do of a medical exemption,” Murphy said.

Connecticut offers two types of exemptions, medical and religious, and no philosophical exemption. In 2003, there were 149 medical exemptions and 316 religious exemptions. Medical exemptions have remained relatively constant, with 218 medical exemptions in 2014, but the number of religious exemptions has risen rapidly, with 1,028 religious exemptions filed in 2014.

According to Ritter, parents may be filing for religious exemptions even though their opposition is more philosophically based. Eugene Shapiro ’70, professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and investigative medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, agreed, adding that it can be difficult to enforce religious exemptions and ensure that those using them are doing so for religious reasons.

“I do not believe that [in the last decade] 1,000 more families have found a religion that does not believe in vaccinations for children,” Ritter said.

Ritter, with the help of the Office of Legislative Research, will take a closer look at the effectiveness of Connecticut’s exemption policies by comparing the state’s implementation of the policies to the methods used by other states. For example, the religious exemption manifests differently in different states: Iowa requires the exemption certificate to be notarized, while New Mex-

ico requires that an officer of a “recognized religion” that the family practices approve the exemption.

According to Shapiro, while more rigorous exemption procedures would make the process more logistically difficult, it is unlikely to dissuade many people from filing exemptions.

He added that it is unclear if increased parental education would have an impact on the state’s vaccination rate. He cited the current measles outbreak as an example of personal experience being more effective at changing parents’ behavior, as some parents previously opposed to vaccinations have changed their minds.

“Anecdote is more powerful than scientific information,” Shapiro said.

While Jann Bellamy, an attorney and founding fellow of the Institute for Science in Medicine, agreed that it is difficult to predict the effect of increased education on exemption rates, she said it is the state government’s responsibility to take action based on scientific information, noting that leaving room for exemptions is not constitutionally required.

We aim for … laws that protect not only the rights of the unvaccinated but also those of the vaccinated.

MARIETTA VÁZQUEZ Professor of pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine “The state has every right to protect children from infectious disease,” Bellamy said.

Ritter agreed, adding that there is precedent for the government restricting individuals’ religions freedoms in certain instances for pragmatic reasons, and he feels that the issue of vaccination falls into that category.

He added that Connecticut is trying to use the least restrictive means. The state does not require all children to be vaccinated — the requirement only applies to children who are attending school in the state.

“To me, this is a real public health issue,” Ritter said. “I do think it’s incumbent upon legislature to keep Connecticut’s vaccination rate high.”

For Marietta Vázquez ’90, professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, communication with parents is the most important part of handling vaccinations. She said in an email that she rarely sees instances of religious exemptions. Parents who worry about the safety of vaccinations are far more common than those who are religiously opposed to them.

From her experience with these parents, she emphasized that it is crucial to listen to parents’ concerns and provide them with the relevant information to ensure that they understand the risks of not vaccinating their children. Parents who understand the potential risks can make an informed decision, she said.

“We aim for the perfect marriage between more conversations [that are] easy for parents to understand and laws that protect not only the rights of the unvaccinated, but also those of the vaccinated,” Vázquez said.

In Connecticut, 98.53 percent of students entering school last year were vaccinated.

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

JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

This year, Yale welcomed 103 students for the Yale Engineering and Science Weekend.

BY TYLER FOGGATT STAFF REPORTER More than 100 high school students flooded Kroon Hall over the weekend, attending master classes, learning about undergraduate research and taking a closer look at the University’s science and engineering resources.

For the past five years, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions has invited a cohort of highly qualified high school seniors from the University’s regular decision applicant pool to visit campus for the Yale Engineering and Science Weekend.

This year’s YES-W ran from Feb. 14 to Feb. 16, attracting 103 students — who have all received “likely letters” of admission — to campus for a weekend of sciencerelated activities. The events began with a welcome dinner in the Timothy Dwight College dining hall, and concluded with a Master’s Tea hosted by Nobel Prize Laureate James Rothman ’71.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan said YES-W has been very successful in helping the University attract and matriculate strong students interested in pursuing science, technology, engineering

and math majors.

“My perspective about Yale has been completely revolutionized,” said Brandon Truong, a high school senior from Texas. “Honestly, I didn’t really know anything about the STEM programs before coming here, and now my mindset has really changed — it’s like black and white.”

The weekend gives the University the opportunity to talk to some of the top students in the applicant pool about the strengths of pursuing an undergraduate STEM education at Yale, Quinlan said.

He added that each year the Admissions Office has made minor changes to YES-W in order to make it more enjoyable and enriching for visiting students.

“We found that having different lab tours scheduled for Monday afternoon resulted in a bit too crowded [of a schedule], and that the high school students enjoy spending time with Yale students,” Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Director of STEM Recruitment Ayaska Fernando ’08 GRD ’14 said. “So we encouraged the hosts this year to take their students to labs and show them around, so they could band together in interest groups and [participate]

in something more organically done, rather than something we pushed on them.”

The program has had a high participation rate all five years, he said, with 2015 being the fifth year in a row that over 100 students attended. Fernando added that the University provides YES-W participants with travel stipends, and that the events have always taken place during Presidents’ Day weekend, allowing students to visit Yale without missing school on Monday.

Both Fernando and Quinlan said weather proved to be a minor difficulty this year, with heavy snow interfering with student travel plans. However, the weather did not cause any issues with programming, Quinlan said.

Emily Silva ’17, a YES-W volunteer who also attended the program as a pre-frosh, said YES-W was the primary reason she decided to go to Yale.

“I probably wouldn’t have come to Yale if it hadn’t have been for YES-W,” Silva said. “The goal of YES-W is to convince people that are probably looking at MIT, Harvard, Cal Tech and other well-known STEM schools that Yale is also a really strong place for STEM. And when I visited, I was able to see that, and also talk to a lot of great people about

other aspects of Yale.”

Silva added that by bringing students to campus in February, YES-W also makes students begin to consider Yale earlier than they would otherwise, since regular decision results are not officially released until April.

Attendees of this year’s YES-W interviewed said they were struck by the vast number of STEM resources on campus, after having thought that the University was much stronger in humanities disciplines.

Naomi Wharton, a high school senior from Massachusetts, said the weekend was fun and “eye-opening.” The highlight of YES-W was the master classes, Wharton said.

Valerie Chen, a high school senior from California, said that prior to YES-W, she knew little about specific STEM resources at Yale.

“I’m from the Bay Area, so I didn’t really get to hear much about what’s going on at Yale in terms of STEM programs before visiting,” Chen said. “I was also able to get to know the residential college system really well, and understand what life is like at Yale. It’s been a great experience.”

Contact TYLER FOGGATT at tyler.foggatt@yale.edu .

On forced withdrawal, law gives little guidance

BY RACHEL SIEGEL AND VIVIAN WANG STAFF REPORTERS A recent lawsuit against Quinnipiac University has highlighted gaps in the laws surrounding forced withdrawal policies.

In December, the Department of Justice settled a lawsuit involving Quinnipiac University and a former student, regarding the school’s decision to place her on mandatory withdrawal after she visited the university’s counseling center for depression.

The suit, first filed after the initial incident 2011, alleged that Quinnipiac violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not considering reasonable accomodations — such as allowing the student to take classes from home — before forcing her to withdraw. “[This case] is the first of its kind in Connecticut to be settled by the Department of Justice, and I think it absolutely sets a precedent,” said Nancy Alisberg, managing attorney at the Connecticut Office for Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, which brought the case on behalf of the student. “It is hopefully making clear to universities that they … can’t treat students with mental illness any differently than they’d treat a student with a physical illness.”

But higher education experts and lawyers said the reality facing universities is often more complicated. Laws governing when a student must be removed from campus are often unclear and provide little guidance to institutions on how to deal with students suffering from mental

health issues, they said.

According to Gary Pavela, a law and policy consultant and a fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, federal law clearly states that a school cannot have a blanket rule mandating that any student who threatens suicide leave campus. Instead, universities must consider particular circumstances that would justify such a decision, he said.

University Spokesman Tom Conroy agreed, saying that mandatory withdrawals from Yale are made on a case-by-case basis in consultation with health professionals.

“Such decisions are not based on concerns regarding University liability but instead on whether the student poses a direct threat to his or her safety or to the safety of the community,” Conroy said in an email.

Yet the manner in which universities make decisions about forced withdrawal can vary widely, and experts suggested that universities lack clear direction from the ADA to determine when it is appropriate to force a student to withdraw.

“Unfortunately, the law is less than clear on this,” said Laura Rothstein, a law professor at the University of Louisville who specializes in disability law. “The regulations for the ADA are silent as to whether a university can permissibly take action when a student is engaging in self harm.

The position of the Department of Education, however, appears to be that such action would be viewed as violating the ADA. This

would not only apply to removal from campus, but any action.”

Chief of Yale Mental Health and Counseling Lorraine Siggins did not return multiple requests for comment.

All outside experts interviewed agreed that legal issues should not be at the heart of conversations about how universities treat students who pose a threat to themselves or others.

Schools try to establish policies that handle the general situation but they often miss individual cases.

TOD MASSA Tod Massa, policy research and data warehousing director for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said students who must take time away from school for mental health reasons should be treated in the same manner as students with physical medical issues. Massa said developing a protocol that applies in every mental health case is like treating all students with physical disabilities the same way.

“Schools try to establish policies that handle the general situation but they often miss individual cases,” Massa said. “The solution is to have a policy that has guidelines but that builds in a little bit of latitude to adjust

things when they don’t fit particular circumstances.”

David Rosen LAW ’69, a New Haven attorney and visiting lecturer in law, said there is a tension between students’ rights to be treated as adults and the University’s duty to protect them.

The latter, however, is more difficult to define, as it is unclear what, if any, special legal obligation universities bear to assure the student’s wellbeing beyond the duties they have as providers of medical care, housing and the like.

Rosen said that except in truly limited circumstances the university would not be legally responsible for a tragedy such as a suicide.

But Pavela said conversations about schools’ legal liability often fail to consider whether students should be forced to withdraw at all.

Multiple studies, Pavela said, have demonstrated that college students commit suicide at significantly lower rates than college-age students who are not in school. Universities appear to have a protective effect on vulnerable students, he said.

“The policy issue is, what is our goal in removing a student who appears to pose a threat to self?”

Pavela said. “Is the goal to protect the student? If [that] is the goal, I would argue that removing the student in all likelihood is more likely to endanger the student.”

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

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.”

LAURENCE STERNE ANGLO-IRISH NOVELIST

SAE sanctions may have little impact, students say SAE FROM PAGE 1 nity, said his fraternity has not hosted any on-campus events in recent memory. Moreover, he added, the fraternity does not frequently use Yale’s email or bulletin system to communicate with current or potential members.

Members of SAE declined to answer a question, sent to the email address that the fraternity asked all questions be directed to, about how many oncampus events the fraternity hosts per year.

Additionally, six members of other fraternities declined to comment on whether or not the sanctions would have any meaningful impact on SAE’s operations.

Still, when asked whether the sanctions would affect SAE’s off-campus parties, Director of Student Life Hannah Peck DIV ’11 emphasized that the sanctions imposed on SAE include restrictions beyond hosting activities.

Grace Hirshorn ’15 said that while no tangible changes might come of the announcement, it does signal a shift in the University’s treatment of issues of sexual misconduct.

“I think the point of [Holloway’s] announcement is that Yale is taking a strong institutional stand,” Hirshorn said. “Yale very rarely takes a strong institutional stance. I’m not sure that it will necessarily change student behavior, but it does send a strong message.”

But John Foubert, an expert on higher education and sexual assault prevention, who is also an alumnus of SAE, said he would have liked to see strong action from the national SAE organization as well. According to a statement released by SAE headquarters on Friday, the national organization imposed several sanctions on the Yale chapter, including mandatory sexual assault and harassment training for all members and attendance at regional and national leadership training.

If educational programming was the only result of the national organization’s investigation into the matter, Foubert said, that would be inadequate because such education should be tak-

ing place regardless.

“I think the more meaningful sanction would be if they lost their charter from the organization, and it doesn’t sound like that happened,” he said.

“As someone who is a member of the national organization and also an expert on sexual assault on campus, I wish the national took it more seriously.”

Brandon Weghorst, associate executive director of communications for SAE, said the organization does not revoke charters. Rather, a charter is suspended until the group is approved to return to campus. He added that closures can occur for several reasons, including major violations to organization regulations or to their health and safety program.

He said there is no data available regarding the frequency of chapter closures. He added, however, that national leadership “will not hesitate” to take corrective actions on chapters, depending on the circumstances.

Foubert said that although the sanctions may have some effect on SAE’s operations, they would probably have a much greater effect at a university with a stronger infrastructure for Greek life and a more centralized rush process. Unlike many universities nationwide, Yale does not have an overarching gubernatorial body for fraternities, despite having the Yale Panhellenic Council to oversee the University’s three sororities.

The anonymous fraternity officer said the existence of a governing body would allow sanctions upon fraternities to have real impact — something that cannot happen in the existing framework, he said.

“It’s pretty clear from the punishment that Yale has no intention of shutting down SAE,” he said. “It almost seems like Yale is trying to remove itself from anything that might happen in SAE by saying, ‘We’re not a part of it, this is completely off campus and not condoned by us — go at your own risk.’”

Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu and VIVIAN WANG at vivian.y.wang@yale.edu .

ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The SAE national organization imposed several sanctions on Yale’s chapter, including mandatory sexual assault training.

Faculty deem ethics code “blunt,” “chilling” FACULTY FROM PAGE 1 members interviewed described the document as “blunt,” “hostile” and “chilling.”

“It appears that, despite the recent history of Yale, the committee gave little if any thought to the importance of safeguards: for academic freedom, for freedom of expression, for dissent, and for diversity,” French and African-American Studies professor Christopher Miller wrote in his comments on the draft document. “Lip service to ‘free expression and inquiry’ in the preamble is not enough.”

In the comments, Miller wrote that he sees no indication that the document will be subject to faculty vote or debate, which is “ironic and deplorable” given the recent decision to form a Faculty Senate. According to the 2014 report of the FAS Senate Implementation Committee, which describes the purview of the Senate, the group “operates with the assumption that major initiatives and policies affecting FAS faculty will be brought for discussion to the FAS senate in a timely manner.”

Several professors told the News that the evaluation of this document should pause until the Senate has a chance to convene and discuss it. Any other process of deliberation, Miller said, would be an insult to the faculty and the new Senate.

According to computer science professor Michael Fischer, the draft document is part of a trend of increased administrative size and power, which diminishes the potency of faculty self-governance. Input is not the same as conversation, Fischer said.

Further, it is unclear if the new standards apply to all administrators. Psychology professor Margaret Clark, who chaired the ad hoc committee, said when finalized, the standards will apply to all people holding faculty positions at Yale. History, American Studies and African American Studies professor Glenda Gilmore, said she believes the standards should also apply to administrators who are not faculty members, but the draft document does not state if this is the case.

Anybody on campus … has to be bound by these same standards of ethical conduct.

MICHAEL FISCHER Professor of Computer Science “Anybody on campus that’s part of this institution has to be bound by these same standards of ethical conduct,” Fischer said, adding that Harvard’s code of ethics governs all members of its community. “To have the administration say we’re going to write a set of ethical standards that faculty have to follow but we don’t is just plain offensive.”

Professors also cited concerns with the contents of the document — both what was included and what was notably absent.

Gilmore said the draft fails to include any potential sanctions for faculty who breach regulations. Deputy Provost Stephanie Spangler, who served on the

ad hoc committee, said the committee has not yet made recommendations regarding sanctioning procedures.

Clark said the committee will meet soon to carefully review all the comments on the draft.

Faculty members also criticized the document’s vague language. Miller said one of the document’s examples of “unacceptable behavior” — that which is “intended to prevent the orderly conduct of teaching or training” — is not only vague, but could potentially be used to repress any dissent expressed within the University. The document also does not specify how intent will be evaluated, or by whom. Miller cited some examples of faculty behavior in the past — such as holding class offcampus in solidarity with the Local 34 union during its formation in 1984, and calling for a moratorium on classes in protest of a war — that could qualify as unacceptable under the new standards.

The draft provides some examples of unacceptable behavior, but states that they are not exhaustive. If a faculty member’s actions “violate the faculty’s shared principles,” the document states, that faculty member may be subject to sanction regardless of whether the specific behavior is explained in the text. Fischer said this was the section he found most disturbing.

“In other words, one can be punished for behavior that does not violate any established rule if the administration thinks that there should be a rule against it,” Fischer said. “This has a chilling effect on the community and

runs counter to the principles of openness and freedom of expression.”

English professor Jill Campbell identified several large issues with the procedures taken in creating the document, including the timing of its creation — before the FAS Senate’s work has begun — and the lack of specification regarding potential sanctions. Campbell added that even if there were a consensus that this document was necessary — which, she said, there does not currently seem to be — a new process should be created for its development.

“Given [the] fundamental flaws in the process by which this document, with its ambitious and very broad aims, has been created, circulated, ‘discussed’ and considered, it should be laid aside in its current form — despite what I am sure are the good-will intentions and significant efforts of committee members in creating it,” Campbell wrote in her comments on the document.

Other faculty members noted that the 16-member committee includes only one professor in the humanities disciplines.

But Clark said the committee was chosen very carefully, adding that it is broadly representative of faculty of not just Yale College, but the entire University. Spangler noted that Salovey and Polak considered FAS candidates as well as nominations from the deans of the professional schools.

The draft document is available on the provost’s website.

Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .

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YO U R Y DN DA I LY

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables and in classrooms across the nation, not in … Washington.”

TIM SCOTT UNITED STATES SENATOR

Two grad apartment buildings to close

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER Starting next semester, graduate students will have two fewer apartment buildings in which they may choose to live.

Esplanade Apartments on Prospect Street and YorkCrown Apartments — both owned and operated by Yale Housing and containing 62 units altogether — will close in June 2015 for renovations.

While Yale administrators agree that the housing facilities were in need of repair, the closure of the apartments comes at a time when several graduate students have already expressed frustration at the changes taking place in other graduate facilities, including the renovation of the Hall of Graduate Studies and its potential conversion into a center for the humanities by 2019 and the construction of new apartments for 80 graduate students on Elm Street, slated to be completed in 2017.

Three students interviewed said they thought Yale Housing could better communicate with students about these kinds of changes.

“When it comes to renovating things, refurbishing things, there is essentially no commu-

nication,” said James Gutierrez GRD ’17, adding that he found it difficult to apply for housing online.

Regarding the renovation of graduate spaces, Gutierrez said he believes the administration often disregards student input.

The apartments, which will be closed for one full academic year, will reopen to graduate students in fall 2016. Students who currently live in these buildings must move out by June of this year. According to Yale Housing Manager Melanie Pagan, the office has no plans to build housing to compensate for the reduction in housing space.

“We don’t own any more buildings. It’s not like we could open up another apartment building,” said Pagan.

However, Pagan also said that Yale Housing intends to help those students affected by the closures find housing for next year by guiding them through the process using an online housing database. The availability of graduate housing depends largely on how many students decide to move on or off campus, Pagan added.

University spokesman Tom Conroy said students who are currently living in the buildings and will still be enrolled when the renovations are completed

will receive priority consideration for the refurbished units.

Though Director of Graduate and Professional Student Housing George Longyear said the buildings had reached their life expectancy and required serious refurbishment, Yale Housing Manager Chris Taylor said the apartment buildings in question do not stand out more than others in terms of the number of maintenance requests placed each week with Yale Housing.

Regardless of the quality of the apartments, Conroy said the renovations cannot be conducted while the buildings are occupied, which is why they will be taken off the market.

The residents of the buildings have been notified in advance of the renovation plans.

Students interviewed said they appreciated being notified about renovations and housing changes early on.

“It’s nice to have a warning,” said Catherine Chiabaut GRD ’18.

On Feb. 7, Yale Housing hosted a fair displaying housing opportunities for next year, which drew over a thousand attendees.

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

MICHELLE CHAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Esplanade and York-Crown Apartments will temporarily close this June.

Closing imminent, GHeav’s future “up to Yale”

BY JIAHUI HU STAFF REPORTER Just four months before Gourmet Heaven’s lease is expected to be terminated, store employees say the 24-hour deli still has made no move to change locations and shut down.

Although University Properties announced five months ago that Gourmet Heaven will close its two locations on Broadway and Whitney at the end of June, all workers interviewed said they did not know if UP is certain to follow through on the closure. Adam Juarez, a long-time employee at Gourmet Heaven, said the two parties will be in talks within the next few weeks about the possibility of renewing the lease.

“It is up to Yale,” Juarez said. “If they say we go, we go. If they say we get a second chance, then we do.”

Juarez added that he hopes UP will recognize the value and convenience of the store to students. He said the store decided to remain open during the snowstorm two weeks ago to show UP that the store is one of the most reliable grocery stops for Yalies.

Still, Vice President for New Haven and State Affairs Bruce Alexander ’65 suggested that University Properties still plans to let the lease expire.

“We have announced that they will close,” Alexander wrote in an email to the News.

However, Alexander did not say who might fill the space on Broadway, adding, “We do not announce new tenants until

we actually have a deal.”

Associate Vice President for University Properties and New Haven Affairs Lauren Zucker did not respond to two requests for comment.

In August, Alexander released a statement condemning labor violations at Gourmet Heaven. In the same statement, he added that University Properties would not renew the leases for Gourmet Heaven’s two locations. The Broadway lease was originally set to expire in 2016, but University Properties instead negotiated a 2015 termination.

If [Yale says] we go, we go. If they say we get a second chance, then we do.

ADAM JUAREZ Employee, Gourmet Heaven Unidad Latina en Acción and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán de Yale, organizations that both wrote letters and rallied last fall urging University Properties to close Gourmet Heaven because of workers’ rights violations, continue to push for UP to ensure their businesses uphold fair wage and labor practices.

Megan Fountain ’07, a volunteer organizer with the ULA, said representatives from ULA and MEChA met with Zucker and Alexander before University Proper-

ties released a statement announcing they would terminate Gourmet Heaven’s lease.

Fountain said the two groups asked University Properties to work with them and the Department of Labor to create policies and standards for workers rights on properties leased from University Properties.

Though they met once before the August announcement, the groups have not yet convened for a second meeting.

But University Properties did not follow-up on their requests, said Fountain.

Fountain underscored that the fines and penalties for failure to follow wage laws are not severe enough to incentivize employers into changing their business practices. She said additional enforcement by the University would help hold businesses accountable.

University Properties is not legally obligated to close Gourmet Heaven, said Fountain and James Bhandary-Alexander, a lawyer with New Haven Legal Assistance who represented Gourmet Heaven workers against store owner Chung Cho. Still, both Bhandary-Alexander and Fountain said University Properties’ final decision about whether to allow the store to remain open would send a message to the public about wage theft.

“The question of whether Gourmet Heaven stays in those locations is a question of whether Yale was serious when it said that it was holding that business accountable or whether Yale stays on that statement,” Bhandary-Alexander said.

Contact JIAHUI HU at jiahui.hu @yale.edu .

HENRY EHRENBERG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

University Properties announced in August that it planned not to renew Gourmet Heaven’s lease.

SOM looks to expand tech resources

BY PHOEBE KIMMELMAN STAFF REPORTER In an effort to enhance technological opportunities for learning and teaching, the School of Management has decided to create a new position: Manager of Instructional Technology Solutions and Design.

The position, which will be filled within the next month or two, comes in the midst of expanding online business education around the country, including at other Ivy business schools. Most notably, on Tuesday, Harvard Business School announced the global launch of HBX, its online program for pre-business school courses.

SOM Chief Information Officer Alan Usas, who is leading the search for the new manager at the SOM, said this new role will encompass online teaching, though it is unclear if this will include online courses similar to Harvard’s that are open to the public.

“There certainly are discussions of broadening the reach of courses, but there is nothing specific at this time,” Usas said.

Though the SOM does not currently offer online courses open to the public, it does offer online coursework available through its participation in the Global Network — an international business school partnership founded in 2012 by SOM Dean Edward Snyder. These courses are semester-long and open to other students from network schools. They are considered “small network online courses,” or SNOCs, with small groups of selected student participants, as opposed to “massive online open courses,” which have many unscreened students with different skill levels.

SOM Director of Entrepreneurial Programs Kyle Jensen said the size and nature of the courses the SOM offers through the Global Network make the offerings fundamentally different from those at many other business schools. In particular, he said the courses’ allowance for regular communication among a small group of students helps to bridge the divide between electronically distributed education and the classroom experience.

But with regard to potentially expanding the school’s online offerings, Jensen said the SOM should proceed with caution.

“I think it’s wonderful that we would share the work products of our faculty with the rest of the world,” he said. “But that is just one part of what is in the greater community.”

Jensen said this gap between

the experience of being at the SOM and taking an SOM course online is evident not only in the nature of the course, but also in the absence of extracurriculars, which are an important part of the SOM experience.

Similarly, Senior Associate Dean Anjani Jain said online courses may run counter to the SOM’s emphasis on shared learning.

“We are indeed quite interested in expanding [online opportunities], but in the short run we are not going to create online versions of our MBA courses [because] our educational philosophy that underlies our teaching is that the opportunity for collective learning in the MBA classroom is vital and that whatever technology we bring in should enhance opportunity for collective learning,” he said.

We want to connect SOM students with counterparts around the world for a semester and the way to do it is with technology.

DAVID BACH Associate Dean, SOM SOM Associate Dean David Bach said the SOM does not have extensive open online offerings because it does not have a degree program that is aimed at working professionals around the world who can only be reached through technology, which is the case at some business schools. In contrast, he said the applicants the SOM targets are accessible in person, eliminating the need for extensive online course offerings.

However, Bach said the SNOCs are the exception to this scenario solely because they serve the function of allowing students from the different network schools to interact with one another for a full semester.

“We want to connect SOM students with counterparts around the world for a semester and the way to do it is with technology. So, we see a role for technology,” he said. “[But] you don’t want to have online courses for the sake of having online courses.”

This semester, three Global Network business schools, including the SOM, are offering online courses for students within the network.

Contact PHOEBE KIMMELMAN at phoebe.kimmelman@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

ALAN TURING BRITISH COMPUTER SCIENTIST

Dems, SASVY push for “yes means yes”

ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Members of the Yale College Democrats and SASVY led a panel with State Sen. Mae Flexer about establishing a standard of affirmative consent for sexual encounters.

CONSENT FROM PAGE 1 ing a bill that would require universities in Connecticut to define appropriate sexual consent as “unambiguous and continuous.”

While many universities claim to abide by affirmative consent, Flexer told the News that only two universities — Yale and the University of Connecticut — have policies matching the standards of the legislation she is proposing.

“There are a few key lines in the legislation, which when adopted by universities, will help bring forth safe college campuses across the state,” she said.

The bill states sexual consent must be mutual, ongoing and conscious.

Although Yale already meets the standards laid out by Flexer and Haddad, participants in yesterday’s panel emphasized that conversations about affirmative consent should still take place on campus.

The panel was led by Yale Col-

lege Democrats President Tyler Blackmon ’16, a columnist for the News, and Head of SASVY Emma Goldberg ’16, a columnist and former opinion editor for the News. They interviewed Flexer, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd and Communication and Consent Educator Vincent Kennedy ’16 about the role of affirmative consent on Yale’s campus, and the potential impact of the bill.

Perpetrators of sexual assault fail to understand [this body language], or choose to ignore it.

VINCENT KENNEDY ’16 Communication and Consent Educator Dems Communications Director Hedy Gutfreund ’18 said affir-

mative consent is one of four policies the organization chose to focus on this spring. Monday’s panel was intended to give more information and depth on the legislation, Gutfreund said.

Flexer, described by Blackmon as a “rising star of the Democratic party in Connecticut,” said she has been motivated by students at Yale and UConn who have supported the bill. “[These students] wanted Connecticut to follow California in leading the nation on this issue,” she said.

Flexer said many of her colleagues in the state legislature do not understand the motivations behind affirmative consent. Together with Boyd and Kennedy, she explained how she defines affirmative consent, and she countered arguments against the bill. She explained that affirmative consent aims to create an environment on college campus that promotes positivity in sexual encounters. Kennedy said

the CCEs try to further understanding of consent by defining the term according to natural human behavior. He said the CCEs acknowledge that most humans develop a sense of consent when they are young by recognizing gestures and body language. That same concept applies to sexual consent, he said.

“Perpetrators of sexual assault fail to understand [this body language], or choose to ignore it,” Kennedy said.

One false criticism of the bill is that affirmative consent presumes guilt in an accused, Flexer said. Boyd explained that Yale still begins with a presumption of innocence but simply has shifted the question from “was there a refusal” to “was there agreement.”

While the majority of the attendees of the panel were in favor of the bill, some disagreed with affirmative consent legislation. Eliot Levmore ’18 said that affirmative consent is dif-

Society tap made optional SOCIETIES FROM PAGE 1 nered with members of the Junior Class Council to enact this new policy, in which SCC would pass along the list of juniors to representatives in each senior society. Tobin said that while they could not ensure juniors listed would not receive interviews or invitations, she said each society would be made aware of those who did not want to be considered.

Of the six juniors and seniors interviewed, four were in support of the new measure.

Alan Zhang ’16 said the new option will likely allow the tap process to run more smoothly.

“I think it’s probably a good idea if a lot of people are interested in it in the first place instead of societies wasting their efforts on people who don’t want to be in a society,” he said.

He added that he was still unsure if he would participate in the tap process due to time constraints, so he appreciated this new option to opt out.

Viveca Morris ’15, a staff columnist for the News who wrote a piece earlier this month calling for a similar reform, welcomed the initiative as a way to give juniors greater autonomy and freedom.

“I’m excited that the Junior Class Council is trying to reform the tap process in a way that’s a benefit to everyone, and I’m curious and excited to see how they do that,” Morris said.

“What matters isn’t whether the system is ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ but simply that people have an option to choose whether or not to participate.”

Others, however, were more indifferent to the change and said it would only affect a small number of stu-

dents.

Bernardo Barzana ’16 said that since juniors who do not want to be in a society can already choose to not participate in tap events, he was not sure how useful the option would be. He added it was likely that only the very few who are very adamantly against society would opt out.

Though Tobin said she could not predict how many people would reply to Van Alst’s email, she argued the new measure will only be beneficial.

“I am assuming it won’t be a large number, but even if it is just 10 people, we will be helping those people and make sure their wishes are being respected,” she said.

Contact LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu and JON VICTOR jon.victor@yale.edu .

ERICA BOOTHBY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Skull and Bones tomb will open its doors to students who have decided not to opt out of the society tap process.

ficult to define and that legislation mandating it does, contrary to Boyd’s remark, assume guilt in the accused.

Amalia Halikias ’15, who attended the event, said she thinks affirmative consent policies infantilize women by assuming they are incapable of declining unwanted advances. She added that she considers Yale’s definition of sexual assault too liberal because the University accepts complaints of any sexual advance, regardless of whether the law would deem it assault.

While Halikias disagreed with Yale’s definition of sexual assault, Boyd said it is important to recognize that because people have normalized a certain level of disrespect, people do not always recognize low-level forms of sexual misconduct for what they are.

But she added that it is important that people recognize these behaviors as part of a continuum of sexual misconduct.

“We can’t [only] take action

when something is violent,” she said. “Sexual assault is a capacious category, and people need to be held accountable.”

Flexer said conversations like the one at the panel are continuous, and that the voices of students at the bill’s public hearing will be instrumental in forwarding the bill to the state Senate floor.

During the panel, she encouraged students to reach out to their local state senators to stress the importance of the issue. Blackmon told the News that the Dems will follow the bill closely and prepare a statement of support of the bill for the public hearing, which has not been scheduled.

“What people need to understand about this is that affirmative consent is about more than just sexual assault,” Blackmon said. “Ultimately, it makes every sexual encounter so much better.”

Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu .

CS grad students push for faculty hiring LETTER FROM PAGE 1 only one or two professors for each area of expertise. According to Gupta, it can be “devastating” for graduate students if their relationships with their advisers do not work out because, in contrast to other universities with larger departments, it effectively means the end of their Ph.D. candidacy.

Segal and Gupta said one of the main impetuses for writing the letter came after Computer Science Professor Bryan Ford announced that he will leave Yale at the end of June to join faculty members at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

The announcement of his departure was a “huge shock” for the department because he had only received tenure a few months prior, Segal said. Ph.D. candidates advised by Ford will now have to finish their dissertations by the end of the calendar year, he added.

Without any new computer science faculty members, Yale will only have 19 professors in the Computer Science Department. In contrast, Brown — which has a smaller student body than Yale — has 33 professors. Carnegie Mellon, which has the best computer science department in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report, has more 100 faculty members.

Ford said the lack of faculty growth was not the primary factor that motivated him to leave, but that a donation comparable to a recent donation to the Harvard Computer Science department — which will now be able to increase its faculty size by 50 percent — would have given him more incentive to stay.

Although the announcement about CS50 being offered at Yale in the fall has made it appear as if the administration is willing to invest in the computer science department, the course is suddenly becoming a cost for the department that the administration is not compensating for, Segal said.

“The difficulties we are facing are about not enough options at advanced levels and not enough professors to teach everything,” Segal said. “So, taking a very popular and well liked robotics professor and make him teach CS50 instead means he can’t also teach robotics now,” he added, referring to Brian Scassellati, who will teach CS50 at Yale.

Computer Science Professor Michael Fischer, who arrived at Yale in 1981, said

all attempts made so far by the Computer Science Department to convey their problems to the administration have “fallen on deaf ears.”

Computer Science Department chair Joan Feigenbaum, who had not yet seen the open letter until it was shown to her by the News, said she was not surprised to learn that the computer science graduate students hold many of the same views as the department’s faculty. Feigenbaum said in an email that she and many of her colleagues believe, like the graduate students, that their department “must grow substantially in order for Yale to have the excellence and breadth in computer science that a leading university needs in the 21st century.

Echoing the sentiments of Gupta and Segal, she added that Yale’s Computer Science Department should be at least the same size as those at peer institutions.

“Fortunately, I think that they are wrong in saying that the Yale administration does not care,” Feigenbaum said in a Monday email to the News. “I have had several constructive discussions with high-level administrators recently, and I think that they understand the need for a significantly broader and deeper commitment to Computer Science. I am hopeful that we will see change soon.”

Roughly two-thirds of the graduate students in the department signed the letter, and Gupta said that every graduate student he spoke with agreed with the attitudes in the letter.

Computer science graduate students disagreed about whether the letter should be privately addressed to the administration or written as an open letter in the News, Gupta said.

“Some grad students believe they should not be going through the YDN because they feel like it is airing dirty laundry,” Gupta said. Segal added that the students who lobbied for a private letter did not want to give a false negative impression of the department, and deter potential applicants — both potential professors and graduate students — from coming.

Computer Science is now the seventh-most popular undergraduate major at Yale.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

NEWS

“Teachers leave them kids alone / Hey teacher leave us kids alone.”

PINK FLOYD BRITISH PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND

Student disciplinary action drops in Connecticut

BY SARA SEYMOUR STAFF REPORTER Student arrests, expulsions and suspensions in Connecticut have dropped significantly between 2008 and 2013, accord-

ing to a report released Thursday

by Connecticut Voices for Children.

According to the report, between 2008 and 2013, Connecticut schools have seen a 35 percent decrease in school

arrests, a 31 percent decrease in expulsions and a 47 percent reduction in school suspensions in the five-year period. Despite the progress, the report suggests that some cases of arrest and expulsion could have been han-

dled within the school. Furthermore, minority students, students of lower socio-economic status and students with learning disabilities are more likely than others to be suspended, expelled or arrested.

GRAPH NUMBER OF STUDENTS ARRESTED

3,396

3,236 3,029

2,936

2,432 2,214

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 JON ROLFE/PRODUCTION STAFF

“This report tells us that many schools in Connecticut have reformed their disciplinary practices and reduced student arrests, expulsions and out-of-school suspensions,” Executive Director of Connecticut Voices for Children Ellen Shemitz said in a press release. “Yet these reforms have not benefited all children equally. How can we hope to reduce the yawning achievement gap when school disciplinary practices push minority children out of school at disproportionate rates?”

Though the report does not offer explicit explanations why these rates have dropped, Edie Joseph ’12, one of the authors of the report, pointed to several programs dealing with school disciplinary policies as contributors to the decline. As examples of these programs, the report highlights pilot projects including the Center for Children’s Advocacy, which trains school staff and law enforcement to appropriately respond to disciplinary issues, as well as the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which advocates for a formal delineation of disciplinary response policies between police officers and schools.

Joseph said this formal agreement, known as a memorandum of agreement, is crucial to transparent policies.

“It makes a uniform standard for how student disciplinary policies should be implemented,” Joseph said.

According to the report, though blacks and Latinos are minorities within the school system, they are disproportionately represented in the population of arrested, expelled and suspended students. In 2013, though blacks made up 13 percent of the school

population, they made up 32 percent of school arrests. Similarly, Hispanic and Latino students made up 20.4 percent of the school population but accounted for 32.9 percent of school arrests.

There is a similarly disproportionate rate of arrests amongst students identified as having special education needs.

“What this report really points to is that there are a lot of ways that inequalities and inequities are exacerbated,” said Joseph.

“Kids are pushed out of school for things that could be dealt with within the classroom.”

Behavior such as tardiness, use of profanity and disruptive behavior result in 11 percent of student arrests. The top three reasons that students were arrested in school in 2013 were fighting or battery, drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and physical or verbal confrontations.

The report also cited guidelines released by the Department of Education in 2014, which state schools should not typically use law enforcement approaches to address disciplinary issues. “[Schools should be] relying on suspension and expulsion only as a last resort and for appropriately serious infractions, and equipping staff with alternative strategies to address problem behaviors while keeping all students engaged in instruction to the greatest extent possible,” the guidelines say.

In 2010, the Connecticut Department of Education released a report with guidelines that delineated the rules of inschool and out-of-school suspensions.

Contact SARA SEYMOUR at sara.seymour@yale.edu .

Crown Street development project underway

BY CAROLINE HART STAFF REPORTER By this spring, the historic Neon Parking Garage will finish its renovation, marking the start of a city development project to bring residential space and new businesses to the Crown Street neighborhood.

Real estate developer Metro Star Properties has purchased lots 254 through 260 on Crown Street, which include BAR Restaurant, Crown Pizza and the parking garage. James Salatto of MOD Equities, who owns multiple buildings in the downtown area, sold the 254 Crown building to Metro Star in September. This building is undergoing renovations that will add two floors to accommodate 24 apartments, which will range in size from one-bedroom to studio-sized.

Robert Smith, executive director and founder of Metro Star Properties, said all of the developments along Crown will be finished by December 2015, adding that the exterior of these lots will be restored and renovated to feature new store fronts and windows.

“We are excited to participate in the continued rebirth of Crown Street which when complete will provide another architecturally rich environment for students to enjoy while living in New Haven,” Smith said.

Amid questions regarding the fate of BAR and the other restaurants on the block, Smith said that BAR will not relocate. Kevin Dingus, a bartender at BAR, said the restau-

rant’s acquisition by Metro Star has not brought any changes to the business. He added that the appearance of the restaurant will also remain the same to his knowledge.

In addition to the Metro Star-owned developments on Crown, Robert Landino of Centerplan Construction is building a $50 million development at the corner of College Street and Crown Street called “College and Crown: A Centerplace.” The development will contain 160 apartments and will open in early 2015, according to the website.

Sarah Brandt ’17 said she finds the area appealing as a residential area, and would consider moving there given the new developments. Smith, noting the development’s close proximity to Yale’s campus, said the apartments are targeted to University students and employees.

“The Crown street neighborhood provides a desirable balance between Yale and New Haven,” Brandt said. “On one hand, it’s integrated into New Haven culture with iconic businesses like BAR and Louis’ Lunch, but on the other hand, it’s a mere block from Old Campus.”

The former home of wings restaurant S’Wings, 280 Crown St., is included in the development. Although Smith said that he has not yet selected a new tenant for the property, a sign on the door says that S’Wings has moved to a new address at 560 Congress St. Contact CAROLINE HART at caroline.hart@yale.edu .

yale institute of sacred music presents

Afro-Christian Festivals of the Americas Bridging Methodologies and Crossing Frontiers SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZED BY CÉCILE FROMONT

Saturday, February 21 9 AM–5 PM Sterling Library Auditorium 128 Wall Street Free; no registration necessary ism.yale.edu · Presented with support from the Council on Latin-American and Iberian Studies, Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies

MICHELLE CHAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Real estate developer Metro Star Properties is developing residential buildings along Crown Street.

yale institute of sacred music presents

thomas troeger Song That Blesses Earth

CROSS CAMPUS

yale literature and spirituality series

THE BLOG.

Hymns, Carols, and Poems

Lecture, reading, and community singing followed by a book signing.

Thursday, February 19 · 5:30 pm Marquand Chapel 409 Prospect St., New Haven Presented in collaboration with Yale Divinity Student Book Supply.

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

THE BUZZ AROUND YALE. THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“Nothing, for the most part, surprises me anymore.” BRETT FAVRE 11-TIME NFL PRO BOWL PLAYER

Harvard blanks men’s tennis TENNIS FROM PAGE 12 victory over George Washington’s Cahit Kapukiran. Under the ECAC Championship rulebook, once a team reaches four points, the match is clinched and play stops.

The freshmen trio of Andrienko, Doehler and Ziqi Wang ’18 also performed well for the Elis. Wang did not complete his match, but was battling in his third set while teammates Doehler and Andrienko both came out with wins to hit the four-point match-ending mark.

Andrienko won his first set 7–6 in a tiebreaker that ended 7–2.

After going up 6–3, Lu lost the No. 1 singles match to George Washington’s Danil Zelenkov 6–3, 4–6, 3–6 to provide the Colonials with their lone point of the match.

“The win over George Washington was a really good win for our team. We all played really well against them, even in the matches that we didn’t finish,” Wang said.

The victory over the Colonials advanced Yale into the quarterfinal round of the ECAC Championship.

Yale stars on uneven bars GYMNASTICS FROM PAGE 12

The next day, though, did not end as well. Yale traveled to Cambridge on Saturday to face Ivy League rival and No. 30 Harvard in the tournament. The Crimson defeated the Bulldogs 4–0 after gaining the double point and sweeping the completed singles matches. However, the competition does not affect the Ivy League standings.

Because Harvard at already reached four points, the No. 1 and No. 2 singles matches remained unfinished. Lu split his sets with the No. 91 ranked player in Division I tennis, Harvard’s Denis Nguyen.

“It’s good to see the level of competition that we will be facing heading into Ivy League play, especially for the freshmen,” Faierman said. “We can play ranked teams, but there is a different intensity when we play Ivy League opponents. It is a different feeling and experience.”

Next weekend, the men’s tennis team will face William and Mary and Old Dominion in two away contests.

Contact JACOB MITCHELL at jacob.mitchell@yale.edu .

JOEY YE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Freshmen played in the No. 1, No. 5 and No. 6 singles positions for the Bulldogs at the ECAC tournament last weekend.

teams,” Brianna Chrisman ’15 said. “We saw new skills and some great gymnastics. I’d say it pushed us to try and compete better.”

Yale began the evening on the vault.

Anna Merkuryev ’18, the only freshman to compete in the all-around this season, led the team with a 9.750. The score also marked Merkuryev’s career high. Event specialist Camilla Opperman ’16 was right behind Merkuryev with a 9.600, followed by three teammates — Lucas, Joyce Li ’15 and Anella Anderson ’17 — with scores of 9.450.

Anderson and Merkuryev were the only two Bulldogs to compete in the allaround. Merkuryev came in third overall, behind Iowa State’s Caitlin Brown and Haylee Young, with a 37.925. Anderson earned a career-best 37.650. Captain Morgan Traina ’15, who has competed in the all-around since her freshman year, did not compete on floor and vault this week because she was sick, according to Chrisman.

The Bulldogs then moved to their highest-scoring event of the day: uneven bars.

Five of the six gymnasts who competed on the apparatus scored higher than a 9.500, leading to a team total of 48.300 on the event, narrowly missing Northern Illinois’s score of 48.950 but topping the Cyclones’ score of 48.275.

Li topped the leaderboard for the Bulldogs with a season-best score of 9.775.

Tatiana Winkelman ’17 finished just fivehundredths of a point behind Li, earning a career-high score of 9.725.

Next, Yale moved to beam, which ultimately was its lowest scoring event of the day. Brittney Sooksengdao ’16 led Yale with a 9.700 on the apparatus, followed by Winkelman with a 9.425.

The Bulldogs ended their day on floor.

Their team total of 47.875 relied on strong performances from both Lucas and Anderson, both of whom earned 9.700 for their routines. With that score, Anderson set her career high and Lucas tied her season high.

Additionally, Merkuryev established a new career high with her score of 9.550.

“It was definitely a big weekend for individuals on all events, actually, not just one or two,” Smith said.

Following a post-competition meetand-greet with alumni, the team had Saturday to tour Chicago. They stopped at tourist spots such as Willis Tower, One

YALE DAILY NEWS

Though the Bulldogs finished third in the IGI Chicago Style Meet, their score was a marked improvement from a week ago.

Museum Park and the Cloud Gate, according to Smith and Chrisman.

While touring, the Bulldogs received news of their flight’s cancellation due to snow in Hartford. Coach Jason Vonk managed to get the team on an earlier flight into Newark, Chrisman said.

Once the excitement was over and the team was back at Yale, the Bulldogs turned their attention to the upcoming Ivy Classic.

“We got out the little falls,” Lucas said.

“Hopefully that was getting everything out. We know what we need to do to hit Ivys.”

Two of the next four meets pit the Bulldogs against Ancient Eight foes. The biggest regular season meet occurs next week,

when Yale travels to Philadelphia for the Ivy Classic.

The team hopes to keep the momentum going against Penn, Brown and Cornell, the other three Ivy League schools that have varsity women’s gymnastics programs.

“I think this was a good meet to have right before Ivys because for the most part, it was a lot of fun,” Chrisman said.

“It wasn’t super high stress so we got a fun weekend, a fun meet and now have the week to focus and detail our routine right before Ivys.”

The meet begins at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 22 at Penn.

Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .

Elis lose to Princeton, beat Cornell SQUASH FROM PAGE 12 No. 2. Three of Yale’s wins came in five-game matches.

Shihui Mao, playing as No. 2 again, was able to reverse her results from the Princeton match by overcoming a 2–1 deficit and winning the fifth game 11–9.

For captain Anna Harrison ’15, as well as fellow seniors Mao, Norman-Ross and Nina Kemper ’15, the win against Cornell was the final team match of their collegiate squash careers.

“I came to Yale wanting to

represent Yale in squash and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have done so for the past four years,” Mao said. “Squash has been a huge part of my Yale experience, as it is where I cultivated life-long friendships and learnt the importance of teamwork, determination and sportsmanship.”

Though the team’s results were similar to preseason expectations — the team was ranked fourth in the country before the season began — head coach David Talbott said that the team’s finish did not tell the whole story.

He added that the Bulldogs were very close to a stronger finish, and the team was disappointed in the final result of the Howe Cup. “After losing four seniors last year, we knew it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle facing teams like Trinity and Harvard [this season],” Harrison said.

“However, everyone stepped up and even though we didn’t win the team match, we had a lot of great individual victories.”

While this was the final team competition for Yale, several Bulldogs will travel to the Col-

lege Squash Association Individual Tournament at Princeton the weekend of Feb. 27.

This coming weekend, however, the Yale men (10–4, 5–2 Ivy) will take part in the C.S.A. Team Tournament hosted by Trinity. The No. 5 Bulldogs will take on No. 4 Columbia (12–2, 6–1). The men hope to avenge a narrow 5–4 upset surrendered to Columbia earlier this season.

The match will commence this Friday at 5:30 p.m.

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

IRENE JIANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale defeated George Washington by forfeit and beat Cornell 6–3 for the second time this season.

Vella, Lainoff compete individually FENCING FROM PAGE 12

JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Avery Vella ’18 fenced in the U.S. Junior Olympics with a broken foot.

Vella qualified to participate in this year’s competition by being listed on USA Fencing’s point standings, the result of a few particularly good performances in the North American Cups over the course of the last year. Lainoff automatically qualified for the event by being nationally ranked.

Lainoff, who is currently ranked 72nd in Juniors but will soon age out of the competition category, explained that this year’s event revealed the growing popularity of the sport in the United States.

“Every year more and more fencers compete at national events, which is probably because fencing has gained exposure from recent success at the Olympics,” Lainoff said. “There were so many people in my event that they had to stagger when we started the pool rounds because the convention center didn’t have enough fencing strips.”

In the initial round of competition, Lainoff went 3–3 and nearly overcame a three-point deficit in her bout against Columbia starter Danya Hu. Lainoff finished off the pool round with a 5–0 victory before continuing on in the tournament to the direct elimination

round in which she was defeated early. Lainoff was happy with how she fenced, although she acknowledged she struggled to maintain her mental focus going from the pool round, to direct elimination due to significant time gaps between bouts.

Lainoff has been an integral part of the Bulldog’s team since her freshman season last year, finishing in 10th place in the saber event at the 2014 NCAA Northeast Regional competition and helping the sabre squad to a fourth-place finish last year at the U.S. Collegiate Squad Championships.

Meanwhile, Vella took on the competition with a broken foot, having just gotten off crutches two weeks prior. On Saturday during the first round, Vella competed amongst a pool of six other fencers and finished the day with a record of 2–4. The next day, despite being ranked 193rd and struggling with his injury, Vella managed to upset the 63rd ranked fencer, winning 15–12. In his next bout, Avery fell to the eventual champion Anton Piskovatskov 15–8.

Vella noted that as an individual competition, the Junior Olympics has a very different atmosphere relative to traditional

team matches.

“It’s a really fun,” Vella said.

“It’s an individual event so you’re on your own a lot and especially compared to school competitions where the entire team is excited and yelling about every bout, it’s very relaxed.”

Vella noted that his injury forced him to adjust his fencing style considerably so that he could essentially stay in the same place while competing. He also acknowledged that had he not dropped a few easy bouts in the first round, he would likely have had a much easier route through direct elimination.

Fellow épée squad member Derek Soled ’16 noted that Vella has already demonstrated considerable skill in his first year fencing for the Bulldogs.

“Even though he is a freshmen … he has taken our team to new heights this year,” Soled said. “Because he is our youngest member, we are very excited to see all that he becomes in his remaining time at Yale.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete at the U.S. Collegiate Squad Championships in Princeton this Sunday.

Contact ALEX WALKER at alex.e.walker@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

Snow likely, mainly before 10am.

Cloudy, with a high near 23. Wind chill values between zero and 10.

TOMORROW High of 29, low of 8.

DA WEEKLY COMIC BY JOHN MCNELLY

ON CAMPUS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17 11:00 AM Peace Corps: Global Health Edition. Join the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute for a presentation by Carrie Hessler-Radelet. As head of the Peace Corps, Hessler-Radelet has led historic reforms to modernize and strengthen the Peace Corps to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Sterling Hall of Medicine (333 Cedar St.), Beaumont Rm. 6:30 PM Science in the News: Ebola Explosion! Barriers, Blood, and Bad Press. In this month’s Science in the News talk, we explore the Ebola outbreak. Where did the Ebola virus come from and why does it make us sick? What are the public health ramifications of such a dramatic outbreak? Three scholars from Yale will answer these questions and more. Rosenfeld Hall (109 Grove St.).

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18 4:00 PM A Conversation with Amitava Kumar. Writer and Vassar College professor of English Amitava Kumar will read from his new work. His latest book, “Lunch with a Bigot,” is to be published in April. Saint Anthony’s Hall (483 College St.).

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19 11:00 AM Strategies for Ending Racism. Despite years of efforts to overcome systemic discrimination in the United States, the scourge of racism is still present in our towns, cities and institutions. In this Community Ministries Forum, Overseas Ministries Study Center Executive Director J. Nelson Jennings aims to bring together people who have encountered racism — either by being the focus of rebuke or by trying to fight it systematically. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (121 Wall St.).

4:00 PM On Envelopes and Silk: Reading and Artist’s Talk with Jen Bervin. Visual artist and poet Jen Bervin will present and discuss her work with Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts and her ongoing research for “The Silk Poems,” an experimental book nano-imprinted on biomedical silk film. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (121 Wall St.).

DA WEEKLY COMIC BY JOHN MCNELLY

y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.)

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Mailing address Yale Daily News P.O. Box 209007 New Haven, CT 06520

Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief 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.

To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 17, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Command from a bailiff 5 Circle calculation 9 They smell 14 Like Mini Coopers 15 Pond croaker 16 Swine squeals 17 Gave the onceover 18 Particularly welcome casino visitor 20 Alpine song 22 Ear-splitting 23 Court case that generates a media frenzy, say 30 Handsome god 32 Get really angry 33 Granada gold 34 Irritate 37 “CSI” facilities 38 Tee sizes, for short 39 “Nice job!” ... and, in another sense, a hint about the first words of 18-, 23-, 52- and 60Across 42 Geese formation 43 Leafy veggie baked for chips 45 Bitten by bees 46 Angled pipe fitting 47 Handsome god 50 __ Raiders: consumer advocates 52 Abe Lincoln nickname 55 Principal role 56 Diet food phrase 60 Irritate to the breaking point 66 Shredded 67 Construction beam fastener 68 Former South Korean leader Syngman __ 69 Golf club used for chipping 70 Blissful settings 71 Jedi guru 72 Small change DOWN 1 Do as directed 2 Toy with a spool 3 Deleted, with “out”

2/17/15

By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke

4 Louisiana music style 5 Olympics fig.

6 French monarch 7 One below birdie 8 Specialized, committee-wise 9 Bit of pasta 10 Frying liquid 11 NBC show since 1975, briefly 12 Barely manage, with “out” 13 Ukr. or Lith., once 19 Feels remorse over 21 Bochco legal series 24 Forearm bone 25 Some DVD players 26 Sinuous swimmer 27 Less cowardly 28 Insurgent group 29 ’50s four-wheeled flop 30 16th-century Spanish fleet 31 Hoi __: the masses 33 Heroic Schindler 35 Giants Hall of Famer Mel 36 Brewers Hall of Famer Robin

Monday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU EASY

6 7 4 9

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

40 Pest in a swarm 41 Utah city near the Golden Spike 44 Photo blowup: Abbr.

48 Sea spots?

49 Blueprint detail, for short 51 Sexy 53 Cable Guy of comedy 54 The Gem State

2/17/15

57 Warning from a driver?

58 Elvis __ Presley 59 No-frills shelter 60 Hip-hop Dr. 61 Free (of) 62 “__ changed my mind” 63 Caracas’ country, to the IOC 64 Athens : omega :: London : __ 65 Assenting vote

3 2 3 5 8 1 4 7 9 6 1 4 6 5 7 3 1 9 5 4 7 5 2 1 3 1 3 5 4

THURSDAY High of 14, low of -2.

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY With new research, toasting to health

BY BRENDAN HELLWEG STAFF REPORTER

KONSTANTINOS VYZAS/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

A vodka cranberry or two on a Friday night may seem like good clean fun, but a new Yale study suggests that moderate alcohol consumption may even carry an added benefit: extra antioxidant production.

“Higher levels of bilirubin, a known antioxidant, are associated with a lower risk of many diseases,” said Stephanie O’Malley, professor of psychiatry at Yale and principal author of the study. “Low levels of alcohol consumption, too, [have] been associated with decreased risk of some diseases. But the two haven’t really been put together until now.”

Smokers and non-smokers were given blood tests and provided between one and three vodka cranberries — four parts vodka to one part sugar-free cranberry juice. The study suggested that the consumption of the drinks is related to a significant increase in serum bilirubin, an antioxidant produced by the breakdown of red blood cells in the liver.

While this relationship is highly preliminary, the study helps to explain a commonly observed phenomenon where moderate alcohol use is related to a decrease in deadly diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, various cancers and heart disease.

The findings from the study are particularly useful given the difficulty until now in explaining that phenomenon, said professor at the Harvard Medical School and epidemiology researcher at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medi-

cal Center Ken Mukamal.

“The more different ways that we think there might be a benefit, the more robust this claim is, that alcohol produces benefits,” he said. “So if we think we might be wrong about one way, if there are five or six or seven mechanisms that point in the same direction, we can be much more confident in our assertion that alcohol can produce some benefit.”

In other words, this hypothesis regarding bilirubin not only provides a new explanation for alcohol’s effects on humans, but also helps support existing research suggesting that these health benefits are significant.

Mukamal added that the benefits have been linked to the consumption of as little as half a standard drink each day.

He noted that health benefits caused by alcohol have been explained by everything from the benefits of good cholesterol to alcohol’s blood thinning properties. But, he said, these relationships do not entirely account for the health benefits reflected in past studies. The study, then, helps to explain some of what had not been accounted for in the past.

If these preliminary findings are supported by future studies, the question would remain if this increase in serum bilirubin is necessarily a good thing for the body, something that can only be discovered through extensive and broad research, Mukamal said.

The antioxidant properties of bilirubin do not necessarily mean it is a wholly positive actor in the body, said Robert Swift, pro-

fessor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown.

“Vitamin E is another antioxidant, and some people take it as a supplement,” he said. “It may actually prevent against heart disease, but it increases lung cancer in smokers. So, on the one hand, an antioxidant might be good for one organ system, but it could be deleterious in another organ system.”

Babies with high bilirubin, for instance, need treatment with high-powered lights to eliminate some of the chemical. On the other hand, adults with Gilbert’s Syndrome, a genetic variation affecting 5 percent of the U.S. population, are markedly less likely to develop heart disease, Swift said.

“The question remains what about low doses of alcohol is cardioprotective and protective against Alzheimer’s,” said Swift.

The study did not recommend anyone increase their alcohol consumption. Rather, it established a relationship between consumption and the production of one antioxidant whose benefits pale in comparison to the negative effects of alcohol poisoning.

Mukamal noted that while alcohol may be protective against heart disease, other research suggests that alcohol may increase the risk of breast cancer in women.

“And even if one drink is good, six are not better,” he said.

Individuals must be 21 years old to drink in the state of Connecticut.

Contact BRENDAN HELLWEG at brendan.hellweg@yale.edu .

No surprise, positive emotions mean more cooperation

BY LIONEL JIN STAFF REPORTER When people decide whether to make decisions that benefit the greater good at some personal cost, they tend to be more cooperative when they go with their gut than when they deliberate on the issue. Now, Yale researchers have provided greater insight into the processes that drive cooperation and determine how well people work together in everyday life.

Making use of data from 4,218 adult U.S. residents who participated in nine different social dilemma studies, as well as a smaller study involving 236 sub-

jects, the research found that positive emotions — feelings of gratitude, for instance — promote cooperation, whereas self-control significantly reduces cooperation. Surprisingly, negative emotions did not significantly decrease cooperation, according to the findings, published in Plos One on Jan. 27. “[Our work] helps to deepen our understanding of why people cooperate, which is fundamental to human society,” said David Rand, professor of psychology, economics and management at Yale and senior author of the study, in an email to the News.

June Gruber, professor of psychology at the University of Col-

orado Boulder and the other senior author of the study, said in an email that the results showing positive emotions as an important ingredient for cooperation were not surprising. From an evolutionary perspective, positive emotions serve a special role in building and maintaining vital social bonds, she explained.

These emotions are a critical piece of the glue that ties humans together and helps people survive in social communities, she added.

In the studies, participants had to decide what amount of money to keep for themselves and what amount to share, with all the money in the shared pool

being doubled and split evenly between participants. Seven of the nine studies involved groups of four participants, whereas the remaining two studies were twoplayer games. All were one-shot games, meaning that participants had no fear of suffering from consequences of their actions should they decide to be selfish.

In all the games, it was advantageous for each individual to keep as much money to himself, but it was better for the group if everyone decided to cooperate.

By asking participants to write down their thoughts about how they made their decisions and by analyzing the data using a tool called the Linguistic Inquiry and

Word Count, researchers managed to disentangle the contributions of the different cognitive processes. The LIWC is a text analysis program that categorizes words into one of 70 categories, which are meant to reflect individuals’ emotional and cognitive states.

People whose responses had more words in the “positive emotions” category were more likely to cooperate than those whose responses fell into the “inhibition” category.

“It is a very interesting study that sheds light on the psychological roots of cooperation,” said Joshua Greene, a professor of psychology at Harvard who was

not involved in the study. Greene added that identifying positive emotion and inhibition was an important step towards understanding why some people are more cooperative.

According to the study’s authors, the next step will be to further pin down the specific positive emotions that make people more inclined to work together. In particular, the researchers hope to explore possible differences resulting from self-focused emotions, like pride, as compared to other-focused emotions, such as compassion.

Contact LIONEL JIN at chentian.jin@yale.edu .

THAO DO/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

PLATO GREEK PHILOSOPHER

Bright stars, dim galaxies

ASHLYN OAKES/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

BY GEORGE SAUSSY STAFF REPORTER Astrophysicists now have a better idea of how fast the universe is expanding.

A study by an intercollegiate team of researchers has developed a new method of reading measurements taken from exploding stars called supernovae. These measurements are important in measuring the rate of expansion of the universe, and may lead to an understanding of the mysterious force called dark energy, which is hypothesized to be responsible for the expansion of the universe. It has been known since the 1990s that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate, a finding that contradicts the laws of physics as they are currently

understood, as one would expect gravity to make the universe’s expansion slow down. The work was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

“The big question in cosmology is dark energy,” said Claire Saunders, graduate student at University of California Berkeley and the study’s lead author.

Currently, many experimental efforts in astrophysics are focused on better measuring the cosmic history of dark energy in order to build better models of the universe’s evolution. One of those efforts — of which Charles Baltay, Yale professor of physics and study co-author, is a member — is focused on studying the light emitted by supernovae.

Data taken from supernovae’s positions and velocities give

accurate measurements of cosmic expansion. In order to accurately read those data, scientists must be able to take into account the “Doppler effect.” This effect causes light that comes from supernovae that are moving away from the Earth to have a wavelength that is slightly longer than it would be otherwise.

Fortunately, the light emitted by supernovae comes in only certain wave lengths, so by comparing data taken from actual supernovae to an idealized model, scientists can reason the velocity with which a supernova is moving toward or away from the Earth.

This study figured out a way to make those velocity estimates better by comparing snapshot measurements to measurements taken over time.

The challenge of learning the true nature of dark matter is one of the great open problems in physics, Saunders said.

“How do we have to modify the laws of physics to explain the expansion of the universe?” Baltay asked.

Baltay is also working to design a telescope for NASA which will increase the number of observable supernovae. The new telescope, called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, will constantly survey the sky for supernovae.

The research performed managed to reduce the error in observations by 50 percent, according to Greg Aldering, study co-author and professor of physics at University of California Berkeley.

With that decrease in error, scientists can take only one-fourth the

amount of data as before without affecting the quality of their conclusions.

“We believe that really new data can come from the space experiment,” said Baltay.

Baltay and another team also submitted for review last week a second paper on supernovae data.

In this paper, the researchers analyzed data collected from few different telescopes, comparing data sets across telescopes and calibration methods.

The researchers decided to use a data set of supernovae called the Nearby Supernova Factory.

Although other data sets exist, the researchers did not take data over time, eliminating the possibility of this kind of statistical analysis. Because of the quality of the NSNF data set, the team

CAROLINE TISDALE/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

was able to build an empirical model that could be applied to other supernovae data sets collected with alternative methods. Aldering said that because no complete model of supernovae dynamics exist, much of their work is empirical, and this type of analysis could only be done with observed data.

“We don’t know a lot about supernovae, and we have to try to use them as cosmological tools,” he said.

The research was published within a week of another study in the Astrophysical Journal, this one on galactic evolution.

Millions of galaxies have been observed, but only a very small number may hold the key to explaining much of cosmic history. These galaxies — which are far away, moving away fast and very old — are called “highredshifted” galaxies, so named because they appear red due to the Doppler effect. The team who performed the research, including Priyamvada Natarajan, professor of astrophysics at Yale and study co-author, found a novel method of finding these rare galaxies.

The method, called “gravitational lensing,” is used to spot faint galaxies, or galaxies that are dim from Earth’s perspective. The theory of general relativity postulates that light bends when it passes an extremely massive object, and the team was able to use this fact to look behind large galactic clusters, using their mass as a lens to see faint galaxies behind them.

“People are excited about galaxies at high redshift (z>6) because they tell us something about the beginning of structure formation [how galaxies are formed],” said Harald Ebeling, co-author of the study and professor of astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

These galaxies represent some of the first structures to be visible since light could be transmitted across the universe. However, up until now, only a handful have ever been discovered, preventing scientists from analyzing them.

Johan Richard, study coauthor and researcher at Université Lyon, said she plans to use the methods developed in this analysis on data taken from other clusters.

There are 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the universe.

Contact GEORGE SAUSSY at george.saussy@yale.edu .

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JUSTIN SEARS ’16 IVY HONORS — AGAIN For the ninth time in his career, Sears was named Ivy League Player of the Week after the Bulldogs swept Penn and Princeton. The junior forward stuffed the stat sheet with seven points, six assists and five blocks against the Quakers, and he put up 25 points against the Tigers.

NYASHA SARJU ’16 HONOR ROLL Sarju, a guard from Seattle, was named to the Ivy League Honor Roll after leading the Bulldogs with 13 points in Friday’s contest against Penn. She also added five points and five rebounds in the team’s narrow 56–50 loss to undefeated Princeton.

“The win over George Washington was a really good win for our team.

We all played really well against [the Colonials].”

ZIQI WANG ’18 MEN’S TENNIS YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Yale falls in ECAC quarterfinal MEN’S TENNIS

Elis compete in Windy City

BY MAYA SWEEDLER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Friday, the Yale gymnastics team rebounded from last week’s season-worst performance against Springfield College in a tri-school meet in the Windy City. The Bulldogs scored 190.750 points at the Navy Pier Quad Meet in Chicago, placing behind Iowa State’s 194.950 and Northern Illinois’s 194.475.

dogs were out of their time zone.

The competition, which began at 7 p.m. CST, ended late Friday night. Smith, who exhibitioned on the floor, went last for the Bulldogs, so her performance did not begin until after 10 p.m.

“For the most part, it was really fun competing against the new SEE GYMNASTICS PAGE 8

GYMNASTICS

JOEY YE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The men’s tennis team was defeated 4–0 by the Crimson in the quarterfinals of the ECAC tournament on Saturday.

BY JACOB MITCHELL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After defeating No. 61 George Washington 4–1 in the opening round of the 2015 ECAC Championship last Friday, the Yale men’s tennis team was blanked 4–0

by Harvard the following day in the quarterfinals.

Yale entered the tournament as the

ninth seed, one place behind George Washington. But the Bulldogs were able to successfully secure the doubles point at the outset of the match. The No. 2 doubles pair of Fedor Andrienko ’18 and Stefan Doehler ’18 and the No. 3 doubles pair of Tyler Lu ’17 and Alex Hagermoser ’17 both posted wins by two-point margins.

“We played really solid. We got the doubles point, which is huge for us. We

Bulldogs compete at U.S. Junior Olympics

have really been working on improving our doubles in practice,” Daniel Faierman ’15 said. “That’s always big because we have a lot of confidence in our abilities in singles.”

Faierman, who competed at the No. 4 spot in singles competition, clinched the win for the Bulldogs with a 6–2, 5–7, 6–4 SEE TENNIS PAGE 8

The annual meet is an Illinois Gymnastics Institute-sponsored event that invites top club, college and youth teams from all over the country to compete.

This year marked the first time Yale attended, and the first time the team as a whole has flown to a meet, according to Katherine Lucas ’15.

“The teams we went up against were definitely rankingwise better than us,” Sloan Smith ’18 said. “We did well against the teams, and against our personal bests. We can do better, but we made a good showing. I’m proud of all the girls and what we did.”

As of Feb. 16, Iowa State is ranked No. 27 in the country and Northern Illinois is No. 47.

In addition to facing more highly ranked teams, the Bull-

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Elis took on two nationally ranked teams in Northern Illinois and Iowa State on Friday.

Elis “disappointed” with fifth

BY GRIFFIN SMILOW CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Last weekend, the Yale women’s squash team competed in its final team competition of the season: the Howe Cup, the women’s collegiate squash national tournament.

SQUASH The No. 5 ranked Bulldogs (11–5, 4–3 Ivy) fell to No. 4 Princeton (12–3, 5–2 Ivy) by a 6–3 score. After the opening loss, however, Yale rebounded to claim two victories en route to a fifth-place finish.

“The final match score in [the Princeton] game didn’t reflect how tight the individual games were,” Isabella Norman-Ross ’15 said. “It was frustrating

to end on that note as we were so close, but everyone played well and gave their all.”

In the Princeton match, Jocelyn Lehman ’18, playing in the No. 8 position, lost in the fifth game 11–9. Shihui Mao ’15, playing as No. 2, was unable to capitalize on her 2–1 lead and conceded a five-game loss as well. Had these matches gone in the Yale’s favor, the women would have beaten the Tigers.

Princeton won largely on the strength of the top of its ladder, taking the top-four matches, while the Bulldogs won at five, seven and nine. Shiyuan Mao ’17, Annie Ballaine ’16 and Georgia Blatchford ’16 contributed wins for Yale.

Princeton’s 5–4 loss in the next round to eventual champion Harvard

demonstrated just how close the competition was this season.

The women were next slated to play No. 8 George Washington (9–7), but a blizzard, which produced 16 inches of snow in the Boston area, forced the Colonials to forfeit in order to ensure safe travel back to Washington, D.C. Yale beat the Colonials 8–1 earlier this season.

The forfeit advanced Yale to the consolation final against No. 6 Cornell (10–7, 3–4), which lost 6–3 to Yale in January.

The teams’ second meeting of the season ended just as the first did: a 6–3 Yale triumph. The victory showcased Yale’s depth, with Yale winning the fifth through ninth positions as well as SEE SQUASH PAGE 8

JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Lillie Lainoff ’17 is currently ranked 72nd in the nation in the sabre event.

BY ALEX WALKER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A representative from both the Yale men’s and women’s fencing teams competed on one of the sport’s largest stages last weekend — the 2015 Junior Olympics in Richmond.

FENCING

Avery Vella ’18, member of the Yale épée squad and a New Jersey native, competed in the under-20 épée tournament, where he finished 126th out of 246 fencers. Meanwhile, Lillie Lainoff ’17, who hails from Washington, D.C. and is a member of the sabre squad, took part in the junior women’s sabre event, finishing 74th out of 138 fencers.

SEE FENCING PAGE 8

STAT OF THE DAY 4

IRENE JIANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Bulldogs lost their opener against Princeton but managed to finish fifth in the Howe Cup tournament.

THE NUMBER OF TIMES THE YALE GYMNASTICS TEAM HAS POSTED SCORES OVER 190 THROUGH ITS FIRST FIVE CONTESTS THIS SEASON. The Bulldogs have posted scores of 195.9, 191.0, 191.375, 188.65 and 190.75 in each of their matches this season.