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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 66 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY CLEAR

25 7

CROSS CAMPUS

IMMUNE THERAPY NEW CANCER TRIALS BEGIN

INCREASED RIGOR

WINTER RECRUITMENT

“Structure of Networks” reformatted, made more difficult and capped

SOM HOSTS CASUAL INFO SESSIONS GLOBALLY

PAGES 10–11 SCI-TECH

PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY

PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY

Yale star out for the year

Je suis désolé. A Monday article published to the Yale Alumni Magazine’s website explored the reported deep “regret” that Fareed Zakaria ’86 has felt in defending Yale’s decision to withhold a series of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” a Yale University Press book published in 2009. Zakaria himself wrote retrospectively about the decision in a column for The Washington Post last month.

The Yale TKTK. Last night, Comedy Central’s “@ mignight” promoted the #MoreAccurateMascots hashtag campaign online, soliciting improved team names for various collegiate and professional franchises. Twitter users from around the globe took the opportunity to replace “The Yale Bulldogs” with “The Yale Silver Spoons” and “The Yale Iraq-Invading Presidents,” among others. Testing, testing. A recent piece

written in Salon Magazine made the argument that Yale and Harvard continue to over-value SAT scores, which writer Lani Guinier found to correlate with family income, in the admissions process. As a result, Guinier called for further class inclusivity.

The other Mike Posner. The

Yale Political Union takes on former Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner in a debate over enhanced interrogation this evening. No word yet on whether or not this Posner thinks he’s cooler than the singer.

(Side) Showcase. Today,

the School of Art’s “Side Show” exhibit kicks off at the 32 Edgewood Ave. Gallery, featuring 50 works by almost 30 artists.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

2012 Tony Reno is named Yale’s 34th head football coach, less than two months after competing agains t the Elis as a member of Harvard’s coaching staff. “I’m the right man for the job,” Reno proclaims in his inaugural press conference. Submit tips to Cross Campus

crosscampus@yaledailynews.com

ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus

PAGE 12 SPORTS

Navalny leaves 11 months of house arrest BY RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTER

mates and head coach Chris Gobrecht held out hope that the injury might be minor enough that Halejian could recover and make it back to the court this year. However, the official MRI showed a torn ACL, which means the

In the five years since Alexey Navalny’s time as a Yale World Fellow, he has run for mayor of Moscow, emerged as President Vladimir Putin’s most recognized domestic antagonist and avoided prison time for criminal embezzlement widely viewed as the Kremlin’s political revenge. And, just last week, Navalny snipped the electronic bracelet used by Russian authorities to keep an eye on his whereabouts, ending nearly 11 months of house arrest. Navalny — who came to Yale in 2010 to conduct research on how to refine his anticorruption message, according to Yale World Fellows Program Director Michael Cappello — was placed under strict house arrest last February under charges of corruption. The charges came after a secondplace finish in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. “House arrest was a way to isolate Mr. Navalny from his political and anti-corruptional activities and of course affected his work,” Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press aide, said in an email. “He was also prohibited from using Internet or phone or

SEE HALEJIAN PAGE 6

SEE WORLD FELLOW PAGE 4

An email from Dwight Hall late Monday night invited students to register for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, to be held next Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Volunteer opportunities include the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen and the New Haven People’s Center.

based screenwriter Timothy Cooper ’02 offered his script consultancy services to the general public in a Reddit AskMe-Anything forum yesterday. Participants passed a variety of movie ideas Cooper’s way — ranging from stoner comedies to coming-of-age stories — for his thoughts on their viability. For what it’s worth, we like the horror comedy about a spellcasting Abraham Lincoln.

Kylie Stannard named the next head coach of men’s soccer team

2010 WORLD FELLOW HAS BEEN STRONG CRITIC OF PUTIN

Yale Service Announcement.

Reddit review. Brooklyn-

NEW COACH

KATHRYN CRANDALL/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Guard Sarah Halejian ’15 was named first team All-Ivy in each of the past two seasons. BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER The Yale women’s basketball team returns from break with an unexpected and severe blow to the program: Captain and leading scorer Sarah Halejian ’15 will be out for the

remainder of the season due to a torn ACL. The injury happened on a drive with about two minutes left in the Bulldogs’s game against Oklahoma on Dec. 30. When landing, Halejian planted her foot in a position where the ligament could not hold. Team-

“American Novel” cancelled at last minute BY EMMA PLATOFF STAFF REPORTER Avid readers of American fiction will have to find a new way to spend Monday and Wednesday afternoons this semester. “The American Novel Since 1945,” a popular English and American Studies lecture that fulfills American literature requirements in both majors, was canceled Monday morning, less than three hours before its first scheduled meeting. Morse College Master and recently appointed Divisional Director of the Humanities Amy Hungerford announced in a post on the Classes v2 website that she decided not to teach the course due to extensive administrative responsibilities while serving in both roles. Emails were also

sent Monday to English and American Studies majors to notify them of the class’s cancellation. Despite these efforts, not all interested students heard the news in time, and many arrived at Linsly-Chittenden 101 still expecting to hear Hungerford’s first lecture. “I was slated to teach the course as a teaching overload,” Hungerford told the News in an email. “During the break I reevaluated the decision to teach above and beyond [administrative releases], and looking at the total picture of English and American Studies lecture offerings this term, and thinking about teaching fellow employment, the [directors of underSEE AMERICAN NOVEL PAGE 6

EMMA PLATOFF/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The lecture class “American Novel” was cancelled less than three hours before its first scheduled meeting.

MCDB major becomes more flexible BY EMMA PLATOFF AND STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTERS The largest science major at Yale is getting revamped. In two informational meetings, one held Monday night and the other planned for 5 p.m. today, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Director of Undergraduate Studies Douglas Kankel announced changes to the MCDB major. Last night, 60 students braved the rain to attend the first info session in the Kline Biology Tower, where Kankel explained that the largest changes, which will go into effect with the class of 2017, concern the bachelor of arts degree, though several changes were also made to the bachelor of science degree. Now, MCDB majors seeking BAs will only have to take 11.5 course credits — a significant decrease in requirements from 18 credits — while BS candidates will still be required to take 18.5, although they

will have more flexibility in choosing courses than before. Students in the class of 2016 and previous classes may elect to fulfill the new requirements, Kankel said. “We tried to construct a BA degree which we thought would continue to capture the essence of the education of biology, but substantially reduce the course requirements to make it more accessible to anyone who has an interest,” Kankel said. “The presumption is that there is a population of students out there who, in fact, have an interest in the biomedical sciences, but haven’t pursued that as an undergrad major at Yale simply because the cost of doing so is very high.” Formerly, Kankel explained, the major distinction between a BA degree and a BS degree was the senior requirement — the BS degree requires substantial independent research, while a BA requires little or none. Now, the SEE MCDB PAGE 4

City plans to keep homeless warm BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER With temperatures dropping into the single digits this month, local non-profits and City Hall are launching new programs to help the homeless find shelter. Meanwhile, while City Hall announced an “Extreme Cold Shelter Plan” last week that establishes a protocol during dangerously cold weather. The new plan calls on police to proactively work to get people off the streets and into shelters whenever the city issues extreme cold weather warnings. During the day, the homeless can take shelter at six designated “warming centers” in public buildings since many

homeless shelters are only open at night. “The city’s response plan is always a work-in-progress because conditions change and demands change,” said Laurence Grotheer, director of communications for Mayor Toni Harp. “I wouldn’t say that this is a firm model for the indefinite future. I think it’s always subject to modification as the city’s needs vary.” New Haven already provides homeless shelters and services as part of its core operations, Grotheer added. The new protocol lays out different strategies for bringing homeless men, women, families and youth into SEE HOMELESS PAGE 4


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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “For some of us (maybe a dwindling breed), books beat out twitter acyaledailynews.com/opinion

counts.”

The Pope I needed A

s I slouched on the sofa during spring break of 2013, I watched with mere academic interest as white smoke rose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel — a full two years too late. By the time the cardinals selected Francis, I had already cast off any religious sentiment a Catholic or even intellectual Protestant might attach to such a historical moment. I certainly felt no spiritual eagerness to learn what God had in store for the direction of Christianity over the course of Francis’s tenure. Had I heard the “Habemus Papam” and watched Pope Francis lead Christianity in a new direction just a few years earlier, my life might have turned out differently. Growing up in the hills of Appalachia in rural Georgia, the pews of my Methodist church were my greatest source of comfort. From an early age, I remember riding with my grandmother as we listened to church hymns on the radio en route to Sunday service every week. Though at first I was primarily interested in the candy the lay leaders would hand out, I eventually grew to appreciate the words coming from the pastor’s mouth. In time, my appetite only grew stronger as I thirsted for answers to life’s biggest questions. Soon I was a regular not just at Sunday service but also at the Sunday school that preceded it and the Wednesday volunteer work that followed. Church meant something to me: It gave me a sense that I was connected to some larger plan. More importantly, the community service that came along with it gave me a sense of noble purpose in which I believed deeply. Church and religion represented a way of life that rejected pride and focused energy on doing good and acting purely. So even as other members of my family stayed home on Sunday mornings, the lure of purpose drew me like a magnet to the chipped paint of that little white church on the mountain every week, without fail. As I matured in my intellectual thought and studied American history more thoroughly, I sought out ways to scale up the work of the church to have an even greater impact on the poor and marginalized. Yet I discovered, to my dismay, an active resistance to such solutions among my fellow Christians. We prepared food for the needy nearly every week but cowered away from tough conversations about institutional poverty on a national scale. We took up collections at church to help a sick congregation member afford medical bills but refused to talk about the

economic inequality plaguing our national health care system. And, as the final tipping point, TYLER talked at BLACKMON we length about the purity Back to and strength of love but Blackmon drove to suicide those who dared fall in love with someone of the same sex. We were timid. We Christians either never truly believed in helping those who could not help themselves, or else we were simply too cowardly to take bold, meaningful steps to do anything about it. The cascade of realizations left me disoriented, and eventually I just walked out, never looking back. But since that time, I have seen Pope Francis forge a path entirely different than that of the church I rejected late in my teens. His unapologetic commitment to combating poverty, rooting out corruption and even mitigating the effects of climate change has set him apart as a leader keenly aware of the large-scale sufferings many Christians have thus far conveniently rejected. He represents, in short, everything I wanted to believe about my religion so many years ago. In fact, had I seen such a bold vision articulated by Christians in my teenage years, I have little doubt my faith would have only grown stronger with age. If I am being honest, it is likely too late for the Pope and others like him to heal the deep wounds inflicted on me by an institution I once revered. My faith, once burning bright, has long since fizzled. Yet, despite it all, I still genuinely believe that Christianity can be a powerful force for good. Christians have the power to change our world for the better and to make our economic systems a little more just, a little more humane. If they do that, if they follow Pope Francis’s advice and recommit themselves to the eradication of poverty and the empowerment of the marginalized, they can keep those like me who grew frustrated with Christianity’s petty social battles from walking out the door. They can give us something in which to believe. I needed them to have that courage back then. Lots of others need them to have it right now. TYLER BLACKMON is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. His column runs on alternate Tuesdays. Contact him at tyler.blackmon@yale.edu

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COPYRIGHT 2015 — VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 66

'SKEPTIC' ON 'THE DNA EMPORIUM PRIZE'

NEWS’

VIEW The way forward on financial aid

T

he Yale College Council’s report on financial aid, presented to the administration Jan. 8 and released on social media yesterday, is a detailed, thorough and important look at the University’s means of providing for students who can’t afford a Yale education. The report makes a series of recommendations, based on findings from a survey of 1,191 undergraduates. Most significantly, the YCC is calling on the University to freeze the student effort portion of the financial aid program and devise a long-term plan for its elimination. We welcome the report — and applaud the YCC for this contribution, truly representative of the type of advocacy student government should do on behalf of its constituents. The 58-page document should be required reading for University President Peter Salovey, Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi and the entire financial aid office. The News endorses the YCC’s central proposal. Students should not be asked to contribute more to their financial aid package, as they have been forced to do every year but one since 2009. Rather, their contribution should be phased out, fulfilling Yale’s promise to be “accessible to stu-

dents from all walks of life” by ensuring that ballooning financial commitments don’t create two sort of lives at Yale: one encumbered by multiple campus jobs and summer obligations and the other free of these restraints. It is the stated view of the financial aid office that the student effort requirement is not an undue burden, but 68 percent of students surveyed by the YCC said they found it difficult to fulfill. The student effort component of the financial aid package is split into self-help (term-time earnings) and student income contribution (summer earnings), currently amounting to $4,475 for freshmen and $6,400 for upperclassmen. Administrators extol the virtues of the student contribution. They claim that financial aid recipients should have “skin in the game,” as they are quoted in the report, and that holding a student job is valuable. We fail to understand why these benefits apply only to students who qualify for financial aid. We fail to understand why lower-income students benefit from term-time and summer employment, while their wealthier peers do not. Yet this is the assumption Yale makes in maintaining this requirement.

A vibrant extracurricular culture is fundamental to the Yale College experience. Students here spend hours each week doing what they love outside the classroom — an opportunity compromised by the need to work 12 hours a week at a campus job, on top of course work. The report describes the matter well: “The current system divides Yalies into two classes of students: one group that has time to pursue the kind of activities that the Yale Admissions Office displays prominently on its website and in mailers to prospective students, and another which must instead work long hours each week to (almost) afford to study alongside their wealthier peers.” Still, we recognize that eliminating the student contribution will come at a substantial cost to the University. For this reason, while we do not believe the student effort requirement should exist, we are not calling on Yale to eliminate it tomorrow. Instead, we support the YCC’s recommendation that the administration create a timeline for phasing out student effort. It’s worth noting the historical importance of this report. In 2005, the YCC passed a resolution calling for a decrease in both

the family and student portions of financial aid. Following YCC meetings with administrators and student protests, the University expanded its financial aid program to reduce the family contribution for many students. The student contribution, however, was left untouched. The YCC and student activists continued lobbying for a reduction in the student contribution, and the University announced a nearly $2,000 reduction in the student term-time contribution in 2008. Over the past six years, however, the term-time contribution has increased by $750. Before last spring’s YCC election, the issue of financial aid was on the periphery of the council’s agenda. But in last April’s election, all four YCC presidential candidates incorporated financial aid reform into their platforms, taking aim specifically at the student contribution. The report on financial aid marks the first time the YCC has publicly advocated for the elimination of the student contribution. Yale has a robust financial aid program, one that is highly effective in attracting students from all backgrounds. The University’s next step should be to continue leveling the playing field for all students once they are here.

Please do the reading

THAO DO/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

S

hopping period is here again, and Yalies will spend the next few days attending packed classes, shuffling through syllabi and attempting to craft schedules that combine interesting classes with reasonable workloads. Yet, when weighing the difficulty levels of potential courses, I’d guess that most Yalies are more likely to be fazed by a class with a long final paper or difficult problem sets than one with a heavy reading list. This is because of a sad reality: Most Yalies simply don’t do the full reading for their classes. Many of us will choose our courses for the semester with no intention of getting through all, or even the majority, of the assigned reading. I remember the beginning of my freshman year, when I asked an upperclassman for tips about taking Directed Studies, and he advised me to “learn how to skim.” At first, I assumed that doing only some of the reading was a common coping strategy for the heavy workload of DS, and didn’t imagine that it was common for the rest of Yale. Yet, as I took courses in many other academic departments, I came to realize how few Yalies were doing the reading overall. I’ve attended lectures where rooms of fifty stayed silent when the professor asked a simple question about the second chapter of a book no one had read,

and seminars where discussions were filled with platitudes and empty g e n e ra l i z a tions because so few of SCOTT students GREENBERG the had finished the assigned The Segue works. I imagine most of us have been in lectures and seminars like these: where students put forth a great deal of effort on their essays and exams, but do little to none of the reading. There are probably several reasons why these courses are much more of a norm than we like to admit. While some of Yale’s savvier professors assign weekly reading responses, most courses don’t hold students accountable whatsoever for doing the reading. Some professors even assume that students haven’t done the reading and spend a good deal of class time reviewing the readings’ relevant details. Meanwhile, the stigma against being the “section jerk” — for lack of a more newsprintworthy term — provides a subtle social pressure against those who would do more reading than anyone else and make the rest of the class look bad. Yalies

often pride themselves on being collaborative rather than competitive, but this seems to be an instance where we collaborate to put forth less collective effort in our courses. If none of the right incentives are in place for Yale students to do the reading, the only thing that will motivate us to engage substantially with the assigned readings for our courses is if we think that doing so is intrinsically valuable. I’d like to offer a few reasons why we would get much more out of our classes if we did the reading. First, when everyone has done the reading, it makes a course exponentially better. This applies most directly to seminars and discussion sections: There is nothing like the experience of sitting in a room with 17 other people, each of whom has engaged with the same work and has come prepared with questions, ideas and opinions. Even in a lecture, the knowledge that students have done the reading carefully and thoroughly allows lecturers to bypass boring summaries and address deeper and more interesting topics. Second, readings only exist because both an author and a professor thought that a selection was worth reading in full, not partially. Authors don’t simply fill pages with needless words; in a well-written text, every word counts and every

paragraph has a separate, worthwhile point to make. Shakespeare is more beautiful than Sparknotes and Hobbes more convincing than the Wikipedia page about him. Meanwhile, professors don’t simply assign readings to make their syllabi longer; most professors take great care in picking works that say unique and important things for students to read. The authority of a text’s writer and of the professor who assigned it should convince us that doing the reading is worth our time. Finally, reading is a different and important way of acquiring knowledge. Unlike lectures and discussions, reading allows for the solitary, undisturbed contemplation of ideas. Unlike writing, reading has the power to put your own thoughts on hold as you immerse yourself in someone else’s world — whether the world of Dickens, or that of a physics researcher. Everyone who tours Yale learns that Sterling Memorial Library was built to be a “cathedral of knowledge,” a testament to the centrality of reading to the university experience. This semester, I hope that we recommit ourselves to the centrality of reading to all of our courses. SCOTT GREENBERG is a senior in Ezra Stiles College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at scott.greenberg@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“I get more spam than anyone I know.” BILL GATES CO-FOUNDER OF MICROSOFT

CORRECTIONS MONDAY, JAN. 12

A previous version of the article “New MOOCs begin today” misstated that that the number of students who chose the Signature Track in “Financial Markets” doubled. In fact, the percentage of students electing the track doubled.. A previous version of the article “Interfaith movement at Yale mirrors national trend” misstated that IFFY is the first official platform for multifaith conversation. In fact, it is the latest initiative out the Yale Chaplain’s Office to create a space for interfiath dialogue. Previous groups include the Multifaith Council and the Interreligious Leadership Council. A previous version of the article “YCC calls for financial aid reform” incorrectly referred to a 28.8 percent increase in the self-help requirement as a 22.4 percent increase in the student effort expectation. The student effort expectation — of which self-help is only a part — has risen by 26.7 percent.

University adds email security measures BY LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTER In an attempt to improve cybersecurity at the University, Yale Information Technology Services has introduced an additional security screening to all incoming Yale emails. The change will largely affect hyperlinks in email messages, examining web addresses outside of Yale’s network for malicious software or outside attempts to acquire sensitive information. In particular, the measures are aimed at combating malware and phishing attempts. Chief Information Security Officer Richard Mikelinich and Associate Chief Information Officer Jeff Capuano announced the new measures in an email to all students, faculty and staff on Dec. 12. “Incidents with email and phishing were impacting the email reputation of Yale and as a consequence some email vendors would limit or deny Yale email,” Associate Director of Strategic Communications for ITS Susan West wrote in an email. “These conditions required a response to restore the normal flow of email communications.” West said all links in emails — excluding web addresses that include yale.edu websites — will now be filtered against a list of known “hostile locations.” Links in an email will be rewritten by the Targeted Attack Protection, a comprehensive email security service, and be replaced by a longer URL. West added that the protection is needed since outside parties send emails to Yale accounts in an attempt to obtain Yale credentials, which are then used for a variety of illegal activities including identity theft, financial fraud and spamming. West said that since the implementation of the new security layer last month, some emails have experienced issues with the rewriting of the web address. She said that Yale ITS has since adjusted the software to prevent this type of glitch from happening in the future. Joanna Grama, director of the cyber security at EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit associa-

tion for information technology in higher education, said colleges and universities often face unique challenges in the information security realm because of the transparent and collaborative nature of research and education environments. She added that while she could not comment on the efficacy of Yale’s specific security control, many spam and phishing attempts often rely upon links embedded in an email. “Even in a well-informed community, users may inadvertently click on a link, particularly if an email is well-crafted,” she said. “Identifying and blocking or redirecting these hyperlinks can reduce such incidents and improve overall information security.” Kevin Jones, senior information security engineer for Thycotic Software, an IT security firm, noted that cyber security is always about multiple defenses since no system can ever be perfectly secure. He added that “educating the user” is often the strongest form of defense, specifically communicating to faculty and students the university’s policy regarding the solicitation of social security and other sensitive financial information. “Emails are a tricky thing to defend against since they are often used for legitimate purposes; technology has a hard time differentiating between legitimate and bad email,” Jones said. “Ensuring people have the right knowledge to make good decisions is always a good first step.” Despite the campus-wide email announcements, none of the six students interviewed — including three ITS student technicians — were aware of the changes or noticed anything different in their email links since returning from winter break. According to ITS policy, no email from Yale ITS will ever ask students or faculty to validate, confirm or update personal information and passwords. Contact LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu .

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“Structure of Networks” capped BY DAVID SHIMER STAFF REPORTER “The Structure of Networks,” widely known by undergraduates to be one of Yale’s most popular and least rigorous courses, has been capped and will now include a final exam this semester. Last spring, more than 500 students took the course, which currently has a workload rating of 1.6/5.0 on CourseTable. But professor of applied math Ronald Coifman, who teaches the course, said that this year, no more than 100 students can take his class, attendance will be more strictly enforced and the course will be more difficult than it used to be. “Last year, at least 80 percent of the class received an A,” he said. “But this year there will be more homework, participation requirements and the two exams are no longer takehome.” Students interviewed suggested that these changes may impact demand for the course. Owen Jones ’18 said he decided to take “Structure of Networks” in order to decrease his work-

load, but the course’s increased difficulty might push him to take something else. Varsity hockey player Henry Hart ’18 said many athletes take “Structure of Networks” because of its reputation on campus.

Last year, at least 80 percent of the class received an A. RONALD COIFMAN Professor of applied math “I’m in an all-athlete group chat from a fall economics course, and it blew up about ‘Structure of Networks,’ which is supposed to be a good fit for athletes because of its low rigor,” he said. “It seems like it is a class that doesn’t require a lot of work and lets you focus on other things.” Some students interested in the course also voiced concern that they will not be able to take it due to the new 100-person limit. But Coifman said the cap,

which was put in place for logistical reasons, would not prevent students from taking a different class on networks. Chris Reese ’18, who had originally planned to take the course, said the newly introduced cap is not only unnecessary, but also unfair. It adversely impacts hundreds of students, he said. “I’m angry I can’t take ‘Structure of Networks’ anymore,” he said. “There are tons of classes with more than 100 students, so I don’t see the need for a cap.” Because course materials for “Structure of Networks” used to be posted online, Coifman said just 50 to 150 students came to lecture. Now, the cap will enable him to insert a participation grade, which should lead to increased student attendance, he said. Coifman added that “Structure of Networks” should be more demanding of its students because it fulfills the quantitative reasoning distributional requirement. However, Kyle Deakins ’18 said easy QR courses benefit students focused on the humanities, so there should be

more of them. Mathematics professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Andrew Casson said his department does in fact keep humanities students in mind when designing its courses. “We have introduced nontechnical introductory courses that don’t, for instance, require calculus,” he said. “Instructors were interested in teaching them to students who wished to take quantitative courses rather than a sequence of quantitative courses.” Maddie Welte ’15 said that classes with a light workload could be a good fit for students trying to balance five classes. But Welte added that taking a course because of its lax reputation could backfire on students. “What happens a lot of the time is people take these classes and expect them to be easy and then don’t do as well as they thought they would,” she said. As of Monday night, 365 students were signed up for the class on Online Course Selection. Contact DAVID SHIMER at david.shimer@yale.edu .

Registrar’s office tweaks OCS

ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Changes to OCS encouraged many departments to implement a preregistration system that informed students of their status before Jan. 12. BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE STAFF REPORTER A year after Yale denied students access to Yale BlueBook Plus, a student-made course selection website since renamed CourseTable, the Registrar’s Office is making changes to its own official system. An email from University Registrar Gabriel Olszewski on Dec. 23 informed students that, after considering student and faculty feedback, Online Course Selection would open on Jan. 7 — five days before the start of classes — allowing more time for students and faculty to determine demand for classes. OCS will now also restrict the number of courses that students can add to their provisional schedules to 10. At the same time, course demand statistics have been reformatted in an effort to make the website easier to use. Further changes to the course selection process encouraged many departments to implement a pre-registration system, informing students of their status before Jan. 12. “These changes will give students more information and more clarity about their role and responsibility in the course selection period,” Olszweski said. However, despite the changes made by the Registrar’s Office, all 12 students interviewed said they do not feel more inclined to use OCS as a class search tool. Three

said they had not even heard of the changes. Agnes Galej ’17 said she does not like using OCS to explore the course offerings because the number of pop-up windows makes it difficult to navigate. She said operating the website was like an “exercise.” Yale BlueBook is instead the primary resource for students “shopping” for courses, according to nine of the 12 students. The website was created by Jared Shenson ’12 and Charlie Croom ’12 in January 2012 and acquired by the University at the end of that year. YBB was the first of a number of student-generated websites that retrieve course information, including student evaluations, from Yale’s official database and adapt it for student accessibility. The second most popular choice for students interviewed was CourseTable, an online system that developed from the banned Yale BlueBook Plus and allows students to see the classes that registered Facebook friends are shopping. Both websites also allow students to add an unlimited number of classes to their provisional schedule, compared to 10 on OCS. Sarah DiMagno ’18 said the availability of course demand statistics helped her narrow down her course schedule, as it allowed her to work out which capped classes she was likely to get into, particularly as a freshman who has not yet declared a

major. However, the availability of updated demand statistics does not necessarily fix the problem of oversubscribed classes, she said. Lecturer on early childhood education, Erika Christakis, who is teaching a new seminar called “Concept of the Problem Child” this semester, said that predicting final enrollment for a small section is difficult during early stages of the semester, but that she is eager to ensure that all students interested in the topics are able to pursue them. On Monday, her class, which was originally intended to be a seminar of 20 students, had 135 students signed up on OCS.

These changes will give students more information and clarity about their role. GABRIEL OLSZEWSKI University Registrar “The challenge is how to meet students’ expressed need for courses while being true to the seminar learning format,” she said. Nicholas Friedlander ’17, who was not aware of the OCS changes, said the changes will not improve the management of demand because many students

may not be able to find out if they will actually be accepted into a course until the end of shopping period. On Monday, Friedlander said as an example, he shopped “Drugs, Brain and Behavior,” a popular science lecture capped at 165 students. However, 290 students showed up, he said. “Yale students are often optimistic, and many will keep showing up to a class, even if the odds are against them,” he said. Olszweski said the changes to OCS will likely remain in place. For potential future developments, the next step would be to develop a new online interface that might replace the paperbased components of the course selection process, notably the course schedule that must be signed by a student’s advisor, he said. Friedlander — who said that he only uses OCS to print out his schedule for signing — said the number of options for course selection available to students means that changes to OCS may become redundant. If Yale streamlined the OCS system and combined it with the Bluebook, then students might start using it, he added. Yale BlueBook Plus was banned on Jan. 13, 2014 on the grounds that it violated Yale’s data regulations. Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu .


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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“I like the idea of being warm and secure. That’s what home should be.” ANDRE LEON TALLEY AMERICAN FASHION JOURNALIST

City works to help homeless in winter HOMELESS FROM PAGE 1 designated shelters. Specifically, the plans ensures that on nights with especially inclement weather, there are more police officers searching at night for vagrants without a place to stay. Police officers encourage them to seek a shelter or call 211, a statewide phone service that directs the homeless to the appropriate shelter in New Haven. Leanne Brewer, shelter manager of Life Haven, said most people who come to the door of the shelter at night are directed there by the police. As another part of the city’s protocol, both campuses of Yale— New Haven Hospital will accept homeless people who require medical attention, Grotheer said. Grotheer added that the efforts of nonprofit organizations that have been combatting homelessness, particularly chronic homelessness, are essential in helping address the problem. The U.S. Department of Hous-

ing and Urban Development mandated last spring that Continuums of Care — regional planning bodies that coordinate housing for the homeless — create a Coordinated Access Network, which creates one centralized “front door” to access community resources. A collaboration of private community organizations has designed CAN during the past year, and it is expected to take effect in two weeks. New Reach, a nonprofit organization with a small budget that provides shelter for around 150 mothers in New Haven, has been collaborating with partner organizations Christian Community Action, Columbus House and Emergency Shelter Management Services to create a comprehensive network of communication. Day called the program a “positive systemic approach to homelessness in the city,” though she added that she “expects bumps in the road.” She added that working with

the city’s department of community services in this endeavor had been essential to the initiative’s success. She said that New Reach currently receives 20 percent of its funding from the city government. “You have to work together with the city to make things happen,” said Day. John Bradley, the executive director of Liberty Community Services, which provides shelter for the homeless with mental illnesses and AIDS, said the network makes it easier for the homeless to find long-term housing. City Hall’s plan is the result of collaboration between Harp, the New Haven and Yale Police departments, New Haven Community Services and Yale—New Haven Hospital. Warming centers open during the day include Union Station and the New Haven Public Library. Contact FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS

City Hall is working with several community organizations to ensure the homeless stay warm during the winter.

Profs hope MCDB changes will have broader appeal MCDB FROM PAGE 1 tracks are further differentiated by the difference in the number of required courses. MCDB professor Mark Mooseker explained that the major changes to the BS major were to reduce the number of required electives from four to three and to expand the options

of core courses to allow more choice. The core requirement now includes options such as “Microbiology,” “Immunobiology,” “Physiological Systems” and “Neurobiology.” He said the main catalyst for the change came when the department stopped accepting Advanced Placement Biology exam scores as sufficient to place out of the former “Introduction

to Biology” series, and introduced the new “Foundations in Biology” series. This change effectively added two credits that most majors previously did not have to take. Kankel said he does not expect these changes to significantly increase the number of majors in the department, but he hopes they will make MCDB more appeal-

ing to students who would otherwise have elected a major in the humanities or social sciences. He added that the changes might also ease the difficulties associated with double majoring, which he said approximately 10 percent of MCDB majors elect to pursue. Fran Harris ’18, who attended last night’s meeting, said her current plan to double major in MCDB

YALE DAILY NEWS

Faculty hope that changes to the MCDB major will attract students who would otherwise major in the humanities or social sciences.

and applied mathematics while also fulfilling pre-med requirements would require 41 credits — five more than the necessary number to graduate — according to her calculations. But she added that the new BA option, which would make double majoring more accessible, did not appeal to her as much as the BS degree. The BS degree encompasses almost all of the pre-med requirements and is more research-focused, something that medical schools find particularly appealing, she said. Cayla Broton ’16, who is currently on the BS track, said she does not know of anyone on the BA track, but is glad the major is accommodating for other academic pursuits. According to Kankel, the vast majority of MCDB majors are pursuing BS degrees. “The major changes allow underclassmen to more fully grasp a liberal arts education, with less pressure to check off major requirement classes,” Broton said. “Were I currently a freshman or sophomore, I certainly would elect to have the changes. But currently I have completed too much of the original major for the changes to be relevant.” Ariel Hernandez-Levya ’16, a junior who has elected to fulfill the new requirements, said he did not like how the former requirements forced students to choose certain classes over others. For example, an undergraduate interested in

taking both Molecular Biology and Genetics was urged to choose only one of the courses under the previous system, he said. “I’m glad that I don’t feel like I’ve been betrayed and had to take any unnecessary or unwanted coursework,” Hernandez-Levya said. “I think the new guidelines for the major are more fair and give room for a student to seek out their own niche within the science.” Mariana Do Carmo ’17 said she barely notices the changes but is pleased with the increased flexibility of elective credits. A review completed by the Committee on Majors six years ago — which revealed that the MCDB major required far more courses than many of Yale’s other majors — also influenced the decision, Mooseker said. The Committee suggested that the department reduce the number of required courses, he added. While small adjustments are made to the major fairly regularly, significant changes are more rare, Kankel said, adding that this is the largest change made to the major in a long time. In the 2013–14 school year, 65 students graduated with a degree in MCDB. Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu and STEPHANIE ROGERS at stephanie.rogers@yale.edu .

Navalny’s house arrest ends WORLD FELLOW FROM PAGE 1 communicating with anybody except his family.” On Dec. 30, Navalny’s brother, Oleg, who was also charged in the fraud case, was ordered by a Russian court to serve three and a half years in prison. The verdict the same day that Navalny himself first breached his house arrest to join an unsanctioned government rally. Despite not being jailed for violating his house arrest, many view the brother’s sentencing as the Kremlin’s way of indirectly punishing Navalny while simultaneously preventing him from gaining respect as a jailed martyr. “Jailing a brother to punish the culprit is, on the one hand, a sophisticated ‘Stalinist’ way to inflict pain,” said Maxim Trudolyubov, the opinion editor of the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti and another world fellow. “On the other hand, it’s meant to prevent Alexey from getting any additional clout as a persecuted revolutionary because Alexey himself is not in jail.” Cappello said other world fellows have lobbied in their home countries and submitted formal complaints to Russian embassies worldwide, demanding that Navalny receive just treatment under appropriate international standards. Vince Perez, a 2005 world fellow who said he

has never met Navalny personally, said he wrote to the Russian ambassador in the Philippines following Navalny’s first arrest in December 2011. Yarmysh said the strictness of Navalny’s house arrest was softened in August when he was allowed to communicate with others besides close relatives, and he could begin meeting with work colleagues from home. The day of his brother’s sentencing, Yarmysh said Navalny was told he was spared jail time although he needed to remain under house arrest, which is illegal under Russian law. As a result, Navalny decided that his isolation was illegal and snipped his electronic bracelet.

House arrest was a way to isolate Mr. Navalny from his political and anticorruptional activities... KIRA YARMYSH Navalny’s press aide “The court has since denied all police attempts to place Mr. Navalny under house arrest again,” Yarmysh said. Yet, Navalny’s standing as the leader of Putin’s opposition movement has not come without its share of contro-

versy. Rather, racist remarks and controversial endorsements he has made on the campaign trail have some asking, in the words of a July 2013 Atlantic article, “Is Alexey Navalny a liberal or a nationalist?” For example, Navalny has participated in the annual Russian March, a nationalist mass demonstration in several major cities across Russia. Before his mayoral run, Navalny backed Stop Feeding the Caucasus, a nationalist-led campaign to cut financial support for the North Caucasus region. Navalny has come under sharp criticism for use of what some have characterized as racist slurs, including a derogatory term for Georgians that Navalny used during Russia’s war against Georgia in August 2008. He has also called on multiple occasions for the deportation of illegal immigrants. “I find nationalist and antiimmigration rhetoric repugnant,” said Marijeta Bozovic, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures. “However, I admire Navalny’s courage in the present circumstances and his ability to rouse an opposition.” Since the program’s inception in 2002, 257 Fellows have come to Yale representing 83 countries. Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AMERICAN FOUNDING FATHER

ConnCAN urges Malloy to improve education BY MICHELLE LIU STAFF REPORTER While Gov. Dannel Malloy and his staff have touted his administration’s efforts to improve education across the state, one advocacy group has urged the governor to take a more proactive role. Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), a pro-charter school nonprofit education group, held a press conference in Hartford hours before Malloy’s State of the State address last Wednesday, pressuring the governor to focus on what they believe is an “education crisis” in the state. ConnCAN supporters criticized

the administration in the press conference for trapping 40,000 students in 63 failing schools across the state. At the press conference, ConnCAN CEO Jennifer Alexander pushed for Malloy, the General Assembly and the state Board of Education to expand school options, such as charter schools, and to make education funding more equitable for children regardless of the school they attend. “We’ve built better schools, raised test scores, made college more affordable and put Connecticut on a path toward universal pre-kindergarten,” Malloy said in

his address a few hours later. In response to the address, Alexander said in a press release that, although she believes significant progress had been made, the governor and state legislature need to work faster to create excellent schools in the state. On Jan. 9, Big Six — a coalition of six Connecticut education organizations, including ConnCAN, the Connecticut Council for Education Reform and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association — released a set of expectations for elected officials during this year’s legislative session. These policy goals include a reduction of regulations in order

to encourage innovation in school districts, transparent funding and clear frameworks for accountability on school and district improvement. ConnCAN’s agenda has expanded locally as well. Its recent rally on the New Haven Green in December, held as part of the ForEveryChild coalition, gathered over 6,000 students, educators and parents from across the state. Mayor Toni Harp was slated to attend the rally, but did not appear. She later explained her absence in a New Haven Independent article, saying that she felt the rhetoric of the rally was too strong and negated the educational advance-

ments made in New Haven. A report released in September declared that eight schools in New Haven are failing. The report drew from data released by the Department of Education in the School Performance Index, looking at two standardized tests: The Connecticut Mastery Test and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test. However, New Haven Public Schools superintendent Garth Harries ’95 told the News in September that he believed the report contributed little to advancing the education discussion in New Haven, as it was already clear that schools in the city were underperforming, citing a faulty methodol-

ogy on ConnCAN’s part. New Haven public schools director of communications Abbe Smith told the News in September that this year, the school district is focusing particularly on LincolnBassett School and James Hillhouse High School, two of the failing schools. It is also slated to open a new alternative charter school in August 2015 with Achievement First, which runs five other charter schools in the city. The Connecticut Department of Education currently lacks a permanent commissioner. Contact MICHELLE LIU at michelle.liu@yale.edu .

SOM students aid recruitment BY VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTER While Yalies were enjoying the winter break, several graduate students at the School of Management teamed up with the school’s admissions office to host Winter Break Socials for prospective students around the globe. The annual event, held domestically in cities such as New York and San Francisco as well as in international locations such as Sydney and Shanghai, served as an information session for those interested in applying to the SOM. In contrast to formal information meetings hosted by admission officers, the Winter Break Socials were attended only by current students at the SOM and prospective candidates. The socials also had low attendance caps — 10 prospective students in most cases — highlighting the admissions office’s intention to create an informal and intimate setting. Students interviewed said the relaxed nature of the socials made communicating with potential applicants easier and more effective. “These events allow for small group conversations with current students in an informal atmosphere,” said Melissa Fogerty, deputy director of the SOM Admissions. “This helps prospective students gain a deeper insight into student life and the Yale SOM full-time MBA program by hearing firsthand accounts of our students’ experiences.” According to Fogerty, the Winter Socials were very well attended, and in larger markets such as Boston and New Delhi,

the events were sold out and had waitlists. But the attendance at each of the 30 events varied significantly from a dozen prospective students to only one. Student hosts interviewed all said the settings of the socials, which were mostly held at cafes and bars, created a positive and casual atmosphere. Given the small scale of the socials, Harvey Yang SOM ’16 said, prospective applicants had the chance to ask a range of questions — from the culture and academic experience at the SOM, to advice for the application process. Apart from answering these questions, many student hosts said they also had personal messages to impart upon the prospective candidates. “Hopefully, I imparted that we are a down-to-earth group, easy to get along with, and the type of people they would want to go to school with for two years,” said Rebecca Chan SOM ’16, who hosted the Seattle social. Yang said they focused on giving a candid view of their own experience by highlighting specifics about the SOM that they enjoyed, including the smaller class size, global focus and close community. Ashlee Tran SOM ’15, who hosted the San Francisco social, said she believes the socials are an important example of the SOM’s broader admission strategy. “It’s a great way for us to make a strong impression on candidates who may be coming through the admissions pipeline later on,” she said. “Some attendees weren’t applying for this upcoming cycle but instead for 2016, which reinforces the

YALE DAILY NEWS

Current SOM students spoke to prospective students at informal information sessions all over the country and the globe.. importance of these Winter Socials as a part of the SOM’s broader, long-term applicant outreach efforts.” Some of the host students had previously attended the Winter Break Socials themselves when they were prospective candidates, and all said the positive atmosphere of the socials con-

vinced them to apply. Hilde Dahmer SOM ’16 said the casual atmosphere made her more comfortable asking questions and that the friendliness of the hosts was indicative of the SOM’s atmosphere. While admissions officers did not attend the Winter Socials, the office was involved both

before and after the events, Fogerty said. Admissions officers assisted with the organization by coordinating student volunteers, posting events to their webpage and sending event invitations. After the events, the admissions office sent attendees a follow-up email inviting them to share their location and specific

interests to receive invitations to future events. Many attendees have continued to correspond with their Winter Social student hosts, she said. There are currently 614 graduate students enrolled at the SOM. Contact VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .

Public art scene grows in New Haven BY IN KYU CHUNG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER According to Andrew Wolf, the new director of New Haven’s Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, the Elm City has a shot at gaining global prestige for its emphasis on public art. Bloomberg Philanthropies is naming three global cities for public art this spring, and New Haven is planning to submit an exhibit titled “Omnigrid: Space, Plane, plus Time,” Wolf said. The installation, to be located in front of the Apple store on Broadway, will provide a three-dimensional “lenticular view of what New Haven looked like in the 19th century, with horses and buggies,” said Wolf. If the city is awarded the designation, it will receive at least $1 million over two years to support public art projects. In addition to the Omnigrid installation, the city is commissioning a public art project that has not yet been determined at the Helene Grant School. The project is part of the Percent for Art in Public Spaces Program, which dates back to 1981 municipal legislation that mandated one percent of city construction costs for remodeled buildings be reserved for commissioned art work. “Art is what brings people together,” Wolf said, adding that he hopes to use public art to attract tourists to New Haven. In conjunction with the city’s more recent $1.6 billion plan to renovate all new public schools, the Percent for Art Program has provided over 30 schools with works of art, and the Helene Grant School will be the newest addition after submissions are reviewed by a selection committee. Project coordinator Elizabeth AntleO’Donnell said that once the selection

committee is fully formed, it will review the candidates’ general portfolios, after which they will narrow the applicant pool to three to ask for site-specific proposals. The final decision will probably be made some time in March, AntleO’Donnell said. According to Wolf, Mayor Toni Harp is hoping to further expand the Percent for Art program with the support of Gov. Dannel Malloy. The value of these artworks in public spaces exceeds aesthetic pleasure, Wolf said. “It’s a job creator,” Wolf said. “When we put artists to work, we create subjobs for fabricators, painters, installers, definitely insurance agents.” Wolf also emphasized the role of art as a force that brings the community together. Though he said that the arts may lack the urgency of issues such as homelessness, he would not want to city to completely forsake it completely. Artist Suikang Zhao, who has worked on various public projects for the past 20 years, echoed the sentiment, noting that public art has the power to uplift people. His architecture, “Sky of Writing,” was integrated into the ceiling of New Haven’s Celentano School in 2003, commissioned by the Percent for Arts Program. “Public art is very convincing,” Zhao said. “It’s an open forum.” Zhao explained that in his design, he used light to symbolize that the students should have dreams for their future. After its renovation is complete, the Helene Grant School will be renamed the Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School after the former New Haven superintendent. Contact IN KYU CHUNG at inkyu.chung@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS

New Haven plans to submit an exhibit titled “Omnigrid: Space, Plane, plus Time” for contention to be named a global city for public art.


PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the injury — unless it’s completely debilitating — I’m going to be the same player I’ve always been.” KOBE BRYANT AMERICAN BASKETBALL PLAYER

Popular lecture canceled hours before first meeting

ALEXANDRA SCHMELING/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Students encountered an empty classroom when they tried to attend “American Novel” yesterday morning, only then learning of the course’s cancellation. AMERICAN NOVEL FROM PAGE 1 graduate studies] and I decided together to cancel the course.” University Registrar Gabriel Olszewski said that, though the department initiated the cancellation on Yale’s online system on Jan. 6, a glitch prevented the change from immediately appearing on any of the Online Course Information, Online Course Selection or Yale BlueBook sites. His office fixed the listing as soon as the relevant departments pointed out the delay, Olszewski added. At 1:30 p.m., when the class was scheduled to begin, a small

crowd of approximately 20 gathered in LC 101, where a message on the chalkboard announced the class’s cancellation. Students with majors ranging from English to electrical engineering expressed their disappointment that the course will not be offered this semester. Some students said they planned to use the class for distributional credit or had simply attended to watch their college master teach, while others said they had expected to use “American Novel” to satisfy major requirements. American Studies major Rafi Bildner ’16 said the last-minute cancellation was frustrating,

especially because the department generally asks majors to complete its American literature requirement by the end of their junior year.

I was slated to teach the course as a teaching overload. AMY HUNGERFORD Morse College Master and divisional director of the humanities However, American Stud-

ies Director of Undergraduate Studies Kathryn Dudley told the News that junior majors who had planned to use “American Novel Since 1945” this semester for the requirement would be able to postpone fulfilling it until next year. In an email to American Studies majors, she also identified several other courses available this semester that can satisfy the American literature requirement, including “Race and Gender in American Literature,” “Science Fiction” and “Contemporary African American Arts,” which is scheduled for a time slot similar to the one “American Novel” was supposed

to occupy. Hungerford wrote in her Classes v2 post that she does not expect the class’s cancellation to be a problem for English majors trying to fulfill their own American literature requirement, given the abundance of alternatives within the department, and that she plans to offer the course, which she has taught several times, next year. Its lectures from previous years are also available via Open Yale Courses, she added. English major Shannon Csorny ’15, who took “American Novel Since 1945” in spring 2012, said she thinks the cancellation

should have been announced earlier, but that the English department tends to be flexible in similar situations. “The American lit [requirement] is never really the source of stress in the English major,” Nicole Clark ’16 said in an email to the News, adding that the major’s other requirements tend be more difficult to fulfill. On Sunday, 104 students had already signed up for the course on Online Course Selection. As of Monday afternoon, 75 students were still signed up. Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .

Injury derails Halejian’s final season HALEJIAN FROM PAGE 1

KATHRYN CRANDALL/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Halejian was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year in the 2011–12 season.

captain will be out for the 15 remaining games of the season, effectively ending her college career. “There’s no question that it’s a real blow to the team since she’s the captain, the leading scorer,” Gobrecht said. “It’s a lot for our team to absorb.” Halejian has been a major cog in Yale’s attack over the past four seasons. She currently averages 14.9 points per game, seventh in the Ivy League. She also ranks second in the conference with 4.3 assists per game and was selected to the All-Ivy first team in each of the last two seasons. The captain also ranks highly on Yale career leaderboards. Her career average of 12.8 points per game is tied for seventh-best in school history, and she is one of just 19 Bulldogs to score 1,000 career points. Until this season, her durability had been a major positive for Yale. She had started 85 consecutive games for the program, dating back to her freshman season. “I am obviously extremely bummed about the injury and the fact that my Yale career has come to an unexpected close,” Halejian said. Despite losing such a crucial player at this point in the season, Gobrecht is confident that the team will still be able to keep up its performance. While the Bulldogs are just 5–8 this season, that record includes games against major conference foes Washington, Arizona State and Oklahoma. In addition, the Elis have compiled an impressive 4–1 record at home. In their first game without Halejian, the Elis were able to pull off a second-half comeback to defeat Maine 57–55. Guard Nyasha Sarju ’16 scored 18 points off the bench, while guard Tamara Simpson ’18 scored the game-winning layup with 10 seconds on the clock. Guard Lena Munzer ’17 made her first start of the season in the contest. Halejian plays point guard, but the Bulldog team does not run a classic offensive system where the point guard is responsible for calling the plays. The way the Bulldogs play, the guards are interchangeable — making it easier to replace any single player.

Gobrecht also explained that lineups are selected based on what team the Elis are heading up against. As a result, the team has had several different lineups throughout the year and is used to changing up players from game to game. “How well we play each night out and how hard we play doesn’t change just because you’ve lost a good player,” Gobrecht said. “You’re still accountable for the same effort and commitment.” Halejian’s injury has only increased the team’s motivation to win. Simpson explained that the team has been working hard and playing for Halejian, knowing that she would give anything to be on the court herself.

I plan to bounce back and still fulfill my goal of playing professional basketball in the future. SARAH HALEJIAN ’15 Gobrecht agrees, explaining that the team is more motivated than ever given that all team members want to play very hard and perform well in honor of Halejian. She added that it has been hard for the entire team on a very personal level, as they are very aware of Halejian’s love for the sport. The Bulldog captain has received immense support from teammates, coaches and the athletic administration over the last few weeks. She has also been rehabilitating her knee and strengthening the surrounding muscles in order to prepare for her surgery, which will be done some time in the next few weeks. Halejian, however, remains very positive about her recovery. “As devastated as I am, injuries happen to athletes all the time,” Halejian said. “I plan to bounce back and still fulfill my goal of playing professional basketball in the future.” Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

Sunny, with a temperature falling to around 19 by 5pm. Wind chill values between 10 and 15.

TOMORROW

THURSDAY

High of 27, low of 15.

High of 35, low of 22.

XKCD BY RANDALL MUNROE

ON CAMPUS TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 6:30 PM “Mental Health Services/Policy Discussion Group: “Mad or Bad; Crime or Craze: Current Policies and Social Impact of Violence & Mental Health.” Join the discussion on the fascinating overlap between patients treated in public sector psychiatry and the criminal justice system. Free admission, with prior registration required. Department of Psychiatry (300 George St.), 9th Floor Conference Room.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 12:00 PM Life and Death at Preah Vihear. This film screening, sponsored by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies, explores current political and cultural tensions between Cambodia and Thailand. It will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker David A. Feingold. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), Rm. 203. 12:30 PM Gallery Talk, A New Acquisition: Jasper John’s Untitled (1984). Deputy Director for Exhibitions, Programming and Education Pamela Franks and Richard S. Field, a noted Jasper Johns scholar and former curator of prints, drawings, and photographs, will lead a discussion on John’s Untitled (1984). Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.).

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15 8:00 PM Global Social Enterprise Annual Bar Night and Auction. Join the Spring Global Social Enterprise course at its Brazilian Carnival-themed auction and bar night at Russian Lady. All proceeds from this SOM event will go toward upcoming student projects with social enterprises based in São Paulo, Brazil. Russian Lady (114 Temple St.). Pre-sale tickets $10; $20 at the door.

y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit

XKCD BY RANDALL MUNROE

To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.) 2-2400 (after 5 p.m.) 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 JANUARY 13, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Tie with a cord 5 Acute anxiety 10 Miss from Madrid: Abbr. 14 Texter’s “That being said ...” 15 Get on the phone, say 16 Lustful look 17 *Miracle Mets center fielder 19 ‘‘If all __ fails ...’’ 20 Weed whacker 21 Friskies eater 22 “Your choice” 24 Skip over in pronunciation 26 *Creator of Daffy and Bugs 28 Nevada gambling city 29 __ for the course 31 Variety show 32 Dressing component 36 Nav. rank 37 *“Songs About Me” country singer 39 Dashboard meas. 41 Unsettled detail 42 Island near Venezuela 44 Mexican mama bear 45 Official records 49 *He voiced Buzz Lightyear in “Toy Story” 52 European toast 53 Come by 54 Fraternal club member 56 CCV x X 57 Roughly 58 *Three-time Super Bowlwinning Cowboys quarterback 61 Dumbfound 62 Wished (for) 63 Odometer unit 64 Pajama parts 65 Line in a ledger 66 Fret DOWN 1 Pester 2 Peter of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1969)

1/13/15

By Tom Uttormark and C.C. Burnikel

3 Chinese noodle dish 4 Unit of resistance 5 Bay __: Oakland’s locale 6 Tidy 7 Joke 8 Bad thing to make in public 9 Bad thing to get at work 10 Record protector 11 Takes over for 12 Trial in simulated conditions 13 “You __ My Sunshine” 18 Skating surface 23 Large game fish 25 Way in 26 High-level betrayal 27 “You betcha!” 29 __ de gallo: salsa fresca 30 Chevy hatchback 33 [I don’t remember the words] 34 Laudatory poems 35 Swedish furniture giant 37 Good sign from Ebert 38 Fargo’s state: Abbr.

Monday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU EASY

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©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

39 Yoga class rental 40 Before 43 They’re waved by conductors 46 Say “I do,” say 47 Husk-wrapped Mexican dish, and when divided in three parts, a hint to the answers to starred clues

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48 Never seen before 50 Supple 51 Scandalplagued energy giant 52 Enjoy the slopes 54 Watcher 55 Title for Godiva 57 East, to Ernst 59 Make a choice 60 Metric distances: Abbr.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“All I want to tell young people is that you’re not going to be anything in life unless you learn to commit to a goal. You have to reach deep within yourself to see if you are willing to make the sacrifices.” LOUIS ZAMPERINI U.S. OLYMPIC RUNNER

New coach for Elis

Yale sets sight for NCAA bid

YALE ATHLETICS PUBLICITY OFFICE

Kylie Stannard comes to Yale from the highly successful men’s soccer program at Michigan State. MEN’S SOCCER FROM PAGE 12 recruits after a tough 2014 season. Ultimately, Stannard will hope to lift Yale out of the mire that encompassed its one-win 2014 season and into title-winning future. Though the Elis will be transitioning to a new system with a new style of leadership, a number of current players have already spoken confidently about Stannard and the changes he is likely to bring to the program. “We have yet to meet with the coach, but from what I’ve heard he’s been very successful at Michigan State,” forward Teddy Mauze ’18 said. “Though the transition from Tompkins’ system to his might be difficult, nothing will be as hard as what we went through this fall. I’m tremendously excited to play for him and look forward to putting this past year’s season behind us. We’re all just optimistic about the future.” Keith Bond ’16 echoed Mauze’s optimism adding that Stannard will be trying to instill a winning mindset in the team right away and that he will push them in spring training so that they will be ready in the fall. Bond also said that he believed the team would have no trouble getting comfortable with Stannard’s coaching style and that they would be ready to go by the start of the spring season. Yale’s final game of the 2014 fall season was a 1-0 home loss to eventual Ivy League Champions Princeton. Contact MARC CUGNON at marc.cugnon@yale.edu .

KATHRYN CRANDALL/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

The Bulldogs finished their non-conference slate with a school-best 11–6 record. MEN’S BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 12 rent Rivard has allowed defenses to pay more attention to the Crimson frontcourt,” said Ian Halpern ’10, founder of Ivy Hoops Online, a site dedicated to Ivy League basketball. “There’s definitely reason to question Harvard’s undisputed claim on the ’15 Ivy hardware.” After shaking off a heartbreaking double overtime loss to Quinnipiac to open the season, Yale rattled off five straight wins including three in three days to claim the Men Against Breast Cancer Classic tournament back in late November. The Elis then demonstrated similar resiliency in response to its only blowout loss of the year, the 85–47 slipup at Florida, when the Bull-

CT schools battle at Yale TRACK FROM PAGE 12 time of 5:18.06. Borowski came in 26th in the same race with a time of 5:34.84. Stark was not the only Yale runner to compete in multiple races, as a fair number of the Yale women competed in various events. The last run was the 3,000-meter race where Claire EwingNelson ’18 earned Yale a 12th place position with a time of 10:49.56, and Sofia Kane ’18 earned a 15th place finish closely behind with a time of 10:56.64. Like the women, the Bulldog men also had a successful performance at the invitational scrimmages. In the

60-meter dash Torren Peebles ’17 crossed the finish line with a time of 7.14 in 10th place. Captain William Rowe ’15 led the Elis in the 400-meter dash with a time of 50.39 and a fifth place finish. Trailing closely — .48 seconds behind — was Mario Kranjac ’15 who took 10th place. Chandler Crusan ’15 and Dylan Hurley ’15 took 15th and 18th places with times of 53.08 and 53.35 respectively. Alexander McDonald ’16 and Austin Puleo ’16 led the Bulldogs in the 500meter run, taking 8th and 11th with 1:06.89 and 1:07.25 in a tightly contested top pack. The 800-meter race featured Matt Chisholm’18 with

FOLAKE OGUNMOLA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

At the 33rd Yale Invitational, the women’s track team won seven total events.

a time of 1:56.39 and thirdplace finish. “Since it is so early in the season, with this weekend being only our second meet and first since winter break, most of our training has been mileage intensive in order to build up our running base,” said Chisholm. “We were training hard right up until the meet as a team and continued to do so afterwards in hopes of possibly sacrificing early performance for later success.” In the 4x400 team race, Yale had several teams competing, with the top one earning third place with a time of 3:24.84. A young group featuring Mike Koller ’18, Jake Hoops ’18 and Luke Persichetti ’17 competed in field events, which included shot put and weight-throwing events. Hoops’s shot put was 11.78 meters — good for 29th place — while his weight throw was 8.30 meters, which was good for a 26th place finish. Persichetti earned seventh in the shot put event, the highest of the Yale men, with a throw of 15.28 meters. Koller’s performance in the high jump —1.84 meters — earned him a fourth place finish. Given the successful presence of underclassmen in competition, Chisholm is optimistic for the Eli men’s future. “We have a few young stars as seen in Kevin Dooney ’16, James Randon ’17 and Thomas Gmür ’18,” Chisolm said. “Be sure to look out for them when the races begin to heat up.” The track season is now in full tilt as Yale hosts Ivy League Rivals Dartmouth and Columbia on Jan. 24. Contact NADER RASTEGAR at nader.rastegar@yale.edu .

dogs beat Vermont, the team’s first win at Vermont in its last eight tries. The one-point victory over the Catamounts, a participant in the National Invitational Tournament a year ago, continued a trend of tight games all season long. Perhaps nowhere is that trend more evident than when analyzing Yale’s losses. Excluding the game at Florida — a Final Four participant a year ago and perennial contender for the national championship — the Bulldogs’ five other losses were close defeats that came down to the final buzzer. In fact, the average margin of defeat in those five losses is just five points. Furthermore, four of those losses came on the road, with two coming in double overtime affairs,

including one against Southeastern Conference member Vanderbilt. While Yale’s 11–6 record is still second in the Ivy League in terms of winning percentage, with Harvard coming in first, many on the team are not satisfied and believe the Elis’ record could have been even better. “Honestly if you had told us at the beginning of the season, would I be happy with 11 wins, I would have said ‘definitely,’” forward Matt Townsend ’15 said. “But I think all of us feel like that number could have been higher — 14–3 or something like that.” Regrets aside, the Bulldogs’ main priority and their number one goal still lies ahead of them: winning the Ivy League championship and advancing to the NCAA tourna-

ment, regardless of what the selection committee thinks of their resume. Members of the team have high hopes that they can accomplish that goal. “It’s been nice to play in some close games because that will give us late-game experience when games go down to the wire,” guard Jack Montague ’16 said. “This is a special team that can definitely win an Ivy League championship.” The team’s season continues this weekend’s tilt against Brown at the Pizzitola Center in Providence, where the Bears have won two straight contests against Yale and are 6–2 this season. Contact JAMES BADAS at james.badas@yale.edu .

Undefeated Ivy starts for swim teams

JANE KIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Shawn Nee ’18 set a Dartmouth pool record in the 100-yard backstroke previously held by Alex Righi ’06. SWIMMING FROM PAGE 12 by another week. “Our team work together to reach both our individual and team goals and I think it has really showed in our times this season and the new records we have set at these pools,” Hutchinson-Maddox said. The men’s team had similar success. At Cornell, James McNelis ’16 won both the one-meter dive and the three-meter dive. Meanwhile, the swimmers opened up the day with an intense race in the 200-yard medley relay, when the “A” team of Shawn Nee ’18, Andrew Heymann ’15, Alwin Firmansyah ’15 and Victor Zhang ’16 won by just over a second. Kei Hyogo ’18 and Ben Lerude ’17 set blistering paces in the 1000-yard freestyle, both finishing over 20 seconds ahead of the third place Cornell swimmer. Brian Hogan ’16 took home the 200-yard freestyle, while Nee won the 100-yard back-

stroke by only 0.02 seconds. The Bulldogs won the remaining 10 events, effectively shutting out Cornell from any chance at a victory and in the process, sweeping all 16 events. “Coming into the season, we knew that we could win all of our meets up to this point,” Jonathan Rutter ’18 said. “However, I think we surprised ourselves with how definitively we took down our closest rivals.” In Hanover, the 200-yard medley relay “A” team won yet again with a time of 1:31.15, falling just short of breaking the pool record of 1:31.02. Hyogo continued his impressive campaign, winning the 1000-yard freestyle, with Hogan finishing in second. Rob Harder ’15 and Rutter barely out-touched Misha Tovmashenko from Dartmouth to win first and second, respectively, in the 200-yard freestyle. Nee’s time of 49.46 in the 100-yard backstroke broke the pool record previously set by Alex

Righi ’06. The Elis won nine of the next 10 events and sealed their win over the Big Green and the Quakers, rounding out another nearly flawless meet. With only three meets left before the Ivy League Championships in February, the men’s and women’s teams are setting their sights on the end of the season. Hutchinson-Maddox and Rutter both said that the teams have goals set for the championships that push them through tough days during the season. “I’m feeling anxious and excited to see how we can perform at Ivies,” Zhou said. “Ivies [have been] on our minds since the start of the season.” The men’s team will be heading to New Jersey to face Penn State this weekend, while the women compete at home against New Hampshire at 2 p.m. on Jan. 17. Contact SYDNEY GLOVER at sydney.glover@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

AROUND THE IVIES

“The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.” MITCH DANIELS 49TH GOVERNOR OF INDIANA

H A R VA R D C R I M S O N

C O L U M B I A D A I LY S P E C TAT O R

Univ. did not defame former law student

Columbia under Title IX, II investigations

BY ANDREW DUEHREN A Massachusetts District Court judge ruled against former Law School student Megon Walker late last month in a lawsuit she brought against Harvard in 2012 for defamation and breach of contract, seeking injunctive relief. The ruling, a summary judgment, marks the end of a yearslong legal battle that began when Walker sued affiliates of the Law School for damages due to disciplinary actions levied against her after the school’s Administrative Board concluded that she had committed plagiarism in 2009. Walker named the Harvard Corporation, then-Law School Administrative Board chair Lloyd L. Weinreb and Ellen M. Cosgrove, the dean of students at the Law School, as defendants in the case. In 2009, Walker, then a thirdyear student at the Law School, submitted a draft article to the Law School’s Journal of Law and Technology. After editors at the journal noticed a number of directly plagiarized and incorrectly cited passages and notified the dean of students, the school’s Ad Board heard the case. The body then issued a “letter of

HARVARD

reprimand” to Walker, allowing her to graduate with her class, but leaving a permanent mark on her

transcript. The permanent mark was at the heart of Walker’s complaint. She not only argued that the Law School broke the procedures set out in its student handbook when it issued the reprimand, but that the plagiarized work did not represent a final submission, and, as such, the mark on her transcript represents defamation. According to the complaint, filed in 2012, a 2008 job offer to Walker was withdrawn after the firm learned of the reprimand, and Walker has had trouble holding a job since. In her complaint, Walker claims that the she knew the article she submitted to the journal had incorrect and incomplete citations because her computer suffered from a virus, damaging her work on the draft, but that she told the editors she planned to revise it.

BY TEO ARMUS Columbia is under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights for violations of Title IX and Title II, a spokesperson for the department confirmed to Spectator on Monday. According to the spokesperson, Columbia is under two investigations for violating Title II, which prohibits discrimination in educational institutions on the basis of ability, and one for violating Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. The investigations into Columbia opened Jan. 8. B a r n a rd , wh i c h wa s reported to be under investigation last week, is under a separate investigation for Title IX. “OCR has always considered Columbia and Barnard to be separate institutions and handled cases accordingly,” a spokesperson for the education department said in a statement to Spectator. Last April, 23 Barnard and Columbia students filed a federal complaint against the

COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR

Columbia is under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

COLUMBIA

U n i versity alleging violations of T itle IX, Title II and the Clery Act.

Columbia and Barnard join 93 other universities across the country that are also under investigation by the DOE. Barnard is the only women’s college on the list,

a spokesperson confirmed to Spectator last week. “We are committed to complying with Title IX and have no higher priority than protecting the safety and wellbeing of all who are part of our university community, and we will fully cooperate with OCR’s inquiry,” Columbia said in a statement sent to Spectator. “In light of recent guidance from the White House and OCR and new federal regulations, we have updated our poli-

cies, strengthened our procedures and enhanced our team of professionals dedicated to preventing and responding to sexual assault and other forms of gender-based misconduct. Major additional measures are planned, including a sexual violence prevention initiative involving students, faculty and genderviolence experts that will be announced shortly. In keeping with University policy, we cannot comment further on the OCR investigation.”


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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Influence of genes varies depends on era of birth BY LIONEL JIN STAFF REPORTER Those who carry a particular obesityrelated gene variant are more likely to be overweight. Yet, a new study shows that this same gene variant might not have predisposed previous generations to obesity if they were born before 1942. Analyzing data collected between 1971 and 2008 from over 3,000 subjects making up the offspring cohort of the Framingham Heart Study, researchers confirmed the link between the gene — known as FTO — and body mass index. People with a single copy of this allele had a BMI that was on average 0.5 units higher, corresponding to a 3-pound increase for the average adult. However, this correlation disappeared in subjects born before 1942, highlighting how the effects of our genes can change over time. “Our work shows that genetics is historically contingent,” said Nicholas Christakis ’84, professor of social and natural science at Yale and senior author of the paper. The era in which subjects are born or in which scientists do their work could affect the significance of genetic influences, he explained. If investigators had studied the effect of the FTO gene on obesity 40 years ago, they might have wrongly concluded that there was no relationship. It is not surprising that the genetic association differs between cohorts socialized in two very different environments, said Jason Boardman, director of

the Health and Society Program at University of Colorado Boulder, a researcher who was not involved in this study. Still, Boardman said that these findings are important for researchers and policy makers because they mark the pitfalls of generalizing from one cohort to the next. “Policies that were effective in changing health behaviors in one generation may not be particularly effective in successive generations,” he said. A different interplay of genetic and environmental factors may be responsible for obesity today, he added.

Policies that were effective in changing health behaviors in one generation may not be effective … in successive generations. JASON BOARDMAN Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder Previous studies only focused on how a specific environmental factor influenced genetic effects, and were furthermore limited to a narrow time period, said Niels Rosenquist, psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and lead author of the study. The interdisciplinary nature of this team — comprising experts in psychiatry, health policy, economics, genetics and sociology — was its strength, Rosenquist said. It enabled the researchers

to make sense of the longitudinal data that was available thanks to the unique nature of the Framingham Heart Study. The Framingham Heart Study started in 1948 and is now on its third generation of participants. “We brought certain methods to genetics that a lot of population geneticists don’t work with,” Rosenquist said. These mathematical tools, more typically used in social science, allowed the team to disentangle the effects that different factors have on obesity, Christakis added. The specific environmental changes between the 1940s and today that are responsible for the change, however, are yet to be identified. Studies linking environmental changes in particular regions to changes in gene-environment associations in these regions would help pin down these factors, the authors suggest. This work exemplifies how social and biological factors are in conversation with each other, Christakis said, an interplay that he will be exploring in his class “Health of the Public” this semester. Biology can play a role in culture, guiding our behavior and the social decisions we make; conversely, social experience and culture can play a role in biology, Christakis explained. The FTO risk allele is relatively common in the human population, with 65 percent of the study’s participants carrying at least one copy. Contact LIONEL JIN at chentian.jin@yale.edu .

THAO DO/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

To children, one might not be better than none BY MARTHA LONGLEY STAFF REPORTER Spite emerges in childhood, alongside more pro-social habits like cooperation and sharing, according to a recent psychological study. The study, conducted by a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and two psychology professors from Harvard and Boston University, shows that spite, not frustration, drives children ages four to nine to sacrifice Skittles to prevent their partners from getting greater amounts of Skittles. “If you think about a rational economic model, it’s not ideal that someone has more [Skittles than the other person], but one [Skittle] is better than nothing, so they should accept the offer

even though they’re at a disadvantageous position,” said lead author and post-doctoral fellow Katherine McAuliffe. “What we found is that people aren’t happy with that distribution. They would rather have nothing in many cases than deliver a better reward to their partner.” McAuliffe said that one way to interpret this behavior is to infer that children are being spiteful. She defined spitefulness as a willingness to inflict a cost on another even if it has no benefit to, or even hurts, the actor. While people have thought of spite as a motivational force among children before this study, this research is unique in that it eliminates punishment and frustration as potential motivations. For each round

of the experiment, one volunteer was chosen to be the actor, and he or she was confronted with different situations.

[People] would rather have nothing in many cases than deliver a better reward to their partner. KATHERINE MCAULIFFE Lead author and post-doctoral fellow, Yale In the first situation, one actor was to choose whether he wanted to get one Skittle and his partners to get four, or whether he wanted both to get zero Skit-

tles. In the second situation, his partner was automatically given four skittles, and the actor chose to either get one Skittle or zero Skittles. If the actor were to reject Skittles regardless of whether or not it meant that his partners would also get zero skittles, then his motivation was probably frustration, McAuliffe said. But if the children only chose to sacrifice the Skittle when it meant that their partners would also get zero skittles, the motivation would be spite. The majority of children ages 4–9 were more likely to reject one Skittle when it deprived their partner of Skittles, leaving spite as the primary motivation. Adults did not exhibit spiteful motivation. The study gives valuable

insight into how and when competitiveness and conceptions of equity develop in children, said Yale assistant professor of psychology and neurobiology Steve Chang. However, he added that the data on adults are less trustworthy, as adults probably cared less about Skittles than do children. He would like to see the same experiment done with something like money that would matter to adults. It would be interesting to see if the data change depending on if and to what extent the participants know each other, he added. McAuliffe acknowledged that the adults could also have reputational concerns arising from social norms that may not have as great of an influence on children. She suggested that a way

to test this in the future is to compare adults and children from different cultures. McAuliffe added that they are looking into accounting for the general need for whatever reward is being used. For example, before an experiment with Skittles, those administering the experiment could record subjects’ hunger level. Finally, she is planning on looking into third party intervention to see if people like to prevent inequity even when their own resources are not at stake. According to a Washington State University study, younger adults are more spiteful than older adults. Contact MARTHA LONGLEY at martha.longley@yale.edu .

KONSTANTINOS VYZAS/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR


YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

“I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light.” PATRICK SWAYZE ACTOR

Immunotherapy shows promise in cancer treatment BY STEVEN LEWIS STAFF REPORTER A team of researchers, led by scientists at Yale and the biotech company Genentech, have completed a phase I clinical trial for a new cancer immunotherapy and developed biomarkers to predict its efficacy in patients. The trial’s results look promising for the potential to use personalized medicine and immunotherapies to treat cancer. The drug tested in the clinical trial works by inhibiting a molecule that suppresses the immune system, preventing it from effectively identifying and destroying cancer cells. That molecule, present on many immune and cancer cells, is called programmed death-ligand 1 (PDL1). The treatment was given to patients with lung cancer, melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and other tumors, including gastric and colorectal cancer. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature on Nov. 27. “It shows for the first time that immunotherapy could be used in a major cancer indication outside of the expected cases like melanoma,” said one of the study’s senior authors and Vice President of Cancer Immunology at Genentech Ira Mellman GRD ’78. “This study extended this observation to many new cancers.” Of 175 eligible patients, 18 percent exhibited complete or partial responses. These results add legitimacy to a growing field of cancer research focused on immunotherapies, drugs that either inhibit the suppression of the immune system or enhance the patient’s already existing response to the cancer. “In many cases, as soon as you turn on the immune system to fight a tumor, you engage breaks like PD-L1. And this, in theory, is one of the main reasons why these strategies haven’t worked so well,” said Ron Winslow, deputy bureau chief of health and science at The Wall Street Journal, who also covers cancer research. “As a result, there has been some skepticism and even cynicism among oncologists until recently that this was even

a viable strategy to pursue.” The researchers developed biomarkers for responses to this treatment based on a surprising finding. Jamie Harden, a postdoctoral associate at Rockefeller University who was not involved in the study, explained that, for the treatment to be effective, it is more important that the immune cells express PD-L1 than the actual tumor cells themselves. The expression of PD-L1 on infiltrating immune cells could then be used to screen patients for this treatment. “We found that those patients [whose immune cells were expressing PD-L1] prior to treatment would have a significantly higher chance of responding to the treatment than those patients not expressing a marker,” Mellman said. He added that these biomarkers are readily testable by doctors.

There has been some skepticism and even cynicism among oncologists until recently. RON WINSLOW Deputy bureau chief, WSJ According to Associate Director of the Yale Cancer Center and professor of Medical Oncology and Pharmacology Roy Herbst ’84, who is also the study’s lead author, the researchers were able to develop these biomarkers by adding basic science research to a clinical study. They not only treated patients and recorded responses, but also attempted to understand the mechanisms by which the treatment worked in some patients but not others. Herbst said the development of this biomarker opens up the door for personalized treatment. “We can know who will benefit in advance,” he said. The study challenges the commonly held assumption that PD-L1 expression on tumor cells, not the infiltrating immune cells, would dictate the immune system’s response to the cancer. Mellman said that this cru-

SUSAN MARTZ/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

cial finding would not have been made in mouse models. “When you study patient populations at this level of detail you get insights into how the immune system works in humans that can be significantly different from what you see in mice, and it emphasizes the important of doing basic science using humans as your organism,” Mellman said. “It’s not

enough to do it in mice and try to translate it to humans. It often doesn’t work.” Mellman said the researchers at Genentech plan to investigate why some patients did not respond to the drug and whether a combination of treatments would improve responses. Herbst said Yale researchers will continue to work with Genentech to answer those questions,

and also investigate why certain patients’ tumors did not express PD-L1, and why those patients did not respond well to the treatment. Although the results of the study and the potential for personalized medicine and combination immunotherapies are encouraging, Winslow said some caution is necessary. “The percentage of patients

who responded both overall and in the individual cancers was still a pretty small fraction, so there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. According to the NIH, there are approximately 800 immunotherapy drug clinical trials underway nationwide. Contact STEVEN LEWIS at steven.lewis@yale.edu .

IQ takes a hit with longer lasting psychosis

ZISHI LI/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

BY ERIN WANG STAFF REPORTER A 10-year-long Scandinavian study has shed light on a small group of schizophrenic patients who suffer a greater decline in IQ over time than most patients. Researchers at the University of Oslo and Yale have discovered that people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia often have a more positive illness trajectory than was previously thought. However, a subgroup of the study’s patients who experienced repeated psychosis after receiving treatment demonstrated significant deterioration of verbal recall and working memory ability over time. In other words, those who had a longer duration of psychosis after starting treatment saw their IQs

drop more than those who experienced a shorter duration of psychosis. These findings emphasize the need for patients at higher risk to be monitored more closely in order to detect episodes before they manifest themselves, according to secondary author and University of Oslo professor of neuropsychology Kjetil Sundet. He added that the ultimate goal in treating schizophrenic patients is to notice these warning signs before the onset of even the first psychotic episode. So far, this study is the longest lasting of its kind to investigate whether the course of IQ is affected by duration of psychosis before treatment and duration of psychosis after treatment. Researchers found that the overall IQ of all 89 patients studied

remained stable over time. But when they divided the sample into subgroups based on duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) and duration after treatment (DAT), they discovered that the length of DUP did not affect cognitive ability, while the length of DAT did correlate with cognitive decline. Patients with the longest DAT performed significantly worse on tests of intellectual ability over time compared to those with the shortest DAT. Some patients in the study saw a slight increase in IQ, which explains the overall consistency in IQ. Additionally, the group with the longest DAT had a slightly lower baseline IQ at the start of the study than other groups, suggesting that lower IQ may indicate increased risk for a more severe course of illness.

This study was inspired by the Early Treatment and Intervention in Psychosis Study, led by co-primary investigators Svein Friis, professor of psychiatry at University of Oslo, and Thomas McGlashan, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Yale University. The main goal of that project was to find out if an Early Detection and Early Intervention program could reduce duration of untreated psychosis, and if that could improve quality of life outcomes, according to Friis. “Without [McGlashan], this large-scale study would hardly have been possible,” Sundet said. “He inspired and enabled his colleagues to do this research.” Although the results of this study do not provide any causal explanations of the relationship between longer illness duration

after treatment and cognitive decline, the authors have offered several possible hypotheses. Because patients with greater intellectual impairments had a lower baseline IQ to begin with, they hypothesized that those patients may have possessed a lower cognitive reserve in general, hindering their ability to inhibit psychotic symptoms. Alternatively, the researchers have proposed the existence of a distinct subtype of schizophrenia that causes more severe cognitive decline as well as longer psychotic episodes. That hypothesis is based on recent studies on certain patients’ genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia. Though the findings of this study fall in line with previous schizophrenia-spectrum disorder studies, the study relied

largely on human memory for its data, adding an element of uncertainty to the results. According to Sundet, the general opinion of schizophreniaspectrum disorders was much bleaker 20 years ago at the beginning of the study, when it was thought that having schizophrenia necessarily meant a major interference with normal life. However, nowadays most patients can live a good life with treatment and medication, and some people suffer only one episode their entire lives, he added. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, schizophrenia affects 1.1 percent of the U.S. population ages 18 and older. Contact ERIN WANG at erin.wang@yale.edu .


IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

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SPORTS QUICK HITS

MAKAI MASON ’18 ROOKIE OF THE WEK The Greenfield, Mass. native found his touch in non-conference games against NJIT and Daniel Webster, hitting 10–14 shots from the field and scoring 31 total points. He also contributed three steals en route to being recognized as the Ivy League Rookie of the Week.

NBA Pistons 114 Raptors 111

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NHL Capitals 2 Avalanche 1

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NYASHA SARJU ’16 STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE In the Elis’ first game without injured captain Sarah Halejian ’15, Sarju took over as the top scorer, putting up 18 points on nine shots. Her success drew defenders from guard Tamara Simpson ’18, who hit a game-winner vs. Maine. Both were named to the Ivy Honor Roll.

“This is a special team that can definitely win an Ivy League championship.” JACK MONTAGUE ’16 MEN’S BASKETBALL YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Men’s soccer finds new leader BY MARC CUGNON STAFF REPORTER After one of its least successful seasons in decades, the Yale men’s soccer team will have a new coach at its helm this spring.

MEN’S SOCCER The Elis will now be led by Kylie Stannard as they seek to rebound from a historically poor 1–13–3 season. Stannard’s hiring comes after the departure of Brian Tomkins, one of Yale’s most decorated head coaches, who led the Bulldogs for 19 seasons and announced his retirement before the 2014 season. Stannard comes to Yale from the highly successful Michigan State program, where he spent six years. In his time there, Michigan State made five NCAA tournament appearances and reached the tournament’s Elite Eight each of the past two years. The Spartans were one of two teams to make backto-back quarterfinal appearances and entered last season’s tournament as the

No. 3 seed. “Kylie has a terrific reputation in the coaching community for being smart, talented and hard-working,” Tompkins said. “I’m sure his impact on all areas of the soccer program will be immediate and positive.” Stannard’s performance as an associate head coach at Michigan State helped him compile a 69–43–18 record during his six years with the university — a promising prospect for a Yale squad looking to reverse its fortunes in the coming season. This past season the Spartans notched a record-setting 14 wins. Stannard helped compile a top-40 recruiting class in each of his six years with Michigan, a feat which peaked with last year’s No. 8 ranked class. While the possibility of an Ivy League school attaining a top-10 recruiting class is an ambitious goal, Stannard’s experience with recruiting top-flight high school players could certainly prove a boon to a Bulldog squad that will have to work hard for its SEE MEN’S SOCCER PAGE 8

Track hosts 33rd Yale Invitational

Elis excel in non-conference play BASKETBALL

KATHRYN CRANDALL/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Forward Justin Sears ’16 led the team in rebounds and blocks per game in non-conference contests. BY JAMES BADAS STAFF REPORTER Although half of the Ivy League teams have already commenced conference play, Yale still has the remainder of the week to rest up for its first league matchup — a road test at Brown on Saturday afternoon. The game against Brown will come after a strong start to the season for the Elis. In 17 games — a total that no other Ivy team has topped — Yale escaped non-conference play with an 11–6 mark, notching the most wins in school history prior to league play. “It’s nice to have the 11 wins but we’re still hungry and we know we haven’t reached our potential yet,” forward Justin Sears ’16 said. “We’re still going to push and fight in practice and hopefully we can pull off a good

record in Ivy play.” At the University of Connecticut, the defending national champions, a Dec. 5 upset thriller propelled the Elis to an 8–2 mark. Soon afterward, some fans began considering the possibility of Yale earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament should Ivy League favorite Harvard win the league and the automatic berth that comes with it. Such a scenario would make Ivy League history, as the conference has never seen two of its own compete in March Madness. “That would be great,” point guard Javier Duren ’15 said. “I think the Ivy League has earned the right to be a two-bid league based on the postseason successes in the past seasons across the league.” Yale’s hopes at an at-large bid have likely been dashed since, how-

ever, as a blowout loss to Florida just three days after the UConn victory and three tight losses since then have blemished the Elis’ resume. Nevertheless, that resume is still one of Yale’s most impressive in recent years. That, paired with some Harvard struggles thus far — especially on the offensive end, where the Crimson ranks next-to-last in scoring — has some in the media thinking the Crimson may not be the surefire favorite this year. Prior to the start of the season, Harvard was selected as the unanimous frontrunner in the preseason media poll to win the conference title. “[Harvard guard Siyani] Chambers is having a real down year offensively and the loss of sharpshooter LauSEE MEN’S BASKETBALL PAGE 8

Elis break records in the pool BY SYDNEY GLOVER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Yale men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams rounded out winter break with a bang by defeating Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn last week, continuing both teams’ undefeated streaks as they head into a new semester.

FOLAKE OGUNMOLA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

A strong performance from underclassmen propelled the Bulldogs in the Yale Invitational. BY NADER RASTEGAR CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Cox Cage, home of the Yale men and women’s indoor track and field teams, was buzzing this past weekend when the Bulldogs hosted the 33rd annual Track and Field Invitational — a highly competitive track scrimmage.

TRACK & FIELD Many neighboring Connecticut schools — including Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart, University of New Haven, UConn and Wesleyan — made the trip to Cox Cage in order to compete against the Bulldogs. Both Eli squads started the new year in full stride as the women’s program picked up seven event wins and the men’s squad demonstrated steady improvement, according to members of the team. “Overall, performances on the women’s side were strong considering the meet is right after Christmas break,” said Katerra Logan’17. “In practice, we need to focus on continuing to elevate our intensity and overall moral in preparation for the [Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia] meet in two weeks.” The Eli women had many standout performances to earn their first place finish at the invitational. In the 200-

meter dash, Emily Cable ’15 earned a third-place finish with a time of 25.03 seconds. In the same race, Renee Vogel ’16 edged into the top 50, with a 49th place finish and time of 28.70. In the 500-meter race running duo Elle Brunsdale ’15 and Shannon McDonnell ’16 finished in fifth and sixth place with times of 1:16.89 and 1:16.91 respectively. Brunsdale and McDonnell’s times were remarkably only .02 seconds apart. In the same race Yale’s Grace Brittan ’15 came in 21st with a time of 1:22.34. For the 800-meter race, Emily Waligurski ’16 and Dana Klein ’18 took second and third place respectively with times of 2:15.81 and 2:19.92. Not far behind in sixth place was Kate Raphael ’18 with a time of 2:21.03. Melissa Fairchild ’18 just barely missed a top-10 finish in the 800 with a time of 2:22.97, edged out by a fraction of a second in a closely contested race. In the same race Emily Stark ’15, Anna Demaree ’15 and Julia Borowski ’18 took 20th, 28th and 29th. Stark, who already ran the 800-meter race, also finished third in the one-mile run with a quick 5:03.95 pace. Behind her was Yale’s Rachel Jones ’16 with a 5:10.97 time, and behind Jones was Demaree with a SEE TRACK PAGE 8

STAT OF THE DAY 12.8

SWIM & DIVE

YALE DAILY NEWS

In the men’s team’s meet against Cornell, the Bulldogs swept all 16 events.

The women defeated Cornell 200–100 and took down Dartmouth 243–57 and Penn 187.5– 112.5, while the men trounced Cornell 215–85, Dartmouth 216– 84 and Penn 217–82. The wins for the men’s team were its largest margins of victory since defeating Dartmouth 234.5–65.5 in 2010. Both teams pushed their unblemished conference records to 4–0 on the season. “It feels amazing to be undefeated this season, beating out Penn, Dartmouth and Cornell this past week,” Isla Hutchinson-Maddox ’17 said. The women began the Cornell meet with Lilybet MacRae ’17 taking on the three-meter and onemeter dives, securing victories in both. Her three-meter score of 317.11 points set a new record at the Cornell pool. The Yale swimmers started their day with first and second place finishes in the 200-yard medley relay. The “A” team of Amy Zhao ’18, Pauline Kaminski ’18,

Sydney Hirschi ’17 and Kina Zhou ’17 took home the victory in a time of 1:46.61, defeating third-place Cornell by two seconds. Eva Fabian ’16 continued her streak of outstanding finishes with a victory in the 1,000-yard freestyle, finishing 20 seconds ahead of Cornell’s top swimmer in the event. Victories continued for Yale in the next five events, until the Big Red snapped the streak in the 100-yard freestyle. But the Bulldogs came back and took home five of the remaining six events, rounding out the day with a win in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Against Dartmouth and Penn, MacRae pulled off another victory in the three-meter dive to start the day. The swimmers started strong with wins in the 200-yard medley relay and the 1,000-yard freestyle, in which Cailley Silbert ’18 beat out Fabian for first place by two seconds and set a new Dartmouth pool record of 10:01.31. That relay team also set a new pool record of 1:44.54. Michelle Chintanaphol ’17 and Kaminski won the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard breaststroke, respectively, while HutchinsonMaddox succeeded in the 200yard butterfly. And in the 500yard freestyle, Fabian broke the pool record, setting the mark at 4:55.57. The women finished the meet well ahead of second-place Penn, extending their undefeated streak SEE SWIMMING PAGE 8

THE CAREER POINTS PER GAME AVERAGE OF SARAH HALEJIAN ’15. Halejian’s career average lands her a ranking tied for seventh in all-time points per game averages for Yale women’s basketball.


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