Yale Daily News — Week of March 12

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 19 · yaledailynews.com

Yale College scraps traditional shopping period

BY JULIA BIALEK STAFF REPORTER Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors will now have to register for fall courses at the end of the spring semester. Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun announced the new registration timeline for the fall 2021 term in an email to undergraduates on March 8, following the pandemic’s acceleration of a long-planned change to an early class registration system.

In the past, course registration has taken place in the weeks immediately preceding a semester. But this year, Yale College is joining many of its peer institutions and shifting to an early class registration system that will take place the semester before the term in question for currently enrolled students and students returning from a leave of absence, with first years, reinstated students, new Eli Whitney students and transfer students registering during an add/drop period in the fall. The change was made in

response to what Chun described as long-standing student and faculty frustration with the previous registration system and shopping period.

“We are responding to long-standing requests from students and from faculty to have a process that gives students more certainty about which classes they are in or not,” Chun told the News, adding that the plan has been over five years in the making.

“In particular, it matters the most for limited enrollment classes. In the past, when we tried to do it at the beginning of the term, it was very rushed, stressful and somewhat disorganized because everyone was on their own timelines.

Another big part of early registration is to organize and align registration so that everyone can count on having the best information available.”

According to an email sent to undergraduates on Monday, Yale Course Search will go live on SEE REGISTRATION PAGE 4

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The early course registration period for the spring will end on May 28, over a week after the final examination period ends.

Dubois-Walton starts exploratory committee The 'Healthy Yale'

Fence that wasn't

LUCY HODGMAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER DANIEL ZHAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Dubois-Walton addressed a crowd of roughly 100 supporters and campaign staff on Wilmot Rd. in West Rock.

BY THOMAS BIRMINGHAM AND OWEN TUCKER-SMITH STAFF REPORTERS On Monday afternoon, Karen DuBois-Walton ’89 — president of Elm City Communities, the Housing Authority of New Haven —

publicly launched an exploratory committee for the 2021 New Haven mayoral Democratic primary.

The Yale alumna addressed a crowd of roughly 100 supporters and campaign staff outside the Community Center on Wilmot Road in West Rock, promis-

ing to deliver a “New Haven for All” should she reach the mayor’s office. She stressed her experience at Elm City Communities and said her exploratory committee is meant to stimulate the same SEE MAYORAL PAGE 4

The fence was removed on March 7 after OPAC learned it was in violation of university policy.

BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER Campus and social media was recently abuzz with speculation about the origins of a mysterious fence that appeared on Cross Campus — a fence that has since been removed as stealthily as it appeared.

The fence was installed by the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communication, in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, as part of OPAC’s “Healthy Yale” campaign. Although initially intended to serve as the foundation SEE FENCE PAGE 5

Humanities Quadrangle NHPS high schools to reopen on April 5 opens its doors — to some

BY CHRISTIAN ROBLES STAFF REPORTER

BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER Formerly known as the Hall of Graduate Studies, the Human-

ities Quadrangle Building at 320 York St. is now open and in use for department staff, faculty and SEE HUMANITIES PAGE 5

YALE DAILY NEWS

18 units will occupy the building, including Comparative Literature, French, History, the Humanities Program, Judaic Studies, Spanish and Portuguese.

CROSS CAMPUS THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1964.

The University announces that four English professors — Thomas M. Greene, Alvin B. Kernan, Richard S. Sylvester and Harold Bloom — get tenure appointments.

After offering an in-person hybrid learning option for elementary and middle school students, New Haven Public Schools has now announced that they will welcome back high school students in the first week of April.

The superintendent, Iline Tracey, sent a message to the NHPS community and Board of Education members Friday that high school students will have hybrid and virtual learning options beginning on April 5. According to The New Haven Register, which first reported additional details about the reopening plan, NHPS’s high school reopening schedule gives the district time to hire enough nurses to staff every school. Tracey’s message came just one day after students in grades 6-8 were allowed to return to school classrooms for hybrid learning and over a month after students in pre-K

INSIDE THE NEWS EQUITY

What is health equity, and what can people to do achieve it? Yale scientists weigh in on these questions as the pandemic has exacerbated health inequity in New Haven.

Page 7 SCITECH

COVID-19

JAMES LARSON/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

The district high schools’ reopening comes over a month after students in pre-K through fifth grade returned to classrooms. through fifth grade returned to a hybrid model. Like previous reopening plans, the high school reopening announcement is a divisive decision for the community.

“I am fully in support of [high school students] returning to school ... because you can still do hybrid or

With eased COVID19 restrictions on the horizon, city officials are preparing to make the expansion of New Haven business capacity as smooth and safe as possible.

Page 8 CITY

SEAS

Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is completing its strategic plan, a roadmap for the school that is smaller and functions differently from peer institutions.

Page 9 UNIVERSITY

in-person learning,” Board of Education member Larry Conway said.

“By the time we will be fully engaged, it would have been 13 months [of virtual education], we have just learned so much since then.”

SEE REOPENING PAGE 5

MALARIA

A Yale researcher has partnered with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop an RNA vaccine against the malaria parasite. Page 11 SCITECH

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION The case for positivity D

uring the break I spent most of my time doomscrolling, listening to Billie Eilish and brooding in my room. The cruel Chicago winter kept me from getting out much, and the torturous crawl of time kept me from wanting to do much.

But after ringing in 2021 with nothing more than a dull NPR news podcast and a fresh sense of angst, I figured a lifestyle change was in order — starting with my perspective.

The prevailing perspective in the U.S. is one of pessimism and despair.

We are grim about our past, present and future. Social media wields the unique ability to ruin our mood at a moment’s notice and news organizations consistently churn out disparaging headlines. Growing up in the technological era has made it especially difficult to escape the constant inundation of bad news.

It has become exhausting flipping through Instagram stories and learning about the latest injustice or scrolling through Twitter and reading some of the most hateful opinions humanity has to offer.

And being a Yalie means learning in an environment obsessed with only the highest levels of success, making it easy to see each personal failure as a catastrophic event. Receiving a grade that is even slightly lower than I expected can sometimes feel like my future is falling apart.

While pessimism is sometimes warranted, constant negativity can become consuming and distracting. It hinders growth and stagnates progress. To grow and mature, I have come to find, it is important to appreciate the lessons of last year — both good and bad — and look to the future with positivity.

I’m far from being an optimist, and after the fecal festival that was 2020, I started the new year in no rush to get my hopes up. But on Jan. 1, I had grown quite tired of my monotonous routine, whose sole benefit was an occasional sarcastic chuckle in response to how horrible the world had become. I wanted more out of life than a miserable demeanor and a phone addiction.

So, as any Yalie searching for a new perspective would do, I looked for Dr. Laurie Santos and found her in an NPR podcast episode. In the episode, Dr. Santos posits that gratitude is a key component of psychological well-being, and the research agrees. Study after study shows that expressing gratitude is linked with better physical, emotional and psychological health. Those who are more grateful tend to see improvements in their mood, relationships and sleep habits. I realized that gratitude was a prerequisite for living the life I was looking for — a richer, more meaningful, more impactful life.

Having been intrigued by my findings, I continued on my quest to reverse engineer happiness, and I found that hope, too, is a key component of living a more joyful, healthy and fulfilling life. Hope has been shown to correlate with higher academic achievement, reduced risk of death and more happiness generally.

Beyond their physical benefits, gratitude and hope have given me

a much-needed change in world outlook.

As someone who aspires to be successful and make a positive impact on CALEB society, I recognize the values of DUNSON hope and gratitude in their abilWhat We ity to buoy my Owe disposition. Living with ambition can be challenging. It requires a source of motivation extending beyond our passion, because there will come a time when passion is not strong enough to spur us to action. In those moments it is crucial that we are able to lean on hope and gratitude for reinvigoration and re-inspiration.

If my brief foray into Maire Kondo-ing my life has taught me anything, it is that we all owe it to ourselves to embrace hope and gratitude. But what does that look like in practice?

Being grateful and hopeful does not require a complete overhaul of your life. The essence of practicing gratitude and hopefulness is reframing your perspective on yourself and the world around you.

Little things like placing a positive spin on your negative thoughts, or taking a break from your crowded schedule to be present with your surroundings, can have an enormous impact on your life.

For me, that means taking a break from social media, cutting down on my Billie Eilish brooding time and taking an occasional stroll down my snow-covered block.

For you, that might mean starting a gratitude journal, meditating for a few minutes each day or doing something else completely. You ultimately have to find what works best for you. Luckily there is a wealth of information on how to hold on to hope, from TED Talks to magazine articles to Netflix shows. The same goes for gratitude.

So why don’t you take some time for gratitude and hope? After the year you’ve had, you deserve it.

Note: The content of this op-ed is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, you should always seek the advice of mental health professionals or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding mental health conditions.

If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you’re having suicidal thoughts, call 1-800-273TALK (8255) to talk to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area at any time (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). If you are located outside the United States, call your local emergency line immediately.

CALEB DUNSON is a first-year in Saybrook College. His column, titled “What We Owe,” runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. Contact him at caleb.dunson@yale.edu .

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G U E S T C O L U M N I S T PA I G E L AW R E N C E

In Defense of Zoom Classes W

e’re all familiar with COVID-19 precautions: daily health check-ins, masks, social distancing and Zoom classes. We understand that the coronavirus can spur long-term health problems, especially for those with underlying health conditions who are more susceptible to severe cases and even death — well, maybe Governor Lamont isn’t familiar with that.

Many of these precautions should stay, at least in a modified form. Zoom classes should remain in course catalogues post-pandemic and in-person courses should continue offering Zoom-in options to accommodate students with disabilities and to reduce the spread of other contagions on campus.

In my senior year of high school, I was diagnosed with a primary immunodeficiency. This means my body doesn’t naturally produce the antibodies necessary to ward off certain infections, in my case upper respiratory ones. Pre-pandemic, I followed many of these guidelines; I wore masks on planes, wiped down my seat and tray table and received judgemental stares. I didn’t go to parties during flu season, because I knew the average bout of the flu would hit me severely. Even so, I had to attend in-person classes, where my classmates showed up contagious and I would inevitably contract influenza. Every semester, I would lament the fact that I could not attend classes virtually during flu season.

One of the more frustrating experiences of showing up in person during flu season and getting sick every year is knowing Yale already had the capacity to provide Zoom classes. I took a Yale Summer Session course online after my first year. It was a fantastic course — archaeoastronomy, which I highly recommend. The Zoom experience worked seamlessly — assuming you have adequate wifi, which remains a concern for many Yalies and must be addressed.

The costs of exclusively in-person classes can be severe: some students, faced with unavoidable medical circumstances,

take leaves of absences. In spring 2020, Mafalda von Alvensleben ’22 asked Yale if she could enroll in classes virtually while undergoing a major surgery and recovering away from campus. Yale said that was not feasible, yet two months later, the University announced all classes would be virtual for the remainder of the year — the school had the capacity for virtual courses all along. The Yale administration made an avoidable decision, blocking a student from her education instead of granting her a reasonable accommodation related to disability.

Other students have encountered difficulties arriving at class on time, thanks to Yale’s Special Services Van. The van, pre-pandemic, frequently arrived late, leaving students with disabilities waiting for transportation to a class already underway. Joaquín Lara Midkiff ’23 described several experiences where the van’s tardiness affected his academic performance — he was only able to attend one section for his biology class in full, due to “transit missteps.” Having a Zoom-in option for in-person classes would enable students left stranded by the van to join classes from their dorm rooms on short notice.

I’m sure there are professors who would be quite amenable to teaching the occasional class from the comforts of their New York or D.C. homes, instead of commuting to New Haven every Tuesday and Thursday. I’m sure there are also professors who would rather be conducting research for their next books on location, instead of having to take sporadic semesters off and cramming all their research into the span of just a few months. The assumption that all students and professors would like to return to exclusively in-person classes does not rest on any school-wide surveys.

Providing at least a limited selection of courses, offered either completely remotely or with a remote/ Zoom-in option every year, would grant students the flexibility to select courses as best suits their

medical, financial or familial needs.

Ideally, every department would offer several courses with virtual options each term.

This nuanced, blended model enables students who prefer the in-class experience to have it, while allowing students who need to be remote for the semester that optionality. Continuing to offer a selection of Zoom courses would provide students with the flexibility to Zoom into class on days when they don’t feel well, particularly with common colds — we should also keep using masks around others when we’re sick. Creating a blended classroom design, with in-person and Zoom-in options, means students can miss fewer classes when they are sick, injured or abandoned by special services vans. Such measures would also reduce the spread of sickness on campus, protecting those of us most vulnerable to severe illness.

I recognize that professors face technical difficulties with dual Zoom and in-person classes, but I’m sure professors would prefer students not show up while contagious with infectious diseases. Additionally, YLS and SOM professors have experimented with a hybrid model this semester — it’s certainly feasible. Having a Zoom-in option is simply a better alternative to the system we have now and would protect students and professors from severe illness. That quality of life benefit outweighs any potential for technological issues or even slight misuses of the policy.

The coronavirus is not going away; Anthony Fauci predicts it’s with us for the long term. Flu season will continue to exist every year. The “return to normal” everyone speaks fondly of is, for many of us, an inaccessible step backwards.

Now that we have the infrastructure for Zoom classes and daily temperature checks, we should continue these measures to ensure every student can participate fully, regardless of health conditions.

PAIGE LAWRENCE is a senior in Grace Hopper College in the joint BA/ MA History program. Contact her at paige.lawrence@yale.edu .

The perfect essay B

lurred lines, mixed colors, shades of grey: all our favourite metaphors for describing life’s fluctuations rest on our understanding that imperfection is an immutable axiom of life. However, our closest approximation of perfection is also linguistic.

We understand experience, condensed into comprehensible meaning, through words. And by writing, we perfectly express these experiences — grief, fascination with a Grecian urn, mild amusement — exactly as we understand them.

Among the motley collection of works that emerge from the act of writing — of striving for perfection — poets are often attributed as being most capable of capturing a moment ‘perfectly’, manipulating rhyme, rhythm, phonetics and even silences to convey profound experience. Poetry is the epitome of linguistic beauty, so much so that beautiful prose is called ‘poetic.’ Yet, in this collective, overweening fascination with poetry, we lose sight of another form of writing that conveys as much artistry: the essay.

The notion of viewing an academic essay as beautiful may seem far-fetched, ludicrous even — especially for a college student. Essays are associated with mundane descriptions and rigid, mathematical structures — not diction and rhythm. Poems flow from a wellspring of untapped emotion after ponderous reflection, using fountain pens and manuscript paper, whereas essays are angrily typed on modern laptops in word processors, driven by the impetus of professor’s due dates set on Canvas. Poems are written by poets, while essays are written by, well, everyone.

Essays can be beautiful. There is such a thing as the perfect thesis. I don’t mean one that is ‘specific, arguable and demonstrable,’ nor do I mean one that has the requisite ‘elements of a thesis’. However, being able to condense hundreds of unre-

lated thoughts about a text, topic or opinion into one sentence that exactly conveys your thoughts cerPRADZ ta i n ly fa l l s into the realm SAPRE of the perfect.

This approxGrowing imation is pains not necessarily the same as an approximation of the ‘perfect’ image in a poem. An essayist cannot build a thesis, detail by detail, the same way a poet can build the image of an ornate painting or a marble bathtub in our mind. Nor does our sense of an essay’s perfection have any association with depth and profundity of emotion. Perfect theses are carved like well-defined sculptures from the clunky, disproportionate amalgams of thought from which we start. As we whittle down ideas to our central claim, like pruning leaves from a tree of thought, we make large incisions in our unseemly amalgams — the first draft. And as we shift the positions of words, or replace them using our internal thesaurus, we begin to define the sculpture of thought from its distinct peripheries.

Unlike poems, that feel successful if they are capable of inducing catharsis, it is more difficult to understand the perfection of a thesis in the moment. We only reach that epiphany when we look upon our final effort and sigh with pride and intense contentment.

Like a perfect thesis, the structure of an essay can be perfect too. Again, I don’t mean an essay with ‘clear topic sentences that emerge from the thesis’, but rather, an essay that feels alive, and grows inexorably in strength, intensity and persuasiveness from its first line to its ultimate conclusion.

A reason why essays are unfairly overlooked as beautiful or artistic, is that unlike poetry, we don’t actively read or appreciate the essays of others. We don’t subscribe to ‘an essay a day’ email lists or attend ‘essay’ readings or recitals, where we can applaud or exclaim ‘that’s beautiful!’ Nor do we generally write essays outside of academic contexts or for college admissions. This is understandably so; while we may appreciate poetry through its sparing words and hidden clues, we find essays lengthy, convoluted and too formal to be appreciated as simply beautiful. Reading an essay every day is a larger time commitment than most of us can make with fragmented energies and dwindling attention spans.

While one unabashed essay nerd cannot overturn centuries of systemic misrepresentation of the essay as a tool of academic torture and convince the gatekeepers of the artworld to display essays in their collections and galleries, he can certainly make one request: the next time you write an essay, which might just be tomorrow, treat it the way you would treat poetry. I don’t mean to say procrastinate writing it until you have a moment of poetic inspiration, but rather, understand that it is not only useful, but also beautiful. Know that the hours of hard work, the sleepless nights, the repeated drafts, don’t add up to 1,500 words on a computer screen, but rather to a three-dimensional sculpture of thought. Perhaps one, that you’ll look back on in a month or year and exclaim, “Ah! That was exactly what I meant.

That was perfect.”

PRADZ SAPRE is a first year in Benjamin Franklin college. His column, titled “Growing pains,” runs every other Monday. Contact him at pradz.sapre@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 3

“Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.” PLATO ATHENIAN PHILOSOPHER

New report aims to address issues in humanities graduate education

BY ISABELLE QIAN STAFF REPORTER On Feb. 19, Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, released a report containing suggestions for the future direction of humanities graduate programs at Yale, which is meant to address many of the programs’ long-standing issues.

The report was written by the Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group, which was first announced in May 2020 and consists of one faculty and one graduate student committee. Built on three key principles of innovation, inclusion and interdependency, the report focuses on six major domains: admissions, curriculum, dissertation, advising, teaching and program outcomes.

The group’s recommendations included removing GRE requirements, implementing interdisciplinary programs with small cohorts and limited time horizons, and expanding students’ goals to include professions outside the traditional tenure track.

Faculty, administrators and students expressed mixed reactions to the report’s suggestions and implications: Some felt the report was a well-researched way to address some of the humanities programs’ issues, while others felt that the report was “addressing the wrong problems.”

According to Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean of Humanities and co-chair of the faculty committee Kathryn Lofton, the final version of the report emerged after 99 drafts.

“Its creation is the point of the reform,” Lofton said. “The very way we created it is the reason why we wanted reform, which is students and faculty equally represented in the process of deciding how to structure the best possible horizon for doctoral education, period but specifically for us, humanities doctoral education.”

In an interview with the News, Lofton — along with co-chair and Graduate School Deputy Dean & Dean of Strategic Initiatives Pam Schirmeister, as well as student committee co-chairs Maria del Mar Galindo GRD ’22 and CJ Rice GRD ’22 — emphasized that although issues of inequity and access to graduate equation discussed in the report have been “enunciated” by the pandemic, those issues existed long before COVID-19.

Rice also said that the report was written in the context of “the crunch” of the academic humanities job market over the last 12 years.

The goal of tenure track placement The report gathered data from doctoral students who matriculated from 2005 to 2010. The data was adjusted by overall attrition.

According to the report, only 44 percent of matriculated doctoral students who entered graduate school between those years received tenure-track professorships, despite the fact that a majority of students entered doctoral programs in the hopes of finding such positions. The 44 percent average represents a large range of actual percentages across various humanities programs: 74 percent of graduates in East Asian Languages and Literatures received tenure-track faculty positions, while the same was true for only 14 percent of those in Renaissance Studies.

In response to these averages, the committee recommended reorienting students’ perspectives, helping them realize that such professorships are not the only option.

“I think in the humanities the public culture has been that the desired outcome is tenure-track academic placement,” Lofton said. “Our students are saying, yes, that’s what we want, but we also have other dreams and we’d like to be able to name those. So one of the points of the report was to try to get on the table, talking about other professional futures from the first year.”

The emphasis on a broader set of career paths is also intended to invite greater diversity and inclusion within doctoral programs, according to Lofton. By showing students the greater range of possible careers following a doctorate in the humanities, Lofton hoped that students with “a wide range of socio-economic and identity backgrounds” would be able to see graduate school as less of an economic risk.

rates of attrition. According to the report, attrition rates for humanities graduate programs averaged 19 percent for the data collected. The highest rate was 33 percent, in Slavic Languages and Literatures.

But for Orel Beilinson GRD ’25, “the only moral solution” is to accept fewer students into humanities graduate school programs. Beilinson rejected the idea that students would be happy to take on non-tenure-track positions and the premise that there are enough of these jobs that are both available and economically viable.

“We always speak about how important it is to develop this [alternative] route, but we don’t want to consider it for ourselves,” Beilinson said. “Especially at places like Yale, there is this atmosphere that, ‘Well I’m going to be the exception.”’

Because of this, for Beilinson, the report seemed like it was addressing the wrong problem.

“What do you prefer: Do you prefer to be told ‘no’ when you’re 21, and you can still go do something useful with your life, or do you prefer, which is the current situation, that people will say ‘no’ to you when you are 30, after you have lived … with student loans … on a $32,000 stipend for five to seven years?” Beilinson said.

History of science and medicine professor Bill Rankin disagreed, saying that reducing the number of graduate students would lead to a “death spiral” of cut programs, more conservative admissions and — as a consequence — less creativity within the humanities. Rankin acknowledged the mismatch between program outcomes and students’ desires for tenure-track jobs, but he hoped that such discrepancies could be solved by admitting students with more diverse interests outside of solely professorship positions.

Lofton also added that the FAS has already begun to further address the problem by prioritizing increasing the number of junior tenure-track hires and diminishing the number of senior hires at Yale. Tenure-track junior hires usually have not yet received tenure at any other institution, while senior hires generally join the University in a tenured position after previously receiving tenure at another institution.

“We understand that we’re a player in this market, but we are one player, and we hope to be a model — and through that model, yell to the land,” Lofton said.

More than just professorships Lofton emphasized that the report does not recommend cutting programs. Rather, the working group hopes to help graduate programs pursue program outcomes that best suit student desires as well as lower

Implications and responses Galindo noted that the report — particularly with its emphasis on interdisciplinary study — encouraged faculty and graduate students to seek out innovative ways of looking at the humanities. This, she hoped,

“I understand this report should get tons of criticism, and I look forward to the debates that it will create in the departments,” said Lofton, who noted that bleak rhetoric about the humanities is a “political” choice. “But [the report] was an act by 20 people to invest in the very powerful intellectual hope of serious attention to sentences, to texts, to paintings, to the past. That has to be a thing that we commit to.”

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group’s report is centered around the key principles of innovation, inclusion and interdependency. would help attract more interest in the humanities on an undergraduate level, consequently increasing the amount of humanities enrollment.

“There is a broader conversation about how universities can reject a move toward making academic positions more informal, more casual, more precarious,” Galindo said. “There’s a broader politics to how you improve those outcomes, a broader systemic reality. But — and I wholeheartedly believe this — if we begin to imagine implementing some of the options outlined in the report, if people begin doing different types of doctoral work, you know, in different areas of interest, that dynamism may also be part of how we transform our sense of how we need to value the humanities within the university.”

Galindo also noted that she hoped people who read the report overlook its resemblance to an “administrative product” and instead see the input of graduate students giving voice to their own experiences as Yale doctoral students.

Rice agreed, adding that the humanities are something that contain value within themselves, beyond any academic outcomes.

And for Beilinson, the intellectual reward of graduate school is important, but he believes that it can also be found elsewhere.

Although he believes that master’s programs are a good opportunity to do “something intellectually rewarding,” Beilinson maintains that doctoral programs are meant to be vocational training.

But Beilinson said that many of his peers do not feel the same way about the report and its recommendations.

Jacob Morrow-Spitzer GRD ’25, for example, found many of the suggestions helpful and convincing.

Although Morrow-Spitzer said that the report failed to address many of the immediate needs of graduate students — particularly issues that the pandemic has exacerbated, including loss of research opportunities and the lack of more complete health care coverage — he applauded the committee for their work.

“I think the report does a great job identifying some key challenges and issues within the current structure of humanities doctoral programs at Yale,” he wrote in an email to the News.

He added that the History Department’s Graduate Student Advisory Committee has already begun to discuss the implementation of certain changes recommended in the report, including graduate student representation in faculty meetings and an internal review process for certain department-specific courses.

Rankin similarly noted that the History of Science and Medicine Program plans to meet in a few days to begin discussing the report.

“It would be a real shame if this just became another report,” Rankin said.

“There have been plenty of reports about the state of the humanities and the mismatch between supply and demand, or the crisis of the humanities, whatever you want to call it. …

And I think that the departments and the division … need to be able to make good on this and actually do something besides just make some minor adjustments around the edges.”

The Hall of Graduate Studies has recently been renovated and renamed the Humanities Quadrangle, which is to house more than 15 humanities departments and programs.

Contact ISABELLE QIAN at isabelle.qian@yale.edu .

Earth Day cycling fundraiser and celebration to resume in person

COURTESY OF GAGE FRANK

Over 30 residents gathered last Saturday at the corner of Hazel Street and Shelton Avenue to participate in the annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride.

BY SYLVAN LEBRUN, SAI RAYALA AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS After the pandemic forced the Elm City to hold its annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride in an entirely online format last year, residents are once again lacing their shoes up for a day of biking for the climate.

On Saturday, over 30 residents gathered at the corner of Hazel Street and Shelton Avenue in the Newhallville neighborhood for a kick-off rally, hoping to generate excitement in the weeks leading up to the event, held annually in April.

The Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride, held this year on April 24, is one of New Haven’s largest annual civic activities, giving residents opportunities to engage with a multitude

of non-profits around the city and raise money in support of environmental sustainability efforts.

Though the event was held virtually last year due to the pandemic, organizers are planning to hold the event in-person with safety measures in place. According to Anna Pickett, who co-organizes the event with Yale’s Urban Resource Initiative, Rock to Rock creates a network of civically-engaged residents and non-profits and encourages collaborative solutions to promote environmental justice.

“We all care about the environment and are doing different initiatives to make our operations more environmentally-friendly,” Pickett said. “It’ll be a great opportunity for people to get out and exercise together in a safe way.”

In staggered groups of 10, riders will leave from East Rock, biking to West Rock and then returning to the starting point, travelling “rock to rock to rock”. The family ride will be held entirely within the limits of Edgewood Park, avoiding public roads. This is a departure from the race’s typical format, which begins at Common Grounds High School and ends at East Rock.

There will be three different options for riders at the event — a family ride, a 20-mile ride and a “metric century” 62-mile ride. In usual years, according to Pickett, they offer more possible routes, but the pandemic has limited the list to three. In the past, event organizers have worked with the Bradley Street Bike Co-op to provide bikeshare options for participants.

Rock to Rock is asking each of its riders to raise at least $100 for an organization of their choice. Riders can choose what organization to support from a list of about 36 community organizations doing environmental and social justice-related work. The money each organization receives must be used in some way to make their operations more environmentally-friendly.

One of the partner organizations for the annual Rock to Rock rides is Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, or DESK, a group that provides food assistance to unhoused residents and connects them with outreach services.

“Each year, donations made through the event support our ‘green’ initiatives, including a composting partnership with Gather New Haven, purchasing

of reusable trays, cups, and cutlery, and switching to more energy efficient appliances,” DESK Executive Director Steve Werlin wrote in an email to the News. “It’s also a wonderful opportunity to branch out and work with nonprofit partners focused on areas beyond our primary mission of serving people experiencing homelessness.”

DESK has been a Rock to Rock partner for the past four years, one of the roughly three-dozen recipient organizations for the funds raised at the event.

Yale’s Urban Resource Initiative and the New Haven León Sister City Project are the two organizing partners working alongside Rock to Rock staff to help coordinate the event. The Yale Urban Resource Initiative is a program of the Yale School of Environment and works on urban forestry projects throughout the city. The New Haven León Sister City Project works to support sustainable development both in New Haven and in New Haven’s sister city, León in Nicaragua. Both the Yale Office of Sustainability and New Haven Office of Public Affairs have been long-time supporters of Rock to Rock, providing cash and marketing support, Pickett said.

Another sponsor for the event is the Greater New Haven Green Fund which has been providing funding for the event since 2016, according to the president of the GNH Green Fund, Lynne Bonnett. Bonnett said that the funds raised from the event can be especially helpful for small environmental organizations.

“It is very hard for small grassroots organizations to get grant money for their projects,” Bonnett said in an email to the News.

“The impact can be huge for many small organizations that operate on shoestring budgets.”

Other partner organizations also include the Connecticut Mental Health Center Foundation, Junta for Progressive Action, Solar Youth, Common Ground and Gather New Haven. In 2019, the event raised over $227,000 in total from over 1,200 riders while last year’s online event raised $137,000 from 378 participants.

Ward 7 Alder Abby Roth of Downtown has long participated in Rock to Rock, typically completing the 40-mile bike ride. The event, she says, is an important step in carrying out the Board of Alders’ newly-passed legislative agenda, which includes a commitment to improve environmental justice and quality.

“It’s a great community-building event. It’s an opportunity to both build community and really be helping environmental groups,” Roth said. “Nonprofits play such a strong role in our city and in helping support environmental efforts.”

Over the last 12 years, Rock to Rock has raised more $1.9 million for local environmental groups.

Contact SYLVAN LEBRUN at sylvan.lebrun@yale.edu, SAI RAYALA at sai.rayala@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.” GUSTAV MAHLER AUSTRIAN COMPOSER

Yale College scraps traditional shopping period REGISTRATION FROM PAGE 1 April 1, and the deadline for professors to post expanded course descriptions for classes next semester will be April 5. Following that, the student application period for courses with limited enrollment will run from April 6 to April 21. For the spring semester, preregistration for seminars lasted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 9.

According to an email sent to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and other faculty teaching Yale College classes on March 5 by Chun, FAS Dean Tamar Gendler and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Lynn Cooley, the application process for limited-enrollment courses will not be standardized and is “largely up to individual departments and individual instructors.” Instructors and departments must give selected students permission to register in limited enrollment courses by April 30.

In that same email, administrators explained that the April 5 date is the “keystone to a schedule that allows the bulk of early registration to take place prior to the summer, enabling faculty to have a true break from registration- and advising-related work during June and July.”

Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors will then have from May 3 to May 28 to engage in early course registration.

According to an email sent to undergraduates from the University Registrar’s Office on March 8, students will not need to register for discussion sections during the early registration period. Instead, students who will need to register for a discussion section will do so in August when the course add/drop period begins.

Finally, during August, student schedules will open up again for a second round of registration during which students will be able to edit their schedules and register for any courses that may have been added in the interim period between the end of early registration and the beginning of the add/drop period in August. The incoming first-year class — as well as reinstated students, new Eli Whitney students and transfer students — will register for courses at the start of the add/drop period, according to the email sent to faculty.

Initially, the email from the Registrar's Office stated that students returning from a leave of absence will not be allowed to register for courses until the start of the add/

drop period in August. That information was a miscommunication, and students returning from a leave of absence will be able to register for limited-enrollment courses in April, according to an email from Chun to former staff columnist for the News Eric Krebs '22.

In a Wednesday evening email to the News, Chun said that “together with their enrolled friends, students currently on a leave of absence will also be able to sign up for limited-enrollment courses in April.”

In another departure from the previous course registration system, the March 8 email from Chun also announced that a new “userfriendly registration system will replace OCS,” the website that previously hosted student course selection. The change will happen through an expansion of Yale Course Search, a tool that allows students to search for courses and add them to their worksheet.

“Yale Course Search (YCS) will be enhanced to allow Yale College students to officially enroll in courses in real time and to provide temporary visitor access to Canvas course sites,” the email from the Registrar's Office said. “Students will still be able to fill out preliminary worksheets prior to the opening of registration on May 3. This information will not populate to the Registration or Canvas worksheets.”

The updated YCS will feature two default worksheets — a registration worksheet that will allow students to officially enroll in a maximum of 5.5 course credits and a Canvas worksheet of up to 10 credits in which students can use to explore courses and plan tentative schedules. When a student enrolls on the registration worksheet, they will appear on Canvas rosters as a “student,” but when they add a course to their Canvas worksheet, they will appear on Canvas rosters with a “visitor” status.

According to Chun, this new early registration system has been a long time in the making. He explained that the planning for an early registration “caught momentum” around five years ago amid frustration with the challenges that accompanied registering for courses in the weeks immediately preceding a term. Early in his deanship, Chun put into motion planning for an early registration system that would align Yale with the vast majority of its peer institutions and address these concerns.

The plan was approved last year, before the pandemic, and was originally scheduled to begin this spring, with registration for the 2021-22 academic year. But because the benefits of an early registration system could help the University meet the unique uncertainties and enrollment fluctuations brought on

by COVID-19, the implementation of the early preregistration system was accelerated and introduced for this academic year, beginning with last December’s early course registration for the spring 2021 semester.

However, despite the plans intending to relieve student stress concerning course registration, the new early registration system was immediately met with frustration from some students.

Yale College Council Vice President Reilly Johnson ’22 told the News that she is “disappointed” with the shift to an early registration model that will require students to make decisions about their course schedules months before those classes begin.

“Although [YCC President] Aliesa [Bahri] and I recommended to Dean [of Academic Programs George] Levesque and Dean Chun that very few students are prepared to make decisions about their fall semester classes in April and recommended making this process occur over the summer or during the beginning of the fall semester, they had already decided to move to an early registration system similar to that of peer institutions,” Johnson wrote to the News. “Ultimately, we were able to extend the application deadline and simplify the timeline originally presented to us, but we understand that these are insufficient to address students’ deep dissatisfaction with preregistration being so early this year.”

Johnson declined to specify the exact timeline but added that Levesque’s original proposition involved two distinct timelines and processes that depended on the major a particular course was affiliated with. Following YCC advocacy, according to Johnson, the processes were consolidated into one.

Chun said the timeline announced Monday is "similar" to the one proposed in his meeting with the YCC. According to Chun, conversations with student leaders over the course of the planning period for the change lengthened the period for students to express interest in limited-enrollment classes and extended

LOUIE LU/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

Although Chun said the change was made to make the course registration period less stressful, some students disagreed. the deadline for early registration by more than a week beyond the end of final exams, allowing students to postpone course registration until after final exams end.

Honor Thompson ’22 told the News that because the registration process for this current semester also took place in the previous semester, “It was predictable that there would be a change for next semester as well Although Thompson said she understands that the administration is facing logistical difficulties, she said she thinks there must be a way to collaborate with the student body to create a better solution.

“Most students do not know what their living and learning circum-

stances will be in a month, let alone six,” Thompson wrote to the News.

“It is extremely unreasonable to ask us to make these decisions this far in advance. Additionally, the proposed timeline overlaps unacceptably with finals period, only adding to the stress most students are feeling during this unprecedented time.

And this is all on top of feelings of burnout, constant anxiety about the pandemic, and decreased interaction with friends/loved ones.”

The spring term is scheduled to end on May 19, giving students over a week after the end of final exams to complete early registration.

Contact JULIA BIALEK at julia.bialek@yale.edu .

DuBois-Walton starts committee for Dem primary

LUKAS FLIPPO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Smith gave the welcoming address at the press conference and praised Dubois-Walton for her work in the area.

MAYORAL FROM PAGE 1 level of community organizing and discussion she has worked with over the course of her career.

DuBois-Walton is the first to publicly consider a run against Mayor Justin Elicker, whose first term will end on Jan. 1, 2022. After a stint at the Yale Child Study Center, she entered the public sector at the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. She then held a variety of positions at City Hall, concluding her time on Church Street as chief of staff to Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. She began working at the housing authority in 2006.

At her Monday address, DuBois-Walton stood near the West Rock-Hamden border, where she contributed to the demolition of a major fence separating the two communities during her tenure at the authority — one of the accomplishments she listed in her exploratory committee announcement, and one

oft-cited by former Mayor Toni Harp in the 2019 campaign cycle.

“When you look up this road and see that you can see into Hamden without looking through a chainlinked fence or a wall, then you know what happens when community members work together, have big ideas and a big vision, and then take bold action to make things happen,” DuBois-Walton told attendees. “When you take far too limited public dollars but you get creative with them, when you don’t think just in terms of scarcity but in terms of what we can do, then this is what you create.”

As she is currently in the exploratory phase, DuBois-Walton has not launched an official campaign yet. She told the News she remains unsure when the committee would hypothetically transition to a campaign, though she said it will come no later than July, when the local Democratic Party is expected to make its official endorsement.

According to DuBois-Walton, her exploratory committee will serve to launch fundraising efforts in preparation for her potential campaign and source more New Haveners on the issues that matter to them. The latter effort, DuBois-Walton told the News, is nothing new, as she has spent the past 14 years at Elm City Communities listening to the community’s concerns.

“It’s been an opportunity to bring together people of very different backgrounds, and to put a team together that is able to work with our residents to really hear what they want,” she said.

DuBois-Walton noted that over the past year, New Haven has faced a variety of challenges. The pandemic’s toll on the Elm City has included learning loss among the city’s youth, she said. She also pointed out the persistence of racial inequities and rising rates of New Haven crime and homicides.

“I feel like now more than ever, we need a really strong leader,” she said.

“I was feeling a sense of urgency, and I started talking to other people and being approached by people who wanted to know if this would be the time that I ran. Exploratory feels like the first step to see how this resonates and where the energy is.”

In a press release, DuBois-Walton touted her accomplishments on housing in New Haven. Under her leadership, Elm City Communities became the sole housing authority in the state to cancel rent during the pandemic and the first to implement automatic voter registration for residents. The authority also rebuilt 2,000 units of housing and launched “entrepreneurial, homeownership and workforce development programming that lifts families out of poverty,” according to the press release.

But alongside successes, DuBois-Walton has come across various new challenges, she said, and “some of those require some different kinds of decision making out of city government.”

“Because of a long history — the history of discriminatory practices — you find that federally subsidized housing has been segregated into certain communities that have also been under-resourced for decades,” DuBois-Walton told the News. “Our efforts now need to be focused on how we are reinvesting in those communities.”

41 percent of New Haven residents are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.

If she transitions her committee into a campaign and wins, though, DuBois-Walton will confront a variety of other challenges, including a looming budget deficit that could cause massive cuts to city services if funding is not secured.

DuBois-Walton, like potential opponent Elicker, has faith that funding through the newly passed Tiered PILOT, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes, legislation in Connecticut will help. But she also noted that the city needs to implement “an inclusive economic growth strategy.”

“We need to be a city that’s creating growth in ways that’s inclusive of all aspects of our community,” she said. “Where the folks that are owning the property here are living here and spending their dollars.

And we need a strategy that supports the business community in a way that matches what our residents are interested in.”

Erik Clemons, chairman of the board of Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program and of Elm City Communities, introduced DuBois-Walton at the press

conference, highlighting her work in the housing industry as so impressive that he saw her as an example for his daughters to look up to.

He recalled a previous lunch with DuBois-Walton when, amid a conversation over her plans for New Haven, he challenged her to think bigger.

“I said, Karen, you need to do more,” Clemons said. “I said that, not because she didn’t do enough, but because I’ve got four Black girls at home. And those four Black girls need to know you exist in the world.

The need to see that North Star.

They need to see what excellence looks like, and feels like, and walks like, and talks like. It’s so important.”

Ward 30 Alder Honda Smith of West Hills, who gave a welcoming address at DuBois-Walton’s announcement on Monday, stopped short of offering DuBois-Walton her endorsement, but told the News that she “want[s] to hear what [DuBois-Walton] has to say.”

“She entered into my ward and she’s given me the respect as an alderperson to let me know that she’d like to make an announcement in the ward, and if I would do a welcome address,” Smith said. “She’s respected my leadership — that’s where I’m at. It’s just cut and dry. I think everybody should do the same thing when they’re coming in.”

Smith noted that she has worked with DuBois-Walton on various projects in her ward — from youth to housing initiatives — and that she has made a significant impact on the area and that “she’s been doing what a director should be doing.”

Dubois-Walton graduated from Yale in 1989.

Contact THOMAS BIRMINGHAM at thomas.birmingham@yale.edu and OWEN TUCKER-SMITH at owen.tucker-smith@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!” TEDDY ROOSEVELT 32ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

OPAC installs — then removes — Cross Campus fence FENCE FROM PAGE 1 for an art installation as part of the campaign, OPAC later learned “it was against university policy to place our structure in that area,” University spokesperson Karen Peart told the News. The fence was removed on March 7.

“OPAC had hoped to create an outdoor art exhibit on Cross Campus featuring student-curated works from the Yale Center for British Art and other museums,” Peart said. “The concept was to ‘bring what’s inside out’ when the galleries and museums were — necessarily — closed.”

The Healthy Yale campaign was launched by OPAC shortly after the initial outbreak of COVID-19 and was “designed to promote good health practices and well-being on campus,” Peart told the News. The campaign was also responsible for the series of posters put up around campus that urged students to

wear masks and wash their hands, according to the Yale Printing and Publishing Services website.

Still, despite the official quality of the now-canceled exhibit, students were mystified at the seemingly sudden appearance of the fence.

“I literally stopped in my tracks to stare at it because it was so unexpected,” said Mia Arias Tsang ’21, who first noticed the fence on Feb. 26. “I walk through Cross Campus about once a week so I have no idea when it materialized, but I’m fairly certain it wasn’t there when I walked by the Friday before.”

Noticing students playing a game of Spikeball on Cross Campus, Arias Tsang initially hypothesized that the fence was a “temporary thing to protect the people sitting on the benches from rogue balls.” However, Arias Tsang added that she doubted her theory was true because “in the photo that’s been circulating on Twitter it looks really permanent.”

Carlos Brown ’23 had a similar experience, saying that he was “honestly a little jarred and very confused” to see the fence appear on Cross Campus. Brown described the fence as “just really odd,” adding that he thought its presence “disrupt[ed] the beauty of Cross Campus.”

Although Brown said that he had heard speculation that the fence was part of an exhibit, he remained confused about the specific purpose of the fence, and said that it became a topic of conversation among his friends.

“Many of my friends have discussed it on social media — mostly out of pure confusion,” Brown wrote in an email to the News, referencing an influx of tweets about the fence in the days between its installation and its eventual removal.

“I am very happy to see that it is gone,” Brown said. “It would’ve likely been a good space for the art, however.”

JOSE DAVILA IV/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The fence was supposed to be a part of OPAC’s “Healthy Yale” campaign in collaboration with the YCBA. Despite the abrupt halt of Cross Campus exhibit, Peart said that OPAC was “actively exploring ways of displaying Yale artwork, both digitally and physically.”

Peart referenced the YCBA’s upcoming Yale Days, in which, during various times this

upcoming weekend, Yale ID holders will be able to enter the center, which has previously been closed due to COVID-19, with a reservation.

Contact LUCY HODGMAN at lucy.hodgman@yale.edu .

After two years of construction, Humanities Quandrangle opens HUMANITIES FROM PAGE 1 graduate students connected to the departments within the building.

The building, which officially opened on Feb. 15 after more than

two years of construction, is still undergoing work on some of the uppermost floors and larger classrooms, all of which is expected to be completed in the next few weeks. But humanities depart-

YALE DAILY NEWS

Workers restored 288 of the original window medallions and rewired the entire building during construction.

ments have, for the most part, been able to move into their new offices.

In total, 18 units will occupy the building, including Comparative Literature, Film and Media Studies, French, History, the Humanities Program, Judaic Studies, Spanish and Portuguese and more.

“The renovation of this building and inclusive work of its planning represents a significant institutional and human investment in the humanities at Yale,” Kathryn Lofton, Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean of humanities wrote in an email to the News.

Construction focused on both restoration and renovation of the existing structure, according to Bryan D’Orlando, construction project manager at the Yale University Office of Facilities. For example, workers restored 288 of the original window medallions and rewired the entire building but also invested resources into constructing a new lecture hall and film screening room in the basement.

With these new renovations, some functions of the building will change as well. What used to be graduate student residences in the tower and back of the quadrangle are now department offices, lounges, meeting rooms and floors that will be specifically for graduate student use.

“The front entryway and the inner courtyard have been reconfigured, the offices have new furni-

ture and heating-cooling systems and the whole place feels brighter, cleaner and newer,” Mick Hunter, associate professor of East Asian languages and literature, wrote to the News in an email. “I’m excited about having a home on campus again and also being in the same building with friends and colleagues in other departments.”

Similar to Hunter, other faculty and graduate students interviewed by the News expressed their excitement at the opening of the new space.

Christopher Schuwey, assistant professor in the French Department, specifically agreed with Lofton that, with the opening of the Humanities Quadrangle, Yale is demonstrating a “major commitment” towards the humanities.

“I really think it’s a success,” Schuwey said. “Everybody that I talked to, including myself, is really happy with it. This will definitely foster conversation and collaboration.”

Sarah Atkinson, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Italian Studies, currently works in the Humanities Quadrangle and called the renovations both “thoughtful” and “functional.”

She also expressed her appreciation for the efforts made to make parts of the building available for students, staff and faculty, even though construction is not yet fully completed.

“There have been many construction obstacles and delays but everyone I have encountered so far has been incredibly generous and helpful,” Atkinson added.

While the building was initially intended to be completed by the fall semester of 2020, the pandemic delayed the opening until spring 2021. Quarantine complications and COVID-19 safety guidelines “reduced some of the production efficiencies,” according to D’Orlando.

But he mainly focused on his feelings of gratitude towards all of the workers who have taken part and who are currently taking part in the construction.

“Whether it’s a laborer on site, a plaster restoration artist, the architect, other Yale stakeholder teams, we all realize the uniqueness that comes with a restoration [and] renovation project such as this,” D’Orlando said. “It’s truly a team effort to get where we are now, with many team members to thank.”

According to Lofton, buildings that are now vacant due to departments moving into the Humanities Quadrangle, such as 451 College St. or 51 Wall St., will either be renovated for future departmental use or be used as “‘swing’ spaces” while other department buildings are being renovated.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu .

NHPS phased reopening plan to conclude in April REOPENING FROM PAGE 1 Conway was against school reopening in August and agreed with the district’s decision to postpone reopening in November. Conway told the News that he has supported the recent elementary and middle school reopening plans because he believes that the district is now adequately prepared for hybrid learning. He said that while the district still has issues with COVID-19 to resolve — such as COVID-19 safety infrastructure and support for faculty — the final phase of the NHPS’ reopening can be successful with sufficient transparency, communication and collaboration from city leaders.

Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera also expressed support for the reopening plan in an interview with the News. She said district leadership, along with the local Health Department, have developed COVID19 safety protocols such as mask-wearing, social distancing and school staff vaccination.

However, support for the final phase of NHPS’ reopening is not universal.

Christopher Page is the parent of a 10th grader at Sound School. Page told the News he believes NHPS’ high school reopening is a “good start,” but believes it does not go far enough. He said that he wishes schools were open for more than four days a week.

Under NHPS’ prior and current reopening plans for high schools, most students are divided into two cohorts. The first half is

allowed to return to school on Monday and Tuesday, while the other half is allowed to return on Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is designated as a cleaning day. For Page, this means his son would only be allowed to return to Sound School two days a week, instead of six days — the typical length of a school week at the interdistrict aquaculture-focused magnet school.

Still, Page is planning to send his son back to school on April 5. He told the News that his son has struggled greatly with remote learning, citing lower-than-normal grades. Page said he felt confident that his son would not contract COVID-19 when he returns to school.

Other parents of NHPS high school students believe that the district’s reopening plan is not safe.

“I don’t think it’s safe,” Catherine John, parent of a 10th grader at Engineering and Science University Magnet School, said in an interview with the News. “I am basing this on conversations I’ve had with [school staff] ... who have implored that the schools are just not physically ready. Why [should I send my daughter] to a danger zone when we have so many unanswered questions to concerns about the [air] filters, bus companies?”

Tracey did not respond to an email from the News inquiring about school air filters and First Student bus company.

John told the News that she does not plan on sending her daughter

SYLVAN LEBRUN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

NHPS students have participated in some mode of virtual learning for more than a year. back to school on April 5 because of her concerns.

Jill Kelly, an volunteer for the New Haven Public Schools Advocates and parent of a 12th grader at ESUMS, similarly does not plan on sending her child back to school in-person.

Kelly told the News that she is worried the high school reopenings will contribute to community spread of COVID-19. She said that the CDC recommends school districts follow a remote learning model when a community has over 100 cases per 100,000 people over the last seven days — unless strict COVID-19 mitigation measures are in place. Kelly said she does not believe NHPS is adhering to such measures and

pointed to air ventilation as one area where the district is falling short.

State data shows that from Feb. 25 to March 4, there have been 376 COVID-19 cases in New Haven, or 289 cases per 100,000 people, which means that the Elm City surpasses the CDC threshold.

Tracey has previously responded to claims that NHPS may not be adhering to CDC guidelines in a February email to the News. She told the News that CDC guidelines do not depend on just one factor.

Tracey added that school reopening decisions should be informed by “school-specific factors such as mitigation strategies implemented, local needs, stakeholder input, the

number of cases among students, teachers, and staff, and school experience with safely reopening.”

As NHPS high schools plan for reopening to students, the schools are also serving as a site for teacher vaccinations. Under Gov. Ned Lamont’s vaccination plan, teachers are allocated their own pool of vaccines and clinics separate from the age-based categories for the rest of the state.

NHPS elementary schools partially reopened on Jan. 19 and middle schools switched to a hybrid model on March 4.

Contact CHRISTIAN ROBLES at christian.robles@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS Office of LGBTQ Resources welcomes transfeminine influencers to discuss modeling, TikTok and more

BY MAIA DECKER STAFF REPORTER On March 5, the Office of LBGTQ Resources hosted a panel discussion on transfemininity in social media. The office welcomed Black transgender social activist and model Jessica Zyrie, as well as Latinx bisexual nonbinary trans woman and influencer Rosalynne Montoya as speakers at the event.

This panel, co-sponsored by the Yale Schwarzman Center and moderated by Ale Campillo ’22, was the second event in the center’s Trans Visibility Series. This series is organized by Campillo, Nash Keyes ’21 and Akweley Lartey ’23.

“I think back to my younger self; I needed trans people showing up and saying, ‘We are here, we are beautiful and we are fully deserving of the same respect and praise as any cisgendered person,” Montoya said.

Campillo began the discussion by quoting Daphne Brooks, a professor of African American studies and women, gender and sexuality studies: “We are all beholden to each other.” The panelists then acknowledged Yale’s place on Quinnipiac land, as well as the recent passing of the office’s Associate Director Andrew Dowe ’08 GRD ’20 and Zoom bombing attacks at recent events sponsored by the Office of LGBTQ Resources.

Campillo said Dowe was “an incredible ally and a wonder human” who meant a great deal to people. The Trans Visibility Series was one of the last projects that Dowe oversaw. According to Campillo, the center is fulfilling Dowe’s wishes through the

series, as Dowe was extremely excited about the project.

Due to the recent Zoom bombings, the panel was hosted in a webinar format and only accessible to those with Yale-affiliated email addresses. Campillo noted that the series on trans visibility is extremely timely in light of these attacks.

“To put it bluntly, our community has been under attack as of late,” Campillo said. “Transphobia and racism has real-life implications, even for students at Yale.”

During the discussion, Zyrie and Montoya shared their personal experiences and perspectives as visible trans women in the media.

“Rose is using her platform on TikTok to respond to questions and educate,” Campillo said. “On the flip side, Jessica has this great modeling career and works for one of the largest LGBTQ nonprofits in Texas as a counselor.”

Zyrie reflected on her experiences as a trans woman of color in the modeling industry. She said the industry was not built for trans women or women of color, since it often demands a specific aesthetic from models.

Zyrie started modeling in college after transitioning at the age of 17. She noted that when growing up, she was conditioned against seeing beauty in herself because of her identity as a Black queer woman.

Montoya discussed her TikTok account and the backlash she faced after using her account to answer questions about her trans experience. She mentioned that her account was briefly shut down due to a high number of false reports

COURTESY OF THE AF-AM HOUSE

of community guideline violations. Yet she retrieved her account by creating petitions, contacting TikTok and speaking out about the issue.

“I’m thankful that I got my account back and that I am able to continue to spread the education that I do,” Montoya said.

“But, it’s not about me; it’s about TikTok needing to stop discriminating against marginalized voices. I’m passionate about changing that.”

Montoya, who also models, said the experience has been affirming and healing. “I am telling myself, but I am also telling the world that I am worthy,” Montoya said.

Both Montoya and Zyrie discussed the importance of rep-

resentation in their fields. Still, they said visibility is not for everyone — especially if one does not feel safe.

Then, Zyrie quoted late writer and trans historian Monica Roberts, saying that “we’re planting seeds to trees we may not see the shade from.”

Either through modeling, educating strangers or taking time out to speak with Yale affiliates, Montoya and Zyrie hope to plant seeds that help future trans people succeed.

The Trans Visibility Series has two more events in March: a concert from trans artists and a panel on “Queering the (In)Dustry.”

Contact MAIA DECKER at maia.decker@yale.edu .

Yale students participate in Met’s first paid spring internship program

COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

BY ANNIE RADILLO STAFF REPORTER Due to a five million dollar gift from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, the Metropolitan Museum of Art introduced a paid spring internship program for the first time this year. These interns — which include Yale students — are among the Met’s “Adrienne Arsht Interns.”

The Met’s Spring Arsht Intern class comprises 37 graduate and undergraduate students. These students work in various departmental areas in the museum, including curation, editing and publishing, communications, conservation, development and library tasks. Even though the museum has paid summer interns in the past, this is the first time spring interns will receive a stipend.

“It is very fundamentally important that people pay their interns,” said Sid Carlson White ’22, an intern working in the Met’s American Wing. “If you’re not going to pay people, many working-class students — especially students of color — are not going to be able to take on these jobs and earn this type of valuable experience.”

Elizabeth Perkins, head of the Met’s internship programs, said this decision stems from recent efforts among museums to abolish the precedent that their internships are unpaid, citing paid opportunities at the Smithsonian and the Getty.

This cultural shift was largely spurred by a 2019 statement from the Association of Art Museum Directors saying, “Art museums should pay interns,

except in special circumstances justifying such an arrangement,” according to Perkins.

Perkins noted that the Met received nearly 1,000 internship applications this year, as compared to about 300 last year.

“That to me said right away that we had a whole group of students that we haven’t been able to reach because of that financial barrier with unpaid internships,” Perkins said.

White, an American studies and economics major who focuses on settler-colonial studies and economic history, is currently researching 19th-century American painter Winslow Homer for his internship.

White’s research is in preparation for an upcoming Met exhibition on Homer. His work will be used to inform bro-

chures, pamphlets and texts for exhibition pieces.

In his research, White hopes to provide a more holistic depiction of Homer’s life and work by including his travels to the Caribbean and Canada. Specifically, White’s recent work has centered around the relationship between sharks and slavery. This theme relates to Homer’s best known work, “The Gulf Stream,” which depicts a stranded fisherman surrounded by tiger sharks.

White said the painting references how the violence of the Caribbean slave trade drew sharks to harbors in unusually high numbers.

“I think it’s very interesting because even for a white audience at the turn of the century, the connection between sharks and Black bodies and slavery was something that was reasonably well understood,” White said.

Miguel Moya, a senior at Columbia University, is an Adrienne Arsht intern currently working in the Met’s education department. Moya noted that he enjoys his independence in his remote work.

Neither White nor Moya have a background in art or art history.

Perkins said that several other Met interns are not interested in pursuing careers in the arts or at museums. Perkins added that many Met staff members also did not start with museum work, but came from other fields. She said that the interns’ diversity of interests will provide them with a strong

web of professional connections in the future.

“Part of the reason that we see such strength in a diverse cohort is that they get to really get to know people who are from a different part of the country, different backgrounds, different schools — diversity in the broadest possible sense,” Perkins said. “We emphasize to [our interns] that the people in their cohort hopefully will be their future colleagues and their future friends, and that we want them to build those connections with one another.”

Like White, Moya sees his internship as an opportunity to gain insights relevant to his professional path. Moya plans to volunteer with Teach For America and work in education- related fields upon graduating.

“I do see myself teaching art in my lesson plans,” Moya said.

“I have an ethics professor at Columbia who always starts off a lecture by showing us a painting and kind of putting that painting in context with the lesson for the day.”

Moya said he feels art gives valuable insights into “human experience, society and the way that they interact.” Through his work experience in arts education at the Met, Moya hopes to learn how to convey these insights to his future students.

The Met is the largest museum in the United States.

Contact ANNIE RADILLO at annie.radillo@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Yale study finds that when smelling, oral stimuli are weaker than nasal stimuli

BY KAITLIN FLORES STAFF REPORTER Yale researchers have found that odors sensed t h ro u g h ea t i n g a re weaker than those sensed through inhalation.

The study, which was published in the journal NeuroImage, set out to compare smells that take an oral route to the brain with those that take a nasal route. The paper explained that odorants were delivered to rats through both routes, and brain activity of the olfactory bulb — the region of the brain responsible for smell — was measured and compared between the two pathways. The researchers found that the nasal route gave rise to higher overall brain activity when compared to the oral route.

“In recent years, we realized that sense of smell is actually a dual sense,” said Gordon Shepherd, a professor emeritus at the Department of Neuroscience and an author on the paper. “In most cases, we smell things in the air by breathing in. But we’ve recently realized that there is a second system of smell from smelling food or beverage, which we smell by breathing out.”

According to Justus Verhagen, professor of neuroscience, the two different pathways that odors can take to the brain are

the orthonasal and retronasal routes. The orthonasal route, or the normal way people smell, is when odors enter into the nasal cavity during inhalation.

The retronasal route is where food aromas enter the nasal cavity from the mouth during exhalation while eating.

Verhagen explained that not much is known about how retronasal food aroma is sensed and neurally processed, in part because of the technological challenge of studying the olfactory bulb in humans.

As of now, optical imagery can only access about a third of the bulb.

“Human fMRI cannot investigate the olfactory bulb in any detail, due to its smallish size (2 peas) and location near the sinuses and between the eyes,” Verhagen wrote in an email to the News.

“We hence were lacking insight into the food odor processing that occurs throughout the entire olfactory bulb.”

According to Verhagen, Fahmeed Hyder, professor of diagnostic radiology and biomedical engineering, specializes in high-field functional m a g n e t i c re s o n a n c e imagery, or fMRI, which detects brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow.

By using fMRI in combination with optical imag-

ing, the research team was able to study the differences in the two smelling routes in rats.

“The study was simple in one aspect,” Hyder, who is the senior author of the study, said. “It aimed to find out if there is a difference between how we smell when we smell from inside our nostrils versus inside our oral cavity.”

In order to compare the two pathways, odorants were delivered to the brains of the rats through both the orthonasal and retronasal routes, the study explained. The olfactory bulb response was then measured using fMRI. According to Shepherd, the experiment was also complicated because the type of route the smell took depended on the animals’ breathing. Shepherd said that a calcium monitor was used to tell whether the rats were inhaling or exhaling, while fMRI subsequently measured the patterns in the brain during the inhales and exhales.

“Both imaging methods [fMRI and optical imaging] are consistent in showing smaller responses to the retronasal odors,” Verhagen said. “Furthermore, the whole bulb fMRI shows differences in activation across the landscape of the entire bulb.”

According to the study, the concentration of the retronasal stimuli had to be double that of the orthonasal stimuli in order to observe a similar response level in certain regions of the olfactory bulb. The same odor concentration showed larger activity during orthonasal versus retronasal stimulation.

Hyder explained that while the overall activity was stronger for orthonasal stimuli, the imaging showed that the orthonasal pathway was dominant in some parts of the bulb, while retronasal pathway was dominant in others.

“This implies that if there is a loss of this sensation from one pathway, the other pathway could be taught to develop more,” Hyder said. “The brain is quite plastic, but the olfactory bulb especially is a lot more plastic.”

According to Verhagen, the study does not have clinical implications.

The team will continue to explore the neurobiology of smell in the olfactory bulb, Verhagen wrote.

Acco rd i n g to t h e National Center for Biotechnology Information, retronasal smell is processed by a brain region responsible for taste processing while orthonasal smell is not.

ANASTHASIA SHILOV/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

Contact KAITLIN FLORES at kaitlin.flores@yale.edu .

Yale researchers weigh in on health equity and how to achieve it

BY ANJALI MANGLA STAFF REPORTER During a pandemic that has revealed deep health inequities in the country, Yale faculty dedicated to researching healthcare policies and health equity spoke with the News on the importance of this subject.

Yale affiliates are at the forefront of United States health equity policy, with the University’s Marcella Nunez-Smith, the associate dean of health equity research and founding director of the Equity, Research and Innovation Center, or ERIC, serving as the chair of the COVID19 Health Equity Task Force in the Biden-Harris Administration. According to a joint statement from Nunez-Smith and Tara Rizzo, the deputy director of ERIC, health inequities are “avoidable inequalities in health between groups of people.”

Health inequities are fundamentally shaped by the social world and come from inequalities that are pervasive in the non-healthcare facets of societies.

“Health equity comes about when everyone has a fair shot at living healthy lives,” NunezSmith and Rizzo wrote in a joint email to the News. “Health equity happens when social and economic realities themselves become more equal –– when we do not see widespread disparities in food and housing security, access to education, the ability to live in a non-polluted environment, among all the other essential components of a healthy life.”

This sentiment was echoed

by Yusuf Ransome, the assistant professor of public health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. According to Ransome, factors known as social and structural determinants of health cause health disparities

that researchers can investigate.

These “social determinants” are broad definitions of the conditions in which one grows, plays and works. They include food and housing security, a clean living environment, access to education and social support, according to Nunez-Smith.

Nunez-Smith and Rizzo emphasized that rather than addressing these disparities in well-being, the United States healthcare system often exacerbates them. According to them, poor Americans consistently lack a cce ss to high-quality and affordable healthcare, and a great deal of Americans remain uninsured.

“The wealth inequality between racial and ethnic groups is particularly striking — white families are eight times as wealthy as Black families, and five times as wealthy as Hispanic families,” Nunez-Smith and Rizzo wrote. “This results in significant disparities in health outcomes.

The wealthiest Americans now have a life expectancy that is 10-15 years longer than the poorest Americans. Communities of color face higher burdens of chronic disease. They are less likely to be included in clinical trial research and receive innovative therapies.”

The pandemic has only made these realities more apparent.

Nunez-Smith said that since the pandemic’s beginning, the

CECILIA LEE/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

COVID-19 death rate for Black Americans has been 2.1 times the death rate for white Americans.

This statistic is also 2.2 times

higher for Indigenous populations, 2.4 times greater for Latino populations and 2.7 times higher for Pacific Islanders, according to Nunez-Smith.

Rizzo emphasized that it is important to remember that these inequities pervaded the American healthcare system and beyond even in the absence of COVID-19 — but the pandemic has spotlighted them. Communities of color are less likely to have access to care, and more likely to have underlying health conditions, for example, according to Rizzo and NunezSmith.

“Health equity isn’t a temporary thing,” Ransome said. “ We d o n ’t want to look at it as a temporary thing that we need to implement right now. It is important that we give credit to those organizations and states and agencies that are doing things in the community to meet that immediate need, but one of the things we want to urge as well is that there is some long-term commitment and sustainability.”

Ransome also explained that families who are affected

by COVID-19 are facing lofty expenses for hospital bills and treatment, all while likely receiving a reduced income due to the unemployment crisis at hand.

Not everyone can afford to take three months off their job, such as people working as essential workers or for a minimum wage — and these individuals often come from communities of color, according to Ransome.

“Health equity isn’t something that we can accomplish during COVID-19 because we see the disparities that COVID19 has produced,” Ransome said.

“Because we know that in order to get back to ‘normal’ we need to intervene in populations that are experiencing the breadth of the disease.”

Ransome added that an idea that could change shortterm behavior could be to open pop-up clinics that administer vaccines in such under-resourced communities 24/7, rather than just during the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday. This would allow people who otherwise could not make it to the clinic after working all day to find times to get vaccinated, according to Ransome, who added that an additional plan could be to keep these clinics open permanently even after the main vaccination period in order to make sure no one is left behind.

Nunez-Smith, Rizzo and Ransome agreed that the United States is characterized by profound racial and economic inequality. In order to achieve health equity, effective interventions — including partnerships between healthcare institutions and non-healthcare systems — “must work at the system level to empower marginalized communities,” Nunez-Smith said.

ERIC works on advancing equity research in New Haven and beyond.

Contact ANJALI MANGLA at anjali.mangla@yale.edu .

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

“Generally, I have lot of patience, and I won’t take a decision immediately on anything. I will think twice, thrice; then only I take a decision.” N. CHANDRABABU NAIDUE INDIAN POLITICIAN

How will Biden’s new policies impact Yale?

BY JULIA BIALEK AND ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTERS After four years of the Trump administration’s hostility towards private universities, the first months of Joe Biden’s presidency have left Yale administrators hopeful about the prospect of reform in the treatment of higher education institutions.

Biden took the Oath of Office in January, setting a new tone for the federal government’s relation to higher education institutions, Vice President of Global Strategy Pericles Lewis said. Biden took executive action to repeal travel bans, allow for increased student visas and reestablish a presidential council of science advisers. But there are still questions as to how much his policies will fundamentally differ from the Trump administration’s — particularly concerning research collaborations with China, cancelling student loan debt and overturning Title IX policies that safeguard the accused.

“I haven’t noticed any hostility towards universities in the administration, which is nice,” Lewis said.

“There has been a little bit of a tendency in the last few years, especially in the last administration, to bash the universities.”

During Trump’s tenure, he was outspoken about the danger that the Chinese Communist Party posed to U.S. innovation. The Trump administration warned that China could

steal sensitive information through research collaborations with American universities.

The Trump administration took a number of actions to prevent this collaboration, some of which were widely criticized by University officials.

“The university is very interested in how the Biden Administration will view international academic collaborations, especially relationships with researchers in China, given concerns among Democrats as well as Republicans about global competition in technologies that are relevant to industry and national security,” Associate Vice President for Federal and State Relations Richard Jacob wrote in an email to the News.

Under the Biden presidency, Yale expects the government will augment federal funding for university research due to the potential impact of research on the commercial sector, Lewis said. On Jan. 27, Biden took executive action to reestablish the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. But there are still questions as to whether Yale scientists will now be able to freely collaborate with their counterparts in China.

Though the substance of the visa policies has not significantly changed since Biden took office, Lewis said the new administration has a “different tone” around

the topic than Trump’s did. Lewis is hopeful that “sensible policies” around students entering the country and cross-national research collaborations will win out.

This fall, the University lobbied against federal policies that would hinder student travel to the U.S. Since Biden took office, he has used executive authority to restore Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, lifted the travel ban on majority Muslim countries and revoked the temporary suspension of visas that many Yale students had utilized.

As the public health situation improves, Jacob said the University will monitor how the federal government addresses COVID-related travel restrictions. State Department statistics show that the number of F-student visas issued, used primarily by students, dropped worldwide by 60 percent in 2020, and fell by 86 percent for Chinese students, Jacob wrote in an email to the News.

Additionally, Biden campaigned on a promise to forgive student loan debt. Biden has been outspoken about his path to the presidency that did not involve an IvyLeague education. At a recent CNN town hall, he said that he would not universally extend student loan forgiveness to $50,000, saying government funds could support early education for students from

disadvantaged backgrounds rather than students who attended “Harvard and Yale and Penn.”

In an email to the News, a Department of Education spokesperson wrote that Biden’s economic agenda centered on easing the economic burden for working people. Biden asked the Department to extend the pause on federal student loan payments and interest until September, support congressional efforts to cancel $10,000 of student loan debts per person and to review possible executive action on the issue.

Furthermore, Jacob said that Yale is advocating to double the maximum Pell Grant to around $13,000, which would make college more affordable and reduce the number of people taking out student loans. Yale has centered its advocacy on Pell Grants rather than on student debt forgiveness, Jacob added.

Another place in which the Biden administration’s policies could impact Yale is through Title IX regulations. According to Richard Lemons, Executive Director of the Connecticut Center for School Change and an instructor at Yale in Education Studies, “all indicators suggest” that the new leadership of the DOE under Miguel Cardona will try to reverse the regulations on Title IX put into place by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Among many things, the regulations have strengthened pro-

tections for those accused of sexual misconduct. Lemons explained that during the 2020 election, the Biden team took aim at the DeVos regulations as a direct attack on women and their safety. According to Lemons, DeVos’s regulations were seen as “a direct reversal of the work of the Obama administration” with regards to increasing safety on University campuses, something that Biden had worked on during his vice-presidency.

However, Lemons explained that even if Biden wanted to, “reversing the changes put into place by DeVos may prove complicated.”

“Higher education institutions will have to rework protocols and policies that they already reworked to align with DeVos’s regulatory guidance,” Lemons wrote to the News. “It took time for campuses to adjust policies, and new Title IX guidance may prove more complex than just going back to four years ago.”

University Title IX Coordinator Stephanie Spangler declined to speculate on what the new administration will do to Title IX regulations at this point.

April 30, 2021 will mark the end of Biden’s first 100 days in office.

Contact JULIA BIALEK at julia.bialek@yale.edu and ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu .

Board of Education discusses NHPS air filter debacle

BY CHRISTIAN ROBLES STAFF REPORTER On Monday, Board of Education members discussed the maintenance of New Haven Public Schools’ air filters after a newly released report from the city of New Haven found that at least a dozen schools had old or poorly maintained air filters.

In October, a multi-agency city task force began investigating NHPS buildings to ensure that they complied with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 guidelines. The task force found that school buildings had crumbling infrastructures such as missing ceiling tiles, moldy ceilings, cracked roofs and old air filters. Go To Commercial Cleaning Services LLC is the district’s contractor in charge of school maintenance. NHPS Executive Director of Facilities Joseph Barbarotta, who works directly with Go To Services, appeared before the Board of Education to clear the air.

“There is a perception that we haven’t changed [air] filters in four or five years,” Barbarotta said at Monday’s meeting. “It’s just not true … we do filter changes in a staggered

schedule, depending on the date [the air filter] was put in and the status pressure they put in the system.”

Barbarotta also provided more context for the state of NHPS’ air filters on Monday. He said that about 10 years ago, the district hired a third party that found that the city needed to spend $41 million to maintain its school buildings, including air filtration systems. According to Barbarotta, this figure is likely higher today.

However, 10 years ago, the district’s budget for air filters was about $100,000 annually. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, that budget was slashed to just $50,000. Barbarotta said that to save money, the district invested in then-new MERV-8 filters because they only needed to be changed once a year compared to the district’s old filters, which required changes two or three times a year.

Barbarotta said that around March 2020, just before the pandemic began, NHPS had just finished installing MERV-8 filters at every school in the district. The CDC recommends that school buildings have MERV-13 or greater filters. A higher MERV rating means that a filter is

more efficient at catching particles between 0.3 and 10 microns.

By the end of October, most NHPS schools were expected to be equipped with MERV-13. However, local officials found old, dusty air filters across NHPS schools as recently as early February. Barbarotta said that this year and going forward, Go To Services is collecting signatures from air filter installers to ensure that they are being regularly replaced. Barbarotta explained that in the past, the district had two warehouses that stored spare air filters ready for use if needed.

Board of Education members discussed new resources the district can use to maintain its air filters in the future.

“It sounds like over the years we have had a position problem, a warehouse problem, a funding problem and we’ve been COVID-exposed,” Board of Education member Larry Conaway said at Monday’s meeting.

“These things have to be resolved and safety of the staff, safety of the teachers, safety of the students have to be our number one goal.”

On Sunday, Conaway told the News that he supports rehiring a custodial engineer who would change

filters in NHPS ventilation systems.

Barbarotta explained that the district used to have this position up until 2013, but has since been cut due to budget constraints.

Board of Education member Edward Joyner agreed with Conaway’s call for more resources. He added that the Board should adopt a “healthy building certification” for all NHPS buildings. Joyner argued that the certification would force the Board

to fund school maintenance projects so that it could meet certification requirements and hold principals responsible for living up to standards.

Barbarotta estimates that the district will need to spend $225,000 annually to maintain its new MERV13 filters. There are 6,244 air filters across NHPS. Contact CHRISTIAN ROBLES at christian.robles@yale.edu .

VAIBHAV SHARMA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Air filtration problems including the need for filter replacement, lack of adequate ventilation and ceiling holes were identified in several NHPS schools.

City gives update on COVID-19 restrictions, vaccinations

DANIEL ZHAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Starting March 19, capacity limits for most local businesses will be lifted, and a second round of eased restrictions is set to begin April 2.

BY ANGELA PEREZ AND OWEN TUCKER-SMITH STAFF REPORTERS With eased COVID-19 restrictions on the horizon, city officials are preparing to make the expansion of New Haven business capacity as smooth and safe as possible, Mayor Justin Elicker and others said at a Monday morning press conference.

On March 4, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that starting March 19, capacity limits for most local businesses — including restaurants, libraries, gyms and offices — will be eliminated. However, bars will remain

closed and theaters will adhere to a 50 percent capacity requirement. City officials expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of reopening, but noted that businesses must still enforce safety protocols including social distancing, which means many establishments will still not be able to operate at 100 percent capacity.

“One of the most important messages we want to get out there is that we don’t want people, given the opening-up changes by the governor’s office, to feel like it’s yet time to celebrate,” Elicker said at the press conference. “We’re not out of the woods yet, and we have a long way to

go. While we’re all very excited about the idea of being beyond the pandemic, we’re far from it.”

The city is also preparing for another round of greater reopening measures that is planned to start on April 2, when outdoor amusement parks can open in Connecticut, alongside outdoor stadiums at 10 percent capacity and outdoor events at 50 percent capacity with a 10,000 person cap. The new order will also allow summer festivals and summer camps to run.

Maritza Bond, director of the New Haven Health Department, said her team and the city’s Economic Development Administration are working closely with each of the different sectors to make sure they will be prepared for reopening. Bond noted that compliance with public health guidelines is required to make sure everything in the future will run smoothly.

“Although we are working hard to ensure our community [gets] vaccinated, we are still not out of the radar,” Bond said. “We want to make sure that individuals are washing their hands often and making sure that you’re reducing as much as possible any indoor gatherings.”

New Haven Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli reiterated Elicker and Bond’s point that a lack of capacity limits will require sustained compliance with COVID-19 regulations.

He also mentioned several city ini-

tiatives aimed at helping New Haven businesses in their transition, such as “free business planning and assistance” resources through the Chamber of Commerce.

In addition, New Haven’s outdoor dining program will return, which shut down parts of major streets for eateries to set up tables outside. Last year, between 37 and 40 businesses took advantage of the program, and Piscitelli hopes to expand it in 2021.

The Economic Development Administration plans to be able to close Orange Street and College Street to accommodate for outdoor dining.

Piscitelli also noted that the pandemic is continuing to hurt the city’s economy, especially in regards to unemployment.

“Given the ongoing effects of the pandemic, we still have about 6,500 New Haven residents who are filing for continuing unemployment benefits,” he said. “The only way to bring those workers back is to follow the protocols and make sure everyone follows the game plan right through summer.”

Since vaccination efforts began in December, Bond said the city has provided vaccines to almost 9,700 residents.

Bond also said she was “pleased” with the CDC guidance regarding vaccinated individuals, which allows them to gather with other vaccinated individuals indoors maskless. She added that vacci-

nated individuals should carry their vaccination card with them, especially if they are traveling.

The current vaccination phase includes individuals 55 years old and up, teachers and day care providers of any age and people experiencing homelessness.

Bond emphasized that the city is working diligently to vaccinate teachers and Board of Education members around the city.

Mayor Elicker noted that due to HIPAA regulations, it is illegal to keep track of how many teachers and school personnel are being vaccinated beyond voluntary surveys. However, nurses are rotating through schools in the city to give personnel multiple opportunities to receive vaccines. According to Elicker, Wilbur Cross High School is currently serving as a vaccination site averaging around 300 vaccinations a day. Cornell ScottHill Health Center has been leading efforts to vaccinate individuals experiencing homelessness around the city. So far, around 150 individuals, including some service providers, have been vaccinated at that center.

New Haven has 11,540 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday.

Contact ANGELA PEREZ at angela.perez@yale.edu and OWEN TUCKER-SMITH at owen.tucker-smith@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 9

“Thrice to thine and thrice to mine and thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHT

YCC: COVID-19 summer credit policy disadvantages FGLI students

BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER First-year students and sophomores enrolled remotely during either semester of this academic year can take two Yale Summer Session courses without paying tuition, according to a policy announced in July in an email from University President Peter Salovey. The policy, called COVID-19 Courses, gives students who did not have the chance to live on campus for the full 202021 year another chance to do so — while courses will be held online, the COVID-19 policy includes subsidies for on-campus housing.

As the summer approaches, however, advocates for Yale’s first-generation, low-income community questioned the equity of the policy, claiming that it contributes to the inaccessibility to summer academic opportunities faced by many FGLI students.

The Yale College Council is advocating for COVID-19 Courses eligibility to be expanded to all first-year and sophomore students, on the grounds that many of the students who received housing exemptions to remain on campus during either the spring or fall semester — and therefore would not qualify for the free courses — are those who would most meaningfully benefit from free summer credits. Additionally, the YCC has suggested that financial aid opportunities for YSS be expanded, arguing that Yale’s Summer Experience Award should permanently include funding for YSS courses and that YSS financial aid should be calculated based on a student’s expected family contribution.

“Many first-generation, low-income students on campus under a housing exemption did not have an

alternative option; the requirements for effective learning were not met in a home environment,” said Ava Saylor ’24, a member of the YCC’s Summer Credits Task Force, which, according to Saylor, focuses on making summer credits more accessible to first years and sophomores who received housing exemptions. “These are the same students that typically do not have equitable access to summer courses in a normal year, much less during a year which has left a disproportionately-negative impact on the FGLI community,” Saylor said.

In response to student concerns, the YCC put forth a policy proposal asking for the Summer Experience Award to be expanded to include YSS courses, for YSS financial aid to be calculated according to expected family contribution, for first years and sophomores who received a housing exemption to be eligible for free YSS credits, for the technology fee for YSS courses for the summer of 2021 to be waived and for the COVID-19 Courses policy to be extended to remote juniors.

Dean of Yale Summer Session Jeanne Follansbee told the News that the intention behind the COVID-19 Courses, a Yale College policy, was to give students who enrolled remotely for one semester “the opportunity to have another on-campus experience.” Because students who received housing exemptions “got both semesters [on campus],” Follansbee said, they are ineligible for the summer accommodation.

But YCC Equity Chair Zoe Hsu ’24 said that many FGLI students did not feel they had a choice when it came to applying for housing exemptions, pointing to “experiences with homelessness, food insecurity, financial insecurity, unsafe home environments and time zone issues” as

potential motivations for requesting campus housing for the full year.

“The pandemic has already limited the amount of summer experiences available, which makes these issues even more alarming,” said YCC Health and COVID-19 Policy Chair Bayan Galal ’23. “The range of internships, fellowships or other programs in the summer, as well as travel or study abroad options, have all been restricted because of the pandemic, and this makes Yale Summer Session classes even more of an essential option. For this reason, classes should only become more accessible to all students, not less.”

Hsu, an FGLI student who received a housing exemption for the spring semester, said that she was “astounded” by both the cost of YSS courses and the limited opportunities for financial aid. Hsu noted that she would not be able to afford to pay for summer classes even by working a job during the spring semester.

Hsu was not the only FGLI student whose summer plans were influenced by the summer credit policy.

“I was given an exception to stay on campus for the spring term, and one of the reasons why I considered staying at home was because I wanted the summer credits,” Mary He ’24, who is also a member of the Summer Credits Task Force, said. “However, I realized that I should not have to decide between a productive and positive learning environment and being able to afford to take summer classes because I am a first-generation and low-income student.”

Saylor, who received a spring housing exemption, similarly told the News that the policy also influenced her summer plans. She added that she “would have loved the opportunity to get ahead and take interesting courses over the summer.”

Still, Follansbee said that “a lot of students don’t know all of the funding that’s available for the summer, especially the funding for Summer Sessions,” pointing to the availability of Summer Pell Grants and the application fee waiver for students who receive a certain amount of financial aid, in addition to existing financial aid policies which allow students who receive financial aid to receive 50 percent off of the tuition for summer courses.

“If you put together all of the financial resources available to support Summer Session, plus resources that support an internship, a study abroad program and then all of the fellowship support available, students who are low income or students who are on financial aid have a wide array of resources available to fund a range of summer activities,” Follansbee said.

However, according to former Co-President of Yale FGLI Advocacy

Movement Nick Randos ’23, the issue of inaccessibility to summer opportunities for FGLI students extends beyond Yale Summer Session. Randos noted that “current funding sources, like the SEA are not enough to cover living in common internship hubs,” adding that it creates “a tough choice between building your resume and making money to support your family” when expenses for summer experiences are not fully funded.

“As FGLI students, we are used to finding innovative ways to make a little go a long way,” Randos said. “But this is something we’ve been doing all of our lives and at a place as well-endowed as Yale and one that has pledged to support its FGLI students, this shouldn’t have to be the reality.”

Financial assistance opportunities for YSS are available on the program’s website.

Contact LUCY HODGMAN at lucy.hodgman@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS

COVID-19 Courses gives students who did not have the chance to live on campus for the full year credit towards YSS courses.

Engineers design strategic plan to boost Yale’s program

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is completing a strategic plan for the coming years, creating a roadmap for the school that is smaller in size and functions differently from several peer institutions.

University Provost Scott Strobel gave the strategic planning committee its charge in October, tasking it with developing a plan for the next 10 years. A draft could be on the dean’s desk within the next few weeks, according to committee member and electrical engineering professor Rajit Manohar. Because the school is smaller than engineering schools at Yale’s peer institutions, the committee has thought strategically about ways they can improve in select areas, including emphasizing industrial collaboration and entrepreneurship.

The school comprises the applied physics, biomedical engineering, chemical and environmental engineering, computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering and materials science departments. Several of its constituents are ranked lower than other professional schools at Yale. For example, according to U.S. News rankings, Yale is ranked 32nd in the country and 254th in the world for engineering and 124th in the world for computer science. Additionally, the school has a number of administrative oddities — including its placement in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and unique system of graduate funding — that three faculty interviewed by the News say could stunt the school’s growth and

is forcing the committee to clearly and narrowly define the focus points of the strategic plan.

“Since I’ve been here, engineering has been struggling at Yale,” professor of electrical engineering A. Stephen Morse said. “I’m not sure the administrators really know quite what to do with engineering.”

FAS Dean Tamar Gendler said that this year, Yale intends to hire multiple faculty in the computer science department and at least one professor in each of the other SEAS disciplines. Next year, this number will likely increase, she added. The University is also investing in physical infrastructure for engineering, including the Greenberg Teaching Concourse, which includes teaching labs for engineering, Gendler wrote in an email to the News.

The committee is developing goals for the next five to 10 years, as well as strategies and structural changes that will go toward supporting the school while helping the committee stay on track. The University Science Strategy Committee report, which was released in 2018 and included five priority areas in the sciences, indicated that engineering was important, but that the USSC would not comment on explicit priorities for SEAS, according to mechanical engineering and materials science professor Corey O’Hern.

At least one representative from each SEAS department sits on the committee, chaired by Dean of SEAS Jeffrey Brock. Committee members have been meeting regularly with the chair of each SEAS department, representatives from the Provost’s Office, the Office of Cooperative Research, leaders from other schools

YALE DAILY NEWS

According to U.S. News rankings, Yale is ranked 32nd in the country and 254th in the world for engineering and 124th in the world for computer science.

and leaders of the University-wide science initiatives, since October.

In an email to the News, Brock wrote that he is “deeply optimistic” that the strategic planning process will produce a bold and inclusive vision for SEAS. “This vision will set out an agenda of innovation and discovery that advances Yale’s strategic priorities, underscores our commitment to research and teaching, and fosters engagement with the world outside of the University,” Brock told the News. “It is a great time to be doing this work to advance SEAS.” Committee and strategic plan priorities O’Hern said that the dean and many of the planning committee members want to see more entrepreneurship and industrial collaboration within SEAS. With the infrastructure of Tsai CITY and the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, he hopes to see industrial partnerships and faculty incentivized to start companies.

Manohar said that the committee wants to ensure Yale is not falling behind its peers in terms of industrial collaboration and entrepreneurship.

Through discussions with department chairs, the committee determined that they wanted to find areas where Yale “could make a mark,” Manohar said. In every department, there are pockets of incredibly strong faculty, but their expertise is not always visible within the wider community.

It is difficult to “bootstrap” in areas where Yale is not as strong, he said, but the committee has based its conversations on what areas the department chairs recommended could complement the USSC report.

For example, Manohar said Yale is strong at quantum materials and quantum systems. The USSC identified quantum science as a top priority.

Once the committee finishes drafting its report, administrators will decide how to allocate funding and appoint individuals across schools.

The size of SEAS Compared to Yale’s peer institutions, SEAS is a relatively small engineering school. The school has 98 ladder faculty, far lower than MIT Engineering’s 310 and Cornell Engineering’s 267 tenure-track faculty.

While Manohar noted that SEAS is smaller than other engineering schools, he said it was too simple to chalk up obstacles to hiring to a lack of resources.

“Everybody likes to hire more faculty,” Manohar said. “But the engineering school at Yale is significantly smaller than most other places. I mean, significantly is not like 10 percent or 20 percent.”

Manohar’s department, electrical engineering, has about 15 faculty. He said that the corresponding number at other schools falls in excess of 70. This means that SEAS has to focus in on a few choice areas in its strategic plan, as it won’t achieve the breadth that other schools do, Manohar said.

O’Hern seconded that the committee has to be strategic and find a niche for engineering at Yale.

According to O’Hern, it is not possible to quickly double or triple the number of faculty, so SEAS has to select targeted areas for growth.

For O’Hern, because SEAS is relatively small, it brings in less research funding compared to its peers and has historically struggled to garner significant grants called “center” grants. Additionally, being small can hinder hiring in research areas where a critical mass has not been established, O’Hern said.

“Every department in SEAS is undersized,” O’Hern said. “It can be by as large as a factor of two or three [times] undersized compared to our peer institutions.”

But there are advantages to SEAS’s small size. Biomedical engineering professor W. Mark Saltzman said that at larger schools, engineering faculty can be “siloed.”

By contrast, at Yale, professors can interact with professors in other disciplines much more easily.

Because money is finite, the committee looked at how SEAS’ priorities could dovetail with the areas the USSC identified as well as at some school-specific recommendations.

For example, environmental engineering could work with the planetary solutions priority.

SEAS’ role within the FAS Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has a number of structural differences compared to equivalent schools at peer institutions. One of the most glaring differences is that SEAS operates within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Although Manohar said he is not sure of the importance of SEAS’ identity within FAS, he noted that SEAS has less autonomy because the dean of engineering must report to the FAS dean, whereas other schools would have the dean reporting directly to the provost. The engineering dean cannot oversee the budget or hiring

in the same way a dean can at other schools, he said.

But that SEAS is a part of the FAS also allows for more interactions between engineering faculty and other FAS departments, according to Manohar.

In the absence of its own endowment, SEAS relies on resources from the FAS and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. An advantage to being part of the FAS is that it has significant resources for hiring faculty, O’Hern said. But though SEAS has its own dean, FAS leadership also has to approve decisions to increase SEAS faculty numbers.

One potential step forward for the school would be to move SEAS outside of the FAS, according to O’Hern.

“That’s liberating but also difficult, because SEAS would have to become financially independent,” O’Hern said.

Funding for graduate students Another structural oddity at SEAS that could become part of the strategic plan is the funding model for graduate students, which limits the amount of funding SEAS students can receive.

There are two costs associated with hiring graduate students: tuition that goes to the University and a stipend that goes to the student themselves. Different departments have different funding models for graduate students, and the University does not take into account the external resources that a department may be able to offer the students, Manohar said.

It takes five or six years for STEM graduate students to get a doctorate in physics, students get two years of funding covered by the University, and the remainder must be covered by their doctoral adviser. Biology doctoral students get two or three years of support from Yale. By contrast, students in SEAS departments get only one year of University funding, according to O’Hern.

In an email to the News, Gendler wrote that Yale changed the funding model that supports graduate study last October. The new model allows faculty to devote a larger proportion of their grant support to research rather than to student funding.

O’Hern said this was a relatively small — but good — first step to improve the doctoral student funding model, but that more can be done.

The SEAS was founded in 1852.

Contact ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“There is no correlation between a childhood success and a professional athlete.” CARL LEWIS AMERICAN TRACK AND FIELD OLYMPIAN

A history of the Exhibition Pool SWIMMING FROM PAGE 14 He realized that the pool’s lack of turn-wall gutters created a wave following a swimmer that bounced back after a flip turn, potentially slowing the swimmer down on their next lap. Additionally, high walls meant that timing pads were awkwardly positioned, frequently resulting in a swimmer’s feet slipping during a start or turn.

Despite the pool’s flaws, Yale swimmers past and present are appreciative of the space they compete in. “[The locker rooms] are relics of earlier eras, and although updated to some extent to accommodate modern-day demands (e.g., now there are locks on the door and the lockers themselves are newer), [they] are largely unchanged from when Yale swimming Olympians used them more than half a century ago,” Righi said. “That was frustrating at times for obvious reasons, but it also contributed to the sense of history and tradition permeating the facility and made me appreciate all of the legendary swimmers who’d come before.”

For others, the pool’s unique shape and character set it apart from all the rest.

When men’s captain Patrick Frith ’21 first visited, the first thought that came to mind was “wow, this is a lot smaller than my pool at home.”

“That somewhat apprehensive thought was immediately replaced by, ‘this might be the coolest pool I’ve ever seen,’” Frith said. “The view never gets old, the confines of the deck and high walls make every race feel like an Olympic final and the crowd noise bouncing off the walls of wooden seats is unlike any other venue in the country. There is no place I’d rather race.”

Diver Christian DeVol ’21 first visited the Exhibition Pool when he was 17, and was “encapsulated by the history and grandness,” immediately knowing it was where he wanted to dive.

Still, he “can’t wait for the day [the team] gets a new pool comparable to [its] Ivy League competitors.”

The Robert J. H. Kiphuth Exhibition Pool is the oldest competition pool in the Ivy League.

Read more at goydn.com/YDNsports.

Contact RYAN CHIAO at ryan.chiao@yale.edu .

RYAN CHIAO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Matt Meade ’87, president of the Yale Swimming and Diving Association, recalled the electric atmosphere during competition.

Edelman: SOM student, Winter Olympian EDELMAN FROM PAGE 14 Four years earlier, Edelman graduated from MIT in 2014, where he majored in mechanical engineering and played Division III ice hockey as a goalie. After his graduation, he worked at Oracle before fully committing himself to skeleton. He said he used YouTube videos in lieu of a traditional coach to learn the techniques necessary to get to the next level, and he eventually qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics, finishing in 28th place.

Shifting gears to prepare Israel to have its first bobsled team at the 2022 Olympics was not something that Edelman even considered at first. In a recent LinkedIn post, Edelman said he “decided to risk it all,” and told the News he has taken out a “massive loan” and invested everything into the team after the program lost support from an original benefactor.

He said he eats mostly barley and eggs in Korea to bring the cost of each meal down to about a dollar.

“During my time in South Korea, it hasn’t been the most happy-golucky time,” Edelman said. “Whenever you’re doing something with a greater purpose, it gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning … even if you want to curl up and quit.

But, your country needs you and is giving you an incredible honor that you’ll never be able to repay.”

According to David Greaves, the president of the Israel Bobsleigh Skeleton Federation, the Israeli bobsled team is an established program that was originally incorporated in 2002. Greaves is a former bobsled competitor himself and competed in Israel’s first international bobsled competition in 2003 in Konigssee, Germany.

Greaves spoke to the News about Edelman’s impact on Israeli sliding sports and what made the former skeleton athlete want to come back and prepare Israel’s bobsled team for 2022.

“Israel has been producing sliding sports athletes for 20 years, and AJ was the first one to break the pinnacle after 16 years and represent Israel on a global stage,” Greaves

Musco adjusts to year without sports MUSCO FROM PAGE 14 his brother John would go watch the games and eventually work as rope guards for the Bulldogs in exchange for tickets. Those trips to the Bowl, along with his participation in youth leagues, sparked an early passion for sports.

He put his passion to work when he enrolled in college at Quinnipiac in 1969, where he earned a spot on the baseball team with no prior experience.

After a successful season on the freshman team, he found himself at third string on the varsity team. Pairing his time on the bench with his natural skill for mathematics, Musco took in-depth statistics on each game from the dugout and eventually for other Quinnipiac sports through the University’s sports information department.

He parlayed that into a professional hobby while he was still in school, getting a job as a statistician in 1972 for the New Haven Nighthawks, a now-defunct American Hockey League team, after hanging around at the facility doing odd tasks for a year before the team arrived.

“I beat out all kinds of experienced people, which didn’t make any sense,” Musco said. “I got five dollars a game and two tickets.”

Musco worked the job alongside his full-time position in the computer industry for two years until an athletic trainer position with the Nighthawks came open in 1974. Musco, who had no medical experience, said he got the job after spending every day in the emergency room shadowing surgeons for six weeks.

Paul Marslano, a New Haven Register sports reporter who attributed Musco’s hiring to budget cuts, lambasted the hiring decision in an article, writing that “we can only offer advice to be careful where the financial cuts are made. A wrong slice could be fatal to the precious meat.”

Musco excelled in the role and found a passion for physical therapy, chasing it all the way down to Florida for a second academic pursuit. Musco graduated from physical therapy school with an athletic training certificate from Florida International University in 1983 and worked in physical therapy and athletic training in the Sunshine State through the 1980s, with the crowning achievement of being an athletics trainer at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

Then disaster struck.

“I ended up getting sick,” Musco said. “I had melanoma. I came back to Miami with a poor prognosis.

COURTESY OF STEVE MUSCO

Steve (left) and John Musco (right) pose for a photo in front of the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

They told me I had a less than 40 percent chance of living five years, that I probably wouldn’t make it two years.”

Musco was 36 years old when he received the diagnosis.

He opted to take experimental medicine and underwent multiple surgeries.

“And I am still here today,” he said from his New Haven home in a phone interview with the News.

“Very blessed.”

Following his recovery, Musco married. The family followed his step-daughter, who had graduated college at Florida State, by moving to Tallahassee. He worked his way up at Tallahassee Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy, a private practice that was associated with the Florida State team’s physicians, but he said he “hated being a director” and did not have the disposition for a managerial position.

In the early 2000s, he quit his position with the Seminoles and took a job at an area hospital. He also had an inkling: Back in his days with the Nighthawks, he owned a camera, and his younger brother John was a hired photographer for the New Haven team.

One night, one of his hospital coworkers asked him to tag along to a basketball game as fans. Steve brought along his new digital camera to practice, as he was new to the digital world. On that night, he created magic for the first time.

“I caught a picture of one of the FSU players at the far end dunking the ball on somebody,” Musco said. “I brought it into work and blew it up and showed it to my coworker. He said, ‘You gotta give this to the guy!’”

Musco said his coworker knew the athletics trainer for the team, and Musco did not let his opportunity pass. The trainer posted it in the locker room, and Musco said, “The players went crazy.”

Read more at https://yaledailynews.com/blog/category/sports/.

Contact LUKAS FLIPPO at lukas.flippo@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF KISEUNG LEE

Edelman competed in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as a skeleton athlete, finishing in 28th place. said. “For AJ, it was very difficult to move on from reaching his goal.

[After] dedicating your life to something — which in his case, was to get Israel to the 2018 Olympics — you’re left wondering what to do.”

Greaves also said that Edelman originally decided to get an MBA from the Yale School of Management so he could help the federation from a management aspect, but that his “love of sport” and “love of Israel” kept him from retiring completely from sliding sports.

Kyle Tress ’21, a senior in the Eli Whitney Students Program, is another Winter Olympian who is a current student at Yale, along with figure skater Nathan Chen ’23. Tress was a 2014 Sochi Olympics participant for the United States in skeleton who was also left wondering what to do after retirement. Now majoring in applied mathematics and getting ready to graduate soon, Tress is grateful for the opportunity to attend Yale and feels fortunate that he was able to get into his top-choice school. Both Tress and Greaves described the feeling of “What’s next?” after achieving the ultimate goal of the Olympics.

Edelman credited his one year at Yale SOM — the 2019–20 school year — for giving him skills on how to manage and fundraise for a team.

While skeleton is an individual sport, bobsled, which has been an Olympic sport since 1924, requires a great deal of coordination for both

two-man and four-man races with the squad.

Greaves also applauded Edelman for trying to bridge gaps between existing tensions in Israel through this unification of the team. He said Edelman helped recruit both Israeli Jews and Arab Israeli bobsledders to compete under the same flag as part of Israel’s two bobsled teams that are trying to qualify for the Olympics.

“It was a subtle opportunity to bring worlds together that, for the past few decades, have had tension between them,” Greaves said. “AJ wants to give us another opportunity to make it to the Olympics, so I thank him for his efforts."

Edelman also expressed his gratitude to Yale SOM alumni and discussed how the value of a Yale education is “not just what you learn in the classroom, but the fact that you’re forever able to talk to another Yalie.” He explained how he would send emails to Yale SOM alumni around the country, trying to find ways to help fund the team.

“I feel a very strong connection to Yale, and the good that can come from being an effective alum in the future as I hope to be, but also, being a part of the [Yale] family is wonderful,” Edelman said.

Edelman, who grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, is a dual citizen of America and Israel.

Contact DEAN CENTA at dean.centa@yale.edu .

Barbara Tonry, Yale gymnastics pioneer

YALE ATHLETICS

Tonry has served under a combined six different Yale presidents and athletic directors in her time as coach.

GYMNASTICS FROM PAGE 14 convincing Yale to let them compete in the championship.

“I didn't do anything,” Tonry said. “But the team did and next thing ya know, we were good to go.”

The pivotal meeting was a success — the women's team won the firstever women's Ivy League gymnastics championship that season.

Yet, one incident still haunts Coach Tonry 44 years later. The day following the championship, Tonry had an unfortunate encounter with the then-business manager of the Athletic Department.

“He told me, ‘We don't feel so bad about sending you because you all won,’ Tonry said. “To me it felt like they were saying that in their eyes we didn't deserve to compete and only went because they simply allowed us.”

Tonry said this was not the last time the Athletic Department and the women's gymnastics team clashed.

After the Bulldogs’ championship victory, the team went on a dominant run. They were flying high — literally and figuratively — and established themselves as a force alongside the men's gymnastics team in the Ivy League and across the country.

“We were the most successful team in either men’s or women’s sports at Yale,” Tonry said.

Despite the men’s .938 winning percentage over their six years as a varsity squad, the Athletic Department pulled the plug on men's varsity gymnastics in May 1980, and the women’s team was told they were also to be demoted to a club, Tonry said. According to a News article in 1980, then-Athletic Director Frank Ryan demoted the men’s gymnastics team, along with the volleyball teams and water polo team, to club status for a multitude of reasons, the biggest factor being the “‘Ivy Context’ — the extent to which [the sport] is offered in the Ivy League” since only a few league institutions offered a men’s gymnastics program. At the time, the News reported that the four cuts saved the University $41,000 in the overall $2.9 million budget for athletics.

Members of the team rallied together to stop the demotion. A meeting was soon scheduled between the athletic director, the women’s team, Tonry and the Faculty Committee of Athletics, to whom the team would present their case to retain its varsity status.

Read more at goydn.com/YDNsports.

Contact BENNIE ANDERSON at bennie.anderson@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

NEWS

“Oh thrice and four times happy... those who plant cabbages.” FRANCOIS RABELAIS FRENCH RENAISSANCE WRITER

Yale lab develops revolutionary RNA vaccine for malaria

BY BEATRIZ HORTA STAFF REPORTER A Yale researcher has partnered with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop an RNA vaccine to protect against the malaria parasite. The vaccine has the potential to save over one million lives and improve living conditions for hundreds of millions more.

The vaccine patent, originally applied for in 2014 by the researchers, was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark office this year on Feb. 4. The Yale School of Medicine Chief of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology Richard Bucala ‘79 and his lab used self-amplifying RNA, or saRNA, technology in order to improve the effectiveness and speed of production of the vaccine by decreasing the amount of genetic material needed in each shot. sRNAs are pieces of genetic material which contain the code for the protein to be targeted by the body’s antibodies after getting the vaccine, but also hold the code for an enzyme which allows the genetic material to replicate itself several times. This means that a much smaller amount of genetic material needs to be injected for the vaccine to provide adequate immunization. “[The ability to self-replicate] may be critical as an effective malaria vaccine will need to be available to billions,” Thomas Holowka, a resident at the medical school and former doctoral candidate in the Bucala lab, wrote in an email to the News. “And by greatly reducing the amount of genetic material for each vaccine it may be possible to mass produce the vaccine on the scale that is needed.”

According to Bucala, one of the issues with developing a malaria vaccine is that there is no natural sterilizing immunity — which prevents reinfection in the long-term or, ideally, throughout a person’s lifetime.

This means that vaccines developed against malaria will usually provide only a short protection period or provide low immunity.

The RTS,S vaccine, which was developed about two and a half years ago, grants about 30 percent protection, which decreases very quickly in about two to three years, Bucala said.

Also, different from many other diseases for which there are currently vaccines, malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite rather than a virus, which means the organism has a larger number of genes and has developed more mechanisms to trick the body’s immune system.

“The malaria parasite has evolved elaborate strategies to circumvent destruction by the host immune system, complete its life cycle and be passed on by mosquitoes to another person so they can be infected,” Bucala said.

The main target of the saRNA vaccine is the parasite’s PMIF protein, which enables the organism to suppress the host’s immune response and prevents it from producing memory T-cells, which generate immunity. By inhibiting the activity of this protein, the vaccine will allow the body to attack the parasite naturally and to generate longer-term immunity to the disease.

Bucala’s lab developed the new RNA vaccine in partnership with Andrew Geall, former RNA vaccine platform leader at Novartis Pharmaceuticals. According to Geall, he had worked previously with Bucala on malaria research and has been interested in developing a vaccine for some time. However, the team faced challenges because of the novelty of the saRNA technology, which was tested for the first time in humans a year ago.

“The main challenge was getting the work published,” Geall wrote in an email to the News.

YALE NEWS

Self-amplifying RNA vaccine for malaria could revolutionize industry.

“This is a new concept and the mode of action for the vaccine is very different to the current approaches. Reviewers required extensive data validation.”

According to Bucala, Geall and Holowka, if the vaccine is approved, it could be revolutionary to the pharmaceutical field. Holowka, who has studied the similar Leishmania parasite, believes that the development of this vaccine could lead to a dramatic increase in availability of vaccines for similar parasites that greatly impact many countries around the world.

According to Geall, the technology behind this vaccine could also significantly boost pharmaceutical companies’ abilities to produce the genetic material and distribute the shots, given the fact that less RNA is required in each dose. This aspect of the vaccine is critical for

a disease that infects such a large number of people each year. “[Malaria is] the second leading cause of infectious disease death in the world last year, about over 400,000 individuals died,” Bucala said. “They’re usually young children under the age of five.”

According to Bucala and Geall, who is now working at a pharmaceutical company Precision NanoSystems, the two are currently discussing a partnership to start research on a saRNA vaccine for COVID-19. The advantage of this type of vaccine against the coronavirus is the much more efficient production process, which would make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to keep up with the rapid viral mutations of SARS-CoV-2.

Bucala believes that with the development of mRNA vaccines

such as the ones created by Pfizer/ BioNtech and by Moderna, regulatory agencies such as the FDA will be “more welcoming” towards the innovative saRNA technology.

This new technology has already helped progress research on the malaria vaccine, and could also represent another pathway for COVID-19 vaccines.

“If this vaccine works effectively in humans it could provide a breakthrough to save hundreds of thousands of lives, particularly in developing nations,” Geall wrote to the News.

According to the World Health Organization, children under the age of five account for over 67 percent of worldwide deaths each year.

Contact BEATRIZ HORTA at beatriz.horta@yale.edu .

PAGE 12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

BULLETIN BOARD

ANASTHASIA SHILOV is a sophomore in Siliman College. Contact her at anasthasia.shilov@yale.edu.

SOPHIE HENRY is a sophomore in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact her at sophie.henry@yale.edu .

GIOVANNA TRUONG is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College.

Contact her at giovanna.truong@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · YALEDAILYNEWS.COM

PAGE 13

THROUGH THE LENS

W

e see them everyday, yet we probably don’t give them too much thought. They are in fact everywhere — in the hallways, the basements and the dining halls. They silently make our residential college complete; our lives, both in quarantine and out of it, liveable, without any need for gratitude.

When we think of our daily interactions these days, we usually restrict the idea to our suite or a group of friends we grabbed a meal with.

It is easy to forget another category of people that is different from us in a lot of ways, and one that faces a much higher health risk than us — college workers.

Amid the weekly cycles of tests and the array of restrictions put in place for our safety, it can be difficult to perceive our living experience as more than just living with other people from the same age group — a group that is arguably at the lowest risk of dealing with serious consequences from catching the coronavirus. It’s natural, therefore, to see these faces daily without thinking too much about them, or the fact that they have entire worlds of their own that they put at risk for us.

VAIBHAV SHARMA reports.

NCAAM Georgetown 72 No. 14 Villanova 71

NCAAM No. 16 Virginia 72 Syracuse 69

NCAAW No. 7 Maryland 83 Nebraska 73

SPORTS

NCAAW Northwestern 65 No. 13 Michigan 49

NCAAW Michigan State 69 No. 9 Indiana 61

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PHASE IV CT OPPONENTS? YALE MAY PLAY CCSU, UCONN AND SHU If Yale reaches Phase IV of the Ivy League’s tiered approach to athletic activitythis semester, Connecticut opponents UConn, Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart told the News adding Yale as an opponent in some sports may be possible.

DIVISION III NESCAC NESCAC GREEN-LIGHTS SPRING COMPETITION On Tuesday, Division III NESCAC presidents announced spring conference competition will only occur if six NESCAC teams play and only if a school chooses to participate.

The Kiphuth Exhibition Pool SWIMMING

“The primary driver for prospects for the Ivy League is admissions to some of the most brilliant academic institutions in the world, and this is not going to change.”

TOM KOVIC RECRUITING CONSULTANT

Edelman trains for Winter Olympics appearance

COURTESY OF ARRAM KIM ANASTHASIA SHILOV AND ZULLY ARIAS/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR AND PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

The Kiphuth Exhibition Pool is the oldest competition pool in use in the Ancient Eight.

BY RYAN CHIAO STAFF REPORTER The Robert J. H. Kiphuth Exhibition Pool is an impressive space.

2,187 seats rise from the floor at a 45 degree angle up to the ceiling, forming a cavernous 50-foot high funnel around the small, six-lane, 25-yard pool. Crests from the Ancient Eight hang suspended high above the glistening water, flanked by four NCAA championship banners captured by Eli swimmers decades ago.

Yale’s swimming and diving teams have called the space home since 1932, breaking world records and contributing to the development of the sport as swimmers know it today. The Exhibition Pool has played host to the NCAA and AAU championships, bringing swimming and diving’s best to New Haven.

Matt Meade ’87, president of the Yale Swimming and Diving Asso-

ciation, recalled the electric atmosphere during competition.

“There was something electric when the team would emerge on the pool deck from the office near the starting blocks — the energy was incredible and inspired a lot of us to some great races and personal triumphs in the pool,” Meade said.

But decades of laps, races, dualmeets and water polo matches have taken its toll on the historic venue. No longer is the Exhibition Pool a shining jewel in American swimming, with its six lanes and straight-edge walls showing signs of obsolescence in a sport that has experienced rapid technological advances.

Coach Robert Kiphuth and the Exhibition Pool’s early history Early Eli teams practiced at Carnegie Pool, formerly located where Trumbull College stands today.

Constructed from a $40,000 dollar donation from Andrew Carnegie

in 1907, the structure had a seating capacity of 500. But just two decades later, Carnegie was deemed to be too small for the growing Yale team, and in 1932 the program moved into its current location in the newly-opened Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

The new aquatic facility was officially opened in a ceremony on Nov. 28, when Captain A. T. Hapke, Jr. ‘33 poured a bottle of water from Carnegie into the new swimming pool.

Twelve days later, the Exhibition Pool hosted its first meet: Yale Bulldogs vs.

Yale Alumni. A crowd of 1,500 gathered in the aquatic colosseum to witness the alumni defeat the Bulldogs in both water polo and swimming.

The swim team’s loss that day marked its first defeat in 117 meets — an early tally set by coach Robert Kiphuth who went on to break that, and many more records, during his 41-year long tenure.

How photographer Musco settled at Yale

BY LUKAS FLIPPO CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A camera is a box with a mirror, a curved piece of glass and a black curtain that opens and closes to expose a sensor to light. It is unapologetically and unemotionally a tool. But when it is in the hands of someone who knows how to be in the right place at the right time, it can be magic.

MUSCO For Yale Athletics, Steve Musco is the magician. Musco has been a volunteer photographer for the department since 2015. Whether it was in the 2018 NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse national championship or the dwindling light of the 2019 Yale-Harvard football game,

Musco has trained his lens on hundreds of Eli athletes.

But this magic — the ability to click the shutter and capture achievement for the eyes of history — was not an easy discovery for Musco.

“The main thing I love about photography is how it touches people's lives,” Musco said. “How we capture a moment that might be only once, but we were there to capture it … a first goal, a first hit, a first basket. We might take it as an insignificant hobby … but we don't know how much it touches someone’s life.”

Musco’s beginnings: The New Haven Nighthawks and Florida State Seminoles Musco grew up about a mile away from the Yale Bowl, where he and SEE MUSCO PAGE 10

COURTESY OF STEVE MUSCO

Steve Musco began photographing Yale Athletics as a volunteer in 2015 following over a decade of experience photographing sports at Florida State.

STAT OF THE WEEK

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SEE SWIMMING PAGE 10

Edelman, entering a bobsled above, is in the first year of a two-year leave of absence from the Yale School of Management and training in Korea.

BY DEAN CENTA STAFF REPORTER For Olympian AJ Edelman SOM ’23, his favorite challenge is the next one.

EDELMAN Edelman, a four-time Israeli national champion in the skeleton event, competed in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and placed in the top 30. After the 2018 Games, he retired from skeleton to pursue an MBA at Yale, citing the dangers of “5G forces of pressure while going at 90 miles an hour” headfirst down a frozen track, but he later decided that he was ready for more — but in a different sport: bobsled.

Edelman is in the first year of a two-year leave of absence from the Yale School of Management and is now back training in Pyeo-

ngchang, South Korea, to try to catapult Israel’s bobsled team to its first Winter Olympics appearance in Beijing in 2022.

“I decided to start the [Israeli] bobsled team, and really shoot for … building an entire medal program for Israel,” Edelman said, referring to his efforts to revitalize Israel’s bobsled team after its founding 20 years ago. “Getting a team to Beijing would increase the amount of talent and funding that we might have in future exposure. So I took a look around and thought essentially that no one else could do this for Israel, so I’m obligated to do so.”

Edelman, who was the first Israeli citizen to compete in skeleton at the Winter Olympics, was also the first Orthodox Jew ever to participate in the Winter Olympics when he competed in 2018.

SEE EDELMAN PAGE 10

Tonry reflects on 48 years at helm

BY BENNIE ANDERSON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Yale women’s gymnastics team has been around for almost 50 years, and head coach Barbara Tonry has led the program for its entire existence.

GYMNASTICS Tonry has served under a combined six different Yale presidents and athletic directors and has won 16 Ivy League Championships. Her coaching history is the program’s history, and since assuming her role as head coach in 1973, Tonry has captured a spot in the U.S. Gymnastics Federation Hall of Fame.

With no competitions for the Bulldogs this year, Tonry reflected on her beginnings with Yale gymnastics and the nearly half-century since.

"I remember when I first met the girls. ... I fell in love," Tonry said.

Tonry’s story at Yale began with a phone call from then-boyfriend and soon to be husband, the late Don Tonry — who coached the men’s varsity gymnastics team from 1974 to 1980, when the program was demoted to club status.

“Without Don, there is no gymnastics at Yale,” Tonry said.

Yale now hosts and competes in an annual tournament called the Don Tonry Invitational, which the Bulldogs won last February.

After a bit of convincing, she packed up her bags and moved out to New Haven, where upon meeting the athletes, she became "captivated by their tenacity.” Yet Tonry and the gymnastics team faced many chal-

YALE ATHLETICS

Tonry has led Yale’s women’s gymnastics team since its inception in 1973, capturing 16 Ivy League championships along the way. lenges in becoming the formidable competitor that it is today.

“I think what makes Barb so successful is her confidence and her belief in everything about her program,” current Yale gymnastics captain Charlotte Cooperman ’21 said. “She was an extremely successful athlete and brings the same mentality into her role as a coach.

She believes in her gymnasts and gets her gymnasts to understand their own abilities as a team.”

The Blue and White clinched a win at its first-ever meet, but this did not come without hurdles. The Elis had to create their own uniforms out of old men's swim uniforms and buy their own equipment, Tonry said. Soon after, they got the chance to compete in a meet in New London alongside Brown, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Princeton. While Yale was in its club phase, Tonry was also coaching at a nearby high school team and attempting to make the United States women's gymnastics team,

yet an injury ultimately ended her own gymnastics career.

Though the program was making “strides,” Tonry said they still met opposition from the Yale Athletic Department. In 1977, the Ivy League had finally organized a women's gymnastics tournament, but at first, Yale barred the team from competing.

“They said that it was too far,” Tonry said. “It was in New Jersey. … They said it was too expensive. If you could imagine an Ivy League team being told it couldn’t compete in the conference championship, it would be kind of mind-boggling.”

The Athletic Department’s decision-making seemed like an obstacle impossible for the team to overcome, Tonry said.

However, this did not stop some members from protesting.

Tonry mentioned to the News that her team played a big part in SEE GYMNASTICS PAGE 10

NUMBER OF HEAD COACHES THE YALE WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS TEAM HAS HAD SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 1973 (BARBARA TONRY).

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021

WEEKEND

// DORA GUO

Envisioning our Post-COVID World: Extracurricular Edition // BY CHANWOOK PARK Six months into my Yale journey, I still do not know where the Asian American Cultural Center is. I hope that this does not disqualify me from being Korean next semester. I’m confident that every first year has something in place of the AACC that they expected to know better by the end of the first semester. As for the upperclassmen… at least the first years can’t miss what they never had. But this isn’t a tribute to the student organizations that once were, but an examination of what our clubs will be when the pandemic dwindles and we can all go back to not washing our hands every time we go outside.

Performance Groups The last live show I saw was my high school theatre troupe’s production of “The Addams Family” in the fall of 2019. In light of the fact that our common area and cafeteria was actually moonlighting as the theater auditorium, it was a great production.

But as they say, the show must go on, and a pandemic isn’t enough to break that holy testament. While in-person events that have been the staple of many performance groups have been rendered impossible for the sake of public health, this hasn’t stopped many organizations from reimagining their traditional events.

Stella Vujic ’22, president of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, was tasked with virtually re-imagining the group’s annual Halloween show. “So this year was quite different from that, there were no in-person filming sessions, every part of the show was filmed over Zoom,” she said. Rather than crowding into Woolsey Hall on the spookiest night of the year, the 2020 YSO Halloween Show premiered online where viewers could tune in from anywhere.

For the performance groups that participate in competitions, these events have transformed to be even more unrecognizable. Usually a live event, the Varsity Vocals International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella — the real-life competition that the film series “Pitch Perfect” is based on — is supposed to be the Cadence of Yale’s annual magnum opus.

But this year, the competition has been translated into a virtual format with competitive a cappella groups sending in video performances. As a result, says Zoe Berg ’24, Cadence’s brand manager, an unfa-

miliar emphasis has been placed on video and audio editing. Berg also doubles as the video editor — her first-ever dabble into Adobe Premiere Pro; she notes that the audio editors possess a similar level of experience as well. We can all probably relate to her response when asked about the learning curve: “This has definitely been … a process.”

Pandemic-era changes aren’t exclusive to music-based groups either. During an interview with Zoe Larkin ’24, the current director and former producer of the Red Hot Poker sketch comedy group, said that many of their recent productions — now, mostly YouTube videos — have embraced not only the recorded format, but the humor in the real-world crisis. “What we found early on in the pandemic is that we can’t just replicate our normal content and expect it to translate. We have to really capitalize on the strength of the medium, so we do a lot of content exploring what’s funny and absurd about Zoom and the peculiarities of life during COVID,” she elaborated.

The comedy group isn’t the only organization that’s turned to the power of internet video for a COVID-safe creative-outlet. At the end of each semester, Taps, the 25-year-old organization committed to celebrating and performing tap dance, usually hosts a pun-themed showcase of the student-choreographed pieces — previous themes include “Tap-italism,” “Tapitally Ever After” and, my personal favorite, “Cirque du Tap.” As the capstone for the fall 2020 semester, the group filmed “Blue World.” Recorded entirely outdoors with dancers on strategically distanced tapboards, the dynamic camerawork and always-changing locations bring a new flavor to tap dancing as I knew it. “It was such a cool way of using a new medium: dance on film. I had to think about choreographing the piece in a different way, because obviously viewing dance from a stage versus a camera is completely different, so it was a really cool experience for me and the dancers,” Gabrielle Niederhoffer ’23, the co-president of Taps, recounted about the experience.

Unwilling to be limited by their preCOVID selves, some performance groups have actually begun entirely new initiatives that would have been impossible

pre-pandemic when club resources would have been spent on traditional, in-person projects. Out of all the performance groups that I was able to speak to, the Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective was leading the charge in this regard. Different from the other music-based groups that I spoke to, the YUJC is not a performance-centered group, but aims to “cultivate a jazz scene at Yale,” said Jason Altshuler ’23, the president of the organization. Aware that the likelihood of hosting guest jazz musicians for a campus event — usually, the most substantial part of the YUJC’s offerings — would be unlikely for the fall 2020 semester, Altshuler recalled wondering, “How can we make sure people still feel a part of this community?”

Many brainstorms and board meetings later, the group arrived at the two completely original initiatives that have been actualized since the beginning of the fall semester: “The Turnaround” publication and a subsidized lessons program. With the focus of “showcasing the jazz community on campus and in New Haven,” the first issue of “The Turnaround” was released in September of 2020 and was completely produced internally, and showcased the graphic design and writing abilities of already-established YUJC members. “It just seemed like a great way to sort of bring people in from the fringes that would not be not be feeling like a part of the community this year,” Altshuler said, “And so we just did it.” The YUJC’s second approach to engaging the community came in the form of its lessons programs; using the funds that would have usually gone to paying artists for performances, the organization decided to retool those funds to pay the same artists for five free jazz lessons for participating Yale students. Alshuler noted that the idea for a lessons program has always been in the back of the organization’s mind, and he considered it a good way to eliminate barriers for Yalies who want to get into jazz. For all of this year’s success, Alshuler said that he cannot definitively guarantee the longevity of either program, but he remains optimistic: “Hopefully, we’ll be in a place in the coming semesters to where we will be able to not only continue the program but perfect, improve, and expand it.”

Political Groups While the pandemic has forced the postponement of many 2020 plans, the one thing that was thankfully unhindered was the 59th presidential election. Mirroring the nature of politics, the political organizations that Yale have been similarly unrelenting.

The Yale Political Union, an organization made up of a variety of political parties, was forced to virtually reimagine the core of their organization’s purpose: communitywide debates. Instead of gathering in the auditorium with every party filling in their long-established positions, YPU members populate Zoom to participate. Ali Brown ’24, the current treasurer of the organization, laments the absence of YPU’s tradition of audience engagement. “If you hear something you like in a speech you tap the desk or literally hiss if you hear something you don’t like,” she described. These rituals, being impossible over Zoom without causing bandwidth-related issues, have been relegated to typing the tap or hiss in the chat. Unsatisfying, to say the least.

While YPU members are counting down the days until they can tap and hiss in person again, Emma Knight ’23, the current president of the YPU, expressed her optimism on continuing to embrace the accessibility of the virtual platform. Knight mentioned that the organization is able to host a great number and diversity of guest speakers. “Coming up, we have Noam Chomsky coming in the middle of the semester who is over 90 years old, who probably wouldn’t be joining us in person during the pandemic,” Knight highlighted.

This wider diversity extends internationally, with Rory Stewart, a member of the U.K. parliament and a senior fellow at the Yale Jackson Institute, also being on the slate of guest speakers. Brown, the treasurer, mentions that her role this semester is pretty “simple” since she no longer has to arrange compensation for guest speakers’ travel arrangements. Both officers hope that even after the pandemic recedes, hosting online speakers will remain a staple of YPU activities.

When asked about the challenges of this year, Knight said, “One thing we’ve all

See Clubs B2

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND CLUBS

From Clubs B1 been struggling with is our Constitution, which basically defines everything as you must be physically present in the room for it to count as a presence in a meeting.” Going forward she said, “We want to make sure that future generations, if we were to have some kind of crisis where we’re not on all on campus or we’re not physically in the same place, would have some kind of framework of how things should go.” At the very least, Knight hopes to document the experiences of the past year to the YPU’s extensive historical archives.

The Yale College Democrats, a more activism-focused political group, faced different challenges in the pandemic. To fulfill their mission of mobilizing students for the Democratic Party in elections, the Dems have shifted their attention to expanding channels of communication and outreach.

“We have revamped our social media presence (@yaledems), restructured our website, and began a podcast over the summer in which we interview alumni and brief members about our elections, legislative, city engagement, and voter engagement work in the upcoming semester,” wrote Grace Whittington ’22, the current president of the organization, in an email to the News.

Interestingly, in some aspects, the pandemic has actually allowed the Dems to be more active. “Because the [Connecticut General Assembly] is in Hartford, we have historically not been able to give oral testimony on many of the bills we work on in a semester.

In this upcoming session we will be working on 34 different bills, and have a much better chance at testifying verbally because the session is entirely virtual,” wrote Whittington.

And like the YPU, Yale Dems has found the virtual setting hospitable for hosting usually inaccessible guest speakers. “Just this week, we had a conversation with Congresswoman Katie Porter, who might not have been able to get to New Haven from California or D.C. but was able to engage with members over Zoom,” elaborated Katie Taylor ’24, the organization’s communications director.

Despite being limited to virtual campaigning for the 2020 election cycle, Whittington takes pride in the impact that the organization has had in the past three virtual semesters: “Our members have worked hard to get progressive candidates elected to local and federal office and advocate for just COVID-19 responses on the issues of health care, equitable housing, workers’ rights, and criminal justice reform.”

Business and Professional Groups For Yale Undergraduate Diversified Investments, the greatest change of the pandemic has been the increase in its accessibility, says Tiffany Liao ’22, the co-president of the finance education organization. “The curriculum itself hasn’t changed. We’re still going through the same exact stuff but what has changed is the mode of the way that we run them,” she explained in reference to their new presence on Zoom. Liao called into our interview from Taiwan, where she has been hosting classes on investment and private equity for almost a year. Beyond the usual communication challenges, Liao hasn’t felt that pandemic restrictions have been particularly limiting for YUDI. “It just goes to show how much technology has grown and how much these tools that we have, have improved,” she said.

Along similar lines, Mia Haraguchi ’22, the president of Y-BioIncubate — a recently founded club that aims to prepare students for biology-facing careers — mentioned that the organization plans on continuing to host Zoom events even after pandemic.

“It’s been helpful, especially for the career development workshops we’ve hosted where people can share their screen and it’s

pretty easy to give people a rundown or for the presenter to give students a rundown of virtual resources,” Haraguchi remarked.

She did note, however, that an entirely online curriculum seems unsustainable. “I think we are seeing some fatigue, to some extent,” she answered when asked about attendance. “Last semester, the average attendance was probably around 10 students per speaker event, which is pretty good, but I think we are seeing people feeling reluctant to attend events in the evening after a full day of Zoom classes.”

Leaders of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society expressed uncertainty about returning to the pre-pandemic norms. “Entrepreneurship is all about collaboration and having a place to rally amazing minds across the country to do thought shares is just really important and now we’re at a place to finally be able to actually take lead in that,” Brihu Sundararaman ’23, the president of YES, explained. By partnering with other entrepreneurial organizations across 11 different campuses, YES is in the planning stages of a virtual pitch competition. Not limiting collaboration to just peers, YES has connected college students with more than 100 remote internships last fall. They’ve recently released their internship catalog for the spring and summer 2021 internship cycle and encourages all students to apply.

Sundararaman attributes this ease of collaboration across vast distances to increased familiarization of communication technologies due to the pandemic. “I think a lot of the stuff that we’ve been able to do is enabled by everyone literally being comfortable with Zoom and just being like, ‘Hey, can we grab a Zoom?’ and you send a calendar invite with the Zoom link and it’s literally that easy,” he said.

The latest addition to the entrepreneurial society, the YES Startup Incubator, was actually born amid the pandemic. After pondering the idea for unifying the startup scene at Yale, “We revived it because we have the infrastructure and the means through YES to sort of kick this off,” said Clark Klitenic ’24, the lead for YES Startup Incubator. With a community of over 25 student-driven startups in various stages of development, Klitenic and his team of incubator curators strive to find and provide relevant resources for their startup community. “The ability to connect people and, at the end of the day, getting the right people in the right Zoom at the right time is really what this whole thing is about,” Klitenic explained. He also noted that the pandemic has created a unique opportunity — with its gap semesters and online classes — to establish time-intensive groundwork for a community like this one.

Publication Groups If there’s one thing that nearly all Yale students do, it’s read. So naturally, evidenced by the quantity and diversity of publications, a lot of Yalies like to write. And if the pandemic isn’t going to stop us from reading, it definitely isn’t going to stop us from writing.

At least that’s the unofficial motto at our very own Yale Daily News, where writers from every desk continue to create content from our separate locations. When the pandemic is over, the YDN building will be my immediate next stop after the AACC building. When asked what aspects of the COVID-era YDN she anticipated would stick around post-pandemic, Mackenzie Hawkins ’23 — our editor-in-chief — responded in email, “COVID-19 accelerated our transition to a digital-first approach to journalism that integrates multimedia content into our daily reporting. I anticipate and hope that our focus on new audio and visual elements will outlast the pandemic as we find new ways to engage with our audience on a

WKND RECOMMENDS Risotto.

variety of platforms.”

This reshifted focus on digital mediums isn’t exclusive to the oldest college daily — during an interview with both editors-in-chief for the Yale Review of International Studies, Tyler Jager ’23 and Numi Katz ’22, mentioned shifting resources away from YRIS’ traditional, quarterly-printed magazine. “We realized that our multimedia offerings could be expanded more since people were paying attention to that,” Jager explained. “Since those were directions we wanted to move into anyway and we figured since we have less we can do with print, we … might as well expand online.” Also understanding that community-building within the organization would be hindered by the virtual format of the meetings, the organization has doubled down on its emphasis grouping people into small teams under subject-focused desks. “YRIS has always been a very coherent social group for me and when we moved online there was no waiting in the halls of [William L. Harkness Hall], getting to chat with people and getting to know people in a low stakes way,” Katz said. “And so the desk system became a very obvious way to create smaller settings for YRIS and for staff writers to get to know other staff writers, desk heads and editors.”

Differentiating itself from the other organizations in this piece, my interview with The Yale Record began immediately with a surprisingly prudent announcement of the magazine’s singular purpose for the pandemic: survive. “Our extracurricular in general has changed from more of a like, ‘Oh, this is fun, we love it’ to more like ‘We just got to power through this and then we can go back to being that fun thing we once were,’” confessed Harry Rubin ’22, the chair of the country’s oldest humor magazine. Considering that Rubin spent most of our interview reminiscing about traditional Record events, it’s safe to assume that not a lot of the COVID-born adaptations will be sticking around. But like many other student organizations, Rubin does acknowledge the potential of Zoom to host special guests — one of the most recent Record speakers was Joel McHale of the NBC sitcom “Community.”

Outward-facing Groups Some student groups strive to make an impact on the community outside of Yale, and sometimes, even beyond New Haven.

One of the groups with the farthest-reaching impact — measured in actual distance — that I spoke to was the Yale Model United Nations. Every year, YMUN usually hosts over 1,500 high school students from around the world who participate in multiday reenactments of various transnational organizations. A large part of the experience is based on the fact that the event is set on the Yale campus, explained Claire Calkins ’22, who served as secretary-general of the organization’s latest conference in January 2021. “Yes, we’re a conference, but we also represent the University as a whole and students who come to YMUN often are inspired by the Yalies they interact with and later on come to Yale as students,” said Calkins.

This year, the conference was hosted entirely virtually, but the YMUN team got creative with a format that they hoped would be more engaging than a series of Zoom links. By partnering with Classrooms.Cloud, the conference was able to build its own unique platform to host more than 1,700 high school students. “We were able to give the opportunity to experience Yale to students from around the world,” said Calkins, “And a lot of students who could have never come to Yale were able to actually attend and that was crazy.”

Cameron Janssens ’24, the director of Committees, admitted that the 47th Model

UN conference went better than he could have imagined, but for all its success, he is hesitant to organize another virtual event once pandemic restrictions are lifted.

“I think, given COVID, this was a great response and I think we learned a lot from it, but I personally don’t have any interest in running another virtual conference if an in-person conference is possible,” he maintained. If demand for a virtual conference remains high, Janssens proposed a new branch of YIRA should be established to independently manage the virtual conference — similar to YMUN Korea and YMUN Taiwan.

Closer to campus, Dwight Hall’s launched a new initiative called the Homework Hotline to directly support low-income students in New Haven who are attending virtual school. Through a system of Google Meet links, Rachel Pontious ’24 — the HW Hotline coordinator — and a squadron of Yalie volunteers assist students oneon-one, for two hours a day, from Monday through Thursday. Even though the program was a direct response to COVID-19, Pontious is optimistic that the program will continue after the pandemic. “We haven’t talked about it that much but I’ve had some small discussions about the future of it with people from New Haven Public Schools and everyone’s just basically like, ‘Why not keep it going, kids are going to need homework help, even if they’re going to school in person,’” Pontious reasons.

Code Haven is another Yale group that works with local students to broaden access to computer science in the New Haven area.

Usually, the students in the group go directly into NHPS classrooms every week to teach lessons on computer science to elementary and middle school students. But with this being impossible and with no plans to return to the classroom if NHPS returns to in-person classes this school year, Code Haven has created an online curriculum. A large part of this effort lies with the expansion of the video team that generates content for the virtualized curriculum. “We have a YouTube channel now and we’re uploading videos and trying to transfer what we would teach online to the virtual setting asynchronously which I think has been a really big change,” said Eden Gorevoy ’24, the co-president of Code Haven. She anticipates that the newfound emphasis on video production will outlast the pandemic because of its potential to recruit Yale mentors and students.

Another COVID-19-era change that Gorevoy thinks could possibly stick around is the virtualization of “Teach Tech.” Usually one of Code Haven’s biggest events, Teach Tech is an educator-focused conference that gathers teachers across the New England area at Yale to talk about teaching techniques specific to CS education. “We did that online this year, obviously, and were able to kind of reach a wider scope of teachers, and I think there’s a lot of potential for reaching more teachers that way, so I do think that is something that we are not going to immediately write off,” Gorevoy explains.

While administrators anticipate the return of all students to campus for the fall 2021 semester, it remains unclear how strict general COVID-19 restrictions will be and remains even more unclear how student organizations will be affected. Despite the severity of this year’s guidelines, there wasn’t a single student that I spoke to that expressed anything less than absolute pride in their organization’s accomplishments. So no matter how strict next year’s guidelines may be, I hope this article will endure as evidence of our individual dedications to our organizations.

Contact CHANWOOK PARK at chanwook.park@yale.edu.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND STRANGERS

On Friday Nights

It’s crowded. The room is full of people — sweaty, smelly human bodies brushing against each other and knocking into one another, mumbling rushed apologies followed by excessively loud laughter. It must be long past midnight. I consider looking for my friends, but I quickly decide against it. They have probably found themselves someone to talk to and, by now, they are most likely exchanging body odor and phone numbers and maybe even favorite hobbies.

So I stay sitting on the cheap plastic kitchen table, legs hanging off the edge, staring into the crowded room full of people.

The music is loud, probably louder than it should be, certainly much too loud for anyone to have a real conversation. I guess real conversations are old fashioned anyway. I could stand up and try to talk to somebody.

But that would require effort. And, there’s no guarantee that anyone interesting would want to talk to me. So I stay sitting on the cheap plastic kitchen table, watching the crowd of strangers.

That blonde boy seems to be quite the character. He snakes through the crowd, smiling — dimples and blue eyes and a black bucket hat. He asks girls for their names and their interests. She says history and he says he loves history. She raises her eyebrows, pleased. The next one says she wants to major in art and he says he loves art too.

A real Renaissance man. I wonder if he’ll remember any of this tomorrow. Probably not. He probably doesn’t even want to.

I look to my left. That brunette girl seems to be having a heck of a night. She throws her head back and laughs — one of those deep, full laughs that spreads to every corner of the room. A few strands of hair slip out of her loose ponytail, falling against her shoulders as she wraps her arms around her boyfriend’s neck. He smiles, nodding across the room to a friend. Maybe she’s in love with him. Or maybe they just met last weekend and decided that they were hormonally destined for each other. Probably that.

One of my friends stands across the room near the window, leaning her back against the wall, talking to some guy she probably just met a few minutes ago. She tucks her hair behind her ear and says something.

His eyes widen. She must’ve said something surprising. Maybe she told him about her nerdy fascination and borderline obsession with astrophysics and white dwarf stars. Or, maybe she told him about her high school math team and the way she flies through

numbers as if it is second nature. Probably not. That would bore him, or so she thinks.

Instead, she probably told him about that wild party she went to last weekend. Or, maybe she told him about her midnight runs to Papa John’s to pick up vegan pizza. That would be interesting. That would be fun.

That would make his eyes widen. I hope he’s a good guy. But I’m doubtful. At this point, I’m convinced that good guys may as well be endangered species.

Regardless, there’s some sort of strange electric feeling about being in a crowded room full of people. It’s almost like a humanity overload, something that seems so disgustingly unnecessary, yet so natural. So right. There is something so predictable and so human about the way we brush past each other under the green lights, skin touching skin, sharing the same dirty oxygen, complaining about our hardest classes and our broken relationships, knowing (and perhaps even hoping) that none of us will remember this conversation by the time morning comes.

To be fair, there is a chance that it’ll last beyond just one night — a slim chance that you will meet again, that you will follow each other on social media and meet up for lunch and work on the math homework together.

But that is highly unlikely. It is, in fact, much more likely that he will remain the hot mystery boy with the black bucket hat who you never got the chance to properly talk to.

She will remain the pretty girl with the loud laugh and you will wish you asked for her name. And I will remain that girl who sat on your cheap plastic kitchen table, ripped jeans and purple shirt, staring into the crowd.

Whatever the case, whether you see each other again or not, you should probably put a label on it. Because that’s just what we do.

Best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, friends with benefits, classmate, acquaintance, strangers.

All these people in this crowded room are just strangers. I don’t know them and I don’t necessarily want to know them. But somehow, I am still sitting on their cheap plastic kitchen table, listening to the same music that they are listening to, breathing the same dirty oxygen that they are breathing, feeling a slight bump against my knee as someone walks past me and their jeans touch mine.

I think about getting up to leave, wondering when everything suddenly became so superficial. Sometime between Monday morning and Thursday midnight, things must’ve changed. Something must’ve hap-

// DORA GUO pened because now, it’s Friday and no one seems to care about the fact that I’m sitting on their cheap plastic kitchen table. I thought people were supposed to get to know people, to remember people. But on Friday nights, perhaps that’s not the point. Perhaps we’re not supposed to remember his name or her terrible break up or any of their interesting stories from last weekend. It’s Friday night. All we’re supposed to do is stay, stay in this crowded room full of people. And, by the time morning comes, we’ll remember that we spent Friday night together. Sure, we won’t really know each other. He won’t know

MY NAMES

// JIYOON PARK

I introduce myself as Bianca — the name bounces rather than rolls off the tongue, makes the voice dip like the blunt nose of a crayon-colored propeller airplane and lilts like a lopsided smile.

Everyone is surprised when I tell them I chose my own name — what parent in their right mind would let their kid do that? Haven’t we all had that phase of wanting to call ourselves some alphabet-soup name we heard on TV or read in a fantasy book? I have a string of such names that I’ve packed away in the attic of my memories like old childhood toys: Cynthia and Tiffany are most prominent. Each one names a different prototype of myself that I wished or imagined I was — friend of fairies! Warrior from another world! Of course, I’m thankful to be able to refer to them in the past tense, to laugh at the silly stories I fantasized about. Those versions of myself are now little more than pages in a one-subject notebook, detailing imaginative escapades over which I superimposed myself.

I wonder if I’ll ever look back on Bianca with regret, but unlike the others, I say it out loud, and it’s stamped on my brandnew U.S. passport, after the name my parents chose for me and before the one they handed down to me. Hyerim Bianca Nam. Those first six letters have been the source of much contention throughout my short life, beginning in the first grade when my teacher squinted her gray-blue eyes at my name and said, “Hi… reem?” Even in Korean my name requires several repeti-

tions and spellings to sink in. What could I expect of America? Feeling painfully small in a world of pale eyes and pale hair, I nodded as my father frowned and attempted to correct Ms. Rixen from behind my curled shoulders. He was too late; that would be my name until the 10th grade, when the move to another school gave me the opportunity and idea to experience rebirth and reclaim my name. I went through crazy contortions to accommodate others, even coming up with a gimmicky routine: “Say ‘yeti.’ Now, add an ‘h’ sound so you have ‘hyeti.’ Then add an ‘m’ to get ‘hyetim.’”

And yet that wasn’t enough; to this day, some people just outright stop addressing me by my name when I go by Hyerim. They either forget or don’t want to mispronounce my name, so I become the unspoken space after the “hey—” or the meaningfully raised eyebrow that directs their question at me specifically. And so I shrink, I wither, I dwindle like a suffocated ember.

Such a diminishment is unbearable, in part because of the history behind my name. My mother put in an alarming degree of preparation into my creation; the lady literally engineered me, down to the moment of the C-section. She consulted fortunetellers and astrologists before deciding what day I should be conceived and born, and paid a priest to give me a powerful name. (In Korean culture, each given name is composed of two characters, which we believe can determine the child’s fate or bestow them with certain qualities.) That is my given name: Hyerim, the marriage between hye of wisdom and intelligence and rim of forest, to signify that I bear within me great groves of sagacity. Thankfully, I don’t take myself that seriously, but I enjoy the thought that although I am ridiculous at times, underneath the frivolity there is a seed of fresh, green promise rooted inside of me, waiting to sprout into vast swaths of million-leaved foliage.

Such forests yet dormant, I have wrestled wildly with how to present myself each time I joined a new community. I have been Hyerim; I have been Nam. The summer I turned 18, I tossed and turned and anxiously consulted my friends with a list of possible names before

WKND RECOMMENDS Taking classes from your bed.

// BY RAFAELA KOTTOU

about her nerdy obsession with white dwarf stars and she won’t know that he was lying to her about loving art, but none of that really matters. All that matters is that we spent Friday night together — speaking words into the same air, glancing at each other from across the room, listening to the same loud music, exchanging laughs and stories and smiles and body odor with absolute strangers.

Note: This article is based on pre-pandemic events!

Contact RAFAELA KOTTOU at rafaela.kottou@yale.edu.

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finally flying to Maryland and introducing myself brightly as simply Nam. When we first applied to the seminar, we had submitted several personal essays. Apparently, those had been shared with our professor, because one day over lunch I overheard her discussing mine with my peers.

“She said her name was Nam, and I was confused because I read her essay about how she’s struggled with people mispronouncing or not saying her name. She wrote about how she refused to simplify its pronunciation or adopt an American name because that would be denying herself. I guess that was why I was so surprised when she wanted to simplify her name.”

It was odd to hear myself being discussed so, to realize that I might be the subject of a casual conversation, politely inserted between bites of lasagna and sips of mineral water. The feeling in my stomach was odder still: nausea, emptiness, confusion, guilt. She wasn’t wrong; the reason I had chosen my last name over my first name was because I didn’t like being erased into an innuendo. I had thought that I was exercising my freedom by calling myself by my last name, but had I been doing exactly what I frowned upon my brother for doing when he legally changed his name to Hugo and erased the Korean Hyung Ju entirely? Was I denying and burying a piece of myself and my cultural heritage out of shame, out of a need to cater to others’ convenience?

That odd shame remained with me all day as I tried to define and understand myself. I pulled Hyerim out of storage and examined her amusing, meaningful history: All those multitudes of gently swaying boughs, rustling with whispered promises of worldly wisdom, held inside the single seed named Hyerim. And maybe, subconsciously, I had rejected that by asking to be called by my last name. However, the more I turned the matter over and over in my mind, the more I realized that it wasn’t so. My given name is my treasure that I guard jealously. However, that doesn’t invalidate my desire and independent choice to append to my identity, to explore and introduce who I am on my own terms, in my own words — because I want

to and not because they want me to. We are sentient and self-aware; we know ourselves more intimately and completely than anyone else, and we all should have that opportunity, that space and time to accept or reject what was given to us and then ask for the chance to give it a try ourselves.

Aware that I would soon apply for U.S. citizenship and have the option to change my legal name, supported by my parents, for whom self-determination and independence are core values, I began a long journey of introspection. I scribbled, considered, then crossed out name after name, trying to find the one that perfectly captured the person I thought I was. It was only when I realized that my name shouldn’t draw a line around my identity but provide a foundation on top of which to build and grow, that I rediscovered Bianca, a name I first met stitched in elegant letters on the linen label of a beautiful, amethyst-purple sweater folded away in my mother’s closet, a made-in-Italy memoir of her maiden days. Despite the luxurious associations I have with the name, it means, quite simply, white: a clean, fresh canvas. I liked — in Korean, we would say it fit into my heart — that Bianca was, on paper, a simple yet sophisticated and svelte young woman, yet the moment you voiced her out loud she came to vivid, vivacious life. I imagine that when you trace over the shape of my name with your tongue and mull over its flavor, hear me burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter, you will know me as I know myself. By introducing myself to you, I invite you; I share me with you.

Bianca, or any other name I may choose for myself, is my middle name; it is my homage to my roots that Hyerim, the first name I ever had, be the first name the world knows me by. And despite this journey, I hold that my names do not define me: I am the architect, the pilot. I define my names, because ultimately only I define myself. And this, I propose, is my art.

Contact HYERIM NAM at hyerim.nam@yale.edu.

PAGE B4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND TELEVISION

// KAREN LIN

Identity Crisis

’s

// BY CAMDEN RIDER “WandaVision’’ is the first Marvel television show to premiere on Disney+. It was executive-produced by Kevin Feige, the prolific producer behind the Marvel movies of the last decade. The show was not originally supposed to be the first of several Marvel television shows to premiere on the platform. Due to the pandemic, however, other projects were moved around, and “WandaVision’’ became the show to kick off Feige’s foray into television.

The show follows Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), two characters introduced in 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Wanda has telekinetic powers and Vision is a weaponized robot with supernatural intelligence. Not quite the typical all-American couple. In “WandaVision,” though, the two portray stereotypical couples from sitcoms throughout the history of television. From a housewife and working husband in the 1950s to new parents having twins in the 1970s, Wanda and Vision travel through time on television.

As the show continues, the audience learns that there are two worlds in “WandaVision.” Wanda and Vision live in a town called Westview, surrounded by an impenetrable red forcefield. Outside of the forcefield, though, is modernity. The fictional government agency S.W.O.R.D. has a base set up at the perimeter. Scientists at the base are trying to figure out how the forcefield, which they call “The Anomaly,” operates. In the fourth episode, the audience learns that the forcefield is a hex created by Wanda around the actual Westview in New Jersey, and that the extras seen in the sitcoms are all people who populated the town before the hex was created.

Wanda and Vision represent two powerful but different categories: magic and science. Wanda is the only known being that is able to spontaneously create new objects with magic, and Vision was crafted to be the optimal technological product. Their differences bring them together as a couple, but also attract enemies. The main antagonist of the show is Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), a powerful witch who hides in early episodes by playing Agnes, Wanda’s nosy neighbor. At the end of Episode

7, though, Agatha reveals her true power to Wanda. Agatha’s goal is to understand Wanda’s power and steal it so that she can be the most powerful witch in the world.

There is also a villain outside of the bubble: S.W.O.R.D. Director Hayward (Josh Stamberg). Hayward’s goal is to steal Vision from the bubble and weaponize his technology. Hayward attempts to frame Wanda as an evil force, when in reality, he was the one who traumatized Wanda into creating the hex.

Until the final episode of the series, I was ready to give “WandaVision” a glowing review. The first three episodes are captivating and funny, providing enough mystery and intrigue mixed with the humor of classic sitcoms. Wanda and Vision’s powers mix remarkably well with their setting, and Agnes injects punch into every scene she’s in. The fourth episode’s revelation of the separation between interior and exterior sets up how the show will climax, introducing more key players into the mix while not giving away how the story will end.

Episodes 5 through 7 blend the sitcom format with events outside of the bubble; it’s a complicated balance to manage, but the show still has a certain magic in these moments. Every actor on screen has a clear motivation, and they all execute these motivations brilliantly. The trio of Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis, played by Teyonah Parris, Randall Park and Kat Dennings respectively, are standouts. Park and Dennings have sitcom experience, with Park starring in “Fresh Off the Boat” and Dennings starring in “2 Broke Girls.” They give WandaVision an authentic television feel, a term often used negatively. Here, though, they ground the show, and remind the audience that this is not a six-hour version of a Marvel movie. This is a different medium entirely, with different storytelling conventions.

Elizabeth Olsen is truly incomparable. She blends in perfectly with each sitcom, particularly in the black-and-white era. Much credit should be given to the hair and costuming departments, which capture the essence of the 1950s while still giving Wanda an otherworldly feel. A true highlight comes in the seventh episode,

WKND RECOMMENDS Taking classes from your floor ;).

where Wanda essentially transforms into a red-haired Julie Bowen, giving a performance that would fit in any “Modern Family” episode. In addition to being an excellent comedian, Olsen also proves to be a dynamic dramatic actress. Wanda is in an unfortunate position. Because of her powers, the people around her fear her, but because of her grief and vulnerability, Agatha Harkness takes advantage of her.

Hahn and Olsen are a matchup for the ages, both giving fantastic performances in their interactions.

One of the best parts about watching “WandaVision” was observing the fan theories posted online. New and old fans alike researched theories about the show’s characters, trying to figure out where “WandaVision” was going next. With a week between every episode, fans had time to dream big. There were theories that Mephisto, one of the greatest villains in the Marvel comics, would be introduced in the show, as well as theories that the Fantastic Four or the X-Men would make appearances. These theories had never really existed with the movie format. Sure, there was speculation about what would happen in every Marvel movie, but fans couldn’t exactly pause in the middle of the film to research the comics. This theorization climaxed in the lead-up to the finale. Fans expectantly waited for the conclusion to the show they had obsessed over for two months. Unfortunately, the finale left much to be desired.

The finale of “WandaVision” loses much of the charm of the previous episodes. It returns to the Marvel formula of a final action sequence to conclude the story.

Wanda and Agatha shoot magic energy at each other, jostling for dominance in the sky above Westview. S.W.O.R.D. create their own Vision-like robot, also played by Paul Bettany; this S.W.O.R.D. creation and Vision fight and destroy various buildings in Westview. The battles end with Wanda being transformed into the Scarlet Witch, complete with a sleek new costume and wavy hair; however, the paradise she created is turned to rubble. It’s a jaw-dropping image, but when the rest of the story being

told in “WandaVision” feels so antithetical to the rest of Marvel’s output, a more traditional superhero ending feels hollow.

But there are still brief moments of humanity in the episode. Wanda ends up taking down her hex over Westview, in the process killing her children that she created with her powers. She also loses Vision in this moment, as it is revealed that the Vision the audience sees throughout “WandaVision” was also created with Wanda’s powers. It’s an emotionally stirring moment that shows how much Wanda’s personality has evolved. She has processed her tremendous grief, leaving her cleansed and almost whole. However, her circumstances are exactly the same as they were before the show — no partner, no family and little control over her powers. The difference now is that she has the knowledge of what she could be: the Scarlet Witch. However, the audience will not see the true potential of the Scarlet Witch’s powers until she appears in the Marvel movies.

It is unclear what Marvel wanted from “WandaVision.” There are elements of the show that break the Marvel mold, and these are the elements that resonated with viewers. The campiness of the sitcom format.

The theme songs that introduced each new episode. Elizabeth Olsen’s acting prowess. Kathryn Hahn’s genius. The strength of Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. By the end of the show, though, nothing feels concluded. Hahn is defeated but kept on ice for the future. Vision is dead, but the possibility of his return is left open. Wanda has the knowledge that she is the Scarlet Witch, but she doesn’t really know what that means yet. In the end, “WandaVision” feels like the most interesting possible path to get Wanda her full power set. However, the show introduced, and then didn’t follow through on, elements that were more interesting to viewers. In the future, Marvel Television needs to figure out whether they want to make episodic superhero movies or stories that warrant the television format.

“WandaVision” feels stuck in the middle.

Contact CAMDEN RIDER at camden.rider@yale.edu.