Yale Daily News — Week of May 7

T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 27 · yaledailynews.com

Karen DuBois-Walton officially launches mayoral bid would be stepping down from her 14-year tenure as president of Elm City Communities, the New Haven Housing Authority, effective last Friday. Her bid became official on Monday morning.

DuBois-Walton told the News that she will be sharing her platform in the next coming months, and that it will focus on policing, education and fiscal security.

“As she moves from an exploratory committee to a full campaign committee, she’ll continue to prioritize listening to and lifting up the voices of all New Haven residents, while stressing opportunities for bold leadership and real, substantive change,” DuBois-Walton’s spokesperson, Will Viederman, wrote in a Monday press release.

The difference between launching an exploratory committee and a mayoral campaign lies in the permission and documentation behind a race. DuBois noted in a phone interview with the News that the committee was intended to test out the “viability” and “ideas”

BY ÁNGELA PÉREZ STAFF REPORTER On Monday, former Elm City Communities President Karen DuBois-Walton ’89 officially announced her run for mayor and filed her campaign papers on the same day.

DuBois-Walton is preparing to roll out her platform in the coming months. She will challenge one-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker in the Democratic primary this September. The primary election is typically decisive in New Haven, which has long been a Democratic stronghold.

While Elicker announced his reelection bid in January, DuBois-Walton’s campaign efforts began in March, when she launched an exploratory committee to investigate the possibility of her mayoral run. She raised $69,652 in the first 23 days of fundraising, more than either of the 2019 mayoral candidates had raised in their first month. On April 21, DuBois-Walton announced she

behind a potential race. As soon as the documentation to become a mayoral candidate is filed on a city and state level, the candidate can actively campaign, request voter support and advertise a platform.

In April, DuBois-Walton released a video calling for investment in police accountability through the funds New Haven received via the American Rescue Act. She called for community investment and collaboration with local community organizations.

DuBois-Walton also said that a team like Mayor Justin Elicker’s Crisis Response Team should have been “been up and running much, much sooner,” noting that some situations “don't need a gun and a badge as a response.”

“We should be defining what [a] 2021 version of community policing looks like in this community and creating models that could be picked up in other places,” DuBois-Walton told the News.

“It's not something that that SEE DUBOIS-WALTON PAGE 4

COURTESY OF KAREN DUBOIS-WALTON

Former Housing Authority President Karen DuBois-Walton officially announced her candidacy in the 2021 mayoral race on Monday.

Ivy competition set to resume this fall Activists ask Yale to respect New Haven in street mural

BY NATALIE KAINZ AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS Once again, labor activists are hitting the Elm City’s streets to demand more from Yale — this time, leaving behind a permanent, painted mark on the University’s doorstep.

The new mural sits in front of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall on Prospect Street, part of which was closed on Saturday with the approval of the Board of Alders.

SEE MURAL PAGE 4

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

The announcement comes after more than three seasons of canceled games.

BY EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA AND JAMES RICHARDSON STAFF REPORTERS After more than three seasons of canceled games, Yale and its Ivy League opponents are set to

return to regular athletic competition in the fall.

In an email obtained by the News sent to Yale student-athletes Tuesday at 11 a.m., Director of Athletics Vicky Chun shared a joint statement from the Ivy

League Council of Presidents announcing their expectation for the resumption of Ivy League competition across all sports starting in fall 2021. The presiSEE IVY LEAGUE PAGE 4

NATALIE KAINZ/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Starting at 7 a.m. on Saturday, painters also added two stripes to Prospect Street’s bike lane.

Unions call for respect from Wilcox retires after 38 years at the YCBA Yale at car caravan rally

BY ANNIE RADILLO STAFF REPORTER

Hundreds of local union members, students and university workers gathered in front of the newly painted “YALE: RESPECT NEW HAVEN” street mural at 1

BY NATALIE KAINZ AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS Overcast skies and drizzling rain did nothing to dampen the spirit of unity at a rally held by New Haven unions on Wednesday.

SEE CARAVAN PAGE 5

NATALIE KAINZ/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Protesters gather on Prospect Street to call for a fair renegotiation of University labor contracts.

On April 1, 2021, Deputy Director for Collections Scott Wilcox GRD ’78, PHD ’84, retired from the Yale Center for British Art after 38 years at the center.

This step comes after a two-year phased retirement which began on April 1, 2020.

Wilcox first came to Yale as a graduate student in art history in the late 1970s. He joined the YCBA in 1982 as assistant curator in prints and drawings and continued to rise in the museum’s ranks in the decades that followed. His colleagues at the YCBA described him as dedicated, intelligent and extremely knowledgeable about British art. During his time at the YCBA, Wilcox focused on making the museum’s collections accessible to the public and increased the prominence of British photography in the collections.

CROSS CAMPUS

INSIDE THE NEWS

Philanthropist Paul Mellon '29 contributes over $50 million worth of artwork, manuscripts and additional endowment to the University, the largest donation made by a single individual in the University's history. He also contributed $25 million in artwork, manuscripts and money to the Yale British Art Museum.

ASIAN

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1993.

To mark the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, this special issue of the News celebrates Asian communities at Yale and in New Haven. Read the full issue at bit.ly/33ocit3. Page 6-7 SPISSUE

HEDY TUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Wilcox joined the YCBA in 1982, eight years after its founding, as an assistant curator in prints and drawings.

“Scott is deeply respected by his colleagues not only for his curatorial and administrative ability but for his intelligence,” said Jules Prown, founding director of the YCBA. “At staff meetings, when problems and

SCHWARZMAN

The Schwarzman Center will open in fall 2021 and serve as a hub for community life and the arts, offering a new dance studio, art gallery and theater.

Page 9 ARTS

SWENSEN

David Swensen GRD ’80, Yale’s longtime Chief Investment Officer and creator of the “Yale Model” for institutional investing, died Wednesday evening.

Page 13 UNIVERSITY

other issues come up for discussion, everyone awaits Scott’s analysis and conclusions and almost invariably follows his lead.”

SEE WILCOX PAGE 5 BULLDOG

Silliman students can look out for a fresh face in the courtyard this fall: As a resident fellow, Handsome Dan XIX handler Haro ’18 will live there with her puppy, Kingman. Page 14 SPORTS

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION GUE ST COLUMNIST HONGYI SHEN

GUEST COLUMNIST O H S H U E G ATA NA G A

Chasing an Asian frontier of queerness M W

hen I first stepped onto Cross Campus, I was enveloped with a sense of inclusivity and a hope that queer identities could be accepted everywhere. Practically, there were more queer people than I’d been around before to explore my sexuality with — apparent from the unusually high number of non-heteronormative couples lounging around. This was a refreshing feeling from the closeted lifestyle back home. In contrast, my first winter break at home was a harrowing experience. Many first year queers can attest to the existential dread that accompanies the realization that you would have to essentially go back “into the closet,” not openly expressing their sexuality and sexual preferences in front of family.

The navigation of identities creates a sharp school- vs. -home dichotomy, one that posits school as an inclusive space whereas family as a toxic space.

Somewhere along the way, those thoughts can, at times, build internalized hatred towards one’s heritage and an internal conflict of identity.

“Oh, yeah, Asian parents can be really unaccepting of queerness.”

The amount of times I’ve heard that non-white cultures are less accepting of queer identities is in all honesty tiring. What these discussions are really implying is that whiteness is more accepting. In the existential dread of returning home as a first year, one can’t help but ask, “What would it have been like if I was in a white family? Would my parents accept me?” In coming to terms with my queerness at Yale, I’ve found it tempting to dismiss home as a closeminded space largely informed by my family’s cultural heritage.

Sure, white families can cultivate homophobic spaces too. But I’ve never heard “white culture” as an argument used to define why home can be so non-inclusive. The language that we often employ to describe Yale’s experiences for queer Asian Americans, and people of color more broadly, clearly makes statements about our homes and cultures.

We, as Asian Americans, forget that there are hundreds of years of beautiful queer histories in our own countries. Our Asian histories, through colonization, destruction and ostracization by the West, have been largely forgotten and erased. That is to say, the West is by no means the first frontier of queerness.

As a peer liaison for the Office of LGBTQ+ Resources, I have the incredible opportunity and privilege to talk to first years about their queer experiences. These experiences are largely painted by cultural heritage and upbringing, but also the existential dread of returning home. Our current, queer vocabulary attempts to explain why our families might not be accepting of queerness. However, it might be worthwhile to think about how our own culture provides new ways to explore our queerness.

My own Asianness has pushed me to

consider androgyny, for example, as a standard of beauty that continues to be upheld by many Asian countries. My Japanese heritage teaches me that “kizuna,” or bonds, are at the center of building and participating in queer communities.

IN THE EXISTENTIAL DREAD OF RETURNING HOME AS A FIRST YEAR, ONE CAN’T HELP BUT ASK, “WHAT WOULD IT HAVE BEEN LIKE IF I WAS IN A WHITE FAMILY? WOULD MY PARENTS ACCEPT ME?” IN COMING TO TERMS WITH MY QUEERNESS AT YALE, I’VE FOUND IT TEMPTING TO DISMISS HOME AS A CLOSE-MINDED SPACE LARGELY INFORMED BY MY FAMILY’S CULTURAL HERITAGE. At the end of the day, queerness should never come at the cost of internalized hate towards our own cultures. It’s easy to reduce our parent’s viewpoints as proxies for our culture, when in reality our heritage is so much more than the ability to express queerness at home. If being queer means to constantly “disrupt and subvert” the current state, we should question why so many first years of color go back dreading home. Building a safer queer culture at Yale means finding ways that I can be both Asian and queer without feeling like either identity is being sacrificed. The feeling of having both ethnic and queer identities affirmed is of absolute completeness. Chasing this frontier of queerness, in my opinion, is the worthwhile endeavor that Yale queers should engage in.

OHSHUE GATANAGA is a senior in Berkeley College. Contact him at ohshue.gatanaga@yale.edu .

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Relating love...

y parents do not say, “I love you,” to me or to each other. The feeling is mutual; I do not say it to them either. There is a weird sort of love between us, weird because it is not eloquent and often misunderstood. My family communicates love equally through food and reproach, cut fruits and caning, hope and resignation.

My grandmother scolded me for not giving her enough clothes to wash when I visited her. “Your cousin gives me two bags of clothes every week,” she told me. I felt wronged but kept from protesting, knowing my place. I forced down frustrated tears when I was criticized for not answering her. When I offered to help with the dishes, my grandmother looked annoyed. (Grandchildren should be doted on, or studying, unobstructed by chores.) When my mother offered to help with the dishes, it was an unspoken expectation my mother would help out.

When I was younger, my mother caned me. I would be asked to pick out the cane of choice — usually from an assortment of hangers. If I picked the thick plastic ones, my choice would immediately be overturned, and I would get a bonus strike from the painful metal ones. Back then, I used to read storybooks about witches. I wondered if I was living with one; my mother, too, fed me delicious foods.

“You are an intestine in my body,” my mother liked to tell me.

“It hurts me as much as it hurts you to scold you. It breaks my heart when you cry, so please stop being so disobedient.”

My family has a kind of love that values not individual freedom but livelihood, hoping to literally give you life. It is a kind of love that warms your stomach, stifles your soul a bit, but hopes to liberate you from future regrets. It is the kind of love that kisses you good night, only in your imagi-

nation, but wakes you up with a forceful curtain pull to reveal the glare of sunshine. It is the kind of love that hurries you out of bed and monitors you eating all of breakfast, so that you may have the nutrients to survive the long school day, the exam or the life that lies ahead.

There is a clockwork to this love; it just takes time to notice.

Sometimes, it is really hard to tell. Once, an “uncle” (all strangers are “uncles” and “aunties” by default in Singapore, even if familial uncles and aunties are called the exact same way) came to my house to do a government census. He had visited before in the afternoon, but I thought he was an insurance agent and intently pretended not to be at home. He came again during the evening, and his gray hair made my heart sink. Displaying a set of yellowed teeth in a smile, he asked me if I would fill in a survey for some supermarket vouchers. I wanted to tell him, I would do it, even without the vouchers; but I was too quiet with guilt and shame. When it was time to leave, I asked the uncle if he liked his job. He answered no.

He was a volunteer. He kept at this thankless (and payless) job out of worry for his son, who was always called to the principal’s office and whom he feared would not find a job. If he did this job, maybe he could network for his son.

“I don’t want him to end up like me,” he sighed, “but he doesn’t listen.”

How does one listen – between the reproach, prayer and sighs?

Parents are not always good at telling you if they love you. They are not good at telling you anything at all. They make long belabored points about eating well and sleeping habits. They nag about the importance of studying and safety. My father especially liked lecturing about Confucius’ values. “Oh, you want a hug,” he said, surprised and awkward, when I asked for one when leaving for college.

How inadequate our expressions of love! How painful it was to watch my parents watch me silently recede past the customs gate. How pitiful it was to stare at them to wordlessly imprint their faces in my memory. Why do we not express it more?

“If I start crying, I might never stop,” I said of my homesickness in my first semester of college.

Love is a set of relations one practices. I have “seniors” in college. “Seniors” is a concept Americans do not have. In Singapore, “seniors” do not refer to the graduating class, but a set of relations to younger members of the community or “juniors.”

Anyone older than you is your “senior,” while you are their “junior.” “Senior” and “junior” designate your place in the community. The “senior” cares for the “junior” like an older sibling.

In Singaporean high schools, seniors commonly mentor and coach juniors – in sports, competitions or studies. At Yale, my Singaporean senior made me kimchi just because I complained dining hall food was bad. As a junior, your duty is to become a good senior when it is your turn to do so. It is a self-perpetuating clockwork. It is a culture rather than an institution. It is part of being in a community — my family.

As ancient Chinese poets noted: When words are inadequate, one sighs; when sighing is inadequate, one composes songs and poetry; when even that is inadequate, your hands inevitably dance, and your feet cannot help but tap.

We still failingly speak, sigh and write poetry; but perhaps in this weird dance of love, my circuitous footwork shows that I care. It is not for a shortage of love. It is just a way to love, in all its awkward ineloquent glory.

HONGYI SHEN is a first year in Saybrook College. Contact her at hongyi.shen@yale.edu .

G U E ST C O LU M N I ST CA S SA N D R A N G

On the Limits of Assimilation W

hen I turned 16, my mom asked me if I wanted to get a double eyelid surgery. Double eyelid surgery — known in medical circles as Asian blepharoplasty — creates an eyelid crease, transforming Asian monolids into Western “double eyelids.” My mom, who was blessed with double eyelids from birth, was convinced that it would make me look prettier.

“Your eyes will be so much bigger,” she told me.

As a teenage girl growing up with Photoshopped images and social media, I dealt with my fair share of body image issues. Yet I refused the surgery. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I used double-sided Scotch tape to flimsily create my own double eyelid. I gazed at myself in the mirror with one monolid and one double eyelid. Covering one side of my face with my hand, I analyzed my reflection as if it were a spot-the-difference game.

Would the surgery make me look more pretty, or just more Western?

My personal experience is no doubt reflective of a larger trend towards more physical forms of assimilation. Especially with the rise in anti-Asian racism as a result of racist dog-whistling during the COVID-19 pandemic, more Asian Americans have been looking towards assimilation as a solution. Andrew Yang, one of the rare examples of Asian American representation in public and political spheres, advises Asian Americans to assimilate more to combat the rise of antiAsian racism. “We Asian Americans need to embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before,” he writes.

“We need to step up, help our neighbors, donate gear, vote, wear red white and blue, volunteer, fund aid organizations and do everything in our power to accelerate the end of this crisis.”

Just as anti-Asian racism has existed for centuries in American history, so has the belief that assimilation means protection. In the Western Historical Quarterly, Wendy Rouse Jorae describes how, following the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, American-born Chinese youths abandoned traditional Chinese dress in favor of Western fashion, in an attempt to separate themselves from their Asian roots and, as Yang says, to show their Americanness. Assimilation via dress was a method of survival; some Chinese Americans believed that dressing in Western styles would defend them from discrimination and underscore their efforts to assimilate. However, they learned that their assimilation and adoption of American norms did not warrant their acceptance in American society. Chinese American youths could have seamlessly blended into American society with their Western style, save for one fatal flaw. They could not rid themselves of their physical differences.

During the Exclusion Era, there was an influx of Italian immigrants whose arrival overlapped with that of Chinese immigrants. As Erika Lee writes in the Journal of American Ethnic History, they faced similar treatment as Chinese Americans, even being called the “Chinese of Europe” at times. However, there were clear delineations drawn between European and non-European immigrants. Chinese Americans were seen as unassimilable, while Italian Americans more easily integrated due to their lack of distinctive physical differences when compared to white Americans.

Understanding the history of assimilation in America makes Yang’s psychology much clearer.

As an Asian American politician in a field largely dominated by

white Americans, Yang’s fervent support of assimilation is an act of assimilation itself.

But what Yang fails to account for is that Americanness is dependent on whiteness, which is impossible for any person of color to achieve. There is a reason why discrimination against Irish and Italian Americans is a thing of the past, while antiAsian racism remains in the present. Successful assimilation, as it pertains to people of color, does not exist.

With advances in the medical field, Asian Americans seem more willing to physically alter their bodies. Some surgeons even make their living by capitalizing on this eagerness to physically assimilate. Dr. Edward Kwak, a plastic surgeon based in NYC, dedicates himself to “Korean plastic surgery.” His website lists the main types of Asian procedures: Asian ptosis surgery (another eyelid procedure), Asian double eyelid surgery and Asian rhinoplasty.

Initially, I didn’t understand why there was a difference between Asian rhinoplasty and a normal rhinoplasty. White people don’t normally get double eyelid surgeries, but plenty of them get nose jobs. Dr. Kwak lays out the differences: white people want their noses to be smaller while Asian people want their noses to be bigger. East Asian noses are typically flatter and closer to the face, as opposed to larger, defined Caucasian noses. Asian rhinoplasty augments the bridge of the nose to make it bigger — in other words, to assimilate, which means “to make similar.”

At what point does “to make similar” mean “to make identical” instead?

CASSANDRA NG is a first year in Silliman College. Contact her at cassandra.ng@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“People don’t want to pay 8 or 9 dollars to go see a problem that they have in their life, on screen. They pay to get away from that.

That’s why they watch soap operas.” OMAR EPPS AMERICAN ACTOR

Bayan Galal ’23, Zoe Hsu ’24 elected YCC President, VP

BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER In an email to the student body on Friday evening, Yale College Council vice-president Reilly Johnson ’22 announced the election of Bayan Galal ’23 and Zoe Hsu ’24 as the next YCC president and vice-president, respectively.

Galal, who ran on a ticket with Hsu, won 56.4 percent of the vote, while opposing candidate Joaquín Lara Midkiff ’23, who ran on a ticket with Jordi Bertrán Ramírez ’24, won 43.6 percent. Hsu won 50.9 percent of the vote to best Ramírez in the vice-president election. 2,007 of 6,057 eligible students voted in the presidential election.

In the YCC, Galal has previously served as a senator from Grace Hopper College, as well as the health and COVID-19 policy chair.

Hsu has previously served as a senator from Berkeley College, and as the YCC equity chair.

Galal received 1,131 votes, while Hsu received 1,015 votes in an election that opened for voting the morning of April 29 and closed the evening of April 30.

“So much work went into this campaign, so many people supported me along the way, and seeing it all come together was so exciting,” Galal said. “I’m beyond grateful to the stu-

dent body for having faith in Zoe and I, and we’re ready to get to work.

According to Hsu, she and Galal spent the last three hours the polls were open working on last-minute outreach, including messaging over 1,000 students each, reminding them to vote.

Hsu said that her election to the position of vice-president was “such an honor,” adding that she is excited to represent her intersectional identities as a first generation, low-income student and a woman of color in STEM, in the YCC. Opposing Galal and Hsu were Midkiff and Ramírez, who ran on a joint ticket for president and vice-president, respectively.

“My goal is as it always was, which is to continue on and to do what I can for the communities I represent and the communities I don’t, and keep working on behalf of students who need a strong advocate,” Lara Midkiff told the News. “That’s what I would have done as president, and that’s what I will continue doing not as president.”

Lara Midkiff emphasized his gratitude for his supporters and his running mate, and added that he has already reached out to Galal about plans to work with her administration.

The official campaign season began on April 23 with the announcement of the candidate roster and

included a debate on April 26 at which the candidates discussed their platforms and visions for Yale.

Galal and Hsu’s campaign was themed around the central idea of “building a healthier Yale.” Their platform focused on five principles: the physical, mental, community, financial and institutional health of the University.

“I’m really proud of how we relayed our platform and our overall goals,” Galal said. “Zoe and I wanted to have a platform that showed our comprehensive vision for building a healthier Yale, and we can’t wait to get to work on fulfilling that vision.”

Galal and Hsu are set to replace outgoing YCC president Aliesa Bahri ’22 and vice-president Reilly Johnson ’22.

“Every candidate brought thoughtful policy ideas and a truly inspiring vision for the future to the table,” Bahri said. “Throughout the election, I knew that regardless of who won, YCC would be in very capable hands next year. I am incredibly grateful for their commitment to our organization and our community, and deeply admire their persistent drive to create a more just, safe and equitable Yale.”

Johnson added that she was proud of the work she and Bahri did to improve student life over the course of their administration, in particular addressing violations of

COURTESY OF ZOE HSU AND BAYAN GALAL

Galal received 1,131 votes, while Hsu received 1,015 votes in the election that opened for voting the morning of April 29 and closed the evening of April 30. break days, providing textbook stipends to students and creating a positive working environment for students in the YCC community.

Diba Ghaed ’24, who ran unopposed for YCC events director, was also elected. Ghaed has previously served as the YCC’s deputy director of the Events Committee.

“After two very unusual years, there is understandable anticipation regarding what a return to ‘normal’ Yale will look like,” Ghaed said. “I am so excited to ensure that when we are able to be together again, it will have been well worth the wait.”

Ghaed added that her priorities as events director will be to collaborate with New Haven

businesses to host events for students, and to allocate funding towards events for students such as headshot photoshoots, mock interviews and graduate school mentoring sessions.

Juan Diego Casallas Otalora ’23 was elected Junior Class Council President, while Leleda Beraki ’24 was elected Sophomore Class President.

Galal and Hsu’s term officially began at midnight on May 1, but the 2020-2021 YCC administration will be working with the incoming officers over the next few weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

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

14 Yale faculty elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

YALE NEWS

Top row: Bergemann, Breaker, Brown, Cao, Casey; Middle row: Hansen, Horwich, Huber, Iwasaki; Bottom row: Johnson, Sigworth, Spielman, Tanner, Washington.

BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER On April 22, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of 252 new members, 14 of whom are Yale faculty.

Nine of the faculty — Dirk Bergemann, Ronald Breaker, Hui Cao, BJ Casey, Valerie Hansen, Gregory Huber, Marcia K. Johnson, Daniel A. Spielman and Ebonya L. Washing-

ton — hail from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, while four — Nancy Brown, Arthur L. Horwich, Akiko Iwasaki and Frederick J. Sigworth — are from the School of Medicine and one, Kathryn Tanner, comes from the Divinity School.

“It is a tribute to the excellence of our faculty that they are being honored in this way,” Tamar Gendler, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told the News.

According to its website, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780 and aims to bring together “exceptionally accomplished individuals” to work on the problems faced by every generation of American society. Members of the academy often work together on various commissions on issues such as education, global affairs, and democracy and justice. Through this work, they publish reports and recommendations for how the country or world can improve in specific areas.

According to Gendler, the number of faculty elected this year from Yale is “unusually high.” Last year, for example, seven Yale faculty members were elected, half of 2021’s number.

“I’m thrilled to be honored alongside such an impressive cohort of other Yale inductees,” Huber, Forst Family professor of political science, wrote to the News in an email. “One of the great things about being at Yale is the breadth of excellence across the diversity of arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences. On a personal level, it was wonderful news in an otherwise difficult year.”

Huber, whose work focuses on American politics and political economy, is joined in this year’s cohort by Yale faculty whose work ranges from information transfers in cells to market design research — demonstrating the breadth of focuses found in elected academy members.

Hansen, Stanley Woodward professor of history, is a Chinese and world historian who, in an email to the News, emphasized how grateful she was for the support of the University, specifically the Council of East Asian Studies at Yale, in allowing her to pursue her research.

Casey, professor of psychology, researches the adolescent brain and helped conceive a foundational theory that informs the different ways through which scientists view developing and developed brains.

“I am humbled and thrilled to be elected to the Academy,” she wrote to the News in an email.

Several of the elected faculty emphasized that the honor is not theirs alone, telling the News that it is shared with students, parents, collaborators and other colleagues.

Cao, the John C. Malone professor of applied physics, told the News that she is “deeply indebted” to her parents for their “unwavering support.”

And Johnson, Sterling professor emeritus of psychology, wrote that she was especially excited by how her election to the academy associates her with present and past members who have contributed much to society.

“My election to the AAAS honors my students and other colleagues, whose insights, scholarship, perseverance, and technical and critical skills are baked into our collaborative adventures in the science of human cognition and memory,” she wrote.

Notable new members this year also include CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta and talk show host and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey. Previously elected members include Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Anthony Fauci and John Legend.

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

FOKP delivers letters to Elicker about park-for-housing deal

BY NATALIE KAINZ STAFF REPORTER “Goodbye sleazebag slumlords + developers” read a sign held by Wendy Hamilton, a local philanthropist who ran for mayor in 2019.

Dressed in a space helmet — her response to the pandemic — and Ugg boots, the stand-up comedian came to City Hall to take a serious stand: one against the city’s decision to sell a park in the Dwight neighborhood.

Hamilton came to support a group of 12 Dwight residents on Monday afternoon who delivered 15 letters to New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker opposing the city’s $1 sale of Kensington Park to a developer in exchange for affordable housing. The letters were responses to the city’s March Environmental Review Report, which found “no significant impact on the human environment” caused by demolishing the playground.

Monday marked the city’s deadline for public comment in response to the Environmental Review Report, which had to be submitted in writing to Elicker’s office.

“The environmental justice aspect of this report is saying that they are okay destroying two-thirds of an acre of mature, public green space — the only public playground in Dwight,” Friends of Kensington Park member Jane Comins said on the steps of City Hall. “There’s no mention of how the park combats air and noise pollution, that it pro-

vides physical space for play and exercise. … I don’t know what their definition of environmental justice is, but it’s certainly not mine.”

In an interview with the News, she criticized the mayor for treating the Kensington Playground sale as a done deal — something negotiated prior to his term in office.

At a Mayor’s Night Out event last October, Elicker said that it would be irresponsible to “switch gears at the 11th hour” on a project which he had inherited from his predecessor, former Mayor Toni Harp. On Monday, Elicker came out to collect the letters from FOKP member Patricia Wallace on the steps of City Hall.

“It was great that Mayor Elicker came out to receive the packet of letters from us, but one of his most sacred duties as mayor is to stand up for democracy,” Wallace told the News. “We do not feel that he has done that.”

Elicker said to the group that because the park issue is in the midst of a lawsuit — one filed by FOKP earlier this year — he could not comment on it.

The city commissioned civil, transportation and environmental engineering firm Fuss & O’Neill Inc. to put together the report. The city aims to release the $250,000 currently held by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HOME program to fund the development.

FOKP’s letters included an assessment of the park’s value to community health, written by Dwight resident and pediatric nurse practitioner Shirley Deng.

Robert Dubrow, faculty director of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, also submitted a letter urging the city to preserve the playground as it is “essential for [children’s] health and well-being.”

FOKP also brought six drawings of the playground by children living in the neighborhood, including some drawn by the Carter family, who attended FOKP’s bike giveaway on April 18. Wallace said she hopes people will recognize how the desires of the children to preserve their green space is expressed in the drawings.

Six members of the group set off on a march from Kensington Playground to City Hall in the afternoon. FOKP member Victoria Vebell helped hold a sign which read “Save Kensington Playground.” She said she came out to the event because she wants more people to recognize that the city failed to secure community support in its decision to sell the park.

Hamilton said she felt that rallying for the preservation of Kensington Playground is important because she has seen past incidents of public land being sold for little all across the city. In addition to Kensington Playground, the land under 360 State St., a 300-foot-tall residential build-

ing completed in 2010, was also sold for one dollar. As reported by the Independent, the developer of that building promised to provide parking for an office building and take on the responsibility for “millions of dollars of environmental cleanup” in return.

“Developments built on the cheap are popping up like poison mushrooms,” said Hamilton in an email to the News. “You could kick most of these buildings down with a Timberland....and they are nursing home ugly to boot.”

Anstress Farwell, president of the New Haven Urban Design League, also spoke at the event. She called the city’s Environmental Review

Report a “word salad tossed at important categories of consideration” with “not one substantial argument in it.”

In her letter, Farwell wrote that the New Haven Urban Design League, which is dedicated to protecting New Haven’s natural and historic assets through advocacy, opposes the project. She said that the city’s Environmental Review “does a disservice to a vulnerable community.”

According to the city’s report, 80 to 95 percent of those living near Kensington Playground are classified as low income.

Contact NATALIE KAINZ at natalie.kainz@yale.edu .

NATALIE KAINZ/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Wendy Hamilton, local philanthropist and former mayoral candidate, holds a sign reading “Goodbye sleazebag slumlords + developers” at Monday’s protest.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Daytime soap operas, which I used to adore, have been declining in quality and importance for over a decade, and I gradually stopped monitoring them.” CAMILLE PAGLIA AMERICAN ACADEMIC

Dubois-Walton officially running for mayor DUBOIS-WALTON FROM PAGE 1 police would be expected to do by themselves, nor should they do that by themselves. But it would be a community and policing kind of partnership.”

Education and youth programs will also form part of her campaign platform, as DuBois-Walton said she aims to strengthen the public school system in the city and prepare young people for post-education work. To this end, DuBois-Walton said she would like to see more teachers of color so “young people can identify with and connect to [them]” in learning environments. She also cited the importance of bilingual resources and education to support the many immigrant students at New Haven Public Schools.

The mayoral candidate also emphasized her fiscal plans for the city — which include increased contributions from

Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital, but also emphasize infrastructure and homeownership investment in the city.

“The city needs to have a very strong economic development plan, and I'm afraid we have not had that, and we as a city have suffered from that,” DuBois-Walton said in an interview. “That economic development plan has to be centered on our neighborhoods and our residents … through small business development … through investment in the infrastructure in our communities, through homeownership opportunities.”

DuBois-Walton arrived in New Haven in 1985 as a Yale student and chose to settle down in the city. She worked as chief of staff and chief administrative officer under Mayor John DeStefano Jr. before working in the housing authority. Calling herself a “New Havener by choice,” DuBois-Walton emphasized that the work she

does for the city is out of “a love of this community.”

Incumbent mayor Elicker and DuBois-Walton will compete this September in the mayoral primary election to represent the Democratic Party in the November general election.

“I welcome Dr. DuBois-Walton to the race and look forward to the conversation about the direction of the city,” Elicker told the Register on Monday. “We are confident that, after one of the most challenging years our community has seen, we are on the right track.”

DuBois-Walton noted that, because of her position in the housing authority, she and Elicker were in routine communication prior to her leave of absence.

She added that after her official campaign filing, she anticipates continuing to meet with residents and elected officials, adding that she has already met with nearly all 30 alders.

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Dubois-Walton will face off against the incumbent Elicker in the September Democratic primary.

“The campaign — door to door in the community. Holding events will happen as we bring our message to the voters and build … our base of voters who will get us over the finish line,” DuBois-Walton said.

DuBois-Walton will be hosting a launch event at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, at Quinnipiac River Park.

Contact ÁNGELA PÉREZ at angela.perez@yale.edu .

Ivy League plans return to competition for fall 2021 IVY LEAGUE FROM PAGE 1

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

The eight Ivy League presidents announced their expectation to return to regular athletic competition across all sports for the fall semester.

dents cited the national decline in COVID-19 infections and the availability and uptake of vaccinations in their statement, writing that they are “optimistic that our campuses will be back to something close to normal by this fall” with in-person learning and students enrolled in residence.

“I’ve been on the edge of my seat all year waiting to hear that we would have the opportunity to compete at school again,” Yale women’s golfer Ami Gianchandani ’23 told the News. “Competing for our schools is an experience like no other and we are thrilled to hear the optimism for the fall season. I can’t wait to get back to training and competing alongside my teammates.”

The return to Ivy League competition in fall 2021 will mark the first Ancient Eight contests since the

onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

After the spring 2020 season was cut short, the Ivy League has canceled competition in all three athletic seasons this school year, though individual schools have had the option to engage in local, nonconference competition this spring if they reach Phase IV of the conference’s plan for the resumption of athletic activities.

In recent weeks, five Ivy League schools — Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton — have had at least one spring team play against a nonconference opponent after progressing to Phase IV. “We very much look forward to a return to spirited athletics competition and to the Ivy League rivalries that make our conference so special,” the eight presidents wrote in the statement. “Barring unanticipated circumstances, such as a dramatic increase in infection rates from a variant in the virus, we look for-

ward to welcoming our teams back to intercollegiate competition this fall.”

Chun added that she “cannot wait for the fall” in her email.

“I’m sure I can speak on behalf of my whole team when I say that we are so grateful and excited to have the opportunity to return back to normal play in the fall,” Yale volleyball captain Ellis DeJardin ’22 told the News. “This past year has definitely been an interesting experience trying to still train under COVID conditions, but we are so excited to get to return to some sort of competitive normalcy.”

Yale’s last athletic competition occurred on March 12, 2020, when Yale women’s lacrosse defeated Fresno State 13–12 in overtime.

Contact EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA at eugenio.garzagarcia@yale.edu and JAMES RICHARDSON at james.richardson@yale.edu .

'Yale: Respect New Haven' painted on Prospect St. MURAL FROM PAGE 1 Activists painted “YALE: RESPECT NEW HAVEN” in blue-green and white lettering, mirroring the campaign yard signs of New Haven Rising — an organization that partners with labor unions to secure jobs and social services for local residents. The mural, which comes after multiple labor protests with similar messaging last year, will be part of UNITE HERE and New Haven Rising’s Car Caravan and Rally for Respect this Wednesday. As community members painted, activists and others spoke to the crowd, calling on Yale to invest more in New Haven.

Starting at 7 a.m. on Saturday, painters also added two stripes to Prospect Street’s bike lane. One is a 670-foot blue line reaching from Grove Street to Trumbull Street, representing Yale’s more than $30 billion endowment. Meanwhile, Yale’s $13 million in annual voluntary contributions — an amount labor organizers call a “drop in the bucket” — is represented by a red stripe just a few inches wide.

“In these times when people are struggling, and people are worrying about their tomorrow, Yale is making the decision not to pay its fair share,” New Haven Rising organizer the Rev. Scott Marks said in a speech to the roughly 150 people who gathered at the intersection.

In an interview with the News, Marks said that he wants Salovey to look at the blue line and feel ashamed. He added that as part of the New Haven community, Yale should step up to the plate. Pointing down the road toward Science Hill, Marks questioned how the University could loom so close to Newhallville, a New Haven neighborhood with a high poverty rate, and still choose to do nothing.

In an email statement to the News in November, University spokesperson Karen Peart said that if the University contributed more to New Haven, it would not be maintaining a “prudent level of spending” from its endowment based on “sound

economic theory and analysis.” She added that Yale’s $12 million voluntary payment to New Haven in fiscal year 2019-20 was “the highest from a university to a host city anywhere in the United States.”

“This is as much as we can responsibly spend without unfairly taking from those who will come after us,” Peart wrote in the statement. “The strength we are experiencing derives from the generosity and care of those who came before us, and we have similar obligations to the future students, faculty, and staff of this university.”

Organizers delivered a petition to University leaders that was signed by more than 40 local groups, pointing to a deep-rooted history of redlining and inequity in the city to which Yale’s tax exemptions have contributed. Chief among their demands is a higher contribution from Yale to the city in order to fund schools, libraries, affordable housing and other initiatives. “[Yale] must commit to making up the revenue that is lost from their tax-exempt property,” said Ice The Beef Latino Caucus President Manuel Camacho, reading the petition aloud outside 1 Prospect St. “Last year this would have transformed our city by providing an additional $146 million to support city services.”

In addition to increased funding, organizers are asking the University to add more high-paying jobs for local residents and to establish better contract terms with Yale’s labor unions, Local 34 and Local 35. These unions represent around 5,000 of the University’s technical, clerical, service and mechanical employees.

Ward 8 Alder Ellen Cupo, who works as a senior administrative assistant at Yale’s Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, attended with her son Hunter on Saturday. An organizer with Local 34’s local jobs campaign, Cupo said she wants to see Yale negotiate a fair contract as soon as possible.

“Today is not just about union workers — it’s about every citizen of

New Haven,” Cupo said. “It’s about Yale respecting the people who live here and reinvesting into the city in a real way, in a monetary way.”

In a statement to the New Haven Independent on May 1, Peart said that Yale has taken measures to protect its staff from the economic impacts of the pandemic by providing them with full pay and benefits even if they could not report to work.

She said no staff were laid off as a direct response to COVID-19.

On Saturday, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers also went to the event to support organizers and told the News that residents should not have to beg Yale to support the community that the University itself is a part of.

“Yale might have money, but we have people,” said Walker-Myers.

“It’s important for people from all walks of life to come together to show Yale that this is how you get it done.”

Ward 3 Alder Ron C. Hurt arrived on Prospect Street at 7:30 a.m. to set up tables and equipment. In addition to representing the Hill neighborhood on the Board of Alders, Hurt is an organizer with New Haven Rising.

“The wind is still blowing so it’s cold, yet it’s warm because there’s a lot of cohesiveness, a lot of togetherness, right here,” said Hurt. “The love that we’re expressing right now between all walks of life has been a great experience so far.”

Those who helped paint did indeed represent all walks of life.

Local 34 member Tony Ann Simiola brought her daughter and her granddaughter to the event, while Yale postdoctoral associate Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen brought her husband and two daughters.

Resident Nicole Morley, who helped paint the blue line, said she wants people to see the painting and recognize the importance of Yale balancing respect for education with doing its part for the community. Students were also in attendance Saturday, including members of Yale Dems and Yale’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

“I think it’s really important that we as students show up in solidarity with New Haven, where we’re living now, and with the campus workers who do so much for the uni and get so little from them,” said Oren Schweitzer ’23, a member of the Yale YDSA organizing committee. “It’s important that we not only show solidarity but engage in those struggles to help them fight for what they deserve.”

Trinity College professor Davarian Baldwin, author of “In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities,” made a speech to the crowd on Saturday.

Baldwin lamented that the University’s educational role has become the smallest feature of its mission.

“Right before our eyes, colleges and universities have become the real estate barons, the biotech moguls, the health care hustlers,” said Baldwin. “The military security force that they employ creates and determines and executes the management of bodies, goods and services so that they can extract more wealth from your communities.”

New Haven Rising and UNITE HERE will host a Caravan Rally at 5 p.m. on May 5. It will begin on the corner of Prospect and Grove.

Contact NATALIE KAINZ at natalie.kainz@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

NATALIE KAINZ/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

An adult and two children standing next to the mural and applaud after a speaker at Saturday's painting event.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“You have to think about the WWE as soap operas.” LINDA MCMAHON FORMER CEO OF WWE

Yale unions organize rally, caravan

NATALIE KAINZ/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Workers took to the streets, both on foot and in cars, on Wednesday afternoon honking horns and handing out literature.

CARAVAN FROM PAGE 1 Prospect St. to call for the University to renegotiate fair contracts with its employees and hire more Elm City residents. Protestors on foot were accompanied by a caravan of 300 cars that stretched from the intersection of Prospect and Grove all the way up Science Hill and past Sachem Street. After speeches by public officials and union representatives, protestors made their way to Yale University President Peter Salovey’s home

on 43 Hillhouse Ave., where they chanted their demands.

“We’re standing in front of Peter Salovey’s house to let him know that we’re not going away,” said Remidy Shareef, a member of New Haven Rising. “Today is the start of one human family moving forward and we’re going to make him pay up.”

Hundreds of others stood alongside Shareef to wave signs and flags bearing slogans. “Beep beep, Yale is cheap!” read one. The caravan of cars whizzed by, honking in encouragement. Earlier in the day, Shareef

made a speech while standing atop a truck bed, with speakers set up all along Prospect to broadcast protester demands to drivers.

Members of unions Local 34 and Local 35 testified that they felt “abandoned” by University policies during the pandemic, with multiple speakers characterizing the University’s proposals to cut wages, raises and benefits during contract renegotiations as an “attack” on union standards. The five-year contracts for both Local 34, which represents Yale’s clerical and technical staff, and Local 35, which negotiates on behalf of service and mechanical staff, expire next year and are currently being renegotiated.

The two unions represent a combined staff of 5,000.

“When the Yale administration threatens our job security and our standard, they are threatening my family and thousands of other families like mine,” said Laura Fuller-Weston, a Yale employee and Local 34 member. “Yale calls us heroes but why don’t they treat us that way?”

Fuller-Weston came into her place of work at Yale’s clinical pathology laboratory throughout the pandemic. She said that she wants Yale to include her co-workers in future discussions about the lab, which is the process of implementing technology that she believes could automate work and thus threaten the job security of many of her co-workers. She said she hopes union negotiations will provide this opportunity.

In a statement to the News, University spokesperson Karen Peart said that Yale “fully intends” to honor its hiring commitments and settle fair contracts. She also highlighted the benefits union workers have seen during the pandemic.

“Members of Local 34 and Local 35 unions enjoy unprecedented job security benefits,” Peart wrote.

“Staff in Local 35 can only be laid off in very limited circumstances which have not been exercised. Staff in Local 34 with more than 6 years of service obtain a minimum of 18 months of job security with full pay and benefits and career support to obtain another position at Yale.”

Jennifer Garcia, a senior administrative assistant at Beinecke Library and member of Local 34, said that when she was hired by Yale in 2013 there were three permanent

and two durational archives assistants working alongside her. When staff members left, however, Garcia said that they were not replaced.

She was left as the only permanent worker despite an increase in tasks and a growing department.

“The work doesn’t go away. It just gets piled on to the remaining workers,” Garcia said. “When we are understaffed, we cannot provide the same services to faculty and students.”

Garcia said her drive to protect her workplace’s standard comes from the recent loss of her father to stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She told the crowd that her father chose not to pursue treatment because he did not have good insurance and did not want to leave the family in debt. Garcia said Yale has a responsibility to ensure jobs to community members to reduce the number of New Haveners who are without insurance and, thus, at risk of running into the predicament as her father.

Stuart “Stu” Comen, a first cook in the Silliman dining hall, said he came to the rally to let Yale know that workers need a fair contract.

“We haven’t had a strike in like 20 years,” Comen said in an interview with the News. “Yale thinks we’re asleep, so we just want to let them know that we’re not sleeping and that we want a good contract.”

Members of Local 33, a union of graduate student employees at Yale that is not recognized by the University, also came to the rally. Paul Seltzer GRD ’23, a graduate student in the History Department, spoke about Local 33’s struggles to gain recognition as a union from Yale. Seltzer said Local 33 members attended to “send the message that graduate workers are workers.”

Local 34 member Travis Lewis, who works for Yale Facilities, and Local 35 member Rolo Lopez Sr., who helps run Yale’s Community Health Care Van, both drove to the rally because of the poor weather.

“We didn’t abandon Yale when it was the COVID-19 pandemic, but now Yale wants to abandon us,” Lopez said.

speeches on Wednesday in front of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall.

New Haven U.S. House Representative Rosa DeLauro called union workers “the heroes of this moment” and said that now is the time for Yale to do its part by settling fair contracts with the unions and providing its “fair share” to New Haven through good-paying jobs. New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker told the crowd that now is not the time to “lift up on the gas” in organized efforts to sustain pressure on the University.

It is important, Elicker told those in attendance, that they fight for jobs that pay enough to provide for basic needs on their own.

“Yale University needs to ensure that the contract that it agrees upon with the unions is one that ensures that people have the right to a quality of life and the right to one job,” he said.

In an interview with the News, Elicker commended the unions for their efforts over the years to lift residents out of poverty and into the workforce.

He added that city officials and departments are working in full support of the union efforts by issuing street closure permits and logistical coordination, for example. Though the city does not intervene directly into contract negotiations between Yale and its unions, Elicker noted that he has had “productive” conversations about the University’s overall contribution to the city with administrative leaders.

Karen DuBois-Walton, a former housing authority president and current mayoral candidate who attended the rally, also underscored the importance of the University working with Local 34 and Local 35 members.

“It’s important that people stand with [the unions] to make sure that they maintain the strong strides that have been made over the years,” DuBois-Walton told the News. “Sometimes it takes a little outside pressure to make sure that process moves along.”

DJ Tootskee, who delivers packages to Yale’s laboratories, provided music during the rally.

‘Heroes of the moment’ Several local and federal officials made their support for union efforts known in a series of impassioned

Contact NATALIE KAINZ at natalie.kainz@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

Deputy Director for Collections Wilcox retires from YCBA WILCOX FROM PAGE 1 Prown recalled his interview with Wilcox when he applied for the position of assistant curator in prints and drawings after graduating from Yale. Prown said that Wilcox distinguished himself from the other candidates by “the accuracy of his eye in making attributions” and aesthetic judgments. Wilcox accepted the position with plans to stay at the center for about five years.

“I ended up never leaving,” Wilcox said. “With my particular love of British art, there was simply no other place I would rather be.”

From assistant curator in prints and drawings, Wilcox rose to the rank of senior curator in the department. Then in 2014, Amy Meyers GRD ’85, the director of the YCBA at the time, appointed him as deputy director for art collections. Meyers described Wilcox’s familiarity with the collection’s holdings — which she considers the largest and finest holdings of British art outside the United Kingdom — as “unrivaled.”

“Indeed, it was Scott’s knowledge, along with his intellectual acumen, his extraordinary good sense, and his wise counsel, that ultimately led me to appoint him deputy director of art collections,” Meyers said.

Meyers and Wilcox first met as graduate students at Yale, in a seminar on John Ruskin taught by art historian and Yale professor George Hersey, one of the first classes held at the newly opened YCBA — the museum opened in 1974. Even then, Meyers was impressed by Wilcox’s knowledge of British art history, along with his passion for the field.

During their 20 years working together at the YCBA, Wilcox and Meyers collaborated to increase the center’s nascent holdings in photographic art. Meyers said that together with several others at the YCBA, they established “one of the

great collections of British photographs in the United States.”

Wilcox said that during his early years at the center, there was an ongoing debate about the role of photography in the YCBA’s collections. Photography had not been a collecting interest of YCBA founder Paul Mellon. But the center’s then-Director Duncan Robinson, who held the position from 1981 to 1985, felt that even if the center did not build a photography collection, it should nevertheless acknowledge the medium’s importance through a series of temporary loan exhibitions. As the curator with the most serious interest in the medium, Wilcox became responsible for the center’s photographic shows.

Amy Meyers, who was director from 2002 to 2019, was more open to creating a photography collection, Wilcox said. Through gifts and a purchase arrangement with private collectors Chuck Isaacs and Carol Nigro, and a substantial gift from the Joy of Giving Something, Inc., Wilcox said they were able to put together “the foundations for a serious photography collection.”

Wilcox also supported the hire of the center’s first associate curator of photography, Chitra Ramalingam, according to Meyers. Wilcox and Ramalingam worked to establish the foundation for the center’s growing photographic holdings in tandem with Elisabeth Fairman, the YCBA’s chief curator of rare books and manuscripts, who retired earlier this year; former YCBA Senior Curator of Prints and Drawing Gillian Forrester; the center’s current Deputy Director and Chief Curator Martina Droth; and Deputy Director for Advancement and External Affairs Beth Miller.

In addition to his photography-related efforts, Wilcox spearheaded efforts to digitize the center’s collections and improve its accessibility to the public. According to Meyers, Wilcox took the helm

HEDY TUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Wilcox was formerly Deputy Director for Collections at the Yale Center for British Art. of the institution’s first Department of Collections Information and Access and, working closely with others at the center, made the museum the first in the world to digitize the whole of its art collections online in high resolution and to offer these digital holdings to the world fully free and open-access.

“This was something that I had long felt was important for the institution, and we had made some tentative steps forward, but when Amy Meyers committed to embracing digital open access, we were able to make serious strides, at a time when we were not necessarily leading the field but were there in the forefront,” Wilcox said.

Additionally, Meyers said that Wilcox has notably curated several in-house and traveling exhibitions over the years. Most of these were accompanied by major cata-

logues edited by Wilcox and published by the YCBA in collaboration with Yale University Press.

Wilcox worked with Yale undergraduates and graduate students to complete all of these projects, and Meyers said he is “especially revered” by these students, many of whom now work professionally in the field of art history.

Of these many exhibitions, Wilcox’s personal favorites are a 1992 exhibition featuring Victorian-era landscape watercolors — eschewing the prevailing belief that the use of British watercolors was on a decline by the mid 19th-century — and a 2009 exhibition featuring the work and research of English landscape painter David Cox called “Sun, Wind, and Rain: The Art of David Cox.” In 2015, following the conservation of the center, Wilcox also put together an installation he is “par-

ticularly proud of” titled “Britain in the World.” According to Meyers, this installation presents the collection’s works in the context of global concerns for the first time, inciting new questions about the history of British art.

At the moment, Wilcox is working on a center-related project called “Photographs of Italy and the British Imagination, 1840-1900.” His work will be published as a book in the spring of 2022. Even though Wilcox is retiring, he said his interest in British art remains “as keen as ever.”

The Yale Center for British Art, which is currently closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is located at 1080 Chapel St. Contact ANNIE RADILLO at annie.radillo@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

CELEBRATING ASIAN COMMUNITIES AACC to celebrate 40th anniversary with teach-in, alumni panel and digital history showcase

BY ISAAC YU AND NATALIE KAINZ STAFF REPORTERS Four decades ago, roughly 100 Asian American students — at that point about a third of the total Asian American population enrolled in Yale College — met with then-Yale president Bart Giamatti to fight for a space of their own on campus, beyond a few rooms in the basement of Bingham Hall. That desire for representation manifested in the Asian American Cultural Center at 295 Crown St., a dedicated community space for students to connect with and promote culture, organize programming and coordinate Pan-Asian activism. It was the first Asian American Cultural Center in the Ivy League and is the third oldest on an American college campus.

Since then, the Center has expanded to include over 50 affiliated student organizations and an army of more than 30 peer liaisons, undergraduates and graduate staff members. Now, the AACC is preparing to kick off its 40th anniversary with a celebration, held virtually on May 12. The event will feature a teach-in, a panel of AACC alumni staffers and the unveiling of several AACC digital history projects. The News asked both students and faculty about the impact of the AACC on the students and the future of Asian American activism on campus.

“The AACC is a historical space that has served as an affinity space for many students of color over the decades,” said AACC Director Joliana Yee in an email to the News.

“It allowed Asian and Asian American students to dream, organize and create things they wanted to see in their social, political, academic and professional realms.”

According to Yee, the Center received around 1,000 visitors per month prior to the pandemic. Yee said that this increase in foot traffic is a result of staff efforts to build a more welcoming space through kitchen renovations, celebrations of cultural heritage and the Gary Okihiro Library on the third floor of the Center. The library contains 2,000 copies of books written by Okihiro — an Asian American Ethnicity, Race and Migration professor at Yale.

Amy Ren ’22, a Peer Liaison for the AACC, said that the AACC community and Yee helped her adjust to school during the pandemic. Ren said she signed up to be a PL because she wanted to support first years.

“The AACC has been really refreshing because I’ve gotten to know other team members who care so much about the community as well and are working tirelessly to make sure that it’s still up and running,” said Ren. Pia Gorme ’23 and Ananya Kumar-Banerjee ’21 are two of the students responsible for coordinating the 40th-anniversary celebrations. Kumar-Banerjee said that the AACC has grown to represent a more capacious understanding of what it means to be Asian and Asian American at Yale.

“The Asian American Cultural Center acts as a homebase for Asian and Asian American students as Yale,” said Kumar-Banerjee. “It’s both a place for people to build friendships and to organize for a better world.”

Although the building has been closed this academic year due to public health restrictions, its doors are set to reopen next semester. Yee said that while she hopes

COURTESY OF JOLIANA YEE

that more celebrations of AACC history can happen in-person next semester, the Asian American community on campus will remain connected regardless.

“The AACC is [a] community that extends beyond the four walls of the physical building because it is an embodied and shared experience that students carry with them even beyond their time as alumni,” said Yee.

To register for the May 12 event, you can RSVP at http://bit.ly/AACC40th. Those that attend may receive a free T-shirt, hat or sticker. Students can also sign up for the AACC newsletter to receive regular updates.

Contact ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu and NATALIE KAINZ at natalie.kainz@yale.edu .

Students and faculty reflect on the status of Asian American studies at Yale

BY MADISON HAHAMY AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS In 2018, Asian American students and faculty at Yale led a town hall to discuss the prospect of an Asian American Studies program at the University. In the three years since, no such program has arisen.

In interviews with the News, three Asian American students and three faculty members all expressed a desire for more University support for Asian American studies, particularly in hiring more faculty members whose work deal with the subject area.

Unlike in 2018, when the News last reported on the lack of such a program, none of those interviewed by the News advocated for a separate program or department for the field. Instead, several lauded the existing strength of the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration program as a major avenue for potential progress, with some calling for Yale to grant greater institutional support and faculty hiring to the ER&M program instead of creating a separate Asian American studies program.

“So does it make sense for Yale to create an Asian American studies program at this moment in time?

I would say probably not,” Mary Lui,

professor of American Studies and history, told the News.

For Lui, the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration program is “the glue that’s holding us all together,” as it allows for faculty who teach on Asian American issues to be able to have a more connected approach to their work, engaging with other professors who teach Latinx history, Indigenous studies and other topics offered in the program.

An Asian American studies program is not necessary to create more courses in the area, Lui said — additional courses, along with more hires, are both actions that she would support. Lui advocates for strengthening the ER&M program, through which Asian American courses can be taught.

“While [a program] might seem great in terms of permanence, really what you need are tenure faculty willing to teach these,” Lui added.

“A commitment to the field is not necessary through a program cause sometimes a program can be quite draining on the faculty and, in the end, not really accomplish the things that work for everybody.”

Yale is not alone in struggling to establish Asian American studies course offerings. The University of Pennsylvania’s minor in Asian American studies has also been called into question as several fac-

COURTESY OF ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER

ulty dedicated to Asian American studies left for other institutions, including the program’s former director, Grace Kao, who is now chair of the Sociology Department of Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale. Until 2010, Columbia University had both a minor and major in Asian American studies led by Professor Gary Okihiro, who also now teaches at Yale — Okihiro declined to comment, as he does not currently teach an Asian American studies course. Meanwhile, Harvard does not have either an Asian American studies or ethnic studies program.

However, while Yale does not offer a formalized program for Asian American studies, many of Yale’s peer institutions do maintain formalized programs. For example, Princeton offers a certificate in Asian American studies, while Cornell offers a minor in the field.

According to Kao, the place of Asian American studies at Yale, whether within or outside the ER&M program, is “certainly up for discussion.” Like Lui, Kao emphasized that Asian American studies can be furthered through the “strong infrastructure” of the ER&M program, describing her colleagues in ER&M as “supportive” of students’ interests. She encouraged students seeking additional coursework or even a certificate program to speak with ER&M leadership and faculty.

“If students are unable to study what they would like under the current system, they should definitely talk to the faculty,” Kao wrote in an email to the News. “We have a responsibility to them.”

Though the number of explicit Asian American studies courses has remained constant since 2018, Yale has no shortage of faculty members who are trained in the subject, according to Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tamar Gendler.

She told the News that “we have such a wide range of faculty who work on Asian American topics,” adding that “they are spread throughout our academic programs.”

Gendler specifically cited East Asian Languages and Literature, American Studies, sociology, ER&M, psychology and anthropology as some of the programs and departments where faculty “think profoundly about the Asian American experience.” Kao, for example, is one of the most-cited sociolo-

gists on the Asian American experience in the English-speaking world, Gendler said.

Adrian Kyle Venzon ’23, who has taken ER&M courses but not those specific to Asian Americans, said he would support a more formalized program. Still, he pointed out that many Yalies find other avenues, such as teach-in events at the Asian American Cultural Center and independent research projects, to explore specialized topics of interest. These non-classroom methods need support as well, Venzon said.

“As Asian Americans whose history is oftentimes completely erased or incredibly misrepresented, having a program here at Yale could perhaps do the work to dispel that,” Venzon said. “But that interest and knowledge also exists elsewhere on campus in a really powerful way. Only paying attention to that and not looking at the work being done on the ground by students discounts that work.”

Kathy Min ’21 is one such student. Min chose to explore Asian American history through her senior thesis. She described feeling supported by various faculty members including Lui, whose course “Asian American History, 1800 to the Present” inspired Min’s work in oral histories for her thesis project. In total, Min has taken three Asian American studies classes at Yale but remains “ambivalent” on whether Asian American studies should be established as a distinct program. The strength of ethnic studies more broadly is important to consider, Min said.

“The bigger question to me is that there should be more institutional support for ER&M, which I feel like has been so contested,” Min told the News. “There’s a lot of value in thinking about Asian American histories in conjunction with other histories of people of color, and maybe not trying to center my own identity in every space.”

Still, students like ER&M major Resty Fufunan ’24, still remain committed to fighting for greater support for Asian American studies. Fufunan said that he doesn’t see a “clear pathway’’ for students like himself to pursue Asian American studies, calling it a “glaring omission” compared to peer institutions. He noted that while ER&M majors can choose to concentrate in a specialized area, includ-

ing Asian American studies, course offerings are not regular, with some only being taught every two or three years. Asian American studies is now all the more important in order to understand the context behind the rise of anti-Asian violence in the past year, Fufunan added.

“The fight for Asian American studies is part of a larger fight for ethnic studies on campuses,” Fufunan said. “What we need is more institutional support to hire more faculty. I do hope the fight for Asian American studies will continue to be student-led, rooted in student activism and the ongoing fight to be recognized as a people.”

Kao wrote in an email to the News that she would be “happy to welcome other faculty hires who work on Asian Americans and/or the Asian diaspora more broadly.”

She added that she would specifically enjoy Asian American hires with training in quantitative methods and the social sciences.

Daniel HoSang, associate professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and American Studies, told the News that there is currently a “critical mass” of faculty who offer courses in the area of Asian American Studies at Yale.

But, like Lui, he felt as though there is no need for a consolidated degree program. In fact, he said that the lack of a program “actually might play into the strength of who Yale has in terms of faculty.”

HoSang added that teaching Asian American studies without making it its own standalone field allows for “comparative ethnic studies,” or looking at the Asian American experience in the context of other racialized groups.

“I think that’s kind of both a strength at Yale, and in many ways, the direction of the discipline in general,” he said.

Even so, HoSang does think there’s room for the discipline to grow, especially in terms of more faculty hiring in areas outside of ER&M and American Studies, which is where the majority of faculty who focus on Asian American studies are housed.

The ER&M program was founded in 1997.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

Community spirit helps local Asian stores survive pandemic

BY NATALIE KAINZ STAFF REPORTER Every day, Yoon-ock Kim carefully arranges the small piles of beef and vegetables on her grill at Oriental Pantry on Orange Street. Those hot bowls of bibimbap are among her customers’ favorite. They are mostly college students from the area, who are often curious not just about Korean cuisine, but also about how Kim came to be here.

Six blocks away, Hanmi Sim sells out of her handmade kimbap only a couple of hours after opening her store, Hanmi Oriental Food & Gift Shop, for the day. On the other side of the Elm City, Lorri Xu helps her husband wrangle a live carp into a tank to sell at Million Asian Market.

All three women came to the United States more than 20 years ago. They are the backbone of New Haven’s Asian grocery stores. Despite the difficulties posed by the pandemic, the women have each found their own ways to thrive.

Kim has lived in the Elm City since 1978.

She came to New Haven from South Korea, studying at Southern Connecticut State University while her husband went to Yale. Kim worked in Sterling Memorial Library until 1988 when her friend, the former owner of Oriental Pantry, moved back to Korea. Kim took over the store.

“When I came here, our plan [was] just to finish our studies and go back to my country,” said Kim. “That [was] my plan but God’s plan is different.”

Kim said she took over the business because she loves having her own store. She used to own a Japanese and Korean restaurant on the corner of Trumbull and Whitney Avenue as well — but said she gave up on the business because her husband complained that she was too busy.

In addition to selling classic Korean dishes like japchae, ssamjang and kimchi, Kim’s shelves are lined with cultural items from all over Asia. Red and white painted statuettes gaze proudly out at the store. Beside them, a handwritten note informs customers that the statuettes are called ‘Daruma dolls’ and are used as charms for the fulfillment of wishes.

To Kim, Oriental Pantry isn’t just a grocery store or a restaurant. It’s a cultural center.

“I like to introduce Korean food and culture to the New Haven area,” said Kim. “New Haven [has] a lot of international flavors — I love [it].”

Hanmi Sim, the owner of Hanmi Oriental Food & Gift Shop on State Street, also enjoys sharing Korean culture with the New

Haven community. In her store, paintings of women wearing traditional Hanbok clothing, Korean books and ceramic vases are hidden between rows of imported dumplings, sauces and noodles. Hanmi gave a brief rendition of the folk song Arirang as she reminisced on her roots.

Hanmi moved to the Elm City from Korea 20 years ago because her family was seeking new opportunities, though she said she misses Korea. She last visited five years ago when her son got married. But in New Haven, she said she has found not only opportunities but also friendship with her customers.

“Annyeonghaseyo!” said Dante Petti, a New Haven local who strode up to the counter to give Hanmi a fist bump. His favourite kimbap was sold out for the day, but that isn’t the only reason why he visits the store so often. He comes here to practice his Korean, buy ingredients to cook up his own Asian dishes and to support the city’s mom and pop businesses.

“I recently started learning Korean,” said Petti. “[Hanmi] is very nice and helped me.

She has taught me several words.”

Such community support has also been crucial to the success of Million Asian Market in Ninth Square, which is co-owned by Lorri Xu and her husband Zhi Yong Wang. Their store is twice the size of Oriental Pantry and has entire sections for imported fruits, vegetables and live seafood. Hustling past each other, the couple rearrange Chinese decorations and boxes of Japanese snacks.

Wang and Xu used to work for the same company back in Beijing and they have been married for 36 years. The couple moved to New Haven from Long Island in 2009 when Xu read in a Chinese newspaper that someone was selling the store.

“In our first year and second year, my business [was] not really good,” said Xu. “The people and the Chinese American customers helped me a lot.”

Xu said she likes New Haven because it is quiet and the people are nice. She said she came to America because she wanted to change her life.

But life here turned out to be tougher than she expected, largely because they arrived speaking very little English. Wang and Xu often wake up at three or four in the morning to set up the store for the day. The couple do everything from cleaning to store repairs.

Still, the couple said they were glad that their grocery store has given opportunities to their children. Their son owns his own business in South Carolina and their daughter is going to study design at college next year.

SOPHIA ZHAO/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

“These are paintings from my daughter,” Xu said, gazing at portraits arranged behind the cash register. “Lots of customers love [them].”

But after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. last March, customers had fewer opportunities to appreciate the paintings at Million Asian Market. COVID19 and social distancing guidelines hit local businesses hard in New Haven. The Asian grocery stores were no exception.

To deal with the challenges of the pandemic, Xu and Wang shortened their store’s hours and reduced the frequency of their trips to New York to pick up fresh produce.

Similarly, Kim had to let go of her part time helpers, cut down on hours and faced supply chain issues during the fall of last year.

Kim faced another setback in March, when Oriental Pantry was robbed. The window was broken and $200 was stolen from the cash register. But it was that community spirit that helped Kim pull through.

Yale students Kayley Estoesta ‘22 and Lauren Kim ‘21 have been working on Kitchen Relaunch, an initiative that aims to help small restaurant owners like Yoon-ock Kim get through the pandemic. Estoesta and Lauren Kim helped Yoon-ock Kim set up a website, post on social media pages and fill out government loan and grant applications.

After the robbery, the two students helped Kim raise $17,000 through GoFundMe. Their initial target was only $2000.

Kim said she was moved when she found out about how much money the fundraiser collected. Initially, she didn’t think the fundraiser was necessary because she planned to try and cover the costs herself.

She said the efforts of community members made her “rethink America.”

“America is running because the regular people here are supportive ,” Kim said. “I thought this is only [a] little mom and pop grocery [store] but my community [loves] this place. They want me to keep [it] forever.”

For Estoesta and Lauren Kim, helping at Oriental Pantry gives them a little piece of home.

“Being Asian American myself and coming to Yale, the lack [of Asian] culinary options or our grocery items has definitely been a struggle,” Estoesta said. “Coming to Oriental Pantry and having everything I need there is always a comfort for me.”

Oriental Pantry is located at 486 Orange Street, Hanmi Oriental Food & Gift Shop at 1008 State Street and Million Asian Market at 15 Orange Street.

Contact NATALIE KAINZ at natalie.kainz@yale.edu .

New Haven residents create AAPI coalition in wake of hate crimes

BY RAZEL SUANSING AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS New Haven residents are joining forces to create an Asian American and Pacific Islander coalition in response to the rise of AAPI-targeted hate crimes during the pandemic.

At a March 25 press conference in response to the March 16 Atlanta shootings that killed eight people, including six Asian women, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and members of New Haven’s Asian American community announced the creation of a brand-new coalition to combat antiAsian sentiment. The event was held outside of Laotian restaurant Pho Ketkeo, which was vandalized a year ago, according to the New Haven Independent. Just three months later, the restaurant’s owner was beaten up and mugged in what appears to be a racially-charged attack.

The new coalition, organizers say, will work to combat this violence and amplify the voices of the AAPI community.

“We honor and stand on the shoulders of the local activists and community leaders, many represented here have worked tirelessly to build a strong and diverse community that stands against hate [and] injustice,” Christine Kim ’99 said at the press conference. “We hope to partner with and learn from you as we prove ourselves as authentic allies.”

Among the event’s other speakers were Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, local AAPI business owners and a slate of Black, Latino, Jewish, Muslim and white faith leaders.

The new coalition, now named aapiNHV, will be led by Kim, Annie Lin ’09 and Jennifer Heikkela Diaz ’00, all of whom have experience in Asian American activism. The three women, who all have young children, are dedicating weekly time to create a space for open dialogues among AAPI community members as the young organization finds its footing. In an interview with the News, the New Haven organizers laid out details for the new coali-

tion, which has led meetings every Monday through a Facebook group.

In its nascent stages, the group is mainly a space for residents to share their experiences and reflect on their experiences as Asian Americans, Kim told the News. The community must first connect with each other and build trust, she said, emphasizing that the community is not monolithic and maintains differences in “generations of immigration, ethnicities and socio-economic educational levels.”

Lin, who sits on New Haven’s Cultural Equity Task Force, said aapiNHV has considered working education initiatives and art projects geared to increasing awareness and representation of the Asian American experience. She stressed that the coalition does not currently have a set docket or agenda each week and is more focused on connecting those of AAPI heritage in the Elm City in addition to determining where the organization can be supportive.

“We want this to happen organically,” Lin said. “We want to really understand

what the New Haven AAPI collective looks like and how we can take action together with our allies.” aapiNHV’s organizers also noted that listening to the members of the New Haven community beyond Yale’s walls is a particular priority.

According to Kim, who first moved to New Haven in the 1990s, there has not previously been a formal structure to coordinate citywide Asian American activism. The coalition, she hopes, will be a step in that direction. However, Lin added that AAPI community members in the city have been carrying out important individual work in designing anti-racism curriculum for students, holding virtual events and supporting small AAPI-owned businesses. The Atlanta shootings are a “call to action” to foster a network between existing efforts, she said.

The new coalition appears to have abundant support from other communities as well as local officials. Kim praised Elicker and Tong for taking an important

JAMES LARSON/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

step in reaching out to community members about forming a coalition. At the March 15 press conference, both officials committed support for aapiNHV’s future work.

“Just the fact that we have so many people here today is a demonstration of New Haven’s values,” Elicker said. “Today we stand together as a community to underscore, in no uncertain terms, that hate and violence and disciminrtaion against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have no place in this city.”

Kim told the News that the AAPI community members did not purposefully seek to connect among themselves before recently. Rather, she said, being “forced into a census box or into a category of discrimination,” has pushed Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders of varying backgrounds to come together under the AAPI label.

Evidence of structural violence, Kim said, persuaded her to join the coalition which would not have naturally occurred in the first place.

“We’re concerned and afraid for ourselves and our families,” Kim said.

Diaz highlighted several education-centered pieces of legislation that the coalition is advocating to pass. One bill, which is currently being considered by the state legislature’s education committee, would institute an Asian American Studies curriculum for public schools throughout the state. Diaz, who is part of the state resource education center that created the state’s Latino Studies course program for state high school students, said she is optimistic Asian Americans can lobby for the creation of a similar ethnic studies program.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Contact RAZEL SUANSING at razel.suansing@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Yale researcher among astronomers peering into the surroundings of M87’s black hole

BY NICOLE RODRIGUEZ STAFF REPORTER Astronomers, including a Yale researcher, utilized data collected by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, or EHTC, to shed light on the cosmic environment surrounding M87’s black hole.

The EHTC is an international collaboration created to achieve a long-standing goal in astrophysics: image the immediate surroundings of supermassive black holes, which are found at the center of galaxies. After conducting observations in 2017, the collaboration released the first-ever image of a black hole in the M87 galaxy. In a study published on March 24, astronomers used the data collected in 2017 to understand the relativistic jet of the M87 galaxy, which emits particles away from the black hole at nearly the speed of light. The researchers focused on the magnetic field surrounding the black hole to understand its effects on the jet. Among the researchers involved in the study is Mislav Balokovic, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

“In this particular paper, which is a continuation of [the original EHTC work], we’ve now added data obtained simultaneously, in April 2017, but across a very broad range of wavelengths or energies,” Balokovic said. “The aim of those observations was to see what the black hole jet was emitting at the time when the image was obtained. This helps us to understand the emission from the black hole’s jet better.”

According to Geoffrey Bower, an EHTC project scientist, the region around a supermassive black hole emits high-energy gamma-ray radiation, which presents a challenge for astronomers, because it is difficult for telescopes to observe this type of light. The 2017 EHTC data was gathered using radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes, which produced a “very coarse view of the sky,” with no differentiation of individual stars in the galaxy. Bower told the News that because of this, astronomers could not determine whether the gamma-ray radiation was coming from the immediate surroundings of the black hole, the relativistic jet or a region that the jet interacts with.

Using the 2017 data, the study put together all of the measurements and created theoretical models that were able to show that the gamma-ray emissions could not be originating from the immediate surroundings of the black hole. “[Gamma ray emissions] can’t be coming from that orange glowing ring that you’ve seen,” Bower said. “It has to be coming from further out, and that probably means that it’s coming from a region where gas is getting ejected from the black hole system, and maybe there’s a shock that gets created where the gas particles run into each other. Some of them get ejected going faster than others, and they catch up to each other and ram into each other. This excites the particles and they produce this really high energy.”

To specifically determine the origin of these gamma-ray emissions, the researchers used polarization observations to observe the magnetic field of M87* — the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy — and to determine its effects on the jet, according to the paper.

Daniel Marrone, an EHTC co-investigator and Science Council member and associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, explained that light can be broken down into two polarization components — vertical or horizontal. It can also be converted into circular polarization. He told the News that when EHTC created the original image of M87* released in 2019 it combined the two polarization components, but for this study, they were treated separately.

control the spin and rotation of particles surrounding the black hole.

Angelo Ricarte GRD ’19, an Institute for Theory and Computation fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the News that astronomers believe that jets are important to the overall cosmic evolution of galaxies. He explained that these jets are injecting energy into the gas within galaxies, preventing the formation of new stars.

Because of this, astronomers believe that active jets could play a significant role in slowing down star formation, and thus, keeping galaxies “red and dead.”

M87 was discovered in 1781 by Charles Messier.

Contact NICOLE RODRIGUEZ at nicole.rodriguez@yale.edu .

ANASTHASIA.SHILOV/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

“Because we’re looking at synchrotron radiation, which is electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines, intrinsically it’s highly polarized,” Marrone said. “If you think of an electron just going around in a circle, the electric field oscillations only have one plane. Looking for an excess of one polarization over the other tells you something about the structure of the magnetic fields that those electrons are spiraling.”

According to Marrone, magnetic fields play a role in the accretion of matter — the process in which black holes pull in surrounding gas — but for many years, the extent of this role was not clear. This study found that based on the amount of polarization in the region and its circular direction around the black hole, the magnetic field must be “coming out of the black hole in all directions.” Marrone said that in order for this to occur the black hole’s magnetic field must be very strong — meaning that they

IRIS, YSPH host community discussion on climate-induced migration

BY MICHAEL PAZ CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Yale faculty and students participated in a community conversation on April 29 to discuss the intersection of climate change and immigration.

Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, or IRIS, which is a refugee resettlement agency that provides services to people who have recently immigrated to New Haven, hosted the discussion. The event was moderated by Kaveh Khoshnood SPH ’95, professor at the Yale School of Public Health. Among the panelists were experts who spoke about the effect of climate change on immigration at the international, national and local levels. They discussed how extreme weather and rising sea levels

have forcefully displaced people across the globe, creating a surge in immigration.

“We very strategically chose our speakers,” said Tabitha Sookdeo ENV ’25, a development manager at IRIS who coordinated the event. “We wanted to look at the different scales of the issue … because it is not only happening on an international scale where people are being displaced by climate borders, but it is also happening internally, within the United States.”

The first panelist to speak at the event was Andrew Harper, climate action special advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He is responsible for providing guidance and expertise to the UNHCR’s response to climate change.

Harper and his team are trying to gain a better understanding of why forced displace-

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

ment occurs so that they can work with others to address its root causes. Regions across the globe — from the Indian subcontinent to West Africa to the Dry Corridor in Central America, among others — are experiencing such forced displacement at increasing rates.

“Forced displacement was [once] a peripheral issue,” Harper said. “I would now say it is really front and center, because you are starting to hear these enormous numbers of people that may be on the move because of issues which may be directly or indirectly related to climate change.”

Issues that are directly related to climate change can be seen in Central American countries such as Honduras, according to another speaker at the event, National Immigration Forum Executive Director Ali Noorani.

According to Noorani, 40 percent of the Honduran labor force works in the coffee production sector. When the country faced years of drought in a competitive global coffee market, many people fled the country and sought protection as economic refugees in the United States, Noorani explained.

Like Harper, Noorani, who has worked with Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States after fleeing their country’s civil war, also discussed indirect issues of forced displacement. According to Noorani, before the war broke out, Syria had experienced a massive drought that forced many farmers to move into Syrian cities. That migration led to conflicts that ultimately contributed to the civil war that has embroiled the country, Noorani said.

“The war in Syria to a large degree was ignited by climate change,” Noorani said.

The discussion then turned to the impact of climate-induced immigration on New Haven.

Bruni Pizarro ENV ’19, executive director at Junta, New Haven’s oldest Latinx community-based nonprofit, spoke of her own experiences as a member of the Latinx community who has been intrigued by New Haven’s migratory patterns since she arrived at Yale. As executive director at Junta, she is

now helping people who immigrated to the United States resettle in New Haven — many of whom have fled natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.

“Junta did not market themselves as being like climate-change-induced immigration experts, but we are disaster resettlement experts,” Pizarro said.

“In the COVID-19 era, which is another disaster, we are seeing that we’re actually now crises managers.”

Attendee Cameron Ramey ENV ’22 told the News that she went to the talk to learn more about climate-induced migration and to challenge her perspective on it.

Ramey said that the event allowed her to reflect on what changes can be realized now under the Biden administration and the ways in which the current laws are illequipped to protect climate refugees.

“There’s a lot of attention paid to climate-induced migration in the Northern Triangle and in connection with the Syrian refugee crisis,” Ramey wrote in an email to the News. “I think highlighting these stories close to home and continuing to draw the connection between climate change and intensifying storms can be very powerful and persuasive for people who are on the fence about climate change and immigration issues.”

The April 29 discussion was the second in a conversation series hosted by IRIS. Other topics in the conversation series include criminalization of immigration, the state of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the Afghan War. This event in particular, which lasted about an hour, had 127 registrants, including people affiliated with Yale College, the Yale School of the Environment and the Yale School of Public Health. There were 60 attendees at the Zoom event, and more people were able to view the event after it was posted on YouTube.

The recording of the event can be found on IRIS’ YouTube page.

Contact MICHAEL PAZ at michael.paz@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS Humanities Quadrangle opens after renovations

BY MAIA DECKER STAFF REPORTER After over 30 months of renovation, the Humanities Quadrangle — formerly known as the Hall of Graduate Studies — is completed and open to department staff, faculty and graduate students.

The quadrangle, located at 320 York St., is home to 15 departments and programs in the humanities, ranging from the American Studies Program to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. The renovated and refurbished space was intentionally designed to allow for an intersection of private study and public collaboration. With spaces such as the Directed Studies Lounge, an Undergraduate Common Room, the Alice Cinema, and offices, meeting areas and study spaces for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, the quadrangle aims to fortify Yale’s commitment to the humanities.

“Having a building devoted to constant intellectual exchange across the disciplines is so exciting,” said Paul Grimstad, director of undergraduate studies for the humanities major. “The humanities program is right there on the first floor as you walk in from York Street, and we’re thrilled to be at the center of the action.”

According to Yale News, the original 14-story building was designed in the collegiate Gothic style in 1932 by the architect James Gamble Rogers, who graduated from Yale in 1889.

The building’s renovations increased the size of the original by expanding underground space and creating a new lower level, adding an additional

YALE NEWS

13,000 square feet to the building. At the same time, many of the building’s historical aspects — including its original wood floors and wood panels, stonework and a historic painted plaster ceiling which was part of the original 1932 building — have been restored or refurbished.

With niches, alcoves and elaborate walkways, the quadrangle hosts a dedicated collaboration space at the top level of Swensen Tower, allowing faculty and students a view of Yale’s entire campus and the surrounding New Haven area. Other new spaces include a Directed Studies Lounge, an Undergraduate Common Room, Fellows’

Hall, Grand Seminar Room, History of Science and Medicine Suite, Alice Cinema, Special Initiatives Space, Grand Meeting Room hosted by the now-relocated Whitney Humanities Center, Open Plan Workspace, and Concourse Lounge, in addition to lecture halls, classrooms, meeting rooms and a video conference room.

The Quadrangle is located across the street from the Sterling Memorial Library and Poorvu Writing Center.

Kathryn Lofton, FAS dean of humanities and Lex Hixon professor of religious studies and American studies, said the building’s Gothic architecture preserves its historical aspects and statuary, reiterating

“the symbolic meaning of the building” as a historic space for study of the humanities. Lofton said that the idea of close interactions between humanists is key to the neo-Gothic design of the quadrangle.

According to Katja Lindskog, director of undergraduate studies for the Directed Studies Program, there is often a misconception that work in the humanities is done “quietly, while reading big dusty books.” Even though engaging with challenging texts is a vital part of the study of the humanities, much of developing a “humanities skillset” is done by engaging in “lively, thoughtful and rigorous conversa-

tions with other people in the same physical space.”

Lindskog also acknowledged comments made by staff columnist Awuor Onguru ’24 in an April 29 column saying that the class of 2024 is likely to have a difficult transition to in-person classes this fall. Lindskog said that she shares the same concerns as Onguru and hopes that such physical spaces for “reading and gathering” will help build community for the class of 2024 and others.

In the basement of the quadrangle is the new Alice Cinema, a film screening studio. Lofton said the cinema is a testament to the role of film in Yale’s past and future, “as indicated by the stunning list of Oscar winners” who financed the screening area.

“There is no humanities without the arts; they are co-constituted,” Lofton said, citing as an example Francesco Casetti’s involvement in both areas as the incoming chair of humanities, a professor in film studies and someone highly involved in the Directed Studies Program.

Lofton said that compared to other spaces at Yale, the quadrangle is unique, as no other building includes such significant space specifically for doctoral student study and collaboration in the humanities. She hopes that the quadrangle’s occupants are inspired daily to “pursue the best answers to the toughest questions, individually and collectively.”

The building has 3,459 windows.

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

Schwarzman Center to open in fall 2021

COURTESY OF STEVE T. ROBERTS

BY MARISOL CARTY STAFF REPORTER As students wander past the massive building on the corner of Grove and Prospect streets, they might wonder what has changed within. Besides including a dining hall and several spaces for students to gather together, the Schwarzman Center will be a hub for the arts, offering a new dance studio, art gallery and theater.

The Schwarzman Center is renovating two buildings previously known as Commons, a Hogwarts-esque dining hall, and Memorial Hall, a hall lined with the names of Yalies who gave their lives for the country. In 2015, President Peter Salovey announced that the University would use a $150 million gift from Steven Schwarzman ’69 to remodel the building into a state-ofthe-art campus center.

Since then, Schwarzman’s naming rights have repeatedly been called into question — he is the CEO of Blackstone and a loyal donor to former President Donald Trump. But in February, Salovey said Yale will not rename the Schwarzman center.

The center, set to open this fall, now houses several new facilities.

These include an expansive dining hall, a bar, a dance studio, several study spots and art galleries.

“The mission of Yale Schwarzman Center is ‘to leverage dining, conversation, and the arts as part of students’ educational experience, convening people across schools, disciplines, and communities for moments of discovery

and connection,’” said Garth Ross, the Schwarzman Center’s executive director. “We like this verbiage because it summarizes what students can expect to find: dining, conversation, the arts and moments of discovery and connection with people across schools, disciplines, and communities.”

Ross explained that the University was encouraged to create more arts spaces on campus in September 2014, when three student governing bodies at Yale — the Yale College Council, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and the Graduate Student Assembly — came together and issued a joint report calling for a University-wide student center. In this report, they noted the need for more opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students and professional students to connect, collaborate and build new relationships with each other.

“The report made clear that students are looking not only for more space, but more space to make art together,” Ross said.

Several of the new student gathering spaces are inherently tied to the arts. For example, “The Underground,” a space for casual dining and entertainment, houses a stage for students to perform spoken word, a cappella or stand-up comedy.

The Schwarzman Center also has enhanced technical systems to host arts exhibitions throughout the year.

In preparation for its opening, the Schwarzman Center organized several kinds of virtual arts programming this past year. In April 2020, it launched a web series called “One,”

highlighting student works that were impacted by the pandemic. Another virtual offering was AREAS, an augmented reality experience featuring art, music, dance, architecture and poetry performances meant to introduce viewers to the Schwarzman Center. Ross said that this digital engagement with the arts, initiated by the pandemic, will continue to be a “pillar” of the Schwarzman Center’s arts programming.

Yet the Schwarzman Center has several new avenues for live, in-person programming. The center has turned the former Yale Banner Yearbook office into a performance space called “The Dome,” which includes technical lighting, infrastructure for visual projections and a sprung floor with Harlequin Steadfast, a slip-resistant surface, for dance. The space includes a full mirror, dance barre and changing room. The space additionally has an AV system for music and video playback, mounted speakers, a projector with a drop-down screen and PTZ camera.

The Schwarzman Center strives especially to restructure Yale’s dance scene. According to several dancers at Yale, the University is still behind in accommodating this art form, and the center may serve to bridge that gap.

Until now, Yale did not have a major dance studio — only smaller dance studios scattered across its residential colleges and other spaces.

Yale’s largest dance studio so far, located on Broadway, only accommodates 15 to 18 students. By contrast, Yale’s peer institutions like Harvard, Brown and Princeton have

large dance spaces that can accommodate between 30 to 75 students.

“Dance is such a powerful force on campus,” YaleDancers co-president Angelica Walker ’21 said. “Allowing dance the same resources available for other activities on campus is so important, and this new studio seems to be a way Yale is working to do just that.”

Yet Yale Undergraduate Ballet Company artistic director Matthew Schneider ’22 said though this addition of a new studio is welcomed as a move in the right direction, he does not believe it will make a large difference for dancers.

Hannah Quirk ’22, vice president of Yale dance group, A Different Drum, said that the group will definitely use the Schwarzman dance studio, especially as the smaller dance studios offer limited reservations slots and often lack amenities such as sprung floors.

“Having access to another dance space will allow us to take on more projects, hold more classes and grow as artists overall,” Quirk said. “Additionally, I think that having more studio space will democratize the dance community at Yale by making it easier for more people to get involved and for people to start new dance groups.”

A Different Drum dancer Silver Liftin ’22 said that any new dance space — especially one with amenities such as nice floors — is welcome, but she is skeptical of how much dancers will be able to use it given her experience with reserving time slots for Yale’s current dance studios. Still,

she expressed that she is excited for a “beautiful studio to dance in.”

The center also has the potential to step in for other forms of performance art at Yale. Miles Goldenberg ’22, who is part of a cappella group Mixed Company, said that the additional performance space in the Schwarzman Center would be a helpful alternative to the residential college performance spaces, which make up the majority of the spaces performance groups now use.

Iyala Alai ’22, who is a member of a cappella group Pitches & Tones, said there is somewhat of a shortage of big performance venues, especially considering how many performance groups exist at Yale. She noted that groups will often perform in residential college dining halls or classrooms, whose acoustics are not always ideal.

“I think a cappella groups would like to perform [at the center] if it has the right acoustics and enough space to accommodate larger audiences,” Alai said. “I’m excited to see what these spaces are like and hopefully perform there at some point.”

“I think a lot of us would look forward to singing at a new venue on campus,” Pitches & Tones member Mathew Krick ’22 said.

“Overall, I sense that a lot of students are excited to see what the Schwarzman Center will look like.”

Commons and Memorial Hall were built in 1901 as a part of the university’s bi-centennial celebration.

Contact MARISOL CARTY at marisol.carty@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I’ve never scored a goal in my life without getting a pass from someone else.”

ABBY WAMBACH RETIRED AMERICAN SOCCER PLAYER

McNay Family Sailing Center’s history

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

The Yale sailing team obtained varsity status in February 2002 after competing as a club since its foundation in 1881.

VENUE FROM PAGE 14 various yacht clubs, mostly in Branford and Milford. However, several Yale sailing alumni wished to change that, most ardently Briggs Cunningham II ’31 and Henry Hill Anderson Jr. ’42.

Having enjoyed their Yale sailing experience and wishing to give back to the program, the alumni bought an old boat yard — where YCYC stands today — and decided to convert it into a sailing facility. It was completed in 1967 with the financial backing of Cunningham and Anderson.

According to Leonard, after they had finished developing the facility, Cunningham and Anderson invited Kingman Brewster Jr., then-president of Yale, to the site.

Then, they handed Brewster the keys and gifted him the facility for the sailing program.

When asked what he associated YCYC with, Yale sailing associate head coach Bill Healy responded with "community," as well as "tradition and excellence."

Healy has been a part of the Yale sailing coaching staff since 2003 and continues to sail competitively when possible. He has won nearly every major U.S. International 420 regatta, and is a national, North American and mid-winter champion in five different sailing classes.

The facility not only reminds Healy of his childhood in Niantic, Connecticut, with his father who

sailed at Yale during the 1950s, but also of "the long lineage of fantastic Yale sailors who have gone on to accomplish great things in the sport." He recalled hearing stories about the members of the sailing team from his father's time as well as those from subsequent generations who would dominate the sport in the following decades.

‘Benign neglect’: YCYC in the late 20th century According to James Ewing IV ’99, who now serves as Yale Sailing Association co-president alongside Ted Ferrarone III ’98, two major trends greatly impacted his sailing experience at Yale during the late 20th century.

The first trend was unique to Yale: a slight decline in the undisputed dominance of Yale's sailing team in the competitive collegiate scene. This was a period described

by Ewing as “benign neglect,” as the administration simply made no significant changes to the sailing program.

The second trend was the increasingly competitive nature of collegiate sailing, which was especially catalyzed by the prominence of coed sailing beginning in the 1960s and 1970s.

Read more at goydn.com/YDNsports.

Contact WEI-TING SHIH at wei-ting.shih@yale.edu@yale.edu .

New field house set for soccer, lax REESE FROM PAGE 14 that will allow for more scheduling flexibility than in the past.

It will [also] allow us to compete even more with other elite Division I academic institutions from a facilities standpoint.”

The University first received approval for the project back in August 2019, according to the New Haven Independent. The applications to build a new field house and natural grass field atop the former Yale Armory received unanimous approval from city plan commissioners.

According to Yale News, construction continued through the COVID-19 pandemic. Facilities staff made use of digital images rather than paper drawings and conducted meetings with contractors and architects through remote means. An accompanying facilities video released by Yale in April listed this month, May 2021, as the estimated completion date for the field house.

Yale’s Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications Mike Gambardella and Associate Athletic Director for Facilities and Operations Danielle Upham did not respond to a request for clarity on the fundraising process, opening timeline and official name for the building in time for publication.

Men’s lacrosse captain Brian Tevlin ’22 first heard rumors of the new facility during his sophomore year but paid little attention to the project as he “never believed [he] would still be enrolled at Yale for when it was completed.”

“What excites me most about the new facility is having a unique space that is located right on the edge of our home field, Reese Stadium,” Tevlin said.

“Being able to workout, receive treatment from our incredible athletic training staff and practice all within the same facility will only make the experience of being a Yale lacrosse player that much more enjoyable. We believe the new facility will be as nice, if not nicer, than our current facility but we will forever be grateful for all of the memories and traditions that the Smilow Field Center provided our program with.”

Smilow Field Center, previously known as Lapham Field

Silliman’s soon-to-be resident bulldog

House before its 1993 renovation, was originally constructed in 1923. Located within walking distance of Reese Stadium and Yale Bowl, the soccer and lacrosse programs currently use the facility, in addition to teams such as football, cross country and track and field. The new field house will provide the athletics program with additional state-of-the-art space and de-densify aging facilities.

“We’re outgrowing what we have,” Director of Athletics Vicky Chun said of the then-preliminary approvals for the new field house in a September 2019 interview with the News. “I want us fully accessible to all 35 of our varsity programs. And as years go on, more teams want to take advantage of that. If that’s the need, we’re gonna meet it.”

The new field house has received high praise from the coaches about to inhabit it.

"The new facility will be transformative for our women's lacrosse program in so many ways,” Yale women’s lacrosse head coach Erica Bamford said.

“Through immense generosity, this new field house will attract the best student-athletes to Yale, and our current student-athletes will now have the nation's premier lacrosse facility to call home."

Though the final touches have yet to be completed on the new facility, members of

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

HANDSOME DAN FROM PAGE 14 A spot for a new fellow opened up with the news that Fellow Natalia Córdova Sánchez and her husband Henry Mattingly will be leaving Silliman after this year, as Córdova Sánchez will be heading off to her new role as director of studies at Princeton’s Mathey College.

Although Haro and Kingman will be living in Silliman, they will continue to make appearances in all 14 colleges and around campus. Haro wrote in an email to the News that “the purpose of moving to campus is to make Handsome Dan a more visible and accessible member of the community. Even though we will be living in Silliman, we fully intend

to be active members of the Yale community as a whole.”

Santos added in her email that Silliman students should look forward to interaction with the Olde English Bulldogge and new Silliman bulldog swag.

S i l l i m a n s t u d e n ts a l so expressed enthusiasm to welcome Kingman into the college community.

“I’m really excited to have Handsome Dan so close by all the time,” Rose Kohler ’24 told the News. “I don’t think there’s anything that playing with a puppy can’t make better.”

As an undergraduate, Haro was in Berkeley College, so moving to Silliman will be a change of scenery from her old residential college as well as her current work-

place at the Yale Visitor Center.

“I am absolutely thrilled about being a fellow of Silliman,” Haro said. “I loved [Berkeley] and I am excited to experience yet another residential college.”

Silliman already hosts three dogs. Dean Leanna Barlow owns a Yorkshire Terrier mix named Walter, and Senior Administrative Assistant Elaine Vivero has two large dogs named Morgan and Bella. While Morgan and Bella often visit the Silliman courtyard, Walter will be the only permanent canine resident of the college.

Yale introduced Kingman as the newest Handsome Dan on March 18.

Contact MELANIE HELLER at melanie.heller@yale.edu .

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

WILLIAM MCCORMACK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Workers are busy putting the final touches on a new field house earmarked for Yale’s soccer and lacrosse programs.

ZILLO: “Go to games” ZILLO FROM PAGE 14

Kingman with Haro on a visit to the Silliman courtyard in March.

the soccer and lacrosse programs are also already looking forward to using the new space next season. On Tuesday, the Ivy League presidents sent a memo to Yale student-athletes announcing their expectation to resume regular competition for all sports in fall 2021.

Skyler Wilson ’24, the only men’s lacrosse player training on campus this spring, first found out about the facility after the cancellation of the 2020 spring season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his eyes, the new weight room and training room are most exciting, given that they “are both a step up from both Smilow and Payne Whitney.”

For men’s soccer defender Thomas Toney ’23, the new field house “reminds [him] of [his] locker rooms from Atlanta United” — the MLS club’s academy program that Toney played for prior to donning the Blue and White.

“Hopefully it looks as great, if not better on the inside as it does [on the] outside,” Toney said. “[I’m] super excited to move into the building next semester. Shoutout to all the workers and investors for providing a place for both the soccer and lacrosse programs.”

Reese Stadium was completed in 1981.

my time covering teams for the News has provided me with that coveted desire to belong. Everyone I’ve interacted with made me feel like I was someone — even though I’m anything but an athlete. And for that I am really, really grateful.

And as for the desk itself, I had found my people all along. They offered an escape — a place I could be myself, talk sports and produce writing that I was proud of. I miss that escape. I miss my people.

You don’t need another reminder that COVID-19 has taken a lot away from us: lives, plans and experiences. I feel an overwhelming sense of dread as I sit at my desk and write this piece — my last piece for the YDN and my beloved desk. It’s been so long since we’ve experienced a “normal” Yale. It’s even odd to think that we walked to class — I can’t count how many times I had to conquer Science Hill just to sit down in a lecture hall and struggle to understand what my organic chemistry professor was saying.

And it’s sad to think that the Yale community is more fragmented than ever. We’re separated by screens and isolated in our rooms from an invisible menace that’s taken away countless lives. Students, especially seniors, who’ve taken time off may find themselves lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces when they return to their scholastic endeavors. But as I look out my window and see the setting sun reflected in the thin, towering windows of Payne Whitney Gymnasium, I’m reminded that this

pandemic might soon be over. The place we once knew is peeking over the horizon.

Yale is a place of togetherness.

It is, irrefutably, one of the most welcoming and inclusive places we will ever experience. It has its flaws — many, many flaws — but it has felt like home to me and to many of you, too. But when have we felt the most together? When we don the Blue and White for large Yale sporting events — when it’s us versus them. We can stitch the fabric of this community back together through sports.

So, here it is. Here’s my plea. (I know you’ve been waiting for it.)

When masks are gone and the doors to venues like the John J. Lee Amphitheater and the Yale Bowl are open, fill those seats like your life depends on it. Chase that feeling of togetherness and unity through sports by supporting our student-athletes. Instead of pushing them away, the work these students put into their craft while taking the same classes as everyone else in the college should be celebrated. I want to make it clear that I’m not glorifying student-athletes. I’m advocating for them.

I mean, who wears the Blue and White the most on this campus?

You already know the answer.

Go to games. Wear blue (or white). Come together. Share excitement. Cheer a little. Support each other. Make Yale feel whole again. You won’t regret it.

I promise.

Contact CRISTOFER ZILLO at cris.zillo@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 11

“I am a person. I am not a soap opera.”

KATE WINSLET BRITISH ACTRESS

YLS veterans clinic finalizes court victory

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER In a victory for the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic, a federal court granted final approval on April 26 for a settlement between the United States Army and veterans across the country with less-than-fully honorable discharges.

The clinic represented plaintiffs and veterans Stephen Kennedy and Alicia Carson in the case of Kennedy v. McCarthy in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The plaintiffs alleged that the Army discharged servicemen with less-than-fully honorable statuses, known as “bad paper” discharges, due to misconduct attributable to mental health conditions. They also alleged that the Army Discharge Review Board, or ARDB, systematically denied status upgrades to these veterans. The clinic announced a preliminary settlement with the Army in November of last year, and that settlement was just finalized last month in federal court without any changes to its terms.

“This means that now the veterans can start getting relief, because the judge approved the settlement between the veterans … and the Army,” Adam Henderson LAW ’23, who is part of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, told the News. “So basically, what the judge said was that everything in the settlement was fair, reasonable and adequate,

and that going forward now this settlement is in place. The final settlement is ready to go.”

The settlement ensures that the Army reconsiders the discharge status of thousands of Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans who received these bad paper discharges due to behavioral health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and military sexual trauma.

The Army will automatically reconsider discharge-status-upgrade decisions made by the ADRB between April 17, 2011 and April 26, 2021 that “partially or fully denied relief” to Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans with bad paper discharges.

The settlement also expands reapplication rights for veterans who received adverse ADRB decisions between October 7, 2001 and April 16, 2011.

“What was most important going forward to me was that everyone else got the same review that I did,” Stephen Kennedy, a named plaintiff in the case who received a discharge upgrade during the litigation process, said in a press release about the settlement’s final approval.

“And that’s the opportunity that thousands of deserving veterans are going to receive in this settlement.”

In a November interview with the News, board member of the Yale Veterans Association Adrian Bonenberger ’02 explained that bad paper discharges often do not account for veterans’ psychological issues.

He supported the terms of the settlement, saying that the Army should take veterans’ mental health conditions into consideration when they have been changed by “heavy, heavy combat,” rather than simply “kicking them out” with a bad paper discharge.

“What we’re looking at here is a case of the military and the military justice system, which is very old and ingrained, just catching up with what we know to be true medically and ethically about soldiers, which is that when they go to war and see certain things … that plays a big role in the type of things that they do,” Bonenberger told the News in November.

Since November, the clinic has been working to notify veterans about the settlement. Henderson said that the judge on the case wanted to ensure that everybody who might be affected by the settlement — specifically post-9/11 veterans who received bad paper discharges — knew about its terms and were able to comment on the settlement.

Additionally, Henderson said the clinic worked to draft a brief and an affidavit explaining why the preliminary settlement was “fair, reasonable and adequate.”

Finally, the clinic also prepared their oral arguments for federal court. Henderson, a first-year law student, had never argued in front of a judge before, but was very excited about the opportunity.

YASMINE HALMANE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Veterans Legal Services Clinic received federal court approval last week for their settlement securing discharge status reviews for post-9/11 veterans.

“It was an incredible experience to be able to do that as a first-year law student,” Henderson said. “I did not think that I would be arguing in federal court this early, so it really is a testament to Yale Law School and to the clinic program, and specifically the Veterans [Legal Services] Clinic, that they get first-year law students really, really cool opportunities like this very early on in our law school career.”

According to Henderson, the clinic’s next step will be to inform veterans of the fact that they are officially able to reapply for a discharge review. Apart from that, he said that this final court approval brings the

clinic’s work on the Kennedy settlement to a close.

“This has been a massive undertaking by this clinic and by students over the last five years,” Henderson said. “It’s a testament to a lot of really smart, talented and driven people who have put in a lot of time and a lot of effort on this case, and it’s great to finally see it come to a close in a way that will help veterans.”

The Veterans Legal Services Clinic is part of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School.

Contact JULIA BROWN at julia.k.brown@yale.edu .

EAC, CT DEEP representatives discuss English Station

BY SAI RAYALA STAFF REPORTER The clean up of the decades-old English Station Power Plant remains a primary concern for New Haven’s Environmental Advisory Council.

On Wednesday, the Environmental Advisory Council met with representatives from Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to discuss updates on the fate of the English Station Power Plant, located at 510 Grand Ave. in New Haven. The former coal and oil plant, which operated from 1929 to 1992, is currently owned by GMP Property Solutions LLC, which currently plans to put the site back into use. But before that can happen, the site needs to be fully investigated for harmful toxins and decontaminated — a process that some believe has been moving too slowly.

“I think we all share the same interest which is getting the site remediated and back to perfective reuse,” Betsey Wingfield, deputy commissioner of CT DEEP, said at the meeting.

In 2012, the former owners of the building, United Illuminating, entered a partial consent order with CT DEEP where UI agreed to clean up the site. One of the main environmental and public health concerns with the site is the existence of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are probable human carcinogens. The PCBs used in transformers and other electrical equipment do not break down easily and can remain in the water, air and soil for long periods of time.

Gary Trombly, who works for CT DEEP, explained at the meeting that there was originally a threeyear schedule for the clean up in the partial consent order. However, he said that investigations of the site’s environmental concerns have taken longer than the original schedule due to the complexity of those investigations.

Trombly said the floor of the site has different chemicals throughout the building, so UI has to evaluate concrete, trenches and discharge puddles. He said CT DEEP would also need to investigate the 8 feet of soil beneath the main floor for con-

taminated materials. If the building is to stay up — which the property owners have not yet decided — the building material would have to be fully investigated and decontaminated as well.

“So there’s a variety of different works going on in different portions of the building upon different floors within the building,” Trombly said.

Under the partial consent order, United Illuminating is required to clean up the site to meet industrial-commercial standards. Wingfield explained that, separate from these standards, the soil of the building is also required to be cleaned up so that PCB concentrations do not exceed more than 1 part per million.

EAC chairwoman Laura Cahn also asked Wingfield about the public health concerns for the community due to the site. She said that EAC members were mainly concerned with the lack of cleanup because of ongoing concerns from nearby residents about their health.

“We are concerned about people living in the vicinity, going to

school in the vicinity across the street from this,” Cahn said. “I’m just worried about the existential stress on the people who are facing a toxic space in their neighborhood and the ramifications of that on their health.”

Wingfield responded that the best way to mitigate those concerns permanently was to clean up the site, which is what she said their department is focused on.

“It is also why the time frame does concern us, as it clearly concerns you,” Wingfield said.

EAC members also asked Wingfield what penalties existed for UI for the long clean up time frame.

Wingfield said that there were no formal penalties put into place, as it was not typical to include penalties in partial consent orders. However, Wingfield said that because the remediation costs continue to build up, it was not in “UI’s interest to let this drag on forever.”

According to the partial consent order, UI is required to spend at least $30 million on the building clean up. Wingfield said that now, all indications point to the total costs exceeding $30 million.

Aaron Goode, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, said that UI’s March report stated that it had already spent over $15.2 million on the remediation process. Trombly emphasized that the $30 million was a floor, but not a cap.

Wingfield said the DEEP had also been working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, particularly with the PCB coordinator for Region 1, Kim Tisa.

Trombly added that Tisa had visited the English Station site and was “actively involved” with the efforts.

“This is a hard one and we’re working hard to resolve it,” Wingfield said to the committee. “We will continue to work towards a resolution and it will be great to see ultimately the site cleaned up, which is our most important piece, and then hopefully ultimately redeveloped.”

The English Station site consists of 8.9 acres on the southern end of the man-made Ball Island in the Mill River.

Contact SAI RAYALA at sai.rayala@yale.edu .

Jackson Institute sees significant increase in applicants

YASMINE HALMANE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

As test requirements are abandoned, Jackson Institute sees significant increase in applications.

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER On Tuesday, the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs announced its admissions statistics for the incoming class of graduate students. It saw a significant increase in the number of applicants to both the masters program, or MA, and the masters of advanced study, or MAS, program.

The MA program saw a 10 percent increase in applications this

year, while the MAS program saw an 85 percent increase. This is the largest pool of applicants to the MA program that the Jackson Institute has ever received, according to Jackson Dean of Admissions Asha Rangappa LAW ’00 . This year, the acceptance rate for the MA program was 14 percent, while the MAS had a similar rate of 15 percent.

“Despite the challenges posed

by COVID on our recruiting efforts, making all of our admissions pro-

gramming available online appears to have increased Jackson’s visibility and accessibility to a broader cross-section of applicants,” Rangappa said in an email to the News.

“At this point it is unclear whether this is an aberration resulting from the pandemic, though we will likely expand our online outreach moving forward.”

The MA program is a two-year course that is designed, according to the Jackson Institute’s website, to “prepare students to impact the global community through an academically rigorous yet flexible interdisciplinary program.”

During the last application cycle, the MA program had only seen a 2 percent increase in applicants, making this year’s 10 percent jump significant. In an email to the News, the office of admissions for the Jackson Institute said it was “not inclined to speculate without more complete data” as to why the MA program saw an increase in applications.

“I am simply in awe of the incoming class,” Director of the Jackson Institute Jim Levinsohn said in an email to the News “They are joining us from all corners of the world and are bringing to the Jackson community a wealth of experiences, a diversity of backgrounds, and a common commitment to

addressing the global challenges of the day.”

The MAS program is a one-year program offered by the Jackson Institute that was created in 2013 aimed at mid-career professionals with “extensive experience in a field of global affairs such as, but not limited to, international security, diplomacy, and development,” according to the website. The program is particularly selective, taking only five students in the current class. The MA program is larger, with between 25 and 30 students in each incoming class.

Rangappa said that the 85 percent increase in applications to the MAS program is best explained by the fact that the Jackson Institute dropped the requirement for the Graduate Records Examination, or GRE, for the program. According to Rangappa, the rationale behind the change was that the applicants to the MAS program “are mid-career professionals who are primarily evaluated on their work experience.”

The significant increase in the number of applicants follows a similar trend set by Yale College this year, which saw a 33 percent increase in applications. Yale College also dropped the requirement for standardized tests.

The Jackson Institute seeks to have a globally diverse pool of graduate students and, according to

Rangappa, “on average, our applicant pool is broken down as 40% international applicants and 60% U.S. applicants.” Still, she recognized that the current first-year class of applicants is less internationally diverse because almost half of the international students were forced to defer due to pandemic travel restrictions.

As part of the Jackson Institute’s global expansion, they have increased outreach to traditionally underrepresented regions of the world, achieved through networks of alumni and organizations such as the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs. Alongside this outreach, the Institute saw a 52 percent increase in applications from Latin America and Africa, two of those underrepresented regions.

In the class of 2022, 30 students from 12 countries enrolled in the MA program, of whom just 27 percent were international students.

The geographical breakdown of the incoming class of students will not be available until more specific matriculation data is available in the fall.

The Jackson Institute also offers a bachelor’s degree for undergraduates through the global affairs major.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu .

PAGE 12

THROUGH THE LENS

T

o be an environmentalist involves creativity, strategy and commitment to cause. It means setting the example for others by making small, sustainable choices so that we can realize the sustainable, equitable and just futures we want. From composting to voting, here are some simple ways environmentalists at Yale integrate this work into their everyday lives. Hopefully you can take note, and then take part.

MARC BOUDREAUX, KATIE SCHLICK, TRAVIS TRAN and ANNA ZHANG report.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 13

“If life is a soap opera you shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to get to the final credits.” MICHAEL PORTILLO BRITISH POLITICIAN

David Swensen, Yale’s Chief Investment Officer, dies at 67

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER David Swensen GRD ’80, Yale’s longtime Chief Investment Officer and creator of the “Yale Model” for institutional investing, died Wednesday evening.

In an email to the Yale community, University President Peter Salovey shared that Swensen had lost his nine-year-long battle with cancer.

Swensen has led the Investments Office since 1985, overseeing the growth of Yale’s endowment from $1 billion to $31.2 billion. Throughout the past 30 years of Swensen’s leadership, Yale’s investments have generated returns of 12.4 percent per annum, unparalleled highs that established him as a “legend among institutional investors,” Salovey wrote. Friends and colleagues remembered Swensen as principled, generous and utterly devoted to Yale.

“David served our university with distinction,” Salovey wrote in the email. “He was an exceptional colleague, a dear friend, and a beloved mentor to many in our community. Future generations will benefit from his dedication, brilliance, and generosity.”

Swensen and colleague Dean Takahashi created the renowned “Yale Model” for investing, which emphasizes diversifying beyond stocks, bonds and other traditional investments and taking qualitative assessments of managers into account. The two met 45 years ago, when Swensen was Takahashi’s firstyear counselor.

“He would rally us to gather for card games, intramurals, beer tastings, and just hanging out,” Taka-

hashi said. “That passion for fun and building team culture continued on in his investment career.”

Former University President Richard Levin explained how Swensen’s work transformed Yale.

As it grew under Swensen’s leadership, the endowment went from financing about one-tenth of Yale’s budget to one-third.

“Under his leadership, the superior performance of the Yale endowment made possible all that we have accomplished in the past thirty years: the rebuilding of the campus, the rejuvenation of downtown New Haven, the internationalization of our student body and academic programs, our commitment to making Yale College affordable for all who are admitted and our investments in world-class science and engineering,” Levin wrote in an email to the News.

In 2007 Swensen was awarded the Mory’s Cup for conspicuous service to Yale and in 2012 received the Yale Medal for outstanding individual service to the University. In 2014, he was presented with an honorary doctor of humane letters at Yale’s Commencement.

Judy Chevalier, Professor of Finance and Economics, recalled how she met Swensen at the copy machine of 451 College St. in 1986.

She was an undergraduate, and he was newly-appointed to lead the Investments Office. He hired her to the office, where he let interns sit in on important meetings and took them out for lunch at Mory’s.

“He was extraordinarily generous with his time, even then,” she wrote in an email to the News. “The 1987 Dave Swensen Mory’s Lunch

had some common features with the 2007 Dave Swensen lunch or the 2017 one a fascinating conversation at lunch, no hurry, and on the walk back, he always had something he had discovered about Yale that he wanted to show you a gargoyle, a plaque in the Corporation room, some detail on a facade.”

Swensen shared his knowledge with students, lecturing at Yale College and the School of Management. Swensen and Takahashi finished teaching their final course in Investment Analysis this week.

They co-taught the seminar for the past 35 years.

Swensen was particularly proud that he mentored investment officers to work with a mission focus, Takahashi said. Fifteen former members of the Office have gone on to run leading endowments or foundations and two-thirds of them are women, he added. Of the 15 top-ranked endowment based on performance over the past 10 years, six are managed by YIO alumni.

At a SOM event last year that showcased women endowment managers whom Swensen had mentored, he was asked how he wanted to be honored, Chevalier said. His reply: “‘Oh, I want to sit in the audience and learn!,’” she recalled.

This fall, he told the firms that manage the University’s money to hire more women and minorities or risk Yale pulling its money. He said the Investments Office would diversify its ranks as well.

Student activists have long advocated for Yale to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Since 2014, Yale’s Investment Office, under Swensen, has asked endowment managers

YALE DAILY NEWS

Swensen oversaw the growth of Yale’s endowment from $1 billion to $31.2 billion in his time as CIO. to incorporate the costs of carbon emissions in their investment decisions, and to not work with companies that deny the cost of climate change or do not take economically sensible steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yale’s approach advantages investments with small greenhouse gas footprints, the YIO has stated.

Swensen was a committed fan of Yale Athletics. He always said that he had to pursue institutional investing because other institutions, like investment banks, do not have foot-

ball and basketball games, Tina Lu, professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, said.

He hosted the annual “Swensen Tennis Extravaganza” at the Connecticut Open, raising millions of dollars for Yale’s community-based partnerships and would compete on the YIO softball team, Takahashi said.

He is survived by his wife, Meghan McMahon ’87, and three children.

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

Yale physics department admits first-ever majority-female Ph.D class

BY JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTER For the first time in Yale history, the incoming class of physics doctoral students, who will likely graduate in 2027 or 2028, will include more women than men.

This fall, 18 women and 17 men will ascend on Science Hill to begin their pursuits of doctoral degrees in physics. By comparison, the incoming classes of 2018 and 2019 both included just three women, and in 2020, 13 women began to pursue their doctorates in physics at Yale. And nationally, only about 20 percent of physics doctorate holders are female.

According to Simon Mochrie, the director of graduate admissions for the physics department and a professor of physics and applied physics, this year’s applicant pool was especially competitive, with more applicants than previous years — the department received 563 applications, which is up from 480 applicants last year. Yale College observed similar trends for the class of 2025.

“I am really hopeful that the department is going to become a friendlier space,” Emma Castiglia GRD ’22 wrote in an email to the News. “I just hope that the department itself continues to make structural changes to be a more diverse,

open community, instead of expecting the newer members to be the ones driving the change.”

Castiglia is the chair of graduate students in Yale Women in Physics+, a group fostering community among women and gender minorities in physics, applied physics and astrophysics. Graduate students, postdocs and faculty members are eligible for membership.

Mochrie said he postulates that the strength of Yale physics research, increased recruitment efforts — such as a virtual physics open house — and the presence of female role models within the department are responsible for the shift.

Professor of physics and astrophysics Meg Urry also emphasized the importance of representation as a source of allyship and inspiration.

As Yale’s first female faculty member in physics, Urry advocates for and exemplifies this perspective.

Mochrie also noted that the department decided against accepting GRE scores this round of applications, which could have contributed to the increase in applicants.

Urry shared concerns over discrimination that stems from relying too much on the test.

“If you just blindly use the GRE as a measure of quality, you will automatically make your incoming

class whiter and more male,” she told the News.

Urry said she believes that it is necessary to consider an applicant’s merits in the context of their environment rather than their absolute achievements — which is an approach she thinks Yale has adopted. She explained the importance of maintaining awareness of compared bias-conscious admissions through her work in astrophysics.

Rachel Cooper GRD ’22 — the social chair for Women in Physics+ — emphasized women’s agency, noting that while structural boundaries prevent women from pursuing advanced degrees in physics, individual choice plays a role as well. Yale can accept more women, but that does not mean the admitted students will accept Yale, she said. According to Cooper, achieving gender parity requires disassembling the factors — including the undue burden of family responsibility — that can drive women to make choices that sideline their careers.

Urry shared this position, telling the News that over the course of her career, female scientists consistently asked her if it is possible to research and raise a family. Urry said she will know physics has reached gender equality when men and women make this inquiry at the same rate.

LUCAS FLIPPO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

This fall, Yale’s first-ever physics P.h.D class composed of a majority of women will begin their doctoral studies.

She said that individual physicists and the field as a whole both suffer when institutions perpetuate inequality.

Castiglia, Cooper and Urry both expressed hope that this year’s admissions numbers do not prove to be a one-off.

Though female representation in STEM attracts much attention, Hannah Bossi GRD ’24 — the events chair for Women in Physics+ — said the conversation must include intersectional identities

and that gender is only one facet of diversity.

Urry added that race, sexuality, religious identity and military service can also contribute to feelings of ostracism from mainstream physics.

She added that hiring diverse faculty members should also be a priority.

The fall term for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will begin Aug. 31.

Contact JORDAN FITZGERALD at jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu .

OPINION. Write for the most read page of Your Page. the YDN. Your Voice.

Your Thoughts.

Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com

SOFTBALL Drexel 3 Princeton 1

BASEBALL Penn 16 La Salle 3

SPORTS

M. TENNIS Dartmouth 5 Williams 2

NBA Clippers 105 Raptors 100

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

KAYLEY DELAY ’22 DELAY WINS IN KANSAS Last Saturday, DeLay set a personal best in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Trials of Miles Kansas City Qualifier. She beat her former PR by 13.97 seconds with a final time of 9:58.77. The Yale record is currently 10:07.93.

CHELSEA KUNG ’23 NEW SAAC PRESIDENT Yale women’s tennis player Chelsea Kung ’23 has been selected as the 2021–22 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president. Eight other athletes join Kung on the group’s executive board for next year.

VENUE: McNay Family Sailing Center

“Competing for our schools is an experience like no other, and we are thrilled to hear the optimism for the fall season. I can’t wait to get back to training and competing.”

AMI GIANCHANDANI ’23 YALE WOMEN’S GOLFER

Field house next to Reese Stadium nears completion

BY RYAN CHIAO STAFF REPORTER Spectators at Reese Stadium this fall will be pleased to find a new glass and metal structure overlooking the west end of the pitch.

REESE

ANASTHASIA SHILOV & ZULLY ARIAS/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR AND PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

The McNay Family Sailing Center was renovated in 2002 and renamed in 2006.

BY WEI-TING SHIH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Located just 15 minutes away from Yale's campus on a cove in Branford, the McNay Family Sailing Center, home to Yale’s sailors, sits on the Long Island Sound.

The Sailing Center is one of the best facilities for college sailing in the United States. Originally, the venue was solely occupied by Yale club sailing, which was known as the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club.

However, in 2002, Yale sailing transitioned to varsity status, but it retained its club aspect. The varsity team became a separate entity, and the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club became public. Today, the center is used by both Yale's sailing teams and the public.

Since the facility was first used by members of the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, the McNay Family Sailing Center is affectionately

called by the club's initials, YCYC — pronounced "yic-yic" — by its sailors and visitors.

A state-of-the-art complex, YCYC is both historic and modern.

The expansive facility includes a full maintenance area, living quarters, a kitchen, offices, classrooms, lockers and storage space. It houses a well-maintained fleet of 420s, Flying Juniors and Lasers, as well as motorboats and safety launches.

Through the center, Yale has nurtured generations of accomplished sailors, including world champions and Olympic medalists.

The location of the Center, Long Island Sound, allows for exposure to a wide variety of weather and geographic conditions, ranging from flat water and shifty winds to rolling waves in open water.

"It is a magical place," Zachary Leonard ’89, head varsity sailing coach at Yale, said in a phone call with the News. "I've spent a

significant portion of my life [at YCYC], but I just never get tired of looking at it."

The early history: ‘Tradition and excellence’ Sailing is one of the oldest collegiate sports in the United States and possesses an extensive history. Collegiate sailing began on an informal, club basis in the late 19th century and today has grown to include more than 200 active colleges. Sailors compete both during the fall and the spring.

The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club is the oldest collegiate sailing organization in the world. After its establishment in 1881, the club became prominent in the sailing scene, but it was not until the mid20th century that it would gain a sense of physical permanence.

Prior to the 1960s, the team had practiced and rented out spaces at SEE VENUE PAGE 10

Handsome Dan set to move to Silliman

BY CRISTOFER ZILLO SENIOR COLUMNIST I’ll admit it: I‘ve never really felt like I fit in at Yale. (Yes, this is a Sports column. Please bear with me.)

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

As a resident fellow, Handsome Dan XIX handler Kassandra Haro ’18 will live in Silliman along with her puppy, Kingman.

Silliman students will have a fresh face to look out for in the courtyard this fall: Yale’s newest mascot, Handsome Dan XIX.

HANDSOME DAN In an email sent to the Silliman community on Tuesday evening, Head of College Laurie Santos shared that the puppy, Kingman, and his handler, Kassandra Haro ’18, plan to move to Silliman at some point over the summer. Haro is set to be one of Silliman’s resident fellows starting next school year.

“This is a wonderful way for Handsome Dan to be on campus more often and to make sure that he is an even bigger part of student life in all the colleges,” Santos wrote in her email. “Silliman is proud to offer the space needed and to become a new home for Kassandra and Handsome Dan.” Each residential college welcomes two resident fellows and their families to live within the college. The resident fellows contribute to life at their college by advising students, serving as additional resources for undergraduates and creating a positive atmosphere.

SEE HANDSOME DAN PAGE 10

STAT OF THE WEEK

56.2

Yale’s soccer and lacrosse players will be equally, if not more, excited to soon call the new 34,800-square-foot field house home. The two-story structure comprises dedicated areas for athletic medicine and sports performance, a screening room for reviewing film from games and practice, a team center, locker rooms and offices for coaches and program staff. A

second-floor balcony provides an open-air view of the Reese pitch, offering perhaps the best perspective to watch a penalty shootout unfold or a last-minute goal enter the net.

In the eyes of Yale men’s soccer head coach Kylie Stannard, the facility is a “game changer and will be the best of its kind in the Ivy League and one of the best in the nation.” “[The field house] will be our home away from main campus that will have everything we need in one place,” Stannard said. “[In comparison to our existing facility], it will have more space for all student-athletes with sports medicine and strength and conditioning areas SEE REESE PAGE 10

WILLIAM MCCORMACK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The 34,800-square-foot facility includes athletic medicine and sports performance space, a team center, locker rooms and offices.

ZILLO: My final plea ZILLO

BY MELANIE HELLER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

NHL Penguins 7 Flyers 3

My high school friends and I were always attached at the hip, and most of the time I think we shared a collective consciousness — we felt like we were probably the only people in the world who understood each other. Once I set food on Old Campus years ago, it didn’t take me long to realize that I probably wouldn’t ever be around a group of people like that ever again. My roommate didn’t know who Lil Uzi Vert was, my suitemate moved in while wearing a full tuxedo and the girls across the hall disapproved of my love for “If You Had My Love” by Jennifer Lopez.

Who invented the residential college system anyway? I felt trapped.

Some of my peers have even told me that I’m almost unapproachable, and this was articulated in an Opinion piece from 2017 by my dear friend and former Opinion editor Katherine Hu ’21. Admittedly, I took it as free press at the time. After sticking Post-it Notes with my Instagram “@czillo” around the walls of the Lawrance Hall stairwells, I’d parade my phone screen around and ask, “Did you know someone wrote an article about me?” Now I read it and reflect. I guess a “tough guy” facade was my downfall. Did I scare people off? Did I miss my chance at significant friendships?

It’s taken me until now — the last few weeks of my undergraduate college career — to realize that my people have been with me the entire time. To the Sports Desk and to Yale Athletics as a whole, this one’s for you. I wouldn’t trade you for the world.

There are many, many instances where sports at Yale made me feel like I belonged, but I’ll keep it short.

I remember going to a men’s basketball game during winter break with my parents. It was the same year I was covering the team, and Payne Whitney was a ghost town. We sat at the front of the bleachers, shaking our heads at the sight of the sea of empty seats.

I knew this team was good, and they definitely deserved better.

In strode President Peter Salovey with his wife Marta Moret SPH ’84. They plopped themselves down in the cushioned seats of the front row —

right in front of us and separated only by the blue guardrail.

One by one the players came over to greet me, reaching over the president and first lady to shake my hand before tip-off.

The VIPs turned to look at me in astonishment.

“Are you on the team?” they asked. I laughed. “No, I cover them for the YDN.” Minutes later my parents and I were escorted by security to the exclusive front row to take in the game next to them. Salovey, his wife, my parents and I smiled, cheered and laughed as the Bulldogs handed the Iona Gaels a beatdown. Maybe it was I who was really the VIP. From planning pickup basketball games with former quarterback Kurt Rawlings ’20 and talking music with former Yale men’s basketball guard Miye Oni, SEE ZILLO PAGE 10

ANASTHASIA SHILOV/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

"We don the Blue and White for large Yale sporting events when it’s us versus them. We can stitch the fabric of this community back together."

NUMBER OF INNINGS YALE BASEBALL ALUM ALEX STEIGLER ’20 HAS PITCHED FOR BOSTON COLLEGE THIS SPRING, A FIGURE THAT RANKS SECOND ON THE TEAM.

FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021

WEEKEND Resilience and Love for Community: Chinese Restaurants in New Haven, A Pandemic Retrospective // DORA GUO

// BY CLAIRE FANG AND TONY HAO When the coronavirus pandemic first struck the United States last spring, Hu Ping, the owner of Taste of China, Chuan Du Hotpot, Steamed Dim Sum and three other Chinese restaurants in Connecticut, wasn’t worried. Seeing China successfully containing the spread of the disease within two months, Hu reasoned that the States should control the disease in the same time frame, given its superior medical infrastructures. But by mid-April 2020, half of all Chinese restaurants in the United States had closed temporarily or permanently, a higher rate than non-Asian establishments.

This piece, however, isn’t concerned with the situation of Chinese restaurants across the nation, but rather the stories of Asian dining specifically in New Haven. We’re bringing to you the voices of the workers and owners of Taste of China, Chopsticks Kitchen, Formosa, T-Swirl and Junzi. In the wake of what has been a frightening and harrowing year for many, including Asian Americans, it’s important for us to recognize and celebrate the amazing resilience of these restaurants and the care they have brought to our city through sharing unique cuisine. Food is love and food is community, and these people know it.

Things were not smooth sailing for all the Chinese restaurants in New Haven. As the number of confirmed cases skyrocketed, Hu Ping began to worry about the health of her employees and the future of her business. Eventually, the inevitable decision was made: Chuan Du was shut down last spring. Then Steamed. Then two other restaurants she owned. Taste of China was next — but Hu hesitated. Her flagship Chinese restaurant has been the icon of authentic Chinese cuisine in New Haven for eight years. For almost a decade, it has served up comfort for Chinese New Haveners and Yale students whenever they were missing the flavors of home.

After Yale shut down and borders closed, some Chinese students were stuck in the States, thousands of miles away from home. “They don’t have a family here,” Hu said in an interview in Mandarin translated by the News. “I can’t just leave without someone cooking Chinese food for them. I need to keep my door open.” Taste of China never closed.

Many of New Haven’s Chinese restaurants have layered meanings to their diners. For people with Chinese heritage, a steaming bowl of food can soothe homesickness, while non-Chinese customers flock to these restaurants to try new dishes and flavors. The founders of Junzi, originally from Northern China, opened the fast-casual noodle joint on Broadway in 2015 after connecting over their shared experiences as international college stu-

dents. They originally envisioned a menu centered around the authentic flavors of North Chinese home cooking that they had missed during their time studying in New Haven. Soon they expanded to Chinese home cooking in general, adding smashed cucumbers and tomato-and-egg sauces.

Like Junzi, Chopsticks Kitchen on Elm St. was started by a college student — Joyce Li, who was studying dentistry in New York at the time — and initially focused on North Chinese food. Now, they’ve expanded their menu to include popular American Chinese food. Formosa, a destination for both traditional and creative Asian fusion cuisine, has a long history in its North Haven location. T-Swirl Crepe, which touts a menu of almost 30 sweet and savory crepe combos and dozens of hot and cold teas, chose its location on College Street due to New Haven’s vibrant, open and diverse culture.

After Gov. Ned Lamont first issued a stay-at-home order closing all non-essential business on March 20, 2020, Chinese restaurants in New Haven had to adapt to keep their businesses afloat. Junzi shut down in-person dining, but its work continued through takeout and delivery.

Chopsticks kept its doors open by switching to delivery and takeout. Some establishments had to modify their menus in order to cope with the fact that suppliers that catered to Chinese dining were hardhit by the pandemic. As supply chains crumbled, or were otherwise obstructed, Junzi’s menu changed to incorporate more chicken and tofu instead of beef shank and pork as meat prices skyrocketed. T-Swirl switched to emphasizing its easy-to-takeaway signature crepes rather than other desserts and drinks.

Many establishments that closed or shut down in-person dining soon bounced back. T-Swirl closed for a few weeks in March 2020 but was able to reopen in April. Jojo, manager at T-Swirl, cites how T-Swirl serves specific needs in the New Haven community, and how much it, in turn, relies on this city. “A business makes money to survive,” she says. “And society needs us.” Formosa, Chopsticks Kitchen and Taste of China reopened in-person dining last September, as soon as regulations permitted them to.

Even while they struggled for the future of their businesses, restaurant owners found ways to serve the broader community. Hu Ping, along with a few members of her staff at Taste of China, delivered free meals to Yale New Haven Hospital after seeing the situation of frontline workers in the news. “I’d been following the news and thinking about what New Haven would need,” she said. She saw the hecticness in Yale New Haven Hospital and sensed the

horror and their need for help. She made up her mind, “I’m cooking them food,” without thinking for another second.

But her staff members were concerned, fearing the uncertainty behind the spread of the virus. “I’m going there myself,” she told her staff. A few members immediately joined her.

Thus, in the first months of the pandemic, when people were fleeing New Haven, Hu and her staff members went into the most dangerous area to support the frontline workers. Fully equipped with masks and gloves, they delivered freshly cooked Chinese food through the front gate of the hospital, where all COVID patients were treated.

Nobody on Hu’s staff was infected.

“There’s no room for hesitation,” she said.

“They needed us.”

Junzi also prepared meals for frontline workers. People could donate the cost of a meal, and the kitchen would get to work preparing and delivering food for healthcare workers. This program helped those on the frontlines of the crisis while providing a steady revenue that allowed Junzi to keep its staff employed.

Other restaurants also focused on the needs of their servers and cooks. Formosa kept all their staff employed, although they did have to shorten shifts due to decreased traffic. Taste of China provided free food and housing for its laid-off workers. “We’re all in this together,” Hu said.

“In front of this pandemic, someone has to take a loss.” She decided to take the loss herself, supporting her staff and the local New Haven community despite facing a 70 percent decrease in sales. “I can’t leave them sleeping on the street, simple as that,” she said.

Hu also acknowledged the importance of intangible forms of support during the pandemic, besides food and lodging.

“We’re all fighting a war together,” she said, reflecting more on the decision of keeping Taste of China open, “and I’m the commander of the army. If the commander quits, how would everyone else have hope that they’ll survive? I must steer the ship and let everyone know that we got this.”

“It’s like lighting a fire,” she added. “If everyone adds a little bit to it, the fire can sweep across an entire field. But if you blow it off, it would take forever to restart the fire.”

For the most part, Chinese restaurant owners in New Haven were pleased with local and state government responses to the pandemic. Hu Ping was “very impressed by how America handled COVID-19” — citing how people were able to hang on to their jobs, how small businesses were able to borrow money and the unity people demonstrated in the face of unforeseen disaster and tragedy. Jojo at T-Swirl also felt opti-

mistic about the impact of government support, although she expressed some trepidation over the potential effects of inflation. “When people have money, they will spend money,” she said. As a new restaurant, Chopsticks Kitchen fell through the cracks of state and federal stimulus packages. Without tax filings from 2019, the owners couldn’t prove the revenue loss necessary to qualify for aid.

In addition to the pandemic, Asian American communities have also been rocked by a wave of anti-Asian violence and hate crimes. Fortunately, all of the restaurants we interviewed reported that anti-Asian discrimination had little impact on their businesses. But Lucas Sin from Junzi did describe the subtle racism that permeates American attitudes toward Chinese cuisine. Consumers often expect Chinese food to be cheaper than other cuisines. “We can’t charge food with the same value as ravioli,” said Sin. Chinese restaurants have to underprice their food to match customer expectations, meaning that owners and cooks can end up working for less than minimum wage.

Chinese restaurants are diverse, spanning from fine dining establishments like Taste of China, to classic take-away style joints like Chopsticks Kitchen, to newer up-starts like Junzi that are re-imaging what Chinese-American cooking can be. While their menus may differ, all these restaurants demonstrate the spirit and civic responsibility of the Chinese and Asian communities in New Haven. As Chinese-Americans ourselves, it’s heartwarming to see how much they care for New Haven and how much in turn New Haven has been good for them and their careers.

As more and more New Haveners are vaccinated, restaurant owners are reflecting on the challenges of the past year and looking toward a post-pandemic future.

“Business is really tough right now,” said Joyce Li from Chopsticks Kitchen. But she has a positive outlook for the future of her business. Li hopes sales at her downtown location will improve once City Hall staff return to work and their out-of-office lunch breaks. She’s also looking forward to connecting with other Asian-owned food businesses. Jojo from T-Swirl summed up the attitude of resilience that got so many Chinese restaurants through this pandemic and will continue to help these businesses thrive in a vaccinated world: “We will focus on our product, our service and hope for the best.”

Contact CLAIRE FANG at claire.fang@yale.edu .

Contact TONY HAO at tony.hao@yale.edu .

PAGE B2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND DANCE

How the Pandemic Changed my Relationship with Bhangra // BY NANKI CHUGH

// ERIC WANG

On Feb. 29, 2020, the basement of Woolsey Hall buzzed with the pandemonium of about a dozen dance and acapella groups from across the country preparing for Dhamaal: Yale’s annual South Asian intercollegiate showcase. We, Yale Jashan Bhangra, or YJB unfolded our vardiyaan — vests of crimson, rose, yellow, green and blue — each embossed with a silver blocked letter “Y” on the back. We pulled on our matching kurtas and salwars, remembering to adjust the fabric at our ankles with a safety pin so we wouldn’t trip as we squatted on stage. We tied phumans — decorative cloth pom-poms — around each other’s wrists, and secured flowing chunnis to our heads with bobby pins. Before we knew it, we had stumbled out on stage, marked our places with cones and props and bowed our heads — waiting for the music.

It’s difficult for me to quantify the sheer amount of energy that enveloped us in that space. I think it came from an overwhelming sense of connection to the hall, the audience, and each other. The wooden floor vibrated beneath the balls of our bare feet, charged by the blasting beat of our mix and

cheers from the audience. We felt that power rise from the floor up to the back of our arms as we opened them wide and bellowed HOY, projecting to the very back of the hall.

We bounced the energy off of one another, pulling our shoulders back and our feet up, squatting, spinning, rotating in formation.

We smiled and screamed and winked and willed each other onwards. And I held onto those six exhaustingly exhilarating minutes for as long as I possibly could, relishing the togetherness of it all.

A week later, we scattered across the country for spring break, expecting to dance together again in two weeks’ time. For me, those two weeks at home in Santa Monica, California became the remainder of the spring, the summer and my junior fall away from YJB. For the first few weeks, our interactions were limited to GroupMe messages and the occasional zoom workout. I wondered how long we could sustain the team, and whether our relationships would fade along with the memories of group practices and performances. Above all, I worried that my own love for Bhangra would diminish with distance from the team.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

WKND RECOMMENDS Napping in public.

I found myself running through our set on my living room floor every night of lockdown, anxious to keep the pre-pandemic rhythm alive. Completing the set now felt empowering, possibly because I was able to accomplish something, no matter how small, in a constantly evolving and unstable time.

If I could continue to perform our segments out of pure enjoyment, without needing to depend on the rest of my team, it would be incredibly difficult to lose YJB. Taking ownership gave me something to believe in, providing strength, comfort, and hope.

As a senior in high school, I resolved to join a collegiate Bhangra team because I loved dancing with my cousins at Punjabi weddings. I’d never received formal training, but the act of shaking my shoulders and raising my arms brought me closer to my family. When I first joined the team my freshman year, I remember learning my favorite Bhangra step: fasla, or crop in Punjabi. I listened as an oldie described the graceful, swaying move. She said, “Become the wheat swaying in the breeze.” My ancestors celebrated wheat and depended on it for their survival. With YJB, I began to dance for craft

and meaning, reflecting on the wheat — and the steps — with new intention.

And perhaps most of all, I found myself treasuring the simple YJB moments: the spontaneous nakhra during practice, breaking into Bhangra squats with a YJB friend at Woad’s, laughing at the water fountain in PWG… so much so that in my fall semester, I looked forward more than ever to our weekly zoom practices, where — thanks to our brilliant captains — we kept our family alive, welcomed a generation of new members and began learning a new set for the new year.

Spring has sprung and many of us are back on campus. Once a week, we gather for Bhangra practices on the Beinecke plaza.

Now, I dance with pride and hope. I dance to celebrate and share an art form that emerged from my ancestors. I dance not only for an audience, but for myself and for YJB. For now, I’m simply grateful to be able to dance with my friends once again.

But when we can, we’ll be back in Woolsey, sharing Bhangra with new vibrance.

Contact NANKI CHUGH at nanki.chugh@yale.edu .

ONLINE THIS WEEK: FROM PITBULL TO BULLDOGS: Isa Dominguez ‘24 and Eda Aker ‘24 discuss their Miami roots.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B3

WEEKEND FIRSTS

Sex on the WKND: First Kisses // SUSANNA LIU

dear sex on the wknd, i’ve wasted countless fucking hours having crushes on dumb men i barely know, going on stupid little dates with stupid little men, & curating dating app profiles that yield nothing. i’m about to turn 21 and i’m still a fucking virgin who’s never even kissed anyone. how do i stop being a serial monogamist in my own head only in terms of people i barely know and have a hoe phase once it becomes safe, public health wise? even if i decide i don’t want that, how do i just get in the situation where you get to kiss someone?

Wow... the anger in this message is so palpable. I feel you. I’ve probably wasted a good 20 percent of my life thinking/stressing/complaining about “dumb men i barely know” and “stupid little men.” I’ll just use “men” from now on, since I think it’s safe to assume most men at Yale are dumb and little (both literally and figuratively).

For my last column of the year, I think talking about a safe hoe phase is only fitting.

Assuming you’re fully vaccinated (or will be soon), this summer will hopefully be full of many more opportunities to date and meet new people than last year. What I’m saying is: it’ll be a lot easier to have your hoe phase this summer.

Buuuuut: is that what you really want?

From the sound of your question, it sounds like you’re beating yourself up for still being a virgin and never having kissed anyone — neither of which is bad, or unusual. You’d be surprised by how many questions I’ve received asking variations of the same question: “I still haven’t had my first kiss/boyfriend/hookup/date!!! What do I do???”

Though this column (and Yale culture in general) likes to discuss sex casually and normalize hookup culture, I don’t mean to suggest that this is how everyone is, or ought to be, living. Not having had your first kiss yet might make you feel like you’re missing a badge on your Boys Scouts sash that everyone else already has, or you’re left out on the world’s cruelest inside joke. But it’s nothing to lose sleep over — chapped lips touching chapped lips isn’t quite the sparks-fly, life changing moment you might think it is.

(Disclaimer: your first kiss could be like this!

It’s okay to want this! It’s also totally okay if your first kiss ends up being lack-luster. In fact, I don’t know anyone who had a magical first kiss.)

Moving onto your “hoe phase”: Everyone interprets this term differently, but I’ll assume that your idea of a “hoe phase” is being sexually active, seeing lots

of people, going on dates, and, most importantly, not getting committed to any one person. Though you might go into it expecting to be independent and emotionally unavailable, you’ll be surprised by how quickly your attitude can change. After all, don’t we all want to date or even just hook up with funny, interesting, smart, kind, attractive people?

Even during your hoe phase, you shouldn’t settle for mediocre dates and mediocre sex.

You should date funny, interesting, smart, kind, attractive people. But, ah that brings us to the inherent dilemma with hoe phases.

If you’re having a good time with someone, one of you is likely to catch feelings. And in that case, your hoe phase will either end (and you’ll start dating/go exclusive) OR one of you will get hurt. This is called a phase for a reason. Hoe phases are unsustainable and, if taken too far, can leave you feeling a lot of pain and frustration.

Take my hoe phase, for example. Freshman year, I broke up with my long-distance boyfriend and commenced my hoe phase to get him out of my system. I started seeing someone in my residential college out of convenience, and the sex was unbelievable. So unbelievable we would meet up in the 15-minute window between classes (that 3:45-4pm sweet spot) to sneak in a quickie. So unbelievable we did it in the bottom bunk of his teeny tiny bunk bed, and it was still that good. And the conversation was great. Teasing, good stories, the works. I had a decent friend with benefits, who even lived in my entryway — what more could a girl ask for?

You won’t be surprised to find out that I very quickly developed feelings. You won’t be surprised to find out that he, being a dumb and little Yale boy, did not care that I had developed feelings for him. You may be surprised (because this was a real dick move on his part) that one night, after we’d just had unbelievable sex, he told me all about the intense feelings he had for a girl he’d met at a party a few weeks earlier.

Don’t worry, I moved on. Eventually. But it felt like a big punch in the face at the time, like I’d totally played myself. Of course he was into someone else. We weren’t supposed to develop feelings for each other. That was the whole point of the arrangement. I was in my hoe phase. Or so I thought. Anyway, there’s my little warning for you before you jump into your own phase. Know what you’re getting yourself into, and make an exit plan.

If you still really want to get out of your head and just do the damn thing, here’s my advice:

WKND RECOMMENDS G Cafe.

1. Figure out what you want right now. A person to kiss? A stable relationship? Something in between? Since your question says that you just want to get in the situation to kiss someone, let’s go with that first option.

your apartment building elevator or your biweekly walk to the testing site? Remember, just like with the apps, you’re looking for someone to kiss, not someone to bring home to meet the parents and Grandma.

2. Okay, a person to kiss… First, you’ve got to get rid of every trope you’ve been fed about magical first kisses. Unless you have great karma and an experienced partner, your first kiss is going to suck. My first kiss was with a stranger from a neighboring high school whose stubble left tiny scratches on my chin that lasted for days. Your first kiss is probably going to be awkward — one of you will tilt your head the wrong direction and their glasses will hit your face and you’ll forget what to do with your hands and maybe they’ll slobber all over you and your tongue will get into a tangle with theirs and so on.

But Sex on the WKND.... Should I pregame to get rid of the nerves?

Great question. Being tipsy will most definitely reduce your feelings of self-consciousness and awkwardness. But you don’t want to get into the habit of relying on alcohol to hook up with people. For a while, back in my hoe phase, I had to get near black-out drunk to even feel like I could pull someone to go home with me. You don’t want to be like freshman year me.

But a few shots of Tito’s before you go out? Obviously I’d never say no to that. Just be careful, especially your first few times hooking up with someone.

4. Situations where you end up kissing someone can vary a lot. Let’s go with the most vanilla, tried-and-true option. The end-of-first-date kiss. Say you went out for dinner, or drinks, or a movie. You’re leaving the restaurant/bar/theater and you’re about to call it a night. Suggest going for a quick walk to stretch the ole legs (Yes this is kind of stupid. What are they going to say? No? Stay with me here.) Walk as little or long as you want, just make sure you find a bench.

Maybe there’s a park nearby, or a subway stop. Literally anything. Just sit down. Ideally, it’d also be somewhere secluded but we can’t be picky. (Sitting is also ideal as it puts you in control of your body and gets rid of any major height difference issues. Yale men may be dumb and little, but they can be pretty fucking tall. It’ll be much easier to lean in for a peck when you’re seated.)

Now, here’s the important part. Make sure you are not sitting miles apart on this bench!! Take a seat smack in the middle of it if you have to. There should not be more than six inches between you two. Continue talking about whatever brilliant thing you were discussing, but (**and this is key**) you need to maintain INTENSE eye contact. Intense. Don’t be weird about it, but look at your date with intention. Your heart will probably be beating really fast by now and you’ll be unsure if they’re picking up the vibes. They almost always are. As you talk, get closer and closer (gradually!) until you could easily lean in for a kiss. And do it! Maybe they will first. It’ll be pretty obvious by now what you’re trying to do, but it won’t be so abrupt that they’ll be surprised.

3. Alright, let’s find a person to kiss!

Depending on your perspective, this is either the easiest or hardest part of this entire process. Re-download your dating apps and swipe from the perspective of wanting a casual hookup. You’re not looking for Mr. Right. You’re looking for someone to kiss.

That’s it. (And you’re definitely not going to find Mr. Right on Yale Tinder anyway, so let’s not delude ourselves here.)

I would suggest someone beardless for your first time. You don’t want to be left with scratches. Look for someone who looks sweet and wholesome, but also like they’ve been around the block a couple times, you know what I mean?

If you’re not into dating apps, scope out your surroundings. Any cuties in your classes? (Now’s the perfect time to slide in with that “hey is it just me or does professor XYZ look just like voldemort? also do you wanna study for the final together” message.) Anyone catching your eye in

Green flags to look for: Do they keep looking at your lips? Instead of both facing straight forward, are you facing each other?

Are their shoulders turned towards you? Are your knees touching? Are they smiling when you speak? (It’s not rocket science, people. If they’re into you, you can usually tell.)

Make sure to read their body language.

If there’s any indication that they wouldn’t want to kiss you, STOP. Your time will come.

Just not today. sexonthewknd@gmail.com .

PAGE B4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND Q&A

‘I’m going to feed you with language’: Q&A with Yale NACC Ojibwe Language Class Professor Barbara Nolan // BY MEGHANLATA GUPTA AND HEIDI KATTER Every Thursday during this spring semester, eight members of the Yale community logged onto a Zoom meeting for two hours of education, conversation and storytelling in the Ojibwe language with professor Barbara Nolan (Ojibwe from Wiikwemkoong First Nation).

With the class composed of students ranging from undergraduates to professional school students to staff to alumni, more Yalies attended this year’s Ojibwe language class than any other Indigenous language class ever hosted by the Native American Cultural Center at Yale. This spring’s Ojibwe class created a sense of community at a time when personal connection remains challenging.

There are 175 Indigenous languages spoken in the United States and 4,000 Indigenous languages spoken around the world.

Indigenous languages are profoundly important for our communities because they lie at the foundations of our knowledge systems, cultural values, kinship ties and relationships to homeland. Across North America, Indigenous peoples struggled to learn and speak their languages in the face of violent settler-colonial efforts to erase Indigenous existences and lifeways. These efforts included prohibiting Indigenous peoples from speaking their languages, forcing Indigenous children to learn colonial languages (such as English, Spanish and/ or French) in boarding schools and replacing Indigenous place-names with words in colonial languages.

Ojibwe is one of multiple language classes offered by the Native American Cultural Center. Yet, despite the rigor of these classes and the urgent need for more Indigenous language speakers, Yale does not grant credit for Indigenous language courses. Thus, the students enrolled in NACC language classes are doing so in addition to their course load and without academic credit. Offered throughout the academic year, these classes provide space for Indigenous students to strengthen their relationship to their identities, cultures and communities. They emphasize the relevance and importance of Indigenous languages for all people and disciplines, and they are open to any member of the University community who has an interest in learning. Throughout these endeavors, Yale’s Native community aims to bring attention to language preservation and revitalization efforts happening on campus and beyond.

A teacher with decades of experience, Barbara Nolan was recently named the language commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation, which represents 39 First Nations with a combined population of 65,000 citizens.

As students in this spring’s Ojibwe class, we recently interviewed our instructor Barbara Nolan to learn about her cultural background, teaching and long-held values and beliefs about language learning. We feel grateful for her instruction and are honored to share her perspective with you. Additionally, we would like to give special thanks to NACC Director Matthew Makomenaw, NACC Assistant Director Diana Onco-Ingyadet, professor Ned Blackhawk and countless others for their work in coordinating and supporting Indigenous language learning at Yale.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: Could you tell us a little about you?

A: I was born and raised on Manitoulin Island on the reservation of Wiikwemkoong First Nation. We didn’t hear any English at all, everything was in the Ojibwe language.

We had no TV, no radio, so we didn’t have the interference of English besides when we went to church. I was born and raised there, and I went to a Spanish residential school when I was 5 years old with my sisters. We stayed there for four years, but we went home at Christmastime and summertime, so we did not lose connection with our family and community. After that, I went back to school in Wiikwemkoong from grades five to 11, and our school only went up to grade 11. Then I did two years of high school in North Bay. By that time, after four years in residential school, we could speak, write and read English. My dad had that in mind because he wanted us to go out and learn something, maybe to become a teacher or a nurse. He wanted us to get ahead in our education. I spoke only Ojibwe/Odawa, a mixture of the Three Fires — Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi. That’s all I spoke up until I

was five and went to residential school. After four years there, we spoke English, but back home, we all spoke the language. We were bilingual.

I got my bachelor’s here in the Sault, and I went to work in Toronto. That’s where I met my late-husband, and we got married on Manitoulin Island. We moved back to Toronto, we had two kids there, and then we moved to Detroit. My husband worked at the Steel Plant there. We didn’t stay there too long, and we moved to Garden River.

Q: How did you become interested in language teaching?

A: In 1972, I got a job in Sault Ste. Marie as a child and family counselor. My job was to look after the children from Garden River and the nearby reserves, visiting families and kids. We would work in schools like teachers.

That is where I heard a lot of things — the kids would talk. One thing they did tell me was how they hated French. They didn’t like learning French. The principal had alerted me at the time that the kids from Garden River and Batchewana were not interested in French language and asked me what to do. The kids were telling me that they hated French, that it wasn’t their language and they should be learning Ojibwe. They knew that I spoke the language. I wanted to help those kids really find out who they were as Anishinaabe people.

At that time, there was nothing in the schools to indicate that they were worthy or that they mattered. I thought that I should do something about it. I told the principal that I could look at the French teacher’s curriculum and work off of that. It was a proposal with a curriculum. I had no idea what curriculum writing was about. I borrowed the teacher’s book and went off of that, and it went to the school board and ministry and it came back approved. They wanted to find a teacher, but I was hired as a counselor. They went through my tribal nation and asked if I could teach it in the meantime. It was called “Native as a Second Language” program, and it started in kindergarten. It was better than having them learn French, and the kids were happy that they were taking their parents and grandparents language. They could relate to themselves. It is an identity thing.

They didn’t know who they were. They knew they were Indian, but that was it. What else?

I wanted them to be proud of who they were.

So I talked to the principal further, and I told him that we didn’t have anything obviously Native in the school. We started getting pictures and posters that the students could identify with. And then there was a request from Algoma University for a language course, then Sault College. I really enjoyed teaching the language, and I really enjoyed that the students were so attentive. The students stood up straight, and they looked like they were proud. It was good for them to learn their ancestor’s language.

Q: Could you tell us more about the history and evolution of the Ojibwe language?

A: When I first started the curriculum writing, I spent a lot of time with the language.

I found out that some of our words end differently, the animate and inanimate endings.

I found out that some of our animate nouns would not be considered animate or sacred by other cultures. I found out a lot about our beliefs in the language when I was working on teaching the language. How the rocks and the trees are animate nouns because they are sacred to us as Anishinaabe people.

I used to think there were lots of speakers. But I asked someone how many speakers in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and he said maybe 400 people. I thought he would say 4,000, but he said a very low amount. There was Ojibwe on Manitoulin Island, the three tribes all landed there for safety. On Manitoulin Island, there is a mixture of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi. They are not that different, they are like an English speaker from England and an English speaker from Australia. The tone is different, but that’s about it. You can still converse with each other. That’s what Ojibwe and Odawa are.

Potawatomi is similar but totally different in some areas. I met a Potawatomi language speaker, and in some areas, all of a sudden I didn’t understand her. Some parts I understood perfectly, some parts I didn’t understand at all.

The languages are the same but they are different, if you can picture that.

WKND RECOMMENDS Making summer 2021 your coming of age summer.

Q: Why do you think the Ojibwe language is important?

A: We had a prime minister in the mid-’60s and our people were going to him for certain things. He said to the Indigenous people that were asking to meet with him: “If you have a language, you are a society. If you don’t have a language, you are not a society.” Our people started to see that our language was disappearing. There is something missing when you don’t speak your language. We started to see a resurgence of self-governance, and the prime minister said we didn’t have self-governance without a language. So, rightly so, our people got upset and started to take a census on who spoke the language.

Our language was disappearing — Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Cree, Mohawk. There are 52 languages in Canada. The big survey showed that there were three languages destined to survive, including Ojibwe.

After I started the course in the school, everyone else wanted a course. But 15 minutes a day doesn’t create speakers. We suffered a loss as Indigenous people. But the resurgence of language is a form of healing with our people that have suffered so much. I think Ojibwe language learning is important to know who we are as Indigenous people.

Q: What challenges have you faced? What successes do you celebrate?

A: Resources are a challenge. We often don’t have a formal curriculum that tells us what to teach, we have to develop it as we go along. We have curriculum guidelines, but we don’t have the pictures that we need.

Teachers are up half the night developing what we will teach the next day. There are thousands of dollars that go to French language programs, but there is much less for Indigenous language programs. So, we have to get together and help each other. For our communities, accessing funding is a challenge. We all have to apply for funding for language programs.

We have people who want to learn the language. We have people who want to become speakers, individuals who are committed to doing anything they can to become speakers.

Hats off to those students. There is no lack of people who want to learn. I’ll get a busload of people coming to my house if I say I’m going to have a language class tomorrow.

I don’t have a house that big!

For successes, I am proud of starting language programs in the school systems and at the university level. I’m proud of the fact that I have, safe to say, created a few speakers. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve created a number of “understanders” who understand what I say and can interpret for me if I decide never to speak English again.

I’m also proud of the fact that at the day care, the language teaching is working. The other teachers hear me speak the language every day to the kids. They hear me speaking to the kids in the language from 8:30 to 12:30 every day. These kids hear me and know I’m speaking a different language, and when they are 2 or 3 years old, they are speaking English, but they are also starting to understand what Barbara is saying.

I always tell my students that you are my kids, and I’m going to feed you with language. I don’t want to do anything else but feed you language. I’m proud to have students like you who take time out of your day to come to class. There are lots of Zoom language classes now!

Q: What would you want colleges and universities to know about language learning? What would you want Yale to know?

A: I would probably suggest that they take time to think about their objectives. Is the objective to make students aware of an Indigenous language and its structure? Is it the language of the area? Is it going to be supported by people across the University?

Do we want to create “understanders,” or do we just want people to be aware of Indigenous languages? It is also important to have a good curriculum handy.

Algoma University was built on a residential boarding school. I told two presidents that they could get Algoma into the history books. Students came here many years ago and lost their language and culture here. I said, “Why don’t you turn that around and create language speakers here?”

I taught classes in the language at Bay

Mills. I taught child development and introduction to second-language acquisition in the language. I give the students English notes, but everything I did, I taught in the language. I used the language as my medium of instruction. You can still get university credits, like for introduction to psychology, and a fluent language speaker taught that class. It is not a waste of your time at university. Language learning should be accredited.

Q: Where do you see Indigenous language learning going in the future?

A: There are good things ahead. I believe in young people like you. We just had a conference March 4th in a community north of here, and they wanted me to find four young people that are acquiring the language. One of them was a student who came to me and asked to spend a few hours listening to the language. After you come to a certain level and then you don’t hear it anymore, you’re going to miss it. He was missing it because he only moved here for university. I said sure, come on. Come visit me. So he started coming. He does not break into English at all.

We stay in the language. We talk about this and that, we laugh. He never spoke English.

I really admire young people who spend over and above their time taking away from their other studies. Some are working and still acquiring the language. I do believe that we are going to have a young resurgence of speakers. And new speakers, when you are spending so much time with me, you are going to get part of me and who I am. The kindness, the sharing, the sense of humor.

That is how we grew up.

One thing though, when we had a meeting in Toronto that I went to attend, we were talking about this exact thing, the young people who are acquiring the language. This young fellow says that we have to be careful. How come we have to be careful? He says that they have to also learn the other parts of being Anishinaabe. They have to learn to be humble too.

I think there are going to be more language classes, there are many more that are online now. I see more people speaking the language. I think language learning and teaching is here to stay. In Canada, they just passed the Indigenous Languages Act last June. By doing that, they are acknowledging that there are going to be language programs and that there should be money to fund them. The Indigenous Languages Act means that those 52 Indigenous languages and their dialects will be resurrected. There is going to be more work.

It seems that people don’t know what language acquisition is. Most people know what language learning is, with a teacher in front of the class and learning about pronouns and grammar. My job is going to be switching that up, opening up another avenue of thinking. We can create speakers. Let’s not teach them about the verbs and nouns, that can come after. I want to open people’s eyes to another way, to produce speakers. You have to spend a lot of time with individuals who want to become speakers. I think that’s part of where it’s going. I see a lot of Indigenous language camps going on. Once COVID is over, you could host an Indigenous language camp over a weekend. Language camps. Everything would be done in the language. In the morning when you eat, you eat and sleep there. They provide accommodations in nearby hotels and travel to the site where the events are happening. The cooks and servers speak the language. It can be done.

There are people who are doing it.

Anyway, if I ever win millions of dollars, I’m going to build a spot by a lake, a big building that would serve as a hall where people can go and eat, and it would be surrounded by cabins for families to come. There would be another building, like a gymnasium.

Everyone would be speakers. All you would hear is the language. English would not be allowed for most of the day. That’s what my dream is, building this place. Sometimes I go somewhere and think: “This is what I need.”

Anyone who wants to learn the language, become a speaker, come to this place. It’s a dream. I have a big dream. I’m not sure if I’ll see it, but hopefully it happens one day.

Contact MEGHANLATA GUPTA at meghanlata.gupta@yale.edu .

Contact HEIDI KATTER at heidi.katter@yale.edu .