Yale Daily News — Week of Sept. 10

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 29 · yaledailynews.com

Former employee charged with stealing millions from Yale

BY ROSE HOROWITCH AND BEATRIZ HORTA STAFF REPORTERS

RYAN CHIAO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Jamie Petrone-Codrington was charged Friday, prompting an investigation by the FBI and Yale Police Department.

A former administrator at the Yale School of Medicine was charged with fraud and money laundering after stealing up to $30 million from the school in an elaborate scheme of purchasing and reselling computer hardware.

Jamie Petrone-Codrington, who most recently served as the director of finance and administration for Yale’s Department of Emergency Medicine, orchestrated an eight-year money laundering scheme to steal computer hardware from the School of Medicine. She started working for Yale in 2008 and, at most, five years later began to illegally purchase and resell the hardware using funds from the School of Medicine. University spokesperson Karen Peart said that Petrone-Codrington is no longer employed at Yale.

Petrone-Codrington is accused of stealing up to $30 million through thousands of computer hardware

orders, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed on Friday and obtained by the Hartford Courant. Since January, Petrone-Codrington has ordered 8,000 iPads and Surface Pro tablets, as well as $2.1 million in other computer equipment this past summer.

“Yale alerted federal law enforcement authorities to evidence of criminal behavior and has cooperated fully with their investigation,” Peart wrote in an email to the News. “Yale is grateful for the swift action of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

The U.S. Department of Justice released a public statement on Sept. 3 stating that PetroneCodrington was charged with a federal criminal complaint.

Petrone-Codrington appeared before a judge in New Haven on Friday and was released on a $1 million bond. According to the Hartford Courant, she turned herself in to authorities on Aug. 26, one day after federal prosecutors and the FBI opened an investigation.

SEE FRAUD PAGE 4

Yale declines most federal relief funding School of Nursing receives largest-ever donation

YALE DAILY NEWS

The University accepted $4.7 million in funding to distribute among Yale College, graduate and professional students on financial aid.

BY ROSE HOROWITCH AND ZAPORAH PRICE STAFF REPORTERS Yale has passed up a total of $28.9 million in government COVID-19 relief funds over the last year, accepting just $4.7 million, which it allocated among students with high financial need.

The aid — granted by the Department of Education through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, or HEERF — was

allotted in three rounds. The University declined the first round of funding in April 2020, following criticisms from the Trump administration toward Harvard University for accepting the money. Instead, the University called on the government to reallocate the funding to colleges and universities with greater need.

In the second round, in January 2021, Yale accepted the money for which it was eligible. Now, with a third, and likely final, round of

funding, the University has chosen to decline its allotment.

Some students said they wish the University had accepted more funding to subsidize outstanding expenses in a financially difficult year — especially costs first-generation, low-income students face. University spokesperson Karen Peart told the News that declining the funding allows it to be allocated to other institutions that have more need.

“Yale University declined the $17.4 million allotted to Yale in the third round of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund … with the expectation that the funds would be reallocated to other colleges and universities, ideally among institutions in Connecticut,” Peart wrote in an email to the News. “Yale accepted $4.7 million from HEERF II and awarded the full amount to students with exceptional financial need in Yale College and the graduate and professional schools.”

Peart added that the University gave “particular attention” to the financial needs of students at the School of Nursing and School of SEE FUNDING PAGE 4

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER Linda Rodman ’73 GRD ’75 and her husband Larry Rodman ENV ’16 gave a $6 million gift to the Yale School of

Nursing this summer to create a new full-time ladder faculty position in gerontology, or the study of aging.

SEE RODMAN PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS

Linda Rodman ’73 GRD ’75 gifted $6 million to the School of Nursing, establishing a new faculty position in gerontology.

Steitz funds RNA mentorship program Divinity students advocate for removal of board fee

BY SELIN NALBANTOGLU CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

YALE NEWS

Molecular biophysics and biochemistry professor Joan Steitz used her award money from the Wolf Prize to fund the creation of an RNA Scholars Program.

CROSS CAMPUS THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1984.

As summer fades and temperatures in New Haven begin to drop, several Grace Hopper sophomores try to keep warm via their fireplace.

However, they forget to open the flue, bringing smoke, fire alarms and fire trucks to Elm Street.

Joan Steitz, Sterling Professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, donated her award money from the Wolf Prize to start an RNA Scholars Program within the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine.

Last February, Steitz was one of three recipients of the prestigious Wolf Prize for her work on RNA. This award is given to scientists for their “achievements in the interest of mankind,” according to the prize’s website. Her share of the award money, approximately $33,000, will be used to create and maintain a Yale RNA Scholars Program dedicated to supporting junior researchers interested in exploring RNA. “I was an undergraduate when I was first introduced to both DNA SEE RNA PROGRAM PAGE 5

INSIDE THE NEWS YALE-NUS

The decision to close of Yale-NUS, a joint college between Yale and the National University of Singapore, happened without Yale's input, University officials told the News.

Page 3 UNIVERSITY

MARS

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER Every Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Religion student at the Yale Divinity School

is currently required to pay the school’s annual board fee, prompting criticism from some students this past summer.

SEE YDS PAGE 5

VAIBHAV SHARMA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Citing equity issues, Yale Divinity School students are speaking out against the mandatory $1,250 board fee.

A study conducted by two members of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences could have crucial implications for the future of space travel.

Page 6 SCITECH

DESK

After purchasing a State Street building in December, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen opened a drop-in center in the renovated space for limited hours.

Page 8 CITY

YCC

The Yale College Council has focused its efforts so far on helping students adjust to in-person learning on Yale's campus.

Page 13 UNIVERSITY

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 2

OPINION I am burning M

y country is burning. When the flames started to engulf the most precious parts of Turkey, I could only stand in front of the TV. I watched the smoke trump over what was once a home to thousands of trees and animals.

It’s ironic how beautiful the flames look; the scorching red and yellow over the emerald sea. And then I heard the shrill cries of people and that scenery turned into a graveyard. Desperate for help, people did not even wait for firefighters to arrive. They ran into the flames themselves, not thinking for a split second about the danger. They had one goal in mind: rescue anything and everything.

These scenes fail to draw a realistic picture of the tragedy that Turkey and now other countries in the region have been going through. But how can you describe such a catastrophe? People lost their homes, herds and most importantly, loved ones.

The government was unable and unwilling to save its citizens and natural resources. And meanwhile, the international community silently watched without any emotional and financial support.

BBC News titled their IGTV video “Deadly wildfires threaten Turkey’s resorts.” Was the only disaster that tourists ended their vacations early?

Everyone deals with it differently. Some, including myself, start sharing as many infographics as possible. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. I receive a few texts of best wishes from friends across the world. Only a few. It is not the ignorance that breaks my heart, it is the negligence and the lack of empathy. Some delete their social media accounts, crushed by their desperation and the gravity of the news. Some continue their lives as if nothing happened, posting pictures from trips and parties.

My country is burning.

Every day we wake up to the news of another woman killed by an ex-lover, a husband or a stranger.

The murderers stroll along the streets without any trace of guilt in their hardened souls. People blame the victims because they were together with the “wrong” type of men while the police let another entitled murderer free.

How couldn’t they see it coming?

It is the women’s job to be careful in a country like Turkey where the simplest piece of legislation that protects women against violence is deemed too progressive. Women’s right to live in itself is deemed too progressive. Their right to laugh or dress as they please can be a topic of discussion for days when the Istanbul Convention is abolished in less than an hour. My sister, who is only 16, comes to me and says, “I don’t want to live here anymore.”

I am burning. My eyes, my throat, my chest…

Perhaps we can replant the trees.

It will take days, years, decades

I

to renew the nature there, but with care and effort, flowers can re-flourish; animals can find shelter once again. But can we bring back SUDE victims of YENILMEZ the femicide? Can we give back Piecing their lives that were cut so Together short because of a sick-minded man and a government that gave him permission? We can’t. Can we then explain to our young people that things will not always go so badly? Can I guarantee to my sister that she won’t be the next victim of those flames? I can’t.

As this gloom casts a shadow over everything I do, everything I say, everything I write these days, I can think of only one plea: Read, empathize and care. You can be from anywhere across the world, but this does not and should not justify the lack of attention. It is not just Turkey that is suffering from all these literal and figurative fires. Billions of people around the world are trying to make their voices heard as they struggle with hunger, eviction, floods, war and oppression.

The list goes on but how many of these tragedies make it to big headlines is a mystery. How many of these have we actually heard of? How many of these have we attempted to change?

When I first came to Yale, I expected my fellow students to be more aware of problems around the world. In my op-ed “Why Choose Ignorance,” I emphasized the importance of getting informed about the culture, geography and politics of other countries. But I now realize it’s not a lack of awareness; it’s a lack of empathy. One could argue that if we cared so deeply about everything we read on the news, we would be paralyzed by our grief, or perhaps even desensitized. But it is a risk worth taking.

Because if one more person cares, then one more person will attempt to find a solution.

Empathy is harder to fix than a lack of awareness precisely because it cannot be taught. We can talk about its importance all day, but in the end, it should be an eager and active decision by the individual, by you. You should try to put yourself in my position when you read “my country is burning.”

You should imagine your town in flames, women killed while their murderers are at loose. Do you understand the pain now? Do you care? Do you burn?

SUDE YENILMEZ is a sophomore in Berkeley College. Her column, titled “Piecing Together,” runs every other Thursday. Contact her at sude.yenilmez@yale.edu .

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COPYRIGHT 2021 — VOL. CXLIII, NO. 29

20 years later

wasn’t here to see them, the planes. The fire that turned to smoke that turned to ashes.

The 110 stories of steel and glass crumbling from the sudden shock of that collision into a pile of sorrow.

Like most undergrads, I never witnessed the moment itself — only faint reflections, tiny pieces from here and there, gathered to form a dim but dawning sense of what happened. There was the former New York skyline printed across my mom’s old T-shirt souvenir, the car license plates and, then, once I’d started elementary school, the extra moment of silence every September 11th. Some teachers played “God Bless the USA” over the speakers.

Later, we would learn about globalization and the Patriot Act. We connected the flashcard terms — words like War on Terror, Department of Homeland Security, Abu Ghraib and al-Qaeda — from our AP history classes to the nightly 7:00 news hour. We heard the wherewere-you-when-this-happened stories from parents and teachers, sensing something change in their voice the moment they moved themselves to talk.

And yet. At times — and especially for us — the tragedy seems especially far off, foggy, like something that should have happened perhaps 50, not 20, years ago. The world’s still processing all the emotional and political tremors, many of which our history books and political figures have no more figured out than ourselves.

But we don’t think about it too much, not in our day-to-day lives at least and quite certainly not with the attention it should require of us. Most of us can’t untangle the nuances of Middle Eastern geopolitics or distinguish Iran from Iraq or even come close to calculating all the casualties and death tolls. We’ve lost the thread of all those things in the two-decade interim, that space between initial disbelief

and post-terror mundanity where the unthinkable becomes the expected and Manhattan, Arlington HANWEN and Somerset return to being ZHANG just another set of points Thoughtful on a map.

I often spot struggle to imagine what September 11th was actually like.

How do you reconstruct the pain of the day, in all its devastating totality, for someone who was not there to experience it? How do you tell a story backwards yet still preserve the full sum of the emotions in that moment? What we have left are merely snapshots, indelible but imperfect fragments of the tragedy itself: the hollowed-out pits in south Manhattan where a pair of buildings should have been, the grainy footage of passenger planes cruising at altitudes where they should not have been. None of these fragments can quite capture the raw grief, the uncertainty of that day and all the 7,303 others that followed it.

In the decades after 2001, we’d come. We’d fight. We’d stay there as the weeks dragged on for months and, eventually, years. Then on an August morning — a sunny one, just like that Tuesday in September — we’d depart almost as quickly as we had first arrived, leaving only a cloud of dashed plans and an uneasy, uncertain silence.

Twenty years with hardly anything changed.

2,996 people died among shards of glass and concrete.

Another 801,000 lives would lay stretched across nameless deserts and crumbling villages.

Around this time 20 years ago my mom would have first found out she was pregnant. Fatigue, morning sickness and bouts of nausea inaugurated a nine-

month odyssey through hospital hallways as an unrecognizable world made space for a new beginning. A death — many deaths — and a birth. Loss and life, somehow bound together for better or worse.

I don’t know exactly what she made of everything, but it must have terrified her, thinking about the world she would be delivering a new life into. She had boarded trans-Pacific flights without TSA pat downs and set foot into the White House on Saturday afternoons. She had seen political debates that didn’t mention either al-Qaeda or the Taliban. She could remember a time before the syllables of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan waited to be butchered on household dining tables, before the senseless Islamophobia, before the classified documents and Guantanamo Bay. We would forever be separated by the memory of what had once been and what had come after, what she knew and what I wouldn’t.

For some of us Yalies, there isn’t a before. Only an is — an aftermath and a reality we accepted upon entering this world, something we’ve borne along whether we realized it or not. Something that accompanied us through school safety drills, airport trips and all the other milestones of childhood.

We grew with it as it grew with us, navigating the strange frontiers of a foreign world that had just begun to unfold. We mourned by living, which was the best way we knew how — because you never really do forget tragedy, even if you can’t recall it.

So 9/11 isn’t a scar — it’s a birthmark, perhaps. A present bearing silent witness to the past. A kind of silent, subconscious remembering, in a way.

HANWEN ZHANG is a sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College. His column, titled “Thoughtful spot,” runs every other Thursday. Contact him at hanwen.zhang.hhz3@yale.edu .

Finishing what you start

“A

fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.”

Four years ago, in his remarks for my Yale College opening ceremony, President Salovey pointed to this seventh century B.C. quote by a Greek poet as an appeal to the value of a rich liberal arts education.

“When threatened, the fox remains flexible, coming up with a clever way to deal with that particular matter. The hedgehog, however, responds the same way to every threat: It rolls up into a ball. The fox is wily and resistant. The hedgehog consistent but inflexible.”

It was a convincing idea. In the context of Salovey’s address, the fox and hedgehog comparison made the case for the transformative power of a liberal arts education. Salovey argued for us to explore far and wide — as a fox would — when it came to our courses and interests rather than remaining narrow and specific, as a hedgehog would. Yet now, as I begin my final year of college, I’ve found that aspiring to “be like a fox” is applicable to far more than simply the breadth of our academics.

Our “Bright College Years” grant us an opportunity to explore our interests, yes, but we are given so much more over the course of these four years; we get to live in a sandbox where the ground isn’t too hard and the corners aren’t too sharp.

If you’re a first year, you’ll likely learn that college — and the real world — is seldom like high school. Many of us may arrive at Yale as hedgehogs; or as President Salovey put it, we were “consistent but inflexible.” We found some niche, and we stuck to it. As the hedgehog does, we responded to challenges consistently. Our equivalent to rolling up in a ball was often a combination of grit, resilience and determination.

It’s a mentality that is hammered into our brains from a

yo u n g a ge : Finish what you start. It’s an admirable — and worthwhile — ideal to live up to.

But as t h e h e d ge AIDEN hog teaches LEE u s , a l wa ys being “conIt’s s i s te n t a n d Complicated inflexible” in our temperament and nature has its shortcomings as well. Undoubtedly at Yale and beyond, we’ll be faced with moments where our goals, interests and passions are called into question. These are the sort of crossroads we become all too familiar with in college.

As a senior, I’ve caught myself on a few occasions pursuing a goal for nothing more than the fact that it is “what I’ve always done.” I doubt I’m alone. Few Yalies manage to avoid succumbing to the trap of the sunk cost fallacy. One case might be the prospective pre-med student who discovers a newfound antipathy for biology after their first semester at Yale. Another might be the senior global affairs major who comes to realize that his interests fall more directly within the realm of economics, despite having just two classes left to complete the major — yes, I’m talking about myself here.

We are enamored with the idea of completion: completing a major, arriving at the finish line, seeing things through to the end. Oftentimes, this is a worthwhile exercise, but not always. Sticking with something we detest — or even apathetic towards — for nothing more than the previous effort we’ve sunk into it is typical “hedgehog behavior.”

Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, often alludes to this value in “being a quitter” in his podcast,

“People I (Mostly) Admire.” He usually engages with grandiose figures like Nathan Myhrvold, a former mentee of Stephen Hawking and former chief technology officer at Microsoft; Yul Kwon, a winner of “Survivor: Cook Islands”; and Maya Shankar ’07, a Yalie who founded the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team under the Obama Administration. In these dialogues, Levitt helps to strip away the negative connotations embedded within quitting. In fact, it is the very act of quitting — or the less callous “pivoting,” an embodiment of flexibility and resilience that characterizes a “fox” — that helped propel many of the guests on his podcast forward both in their professional and personal lives.

My argument is not for us all to approach the world with reckless abandonment, nor is it to be a “quitter” of things we care about when the going gets tough. Getting a B+ in organic chemistry is hardly a reason to cast aside the dream of becoming a doctor. But hating biology and chemistry could be.

One of the most agonizing lessons at Yale is coming to terms with the path forward when things don’t go our way. And the most painful of these lessons is when the road ahead seems at odds with our past selves. Leading up to and during our time here, we become defined by our past accomplishments and titles, making it an even more daunting endeavor to cast aside these carefully curated identities in pursuit of newfound passions.

But luckily enough for us, Yale is the perfect place to be making these difficult decisions.

Because Yale can teach us to be like a fox, and “when threatened, the fox remains flexible.”

AIDEN LEE is a senior in Pauli Murray College. His column, “It’s Complicated,” runs every other Wednesday.

Contact him at aiden.lee@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 3

“You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.” CHARLES KURALT AMERICAN JOURNALIST

Yale-NUS closure comes without Yale input, University officials say

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER The National University of Singapore’s one-sided decision to push Yale out of the universities’ joint college surprised Yale administrators, who were subsequently forced to accept the change, according to University officials.

In the days since the Aug. 26 announcement that Yale-NUS college would close in 2025, new details have emerged on the manner and motives behind the National University’s decision to edge Yale out of the project. According to Vice President for Global Strategy Pericles Lewis, NUS leadership wanted to open more spots for Singaporean students and allow them to take courses in all of the NUS majors.

Four Yale-NUS professors and administrators said the decision comes against a political backdrop of rising meritocracy and anti-elitist sentiment, which they said could have inflamed tensions over the exclusive program within the broader university.

A representative of NUS President Tan Eng Chye GRD ’89 said that he would not comment for this article. Fiona Soh, director of public affairs at Yale-NUS College and writing on Yale-NUS President Tan Tai Yong’s behalf, did not respond to the News’ questions about the decision.

“The New College will draw on the best facets of Yale-NUS College and the University Scholars Programme to deliver immersive, interdisciplinary liberal arts education more accessibly, and at greater scale,” Soh wrote in an email to the News.

In order to dissolve the college, NUS leaders seized onto a clause included in the college’s 2011 founding that allowed either party to unilaterally pull out of the venture in 2025. Twelve hours and an ocean away from Yale, NUS will merge Yale-NUS with its existing University Scholars Programme to create the “New College.”

In Singapore, students and professors expressed shock, sadness and fear at the dissolution of Yale-NUS. They noted that the liberal arts model made it a unique educational opportunity and that the campus, which one student described as a “castle,” was also a fortress that provided protection from some government restrictions on free speech. Though Yale professors had raised concerns about academic freedom within the college, Yale-NUS students noted the community they had built and the additional freedoms they experienced — including the formation of a LGBTQ affinity group, which is difficult to do in the broader Singaporean educational system, they said. Students across NUS released a petition with more than 14,100 signatures opposing the opacity of the decision to merge the programs, but to no avail.

“I don’t think we really had an opportunity to keep the college going on its own terms,” said Richard Levin, Yale-NUS co-founder and Governing Board member. “It was stated pretty clearly that NUS was going to exercise its option to withdraw.”

Decision timeline According to Levin, the college’s founders inserted the clause with the implicit understanding that Yale might remove its name and pursue other international projects, but that the college would carry on.

Instead, NUS had been reviewing similarities between Yale-NUS and its existing University Scholars Programme for 18 months and had been pushing for their merger during that time, according to an unofficial transcript of a USP town hall held in the days after the decision and obtained by the News. Twelve months ago, NUS began considering how to ensure a smooth transition, according to the transcript.

A NUS spokesperson disputed the transcript’s timeline, writing to the News on Tuesday morning that the national university’s broader restructuring began in December 2020, but that the idea to close Yale-NUS came later. The spokesperson did not answer a question about when Tan first had the idea to merge the programs.

The decision to close YaleNUS came from Tan, according to Lewis. It was part of a broader restructuring of Singapore’s edu-

ASHA PRIHAR/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale administrators and Yale-NUS students and faculty reflect on the institution’s 2025 closure, which was announced on Aug. 26. cational offerings, one that had been conceived of in 2018. In late June, Tan approached the Singaporean Ministry of Education and the NUS Board of Trustees with his plan to close Yale-NUS, according to a NUS spokesperson. With their approval in hand, he called University President Peter Salovey in the first week of July, the News previously reported. Only afterward was the Yale-NUS leadership informed of the college’s dissolution, The Octant, Yale-NUS’ student-newspaper reported.

“He definitely made the decision that that was going to happen, and I think he probably had gotten the approval of his trustees for that,” Lewis told the News. “It was mostly a surprise.”

Both Levin and Lewis noted that they had become aware of the new vision for NUS more than a year ago, when it created a new college for humanities and sciences. But at the time, the reforms did not seem to include the possibility of ending the Yale-NUS partnership, Levin said.

Salovey and Tan have spoken almost weekly for the past few months, Lewis, who responded on Salovey’s behalf, wrote in an email to the News. Since May, the two presidents had discussed doubling the number of students in the college to make it more financially sustainable, Lewis said. Most recently, they have focused on maintaining the Yale-NUS experience for current students.

When Tan told Salovey that NUS would withdraw from the partnership, he made clear that his decision was made; there was no opportunity for a counteroffer, according to Lewis. Instead, Tan used his calls with Salovey to solicit advice on how to make the merger effective. However, Yale was clear that it wanted to continue with Yale-NUS, Lewis added.

Salovey ultimately respected Tan’s decision, Lewis said.

Once Salovey was notified that Yale-NUS would close, a small working group of Lewis and members of the Yale-NUS Governing Board met throughout July to oversee the transition and make plans for Yale-NUS’ final four years. The group had been focusing on the college’s longterm financial stability, but pivoted once Tan decided the college would close.

On Aug. 23 in Singapore, Tan informed the full Governing Board — which approves broad strategic decisions and financial plans — of the merger plan, Lewis said. The board then began arrangements to maintain Yale-NUS for the next four years, Levin said.

Yale has pledged that Yale-NUS faculty and staff will retain their positions after the merger, and that students will receive the same educational experience throughout the coming four years.

The motivation Within Singapore, Yale-NUS is widely seen as an elite institution, one Yale-NUS professor who requested anonymity due to fear of NUS retribution said. The tuition is about twice as high as that of some other colleges in Singapore, and Yale-NUS accepts less than seven percent of applicants.

Additionally, its campus is the only college apart from the New Haven campus that bears the Yale name, and it is marketed as a “liberal institution.”

Jamus Lim, member of the Singapore’s Workers’ Party who plans to raise questions about the closure in the next sitting of Parliament on Sept. 13, wrote in a Facebook post that the liberal arts college differs from most Asian universities, which focus on science, technology and other professional fields.

Many resisted a liberal arts education as “either useless or inherently left-leaning,” he wrote, and called it misplaced criticism. Lim declined to comment until after the Parliament meeting.

“So the bottom line is that I find the loss of Yale-NUS regrettable, not only because it represented a tiny beacon of diversity in local education, but also because we now have one less avenue for informed debate,” Lim wrote on Facebook.

NUS has said that the New College, the result of the Yale-NUS merger with NUS’ University Scholars Programme, will educate more students and will have them further specialize in courses and programs in other parts of NUS, Lewis explained.

Charles Bailyn, Yale professor and inaugural dean of the faculty at Yale-NUS, referenced an NUS statement that the closure was designed in part to open up more slots for Singaporean students and fewer for international ones.

Yale-NUS is made up of about 45 percent international students, while USP and other NUS programs were at about 11 percent.

The New College will be about 25 percent international students, according to the unofficial transcript of a USP town hall. ”I think this is a strategic mistake on their part,” Bailyn wrote in an email to the News. “Singapore has gone to great lengths to create a world-class higher education system, and they would greatly benefit — educationally, commercially, and culturally — by leveraging that investment to bring in as many top-notch students from the rest of the world as possible.

Yale-NUS has been exemplary in that regard, and appears to have been punished for this success.”

Financials In the wake of the closure announcement, theories flew as to why NUS chose to shut the college instead of adding to it or modifying it to better accomplish its goals. Professors and students noted that in recent years, the college had not raised the funds it had projected to for its endowment.

According to Lewis, the motivation was not financial. Levin seconded this claim, stating: “If people are saying that finances were the issue, they’re simply incorrect.”

But while Lewis and Levin said that the motivation was not financial, the school did have a budget deficit and had fallen behind track to hit its fundraising goals for 2030.

Yale-NUS required resources from the Singaporean government, and many of the funds financed the education of foreign talent. According to a previous article reported in the News at the time of Yale-NUS’ concep-

tion, the government of Singapore was meant to finance the college for at least its first decade, but administrators also tried to build up an endowment. Officials hoped the endowment would be on par with those of Williams College and Amherst College, which were valued at about $1.5 billion at the time, according to a 2008 Ministry of Education report.

But Yale decided not to tap into its existing donor pool and potentially divert funds away from its U.S.-based programs and campus, the News reported in 2011. While the Singaporean government funded the college’s construction and subsidized most of the costs in its first decade, the college aimed to be funded by onethird government subsidy, onethird tuition and other fees and one-third gifts and endowments by 2030, according to The Octant.

By 2021, the Yale-NUS endowment was valued at $429.8 million, while Williams and Amherst had nearly doubled their cash pools to about $3 billion. Fundraising had been a success in the college’s first few years but has slowed since then, Levin said. In 2014, Yale-NUS received $13 million in gifts. It received $8.44 million the next year. If this average rate held, it would take more than 300 years to reach the endowment target, Yale-NUS professor Shaffique Adam told the News.

Lewis told the News that fundraising was about halfway to its goal and confirmed that a budget deficit existed. Levin said the deficit could be easily closed with more fundraising efforts. To reach the 2030 goal would have required raising “only a small fraction of what Yale raises in a year,” he explained.

“Neither Yale nor NUS had engaged much in the fundraising, leaving it to Yale-NUS leadership to pursue it,” Levin said. “I think that was about to change.”

A “New College” or an extension of the old?

In Singapore, students and faculty questioned whether going forward, the New College’s curriculum would adhere to YaleNUS’ liberal arts model and whether it would preserve the college’s characteristic facets.

Yale-NUS was well-known for its “common curriculum,” which compared Eastern and Western texts and philosophy, Lewis said.

The New College’s curriculum will be a hybrid of USP and Yale-NUS, according to the town hall transcript. Although administrators have not yet clarified where on the continuum the curriculum would fall, Lewis explained that it will more closely resemble an honors college than a liberal arts one.

According to an NUS press release, New College students will study at different schools within the university depending on their specialty. By contrast, Yale-NUS had its own faculty and smaller class sizes, and all students studied in the same school.

The future of faculty at the New School still feels hazy, according to the anonymous professor. He noted that the college had hired 16 tenure-track faculty just over two weeks prior to the revelation that Yale-NUS would close. The press

release promised that the New College would honor all contracts.

But without concrete evidence in hand — namely, a contract — some faculty feel uncertain, he said.

Soh, speaking on behalf of YaleNUS’ President, wrote that NUS will honor all existing employment contracts and will transfer faculty to NUS or New College departments as the number of Yale-NUS students declines.

Neil Clarke ’80, an associate professor at Yale-NUS, said that he anticipates many of Yale-NUS’ roughly 100 faculty members will leave throughout the next four years. While some might benefit from being absorbed into NUS, he thinks most feel “that it was their choice to be at a place like YaleNUS rather than at a place like NUS,” Clarke told the News.

Additionally, some faculty members — such as those in the environmental studies discipline — do not have a parallel department within NUS, the anonymous professor said.

“We have such a weird mix of faculty that have found and built a home here that’s just right for us,” the anonymous professor said.

“There’s no obvious home for many of us at NUS and we don’t know what that means.”

“Within the campus itself, we were free”: Yale-NUS community reacts Students, professors and a l u m n i re f l e c te d va ry i n g responses, from anger to denial to cautious optimism, Adam told the News. But a common reaction was “wistful and nostalgic,” he added.

“I think Yale-NUS was really the shining light of a liberal education in Asia,” the member of the class of 2021 told the News. “To be honest, I think within the campus itself, we were free.”

For their part, many Yale-NUS students have risen up against the decision to close the college and demanded answers. On the Tuesday morning after the announcement, alumni met with Yale-NUS leaders in a town hall. Parents of Yale-NUS students did the same on Thursday.

Yale-NUS, USP, and NUS students released a petition against the merger and the “top-down” decision making that enabled it. The petition has drawn more than 14,100 signatures at the time of publication.

Matthew Schneider-Mayer ’04, a Yale alumnus who now teaches at Yale-NUS, said that the college’s small size led to a “warm, informal, and close” relationship between students and faculty. The mix of backgrounds and perspectives made it unique, he added.

Limits on academic freedom at Yale-NUS have caused some concern in New Haven. Still, the school’s guidelines shielded students and faculty from persecution based on their sexuality, and offered some stated protection from government retribution. It is not yet clear, however, whether the standard of academic freedom will continue at the New College.

Yale-NUS was the first liberal arts college in Singapore.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 4

FROM THE FRONT

“Constant slumping increases the stress on the spine and joints, and can lead to headaches, neck and shoulder tension, and lower-back pain.” DENISE AUSTIN AMERICAN FITNESS INSTRUCTOR

Petrone-Codrington allegedly stole up to $30 million from Yale FRAUD FROM PAGE 1

RYAN CHIAO/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Petrone-Codrington faces up to 20 years in prison for her charges: mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

According to the statement, Petrone-Codrington faces up to 20 years in prison for mail fraud, another 20 for wire fraud and 10 more years for money laundering charges.

Petrone-Codrington could not be reached for comment. The News could not locate a lawyer representing her.

The investigation was led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New Haven division and started on Aug. 25 when Yale reported the issue to authorities. The Yale Police Department is also assisting the FBI with the investigation.

The accused sent the hardware to an out-of-state company, which resold it and wired the funds to a company of which she serves as a principal, the Department of Justice release explained. PetroneCodrington could then pocket the money. She split the purchases into

orders below $10,000 so they did not require additional approval by her supervisors.

The DOJ further alleged that she included false information on Yale’s internal forms, claiming that the hardware would be used for specific medical studies or other school needs. She also directed others to order the equipment for her, the release continued.

Kate Stith, a professor at the Yale Law School, explained that it is currently difficult to gauge what sentence Petrone-Codrington might receive. The two most significant factors in sentencing will be the total monetary amount of the fraud and whether PetroneCodrington has a criminal history, Stith explained.

“It appears that PetroneCodrington was at the top of the hierarchy of the kickback scheme, in which case she probably is not going to be able to get a sentence reduction by cooperating in the prosecution of other, bigger

fish,” Stith wrote in an email to the News. “Even so, there is no reason to think she’ll necessarily receive the maximum sentence.”

Stith, who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said that she prosecuted many similar cases of money laundering and mail and wire fraud, though she could not recall one on such a large scale because of how long Petrone-Codrington’s scheme went undetected.

“One naturally asks: Where were Yale’s accountants and compliance officers?” Stith wrote to the News.

Peart explained that Yale is currently working to “identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Novick is prosecuting PetroneCodrington’s case.

Contact ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu and BEATRIZ HORTA at beatriz.horta@yale.edu .

University accepts $4.7 of $28.9 million in available federal relief funds FUNDING FROM PAGE 1 Public Health when distributing the aid, because their training “is critical to the future health and safety of our communities.”

HEERF II stipulated that institutions that paid or were required to pay the endowment excise tax in tax year 2019 — which includes Yale — could only receive half of their allocation, reducing their eligible funding by 50 percent. The endowment tax levies taxes on investment income for institutions with endowments over $500 million, meaning Yale could only receive half of the roughly $9.4 million it was allocated. But for HEERF III, which was part of the recently passed American Rescue Plan, Congress eliminated this requirement, making the University eligible to receive $17.4 million with a minimum amount for student aid of $8.7 million.

“Yale’s decision acknowledged the Biden Administration’s suggestion that any institution with high endowment per student ratios may decline its full award or a portion of its award. … Any voluntary decline of funds will be redistributed [by the Biden administration] to institutions with greater needs,’” Peart explained.

Dan Madzelan, assistant vice president of government relations for the American Council on Education, told the News that there was “some altruism” on the part of institutions like Yale and Harvard for choosing to decline the money.

“The idea behind the relief fund was that it was not just providing financial aid for students, but also for other revenue losses that colleges and universities faced as a result of the pandemic,” Madzelan said in a phone interview. “Recognizing that they [Yale and Harvard] have financial reserves that could be tapped and the money they otherwise would be entitled to maybe is better spent elsewhere.”

Some students disagreed with the University’s choice to decline all the federal funding it was offered.

According to Logan Roberts ’23, the Yale College Council’s financial accessibility policy director, the University should accept all the funding it can and allocate the money to initiatives that would support first-generation, low-income students. He specifically mentioned subsidizing printing, laundry and textbooks, as well as offering replacement electronics in the case of emergency malfunction. The YCC is working with the administration on these initia-

tives but has not discussed federal funding as a potential source, Roberts said.

Peart emphasized that the University continued to meet the full financial needs of undergraduates and provided emergency support to students with COVID-19 related expenses.

Geraldo Salcedo ’23 said that despite Yale’s large endowment outside of HEERF funding, he did not receive the overall financial support he needed. Salcedo received HEERF II funding and used the money to travel home after the semester ended, but it was not enough to pay “outstanding expenses” as a result of the pandemic.

“I was disappointed that, after denying federal assistance, the University still did not provide adequate aid to low income students,” Salcedo wrote to the News.

Reilly Johnson ’22, former vice president of the Yale College Council, told the News that as long as students face financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic, Yale “has the responsibility to either accept and distribute federal aid or meet that need from their own funds.”

An August Bloomberg article noted that the size of Yale’s financial reserves has likely increased

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Peart said that the University gave “particular attention” to the financial needs of students at the School of Nursing and School of Public Health. during the pandemic. University endowments had some of their biggest growth in recent years, with endowments over $500 million experiencing a median growth of 34 percent. Yale’s endowment was most recently valued at $31.2 billion in June 2020. Amid the pandemic, University officials reported a 6.8 percent investment return for the 2020 fiscal year.

Madzelan added that with many “big picture” items — such as President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal — in front of Congress over the next sev-

eral months, he doubted that a fourth round of HEERF funding is imminent.

Biden’s budget vision includes tuition-free community colleges, increased investments in historically Black colleges and universities and an expansion of the Pell Grant — which is awarded to undergraduate students with high financial need.

Contact ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu and ZAPORAH PRICE at zaporah.price@yale.edu .

Rodman ’73 GRD ’75 gifts $6 million to nursing school RODMAN FROM PAGE 1 Rodman’s gift is the largest donation that the school has received since its founding in 1923.

According to School of Nursing Dean Ann Kurth, the school will launch a national search to hire a professor who specializes in gerontology. She added that the process will include input from a hiring committee, faculty interviews and various job talks. While Kurth did not specify a timeline, she said that the school will fill the position when they find the “very best person” to join the nursing school community.

“This new endowed professorship will complement the school’s robust strength in gerontologic nursing and establish a secure future for research and teaching to produce new generations of nurse practitioners and nurse scientists to provide evidence-based care for the country’s aging population,” Kurth said in a nursing school news article announcing the donation.

“We are profoundly grateful for Linda’s attention to this burgeoning area and are determined to set the standard for nursing expertise at this stage of the lifespan.”

According to Kurth, around 10 percent of nursing school appli-

cants are interested in gerontology, either in the acute care or primary care gerontology specialties. She added that around two dozen nursing school students enroll in these specialties every year, and doctoral students at the nursing school also conduct research in gerontology.

Rodman said that gerontology is especially important now that baby boomers are aging and approaching retirement age. She highlighted that the health care consulting company Mercer estimates that by 2025, the United States will face a collective shortage of around 500,000 home health aides, 100,000 nursing assistants and 29,000 nurse practitioners.

YALE DAILY NEWS

Rodman’s gift is the largest donation that the school has received since its founding in 1923.

“There is a tsunami of people entering the golden years now and not enough focus on them,” Rodman said in the nursing school article.

“A significant portion of the burden of taking care of this aged population will be nurses, and we wanted to enable Yale to be at the forefront in addressing this pressing need.”

Nurses specializing in gerontology must receive special training to meet the needs of older people, who are more vulnerable to accidents, chronic illness and neurodegenerative diseases. The nurses help address their patients’ chronic conditions, as well as their patients’ shifting metabolic responses to medication and treatment that accompany advanced age.

Kurth told the News that climate change is taking its toll on aging populations, making individuals more susceptible to heat waves and food insecurity.

“This ‘aging in the Anthropocene’ perspective is one on which we think Yale Nursing, and the Rodman Professorship, can uniquely focus,” Kurth wrote in a statement to the News.

Director of the Yale Program on Aging Thomas Gill referred the News to a 2015 conversation with filmmaker David Grubin about how an aging population has two major effects on the medical community.

For one, it increases the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, which often require intensive medical care.

Additionally, Gill explained that an aging population means medical professionals will have to handle more complex medical conditions.

“As opposed to a younger population, where a patient might present with a single condition like community-acquired pneumonia which responds quite favorably to antibiotics, things are a lot more complex in an aging population where patients can have a series of chronic conditions,” Gill told Grubin.

The Rodmans have an extensive history of donating to the School of Nursing. They established an endowed scholarship at the nursing school with a preference for students interested in gerontology and have also supported the dean’s discretionary fund during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rodman, who was among the first cohort of women to arrive at Yale College in 1969, said in the nursing school article that Senior Associate Director at the Office of Development Reggie Solomon ’98 was instrumental in introducing her to the School of Nursing.

“We were looking for a meaningful niche, and [Solomon] suggested underfunded schools where the graduates earn less money than Yale’s other professional programs,” Rodman said. “After quickly considering the options, we realized that YSN would be a perfect match for our interests.”

The Yale School of Nursing was the first nursing school within a university to prepare nurses under an educational program rather than an apprenticeship program, according to the school’s website.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“My joints hurt. I'm slower. But I remember what it was like to run and play with the boys. I want to be one of the boys.” TED DANSON AMERICAN ACTOR

Steitz donates Wolf Prize award money to RNA Scholars Program RNA PROGRAM FROM PAGE 1

COURTESY OF MICHELLE LI

Each year, a committee will select three students to join the RNA Scholars Program.

and RNA,” Steitz said in an interview with the News. “Somehow, I have worked on RNA ever since, because I found it much more fascinating than DNA. At the time I started, we knew about messenger RNA, tRNA and ribosomal RNA, and that was it. Now, RNA is a very exciting field.”

Steitz’s donation to support RNA research at Yale is especially timely given messenger RNA’s recent popularity as the major component in the COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, according to Steitz, her findings have contributed to the development of Pfizer and Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccines.

Upon receiving the award, she decided to use the money to give back to the Yale community but was not sure how to maximize the impact of her donation. Karla Neugebauer, director of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine and a professor of molecular biochemistry and biophysics, suggested to Steitz the creation of a mentorship program that would support a cohort of budding scientists.

“This is a great step towards inclusion, because it is not about picking just one person,” Neugebauer said. “It is about picking a cohort of people who we want to promote and helping strengthen their network.”

Each year, a committee will select three students — one undergraduate student, one graduate student and one postdoctoral student — to join the RNA Scholars Program, according to Neugebauer. These scholars will then be invited to attend meetings and other social events with influential RNA researchers and future alumni of the pro-

gram. Steitz said that the goal is to create a space for a group of brilliant RNA researchers to come together and help each other. “[Steitz] is a miracle worker at enabling young scientists to achieve what they want to achieve,” Neugebauer said. “On top of that, when you talk to her about her discoveries, she will credit the community.”

It is the idea of community that became the driving force behind this RNA Scholars Program, according to Steitz. In her work, she recognized the importance of Yale’s collaborative atmosphere, which advances research by prioritizing the exchange of ideas over competition between laboratories.

In fact, Steitz stated that the collegial atmosphere is what makes Yale special and allows young researchers — and all students — to flourish.

While the program is only in its initial stages, Susan Baserga ’80 GRD ’88 MED ’88, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and member of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine, is excited about the opportunities it will create.

“I hold Dr. Steitz in the highest esteem,” Baserga said. “I think [the program] is fabulous, and only good can come of it.”

Steitz and Neugebauer hope that the RNA Scholars Program will solidify the tradition of mutual aid within the medical and biochemical research scenes at Yale by mentoring a new generation of scientists.

The Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine holds regular programming on current research endeavors related to RNA. Contact SELIN NALBANTOGLU at selin.nalbantoglu@yale.edu .

YDS board fee perpetuates inequity, students say YDS FROM PAGE 1 Tuition and fees at the Divinity School for the 2021-22 academic year total $30,892 — including the board fee of $1,250, which is intended for use in Yale dining facilities and the Divinity Refectory, a cafe within YDS. However, students have recently spoken out against the fee, saying that it perpetuates racial and financial inequalities on campus. One of those students, Ryan Arrendell DIV ’23, organized a petition over the summer titled “Free Our Coins” that called on YDS to make the board fee optional.

“We think it’s a very reasonable ask or request to have the board fee made optional because we understand that some students do like to have the convenience of paying a fee upfront and being able to have that consistent access to food through the Refectory or throughout campus, but we also recognize that other students don’t have the luxury of being able to afford a fee that is really imposed on them,” Arrendell told the News. “We think asking to make the fee optional is not an unreasonable ask at all.”

In an August 12 email to Arrendell written in response to the petition, YDS Dean Gregory Sterling said that the board fees were necessary to keep the Refectory open, that making the board fee optional would mean increased tuition and that YDS is addressing affordability overall at the school.

The petition outlines how students of color, women and international students are disadvantaged financially and are often less able to afford the fee.

The Yale Divinity School Student Government e-board sent the News a statement in support of Arrendell’s petition.

"The YDSG e-board and other elected officials are in solidarity with the YDS students seeking to end the mandatory board fee,” the YDSG board wrote in a statement to the News. “As an ever-changing institution, we recognize that this current student body’s needs are unmet.

The board fee places an unequal burden on students with financial hardships and those forced to live off-campus due to a lack of accessible housing.”

The YDSG board said they are looking to move forward with ending the mandatory board fee for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

YALE DAILY NEWS

The fee is intended for use in Yale dining facilities and the Divinity Refectory.

The YDS financial aid website affirms that the board fee cannot be waived. However, the website also says that students who are “hired by the University to serve as residential graduate affiliates and who receive a University board plan as part of their compensation” are exempt from paying the fee.

“I have a previous master’s degree, as well as a bachelor’s degree, so I have $85,000 in student loan debt, and so that’s what I'm coming into divinity school with,” Arrendell said. “So I'm doing my best to avoid taking out any student loans to not add to my debt. With Black students, it’s statistically shown that we earn less money even by having advanced degrees. We’re not offered the same interest rates, there’s just so many discrepancies and disparities in terms of what we’re able to earn even with a graduate degree from a school like Yale.”

Arrendell stressed that systemic inequalities are still “very pres-

ent realities” for students of color, and that many Black and brown divinity students still have financial needs remaining despite the school’s scholarships.

She added that, regardless of students’ financial situations, the mandatory board fee does not provide students with the autonomy they believe they should be afforded. According to Arrendell, students did not have to pay the board fee during the 2020-21 academic year because they were not on campus due to the COVID19 pandemic. As such, she said she became involved with advocacy about making the board fee optional when it was reinstituted for the current year.

In an email obtained by the News, Sterling responded to Arrendell’s petition.

“The board fees go to Yale Dining and help make it possible to keep the Refectory open,” Sterling wrote in the email to Arrendell.

“The board fees do not cover all

of the costs; we provide a healthy subvention to keep the costs down — typically ca. $100k. There are no refunds because the fees do not cover the expenses and do not come to the School. In some years, we would have had to close the Refectory if not for the board fees.

This would have seriously undermined our efforts to build community and created a hardship since there are no other food services within a half-mile.”

In the email, Sterling highlighted that affordability is one of his main goals. He wrote that the school has raised around $40 million to help YDS students during his tenure as dean, which has allowed the school to double their financial aid offerings over the past nine years.

Sterling explained that the Divinity School purposefully opted against including the board fee in tuition and letting students pay for food as they chose because it would impose a “greater burden” on the

students who do not have full tuition scholarships. He said that YDS would have to raise tuition if the board fee were optional, but the school would not be able to raise scholarships a comparable amount.

“Dean Sterling would only add that YDS is working very hard to meet the full tuition costs of all students with demonstrated need by next year,” YDS spokesperson Tom Krattenmaker wrote in an email to the News. “From FY 13-14 to FY 21-22, we’ve been able to reduce from $8,400 to $1,500 the tuition expenses paid by students receiving the standard financial aid package. Meeting students’ tuition needs has been and remains our priority. When we reach this goal, we will immediately turn to living expenses.”

The Yale Divinity School currently offers both merit and needbased scholarships.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Yale researchers discover potential key for space travel on Mars

BY ELIZABETH WATSON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A recent Yale study conducted by two members of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences could have crucial implications for the future of space travel.

The study, authored by postdoctoral associate J. Michael Battalio and Juan Lora, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, focuses on the use of annular modes — variabilities in the climate that are disparate from the seasonal cycle — on other planets to predict weather. Their research provides evidence that these annular modes could play a role in the weather patterns of planets.

Battalio’s inspiration for this study stemmed from his previous research studying Martian dust storms. He realized that the dust storms had a cyclical nature that was not consistent with the shorter periodicity of the atmospheric waves that caused the storms.

“I didn’t know when I discovered this periodicity what was going on, but I remembered some of my previous reading of literature for Earth that annular modes on Earth had a periodicity of about 20 days, and they’re connected to these waves that had this other periodicity,” Battalio said.

“I figured if Mars has waves like Earth and this climate feature, these annular modes … then it makes sense to look for these modes on Mars and see if their periodicity can explain the dust storms.”

Battalio joined Lora’s research group at Yale in 2019, and they had plans to research the existence of annular modes on other

the way we do for Earth, if one of these dust events sneaks up on them and they don’t have enough energy stored in battery backups, it could make life very difficult for people on the surface.”

Pedram Hassanzadeh, an assistant professor in Rice University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, described having accurate weather forecasting in places like Mars as “a matter of life and death.”

He believes that annular modes could play a valuable part in addressing this issue, especially since the infrastructure for predicting weather on Earth does not exist on Mars.

“We are probably not going to have this infrastructure on Mars if we want to go there and stay there, so I think building a statistical model using machine learning can be an interesting step in something that even a small computer, small laptop or even an iPad could do the computation to give you some rough

planets. In addition to Mars, the pair also observed a similar phenomenon on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, using the Titan Atmospheric Model, a simulation of the moon’s climate that Lora developed during his doctoral dissertation.

To their surprise, Battalio and Lora discovered that the impact of annular modes is even greater on Mars and Titan than on Earth.

“We’re trying to understand whether these types of structures of variability occur in other terrestrial planetary atmospheres, and we have the tools to do that on Mars for the first time,” Lora said. “The idea is to try to see if there’s some sort of regular variability in the atmospheres of these two places, which then if it’s there, we can characterize and understand it. Maybe that paves the way for weather predictions down the line, and that’s where the implications and future work are.”

In 2018, NASA’s solar-powered Opportunity rover, which had been collecting data on Mars’ surface for over a decade, ceased functioning as a result of a planet-wide dust storm.

Using annular modes to monitor the planet’s climate could allow scientists to better predict the arrival of such weather events on Mars and prevent similar destruction on future missions.

“People on the surface are going to have to rely on solar-generated electricity,” Battalio said. “If we cannot warn people, if we cannot forecast these dust events reliably

estimate,” Hassanzadeh said. “For that kind of work, using annular modes, that is perhaps our best shot.”

Istvan Szunyogh, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, emphasized the importance of Lora and Battalio’s discovery.

He explained how the paper suggests that these annular modes are likely a common feature for planets similar to Earth, which is a significant advancement in understanding for the field.

“It’s not trivial that these modes exist because some of the changes, like changes in the seasons for example, are expected because they really depend on the amount of energy that comes from the sun, but as [Lora and Battalio] are describing in the paper, these are internal variabilities,” Szunyogh said.

Battalio and Lora hope to expand their research to other planets, such as Venus and Jupiter.

Contact ELIZABETH WATSON at elizabeth.watson@yale.edu .

VALERIE PAVILONIS / STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

YSPH study finds COVID-19 vaccine rollout has saved 279,000 lives

BY SYDNEY GRAY STAFF REPORTER

“The pace of our vaccination efforts has saved over 100,000 lives,” President Joe Biden announced at a press conference on Aug. 23, after the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. He was citing the results of a study conducted by the Yale School of Public Health.

The study, authored by professor of epidemiology Alison Galvani and associate research scientist Pratha Sah, described that without the United States’ COVID19 vaccination program, there would have been 279,000 more deaths and nearly 1.25 million further hospitalizations compared to reported levels. The article was published by The Commonwealth Fund, a pri-

vate foundation dedicated to improving access, quality and efficiency in the United States health care system and is currently under peer review on MedRxiv.

“This success is particularly noteworthy given the emergence of more transmissible variants, including the delta variant,” Galvani wrote in an email to the News.

“Our study underscores that the swift vaccine rollout in the US has played a pivotal role in reducing the COVID-19 burden and in curbing surges from more transmissible emerging variants.”

Galvani and Sah, along with senior vice president for policy and research at the Commonwealth Fund, Eric Schneider, modeled the impact of the United States vaccination program by considering two hypothetical scenarios for caseloads and

deaths. They compared if no vaccines against COVID-19 had been administered and if only half the number of doses were administered in the United States to reported levels of vaccination.

The researchers reported that 279,000 additional deaths and 1.25 million more hospitalizations would have occurred if there were no vaccines administered. In their other scenario — if the United States had achieved only half the pace of vaccination — there would have been approximately 121,000 more deaths and 450,000 more hospitalizations.

The model also accounted for the transmission dynamics of the Alpha, Gamma and Delta variants that have resulted in most COVID-19 cases in the United States this summer.

REGINA SUNG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

“We used a detailed computational model that considered population demographics of the US, contact behavior of individuals during the pandemic and disease characteristics of COVID-19,” Sah wrote in an email to the News. “The model incorporated data on daily vaccine doses administered in the U.S.” The researchers also identified that without the vaccination program, the daily death toll from COVID-19 would have skyrocketed to nearly 4,500 per day, in what could have been the deadliest wave of the virus, cresting above the observed daily peak of 4,000 deaths during the winter of 2021.

“It is more important than ever to get vaccinated,” Galvani wrote. “The more Americans who get vaccinated, the better for them, their families and the rest of their communities.”

Sah added that accelerating vaccination coverage, particularly in underserved communities, is crucial to reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States while also helping to avoid any future resurgence in cases from novel COVID-19 variants.

She explained that the speed with which vaccines were administered in the United States was crucial to limiting the adverse impacts of the highly transmissible Alpha variant in the spring.

“The swift vaccine rollout in the US curbed a potential resurgence of cases in April 2021 fuelled by the Alpha variant,” Sah wrote.

“Compared to the scenario without vaccines, we estimated that the actual vaccination program averted more than 26 million cases [and] 1.2 million hospitalizations.”

Galvani, Sah and Schneider have also contributed to blog posts on the Commonwealth Fund website that use similar modeling to predict the number of deaths that could have been averted in COVID-19 hotspots if certain vaccination coverage thresholds had been attained.

The researchers noted that in Florida and Texas, more than 70,000 hospitalizations and 4,700 deaths could have been averted by July 31 if these states had reached 74 percent vaccination coverage by that date. As of Aug. 31, the vaccination rates in Florida and Texas are at 53.4 and 47.8 percent, respectively, according to Our World in Data.

“The bottom line is that vaccination saves lives,” Galvani explained. According to Our World in Data, 174,600,017 people in the United States are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Sept. 1.

Contact SYDNEY GRAY at sydney.gray@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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“Roll up a joint. I would.”

KACEY MUSGRAVES AMERICAN SINGER

Extracurricular bazaar hosts 194 student organizations on Old Campus

BY SARAH COOK CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After a rainy morning, Old Campus came to life with tap dancing, jazz music and frisbee tossing on Sunday, as students crowded around 194 tables stocked with posters, enthusiastic greetings, stickers and plentiful snacks.

The extracurricular bazaar lasted from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 5. Representatives from var-

ious student organizations were there to answer questions and offer overviews of their groups. Attendees, primarily first-year students, could sign up for groups using stationed laptops, paper sign up sheets or QR codes. Masks were required at the event, and most groups had flyers, food and props at their tables.

“There were a lot more options and more participation from the groups than I thought there would be,” Nicole Pierce ’25 said. “It’s

VAIBHAV SHARMA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

On Sept. 5, 194 student organizations gathered on Old Campus for the extracurricular bazaar with lively music and discussions.

nice to have seen many unique groups, even ones I didn’t expect to sign up for.”

The extracurricular bazaar was last held in person in the Payne Whitney gym in the fall of 2019. Last fall, due to COVID-19, students used the Yale Connect platform to go into individual Zoom meetings for each student organization.

Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Scientific Magazine Isabella Li ’22 told the News that last year’s remote bazaar did not impact the membership of YSM because of the group’s ability to run virtually, but that she still missed meeting potential members in person.

“The extracurricular bazaar felt super disconnected last year, so we’re definitely excited to be in person,” Li said.

This year, the outdoor event not only allowed the face-to-face discussions missing from last year’s online version, but its location on Old Campus also provided space to spread out for smaller and more individualized discussions while maximizing public health safety.

On Old Campus, the organizations were mapped out in informal

categories. Most of the club sports tables were located directly in front of Phelps Gate, including cycling, jump rope, rugby and wrestling.

Nearby, multiple affinity groups held their tables. Political groups and student publications occupied the right side of Phelps Gate, while musical groups sat in a line through the middle of Old Campus. Community service oriented groups, mostly under the umbrella of Dwight Hall, hosted their tables near the High Street gate.

“I thought this particular format, especially being outside, was very conducive to more one-onone conversations in a way that a zoom room or a really crowded in-person version inside would [not] have been,” Katie Taylor ’24, communications director of the Yale College Democrats said.

Some groups also gave performances throughout the bazaar. For example, the Yale Ballroom Dance Team had impromptu dances accompanied by video clips of their performances. Meanwhile, the comedy group the Odd Ducks filled their station with rubber ducks. Various styles of music came from the Yale Hand-

bell Ensemble, Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective and the Yale Russian Chorus, among others.

Because of the nature of the remote Bulldog Days in the spring and accessibility of Zoom meetings, many new students had already connected with groups prior to the bazaar, so the event also acted as time for people to meet people faceto-face after meeting online.

In addition, the bazaar served as an opportunity for sophomores to meet club leaders in person for the first time after a year of remote meetings.

“To be able to have those personal interactions rather than speaking to a panel of screens on Zoom will increase retention,” Taylor said. “I also think that everyone is just so excited because we are in person that excitement is coming off in our pitch to prospective members and I hope that is making them excited too.”

Many student groups plan to host informational meetings, hold auditions or send out applications this week.

Contact SARAH COOK at sarah.cook@yale.edu .

YLS group gives 36 of 100 rated law firms ‘F’ score

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER Last month, Law Students for Climate Accountability, a national network of law students founded in 2020 by seven Yale Law School students, released its second climate scorecard which assesses top law firms’ roles in the climate crisis.

The scorecard gave each of the firms listed in the Vault Law 100 — an annually-released list of the 100 most prestigious law firms in the country — a climate score between A and F. A total of 36 firms received a grade of F, while only three received an A. The group’s report revealed that the top 100 firms facilitated $1.36 trillion in fossil fuel transactions, marking a $50 billion increase from last year’s report. It also found that the top 100 firms litigated a total of 358 cases for fossil fuel clients in the past five years, compared to 275 cases from last year’s report.

“In very real terms, these are law firms that are using their skills to build refineries that pollute communities of color, or to increase the pipelines and drilling that create emissions which are causing the climate-related disasters we’ve seen this summer,” co-founder of the organization Tim HirschelBurns LAW ’22 told the News.

Hirschel-Burns emphasized the increase in the top law firms’ involvement with fossil fuel transactions, which often involved projects such as building pipelines, refineries and drill sites.

He also commented on the firms’ increased involvement with fossil fuel litigation. The litigation includes helping fossil fuel companies obtain permits for new pipelines as well as representing the companies in lawsuits about climate misinformation, according to Hirschel-Burns.

“Now more than ever, all sectors of society need to contribute to the urgent fight against climate change,” co-founder of LSCA Rachael Stryer LAW ’22 wrote in a press release.

“Our future is on the line, and the fact that so many top law firms have chosen to expand their fossil fuel work shows how desperately out of touch they are with the next generation of lawyers.”

LSCA designed its scoring system to reflect the principles of climate justice and a “just transition,” which refers to the shift from an “extractive economy to a regenerative economy.” Each firm in the Vault 100 received a litigation score representing how many cases which exacerbate climate change were litigated by the firm between 2016 and 2020.

The firms also received a transaction score based on the value of the

transactional work the firm did for the fossil fuel industry between 2016 and 2020, as well as a lobbying score based on the sum of lobbying compensation the firm received during that time frame. These three scores were then combined using an algorithm to produce the overall climate score in the scorecard.

Since LSCA was founded last year, the group has focused on expanding its reach nationally.

According to Hirschel-Burns, they have worked with students from over 50 law schools across the country and have created a national board of law students dedicated to advocating for law firms to focus on climate responsibility.

“We’re at crunch time, when we need every sector of our society doing all they can to help head off the deepest crisis humans have ever faced,” climate activist Bill McKibben said in the scorecard’s press release. “That big law has decided to fan the flames instead should make everyone angry — if the law is to be a pillar of societal stability it simply must come to grips with the crisis now engulfing us.”

Hirschel-Burns said that LSCA purposefully released their scorecard during law firm recruitment, which he said typically takes place in August, so that students have information about various firms’ climate

impacts when making decisions about accepting job offers.

While he recognized that law students have many factors to consider about an offer — including financial concerns such as high levels of student debt — Hirschel-Burns said that the scorecard is especially useful when deciding between two very similar offers. Most law students, he said, would rather work at a firm that received a B than one that received an F when all else is equal.

“This scorecard covers the top 100 ranked law firms,” HirschelBurns said. “Those of course aren’t the only legal career options avail-

able to students. There are a lot of firms that are taking the climate crisis seriously, especially smaller firms… A lot of the recruiting focuses on Vault 100 firms, but there are other options out there who are really demonstrating leadership.”

According to the Law School’s most recent employment report, of the students in the class of 2020 who accepted a job offer from a law firm after graduation, 83 percent of them were from law firms with over 500 employees.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS

Law Students for Climate Accountability graded the top 100 law firms in the country and gave 36 of them a failing score in the climate crisis.

Admissions office reflects on virtual touring

BY AMELIA DAVIDSON STAFF REPORTER After nearly a year and a half of virtual outreach, the admissions office plans to resume in-person campus tours in October, with some hallmarks of a successful virtual tour year to remain.

Yale’s admissions tour program, typically run out of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, was one of the first programs to move entirely online as the COVID19 pandemic hit in March 2020.

Since then, the admissions office has remained closed to visitors, opting instead for virtual tours and information sessions.

Now, the admissions office plans to once again host in-person tours beginning Oct. 4, this

time out of the Yale Visitor Center.

But with the shift, admissions officers are reflecting on the successes of the past year’s programs, many of which they plan to keep for this admissions season and beyond.

“The nature of the pandemic meant that on-campus tours were among the first programs to be canceled, and they are among the last to be reinstated,” Mark Dunn, the director of outreach and communications at the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, told the News.

“Throughout this challenging period, we’ve made it a priority to feature and include our talented guides virtually in other parts of our outreach strategy, and they have been universally fantastic in these roles. I’m very excited that our guides will be leading on-campus tours again soon, but I’m

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The admissions office and Yale Visitor Center hosted virtual tours and info sessions during the pandemic, some of which will continue.

also excited that we have found these new opportunities to connect current and prospective students virtually.”

Being a Yale tour guide — historically one of the most selective student jobs on campus — typically means spending days giving tours to the tens of thousands of visitors that pass through the admissions office each year. But as all in-person tours were canceled, tour guides instead became involved in virtual information sessions and virtual tours.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Yale Visitor Center has hosted virtual campus tours, held over Zoom in the form of a presentation by one of the campus tour guides. The virtual tours are geared toward the general public, not just prospective students, and featured a general presentation about locations around campus as well as a question and answer session.

The admissions office has their own virtual tour available in the form of an interactive webpage. The tour allows visitors to click and “walk” through the campus. The office has also been hosting virtual information sessions geared toward prospective students as a replacement for the in-person information sessions that would typically precede a campus tour. The information sessions also involve Yale campus tour guides, who speak to attendees about their experiences as students.

Associate Director of Admissions John Yi ’13, who leads the tour guide program, told the News

that the addition of student voices to virtual information sessions has proved quite successful and will continue even as tour guides resume their in-person work.

“In thinking about the best way to connect with prospective students and families amidst the ongoing pandemic, the Admissions Office was especially excited to include the reflections of current undergraduates in the virtual iteration of its information sessions,” Yi wrote in an email to the News. “Campus Tour Guides are especially well-suited to speaking about undergraduate life, and it was a very natural choice to draw from the cohort of guides in selecting our Student Presenters.”

Beginning in October, the Yale Visitor Center will offer six in-person admissions tour slots per day, six days per week. This is more time slots than were offered prepandemic; however, each time slot will offer just two tours of 20 people each, in order to mitigate public health risks. The Yale Visitor Center will also offer virtual Zoom tours once per week.

For the time being, the admissions office will continue hosting all information sessions virtually and will continue to involve Yale tour guides in the sessions. Dunn told the News that during the 2020-2021 admissions cycle, more students were reached via the virtual information sessions than would usually be reached from in-person information sessions, and therefore he suspects that some form

of virtual programming will continue post pandemic.

“Regardless of the medium or setting, I believe that honest, authentic, first-hand accounts from current Yale students are the most valuable component of our outreach strategy,” Dunn said.

Debra Johns, an associate director of admissions and the team leader for hospitality, told the News that she, as well as Yi and Visitor Center Director Nancy Franco, have been planning for the return to in-person tours since the beginning of the summer.

Johns said that the plan was executed after a “truly collaborative process” that involved the Yale College Dean’s Office and various other Yale agencies, which all worked to ensure that in-person tours could be held safely.

Despite the continued success of virtual programming, Johns said, there is something uniquely special about visiting campus, and she is glad to see prospective students finally able to return.

“We know that when visitors come to campus, they have an overwhelmingly positive experience on our tours,” Johns said. “Our hope is that visiting allows prospective students to get a clearer and more complete picture of the Yale College experience, leading them to make informed decisions about where to apply.”

The early application deadline for Yale College is Nov. 1.

Contact AMELIA DAVIDSON at amelia.davidson@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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NEWS

“Nothing beats Delhi when it comes to food. It has some fantastic restaurants and street-food joints..” SIDHARTH MALHOTRA INDIAN ACTOR

New Haven religious leaders ask for commitments on public health issues

BY OWEN TUCKER-SMITH STAFF REPORTER At a mayoral candidate assembly in Hamden last Wednesday, religious leaders across Connecticut voiced their demands to Mayor Justin Elicker regarding issues such as gun violence, street safety and health in schools.

Elicker has all but secured a second mayoral term in City Hall after his only serious Democratic competitor, former Housing Authority President Karen DuBois-Walton, abruptly left the race. Now, New Haveners are already seeking commitments from Elicker for his next two years in office. At Wednesday evening’s forum, hosted by Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, or CONECT, Connecticut residents asked Elicker specific questions about his plans for the next term.

CONECT’s questions focused on three central demands: the diversion of funds to public school health services, attention to street safety in Fair Haven and public updates on the city’s gun violence response. In response, the mayor generally avoided locking in answers but said that public health and safety would remain central to his next term in office.

Specifically, leaders asked for policy commitments on redirecting funds to help treat public school students with asthma, completing infrastructure projects in Fair Haven and holding public meetings about the newly-proposed Department of Community Resilience, which Elicker declined to provide. He later emphasized that while he would not promise specific measures, he shares many of CONECT’s goals.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot with me answering ‘No’ to a couple of what I think were pretty specific questions,” Elicker said in his closing remarks about the questions related to CONECT’s three central demands. “I think the spirit of what we all are trying to accomplish here is aligned.”

Over 200 CONECT leaders attended the event, which was held both in person and over Zoom.

Attendees also asked for commitments from mayoral candidates in Hamden, who are currently fighting a race far more contested than New Haven’s.

In their opening remarks, Rev. Philippe Andal of New Haven’s Community Baptist Church and

Rabbi Brian Immerman of Hamden’s Congregation Mishkan Israel gave examples of what they think public health and safety means in New Haven and Hamden.

“When we say public health, we mean that our elected officials must address asthma, which disproportionately affects Black and brown communities,” Andal said.

“When we say public health, we mean that our elected officials must protect and preserve open spaces in all communities so that people can breathe fresh, safe air and stretch their legs.”

Immerman said public safety means ensuring that visible signs and crosswalks are omnipresent across Connecticut. He also said it meant addressing gun violence while remembering that “police brutality is not public safety.” Immerman told attendees that, already this year, 23 people have died through gun violence in southern Hamden and New Haven in 2021.

Gun violence was at the heart of one of CONECT’s commitment requests. The others focused on street safety and asthma among school-aged children. For each issue, the mayor was asked a question about whether he could commit to a policy related to the issue point-blank, and he would be forced to either say “yes” or “no.”

Support for students with asthma Tynicha Drummonds asked Elicker if he would commit to allocating $2 million of American Rescue Plan funding to community health workers supporting New Haven public school students struggling with asthma. Drummonds is a New Haven resident whose foster daughter and great niece suffer from asthma. “[My foster daughter] loves to play and run, but sometimes she has to stop so she doesn’t have an asthma attack,” Drummonds said.

Veronica Douglas-Givan also spoke on the issue, noting that one of her brothers also had asthma and that she had to watch him “gasp for air while he was playing.” She also brought her asthmatic son up to the podium, saying that her child often felt suffocated inside his class room at Worthington Hooker School.

Although CONECT members wanted Elicker to commit on the spot to diverting substantial funds to the issue, the mayor admit-

YALE DAILY NEWS

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker boasts progress on key issues but declined to say yes or no to “pretty specific” questions. ted that he could not provide an answer at that time.

“We have school nurses, and we will continue to ensure that we have school nurses in every school,” Elicker said.

Infrastructure repairs in Fair Haven CONECT also asked Elicker to commit to completing several infrastructure projects around the Fair Haven area. They highlighted a survey that identified 85 useful repairs and improvements around the neighborhood.

The list includes 35 intersections that do not have crosswalks and stop lines.

CONECT said they had sent the list to Elicker a week prior to the event, and they asked the mayor to commit to achieving 63 or more of them over the next two years.

But Elicker said he had not seen CONECT’s list.

“I will continue working with you, but I cannot commit to putting city infrastructure investments into a list I haven’t seen,” he told CONECT leaders.

Later in the evening, Elicker said he looked at the list during the meeting. In response, Elicker said it would be difficult for him to focus solely on Fair Haven’s infrastructure needs — he must treat all of the city’s neighborhoods

equally, while prioritizing communities of high need.

CONECT interpreted that answer as a “no” on the infrastructure question.

Addressing gun violence “Mayor Elicker, will you commit to facilitating public monthly sessions to provide updates on the status of the Department of Community Resilience and Community Crisis Response team and seek community input?” Qadry Harris of the Community Baptist Church asked the mayor.

The Department of Community Resilience is a brand-new concept proposed by the Mayor’s office at the beginning of August. If it is approved by the Board of Alders, the department will receive $6 million a year.

The department would serve as an umbrella organization which would also oversee the Community Crisis Response Team, a city initiative that works to ensure various professionals — not just police officers — respond to 911 calls.

“For these programs to be successful, we need data,” Harris said.

“There must be an evaluation plan to achieve the sustained funding and the long term success… The people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. They must be consulted.”

John Levi Lewis, a pastor in New Haven, said his New Haven church is the one he grew up in. The church is supposed to be a place of comfort for its members, he said, but now members did not always feel protected within its walls.

“It used to be a safe place where the congregates could come,” he said. “Now, it’s not always a safe place to worship. There have been shootings in front of the church and behind the church… the safe environment has been threatened by gun violence.”

However, Elicker once again said he could not commit to the specific guidelines of the monthly sessions.

He said it was not that he could not commit to community engagement but that the new Department of Community Resilience is broad and each agency under it has its own form of community engagement.

“I will commit to a public process and continued engagement,” he said. “There has been a community hearing that the public was welcome to participate in; we had a lot of good feedback.”

Elicker will face a Republican challenger for New Haven mayor in a November election.

Contact OWEN TUCKER-SMITH at owen.tucker-smith@yale.edu .

Drop-in center for homeless people providing community, resources

PHOTO BY SYLVAN LEBRUN

The exterior of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen’s drop-in center.

BY SYLVAN LEBRUN STAFF REPORTER Equipped with board games, computers, coffee and doctors on call, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen’s drop-in center for people experiencing homelessness opened this April. The center is the first stage of the organization’s development of their new building at 266 State St. In December of 2020, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen — or DESK — purchased their very own building after decades operating out of the basement of a local church. Over the following months, they renovated the space to set up their new hub. For three

hours each afternoon, Sunday through Friday, the center provides New Haven’s homeless population with a place to rest, socialize and be connected to resources.

The opening of the Drop-in and Research Center is the first step of DESK’s plan to move all of its services to the new location.

“What our folks really needed was a place where they could access our services more readily, on their own time, on their own terms,” Steve Werlin, executive director of DESK, told the News in an interview.

For several years now, DESK has worked to expand its operations beyond its original soup kitchen.

In great part, this includes bring-

ing case managers, doctors and psychiatrists to the nightly meal services, which have traditionally been held at the Parish House of the Central Church on the Green.

Planning started in 2018 for the creation of a dedicated DESK space to provide clients with additional support services. Last winter, aided by both increased donations and falling real estate prices amid the pandemic, DESK moved to purchase a building of its own.

DESK’s board eventually settled on a three-story colonial revival building on State Street, which had a past life as a dog grooming salon. The building’s first floor opened in time to function as a cooling center before the hottest days of the summer.

Werlin said the purpose of the drop-in center’s hours, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., is to offer clients a place to go outside of meal hours.

Many, he said, remain at the center for the entirety of the afternoon, walking to DESK’s dinner service location on Temple Street together in groups with staff members.

The drop-in center occupies the building’s entire first floor, with medical care provided on the second. In the future, DESK plans to convert the second floor into a series of offices for workers from other local service providers. The third floor serves as office space.

Dinner services are also scheduled to move into the space, although Werlin shared that the timing depends on COVID-19 rates. Their current dining service is outdoors and grab-and-go only.

The drop-in center currently offers coffee, tea and snacks and has tables where visitors can sit and play a card or board game.

DESK also provides computer access, telephones, charging stations and lockers for all guests.

Partner organizations have already begun to contribute to the drop-in center, fulfilling one of the primary goals for the space.

Medical providers including Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and BHcare visit on designated days, conducting exams and minor treatment on the second floor.

Drop-in center clients can sign up to shower and do their laundry at the nearby Liberty Community Services building. Outreach workers from the homelessness nonprofit Columbus House also stop by both to visit old clients and find new ones.

Since the center opened, site coordinator Adam Kirk said the DESK team has found a promis-

ing space to improve the quality of service it offers. The new space, he said, has allowed DESK staff members to work one-onone with clients to help them access services.

“From the beginning, we were offering to help people with applications, help people find employment, help people with basic preparation before getting a housing voucher...we would do the smaller things,” Kirk said.

William Bramon, who visits the drop-in center every day, shared that the staff members were the ones to encourage him to go back to school to become a certified minister.

“They will literally all break their back, just to help you get your ID, your birth certificate, help you apply for your state phone if you need it,” Bramon said. “They’re very knowledgeable. And if they don’t know, they know how to find out.”

Attendance at the drop-in center has steadily increased since its opening. At first, only 10 to 15 individuals would stop by each day. This week, the daily rate has increased to some 25 to 30. Most of the visitors at the center are regulars, according to Kirk, with many coming back almost every day.

According to Joshua Makhanlall, another regular visitor at the drop-in center, the space has above all provided an avenue for creating valuable social connections.

“I come here to sit and relax, to be with people,” Makhanlall said, just having finished a card game with a staff member.

Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen began offering meals on the New Haven Green in 1987.

Contact SYLVAN LEBRUN at sylvan.lebrun@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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“When you work at a microscopic level, you have to control every part of your body movement - your fingertips, your joints, the pulse in your fingers.” WILLARD WIGAN BRITISH SCULPTOR

Cultural centers on campus reopen their doors

BY SOPHIE SONNENFELD CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Belle Thomas ’23 stepped into the Afro-American Cultural Center on Aug. 29 for the first time in a year and a half.

After 18 months, all of the cultural centers around campus have reopened their doors for peer liaison meetings, mixers and programs — with restrictions on eating, performances and capacity. Depending on those capacity limits, the centers offer students the ability to book spaces for events or meetings.

“I definitely will be spending more time there this year than I ever have before and have more of an opportunity to explore different rooms which is going to be a lot of fun,” Thomas said.

Six students and staff from Yale’s cultural centers expressed optimism and excitement about hosting more in-person and hybrid events in cultural center spaces this academic year, noting that safety remains a priority at each center.

Thomas, who is working as an Af-Am House peer liaison this year, was stationed in the library at the center for a “meet your PL” event.

She said she was able to meet with roughly half of her 16 Stiles firstyear advisees so they could ask her questions, complete get-to-knowyou activities and grab to-go snacks.

Each room in the Af-Am House has a specific capacity limit but

Thomas said the peer liaisons are trying to plan at least one event a month for first-year students to utilize space in the center. In the past, Thomas said they have hosted movie nights, skin and hair care routine discussion nights and meetings with graduate students.

Thomas said she was also looking forward to the first in-person meeting for peer liaisons on Wednesday.

“It’s going to be an entirely different dynamic being able to actually hang out with everybody on a weekly basis in-person because I feel like relationships will actually be able to form,” Thomas said.

Hema Patel ’23, Native American Cultural Center staff member and vice president of the Association of Native Americans at Yale, told the News that ANAAY held their first meeting in person last Wednesday.

ANAAY is one of three active undergraduate native groups on campus.

However, because their group was larger than the room capacity available at the NACC, they had to split into separate groups on the first and third floors of the building.

While the NACC was closed this past year, the center did offer some need-based visits for two or three people in the building at a time to use traditional medicine.

Once Yale students began receiving COVID-19 vaccinations last spring, the center allowed sign ups for one or two people at a time to use specific rooms.

“I miss that feeling of people in every room, the kitchen busting with music and food, the library with people reading and studying,” Patel said.

“It’s like a piece of home. A lot of people came from the same places I did or came from very different places but share the same values. It’s a great place of comfort and safety.”

To comply with COVID-19 restrictions, the kitchen remains closed, but Evan Roberts ’23, ANAAY president and NACC peer liaison, is looking forward to it reopening as “the heart” of the center.

Director of the NACC Matthew Makomenaw said the center has always encouraged students to book spaces for large events. Now, students should try to reserve spaces for informal large group meetings as well.

“We’re definitely focusing on reestablishing some of the new things that we learned that were great and some of the older things that were done traditionally,” Makomenaw said.

La Casa, the Latino Cultural Center at Yale, has held four in-person outdoor events including a meet the PLs event, a Bluebooking Party held on cross-campus, an Open House and an all-staff retreat. The center offered tours for small groups of students to check out the center during the Meet the PLs and Open House events.

Director of La Casa Eileen Galvez said in an email to the News that the center has a reservation system

Hurricane Ida floods New Haven

BY ZAPORAH PRICE AND ANASTASIA HUFHAM STAFF AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS Days after Hurricane Henri anticlimactically rolled through New Haven, Hurricane Ida delivered the flooding and power outages originally expected from the first storm.

Ida knocked out power across the city, resulting in several feet of flooding in buildings, as water rushed down driveways and into basements, though no injuries were reported. On campus, all 14 of Yale’s residential colleges and Old Campus lost power. Several residences and other campus buildings experienced flooding, pushing dozens of classes online.

Four inches of rain descended on the city between 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 1 and 1:30 a.m. on Sept.

2, according to Rick Fontana, New Haven’s director of emergency operations.

“This was very close to a 100year storm,” Fontana told the News. “Everyone was impacted by that amount of rain and how fast it came.”

Before Ida’s arrival in Connecticut, the city’s Office of Emergency Management gathered with state and federal emergency agencies to plan a response for Hurricane Henri, even advising some residents to evacuate.

After Henri came and went, Ida’s severity in the Northeast came as a surprise, since meteorologists predicted that the storm would primarily impact the Gulf Coast.

With the ground saturated with rain from Henri and other small storms, and a high tide

present due to heavy winds, the 5 to 7 inches of downpour that Ida brought, Fontana said, led to a “perfect storm.”

As the flooding took shape, Fontana said the city prioritized setting up barricades to ward cars off of the most dangerous of city streets.

“We always have a huge issue of people wanting to drive through flooded areas, and then they become stuck and have to be rescued,” he said. “They lose their car and impact our emergency response system.”

During the storm, Fontana said some drivers stuck in their vehicles due to rising floodwaters had to resort to escaping through their sunroofs.

By early morning on Sept. 2, the fire department was pumping flood water out of New Haven homes and businesses.

Donasia Gray ’23, a New Haven native, woke up to calls from her vacationing family in the dawn hours of Sept. 2.

The alarm at the family home in Newhallville was sounding and her mother wanted her to investigate. When Gray went to check, a dark pool of water, approximately 11 feet high, had creeped up to the third highest step of the house’s basement. It took firemen over a day to pump it out.

“We needed to get everything out of the basement before the mold set in, which I mentioned to friends in Saybrook,” Gray told the News. “The response I got from people was very heartwarming. Honestly, words don’t do it justice.”

DONASIA GRAY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Gray’s family basement, which flooded over 10 feet due to rainfall from Hurricane Ida.

Gray said that she and more than 15 others, including Yale classmates, moved items — such as couches, sound equipment, laundry machines, clothes and more — out of the basement.

The damage, she said, reminded her of that inflicted

by Hurricane Sandy nine years ago, which also flooded the family house. The repeat occurrence was frustrating. Now, she hopes city officials will help the family find support among the “huge financial hardship” the storm has brought.

Extreme weather events like Hurricane Ida have occurred with increasing regularity and severity in recent years, which environmental experts and government officials have attributed to climate change. New Haven’s Board of Alders declared a climate emergency in 2019.

“Everyone understands that storms are getting more frequent and severe,” said Newhallville Alder Steven Winter. “We really need to look at our resiliency and investments in our infrastructure to try to fortify against the risk of a changing climate.”

The morning after the storm, Winter visited Gray’s family home while the fire department was pumping out water. According to Winter, there was about 5 feet of water still in the basement at that time.

He said parts of the Newhallville neighborhood took on “a lot of rain,” but he didn’t hear from anyone that they lost power. On Wednesday, Winter said that he was planning to go house to house in the Newhallville neighborhood to check in on residents and see how they were affected by the storm. But he called the amount of water in Gray’s family basement “unbelievable.”

New Haven County’s flood risk is only increasing. Flood Factor, a flood risk calculator by nonprofit First Street Foundation, found that flood damages have already amounted to $37.4 million this year for the county, with approximately 32,647 properties at risk.

Flood Factor predicts that within the next 30 years, that number will increase to 38,394.

With New Haven City Hall sitting at just 52 feet above sea level, the city has invested in improvements along the New Haven Harbor since Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012. The harbor’s riprap — a layer of assembled rocks used to protect shorelines from erosion — has been repaired. Fontana said that the city also plans to heighten the harbor’s wall near the City Point neighborhood. The wall is located at the point where the West River empties out into the harbor, making it especially vulnerable to flooding during times of storm.

New Haven’s Office of Emergency Management is located at 200 Orange St. Contact ZAPORAH PRICE at zaporah.price@yale.edu and ANASTASIA HUFHAM at anastasia.hufham@yale.edu .

in-place for students to claim spaces inside but is still working with Yale Environmental Health and Safety to determine which of La Casa’s rooms can be used for reservations.

To allow students access without a reservation during open hours, the center is also considering a hybrid system to keep track of live occupancy. Additionally, Galvez said the center has purchased walkie-talkies, tents and outdoor projectors to allow for in-person events while maintaining COVID-19 restrictions.

“I believe we can achieve hybrid offerings for much of the fall, however, we may have challenges once winter sets as we will no longer be able to keep our windows open and keep our indoor spaces ventilated through that medium,” Galvez said.

Galvez also said she wants the center to continue to use lessons learned from the pandemic on accessibility as La Casa transitions to more in-person events this year.

“If last year taught us anything, it is that we have the capacity to expand the false borders from our community beyond the university gates and even our beloved city of New Haven,” she said.

Joliana Yee, director of the AACC, told the News that she hopes students will be able to utilize the center’s resources, especially as the center enters its 40th anniversary.

“I hope to see students utilize the space for being in community, both informally and formally because that is not only foundational to the Center’s mission but also an important source of healing as we continue to experience racialized violence and navigate pandemic related anxieties,” Yee wrote in an email to the News.

Yale’s first cultural center, the Afro-American Cultural Center, was founded in 1969.

Contact SOPHIE SONNENFELD at sophie.sonnenfeld@yale.edu .

SOPHIE SONNENFELD/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Cultural center peer liaisons, student staff and deans discuss reopenings and transitioning from remote to in-person events.

YLS group testifies on solitary confinement

BY ANIKA SETH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Last month, members of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School provided testimony to the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Policy Committee regarding a new statute that would limit the use of solitary confinement — also called restrictive housing — within state facilities.

The Liman Center aims to help create a more just legal system through research projects, teaching, fellowships and advocacy. Professor of law Judith Resnik delivered oral testimony virtually during the Aug. 10 hearing and co-authored written testimony along with Liman Center Director Jenny Carroll, clinical fellow Skylar Albertson and law students Sarita Benesch LAW ’23 and Wynne Graham LAW ’22.

The bill would prohibit the use of solitary confinement on pregnant individuals, LGBTQ individuals and people 21 and younger or 70 and older. It would also limit solitary confinement to a total of 15 days.

During her testimony, Resnik discussed the overall premise of solitary confinement as a form of punishment and offered feedback specific to Pennsylvania’s proposed bill. Her suggestions centered around “the four key variables” the state’s draft legislation intended to address: the specific reasons people are placed in solitary confinement, limits on the amount of time per day and total number of days spent in solitary, conditions of confinement and who decides to administer the punishment.

A common trend Resnik pointed out during her testimony was lack of clarity around these four factors — for example, vague standards defining what would prompt an individual to be subjected to solitary.

“Ordinary human behavior or disagreements can land you into profound isolation,” Resnik said during her testimony, and “institutional threat” — the technical standard that merits solitary confinement — “is a huge open door.”

Carroll shared similar concerns in an interview with the News, citing ambiguity around what exactly would constitute reasonable grounds for solitary but also around the process of reentry into society after a period of solitary confinement.

“We felt like there wasn’t a lot of information about what the stepdown process would be,” Carroll said. “How exactly should I step down from having been in this really intense period of isolation to [then] be asked to reintegrate and go back into society as a whole?”

In addition, Carroll and Resnik described analogous questions around factors such as mental health care, exposure to outside light and other physical conditions.

“In general, we’re looking for procedural clarity,” Carroll told the News. “We’re looking for stronger definitions of those standards by which you make a determination of whether or not someone should be placed in solitary in the first place.

And we’re looking for clarity on how you calculate the amount of time that someone is actually permitted to be in.”

The 48-page written brief goes into more detail concerning the harms of solitary confinement on imprisoned individuals, demographic breakdowns and legislative trends nationwide. In the document, the authors describe comprehensive reforms in state legislatures across the country as well as recent limitations on what populations can be sentenced to solitary — such as youth, pregnant people and those with mental illnesses — in each state.

According to Carroll, the Pennsylvania committee reached out to the Liman Center for expert counsel in part due to a lack of longitudinal analysis concerning solitary confinement legislation nationwide — a gap that the Liman Center is uniquely positioned to fill given its long-term work of nearly a decade in this space, she said.

Researchers at the Liman Center have been exploring such nationwide analysis since 2013. Their reports involve tracking restrictive housing laws in different states, the number of people sentenced to this punishment per jurisdiction and the conditions of confinement in each statewide facility.

Carroll said that this most recent legislative effort is particularly notable because it puts one state’s proposed reforms into a national context.

“Certainly, we had been aware in the past of what other states had been doing just as part of our ongoing tracking of solitary confinement,” she said. “But this was really the first time we sat down and tried to think systematically in terms of how different states are addressing issues of reform within this space. And by providing that to Pennsylvania, our hope was that it would serve as a guide as they attempt to move forward.”

Looking to the future, Carroll anticipates that the nationwide analysis can inform work in other states, as more legislators consider not just the binary of whether solitary confinement should exist but also what different models could look like. She said the Liman Center’s work can help these lawmakers make more informed decisions about restrictive housing policy based on what has — and has not — worked in comparable jurisdictions and what factors may accordingly be important to consider.

Yale Law School is located at 127 Wall St. Contact ANIKA SETH at anika.seth@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month or even one year — but for a lifetime.” BILL ROGERS AMERICAN OLYMPIAN AND MARATHONER

Elis win first tournament with 15-stroke lead

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

The Blue and White finished with a 15-stroke lead over the second place team as the only squad under par.

MEN'S GOLF FROM PAGE 14 age. This consistency across all types of holes was a key factor that led to Yale’s finish as the only team under par after all three rounds.

The tournament is named in honor of the late Colgate golfer Alex Lagowitz, who passed away less than a year after his graduation in 2015. The last time the Elis played this tournament in 2019, they finished fourth out of 16 teams.

“It felt incredible finally getting to suit up and represent

Yale on the course,” golfer Blake Brantley ’25 said. “After waiting so long and working so hard these past two years, it was a really cool experience with the guys. Plus, to come out with a team win and get some momentum going forward made it all the more special.”

The Bulldogs tee off again on Sept. 11 at the Doc Gimmler tournament hosted by St. John’s.

Contact EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA at eugenio.garzagarcia@yale.edu .

Cross country to open season XC FROM PAGE 14 the finish line in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida and Connecticut. Their season is set to culminate with the Ivy League Cross Country Championships in Princeton, New Jersey. Strong performances may see them through to the NCAA Northeast Regional and finally the NCAA Cross Country Championship at the end of November.

The cancellation of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic upended the teams’ usual balance of experience, bringing in a swath of fresh recruits. According to men’s captain Will Laird ’22, half of the team is yet to race in a Yale singlet. Laird hopes to bring his experience as Yale’s all-time sixth-fastest mile record holder to the table and “provide guidance when needed,” as “transitioning to collegiate running isn’t always easy,” he said.

“I am really excited to have a competitive season for the first time in over a year,” Laird said.

“It has been challenging having the team spread out across the world the past 18 months.

Being able to have everyone back together, running well and ready to race is really exciting, and I’m looking forward to what this team can do.”

Leading the line for the women this year is captain Kayley DeLay ’22, who led the team in every race she competed in

Yale crew took home gold, bronze CREW FROM PAGE 14 Gulich returned home to Switzerland in March 2020 and decided to join the national team in the fall when there was an unexpected opening. At that time, Gulich was also taking classes remotely.

“The two guys who were supposed to be spares for the Olympics decided they didn’t want to do another year, so that was kind of my lucky situation because they needed a spare to start with, so they invited me to be one of those six guys,” Gulich said.

Bourmpou and Elwes followed different paths to the Olympics.

Bourmpou started rowing for the Greek National Team in 2016 as a junior in high school.

At that time, she was not initially aiming for the Olympics, but in 2018, she found her crewmate and competed in the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in the women’s pair event, where she won gold. Bourmpou qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2019 after coming in 11th, the last qualifying spot for her event.

The British rowing team selected Elwes twice. The first time was in March 2020, and shortly afterwards, he was sent home for remote training. The second time was a year later.

“It was a surreal experience … it is supposed to be one of the best moments of your life — being selected to your first Olympics — and right after that we got told that we were going home,” Elwes said. “It was a weird situation to be in.”

Gulich told the News that he essentially started preparing for the Olympics the moment he began rowing, but the vol-

ume of training simply increased once he qualified for the Games.

Williamson similarly explained that one cannot just switch it on months prior; instead, it “builds on months and months and even years of work.”

For Williamson, the main difference between training at Yale and in preparation for the Olympics was the frequency and intensity. He added that the crew rowed anywhere from 200 to 250 kilometers per week, with sessions two to three times a day, with just Sundays off. Gulich and Elwes completed similar training programs.

Bourmpou, unfortunately, injured her ribs in April, which meant she could not train fully for two months in the spring of 2021. She told the News that she returned to training on the water three weeks before the Olympics.

“They sent us home after we found out the Olympics were postponed, and we had to train in our house for two months, so we were not in the best place,” Bourmpou said. “It was really hard, and I actually thought of stopping twice or three times because it got really lonely and when you get tired and you have no one to help you through that training, it gets really bad.”

But Bourmpou pushed her way through and came in fifth place in her heat in her first Olympic race in the women’s pair. In both the repechage and semifinal, Bourmpou and her pair partner came in first, ultimately advancing the duo to the A final, where they ended up in fifth place. In their semifinal, the Greek pair beat the ultimate bronze medalists — Caileigh Filmer and Hillary Janssens of Canada — and set a world record of 6:48.70 before it was

broken by just over a second in the following semi.

Williamson and his crew arrived second in their heat and moved on to the repechage prior to advancing to the finals.

According to him, the crew needed that second race in order to be fully prepared for the finals.

“That extra race was extremely beneficial,” Williamson said. “It gave us time to figure it out. We made a lot of changes, technically and rhythmically, between the heat and the repechage. We were so confident and happy with those changes [that] we said, let’s do that again in the final.”

Similarly, Gulich and Elwes did not qualify directly from their respective heats to the final and had to compete in the repechage.

Ultimately, Elwes secured a bronze medal with the GB men’s eight and Gulich came in third in the B final.

Williamson made note of the role Yale crew has played in the international rowers’ impressive success.

“The number of Yale rowers [competing in the Olympics], current or alumni, speaks volumes of the program and of the coaches and what they have created here,” Williamson said.

“It’s really special and an amazing feeling to be able to line up against guys that I’ve raced with.

Charlie [Elwes] was a guy that was in my boat here in 2019, and I look across the lake and see him sitting there. Different countries, both essentially living our dreams and … it’s like, well we made it.”

Rowing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics concluded on July 28, 2021.

Contact NICOLE RODRIGUEZ at nicole.rodriguez.nr444@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF DAN WILLIAMSON

This past summer, 11 current and graduated students rowed in Tokyo Bay, with a bronze and gold medalist amongst them.

COURTESY OF SAM RUBIN

The women’s cross country team will face off against Harvard and Princeton in New Jersey. during the 2019-20 season and finished first in the 6K race at the 2019 Ivy Heptagonal Cross Country Championships.

DeLay is most looking forward to getting back to racing with the team and hopes that, as captain, she is able to encourage her teammates to “strive for their goals with confidence.”

Women’s head coach Taryn Sheehan believes that while inexperience at the collegiate level may be a hurdle for the team to overcome, the abnormally long off-season brought on by

the pandemic has allowed for the upperclassmen to strengthen their leadership skills.

For Harkins, the pandemic taught the team “how to be flexible in [its] approach and to appreciate and cherish the dayto-day experiences and team interactions [it] potentially took for granted or didn’t think were big things, pre-pandemic.”

Princeton and Harvard began their seasons last Friday.

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

Rhythmic gymnast Zeng represents US at Olympics

COURTESY OF LAURA ZENG

Zeng got into rhythmic gymnastics through a childhood carpool to Chinese classical dance classes.

ZENG FROM PAGE 14 most amazing, dedicated and hardworking people that I've ever met,” Lu said.

Zeng’s hard work began to reap rewards. She placed well at the 2015 World Championships, earning her a spot in the 2016 Olympic Games.

She swept the Pan-American Games in 2015, and in 2016, she went to Rio to represent the United States in the Summer Olympics at age 16.

“Every time I went to the dining hall [at the 2016 Olympics], I would just sit with random people,” Zeng said. “First, I would be like ‘Do you speak English,’ and then I'd say ‘Can I sit with you’ and I would just talk to them for, maybe just 10 minutes, but I wanted to soak in as much as I possibly could.”

Zeng graduated from high school in 2018, originally planning to take two gap years to train for the 2020 Olympics and then enroll at Yale in the fall of 2020.

“All my friends were moving on to college, which also seemed like a brand new exciting experience,” Zeng said. “And here I was still in the same sport I had been doing for my whole life. So that was harder for me.”

Zeng would embark on a two-year training schedule to prepare for the Olympics. In the run up to the 2016 Olympics, Laura said she was just “following the path forward.” The second time around, after experiencing significant success, she set higher expectations for herself. In 2019, her top-15 performance at the World Championships in Azerbaijan earned her a berth in the 2020 Olympics.

Though the 2020 Olympic games were officially postponed to 2021 and Zeng missed several months of training, the future of the Games remained unclear. Zeng chose to take another gap year to stay sharp for Tokyo, citing that since she had already been training for two years, she “might as well go all out.”

Zeng’s Olympic experience was markedly different her second time around. She was not a 16-year-old junior in high school but a 21-yearold veteran of the sport. Zeng felt she reached the 2016 Olympics on “happenstance,” yet she had been training specifically for the 2020 Olympics for three years. That change in mindset brought more pressure, she said.

The United States qualified a full team of seven, and Zeng was the only athlete with previous Olympic experience. But the Tokyo games were different, Zeng said, from the plexiglass between seats in the dining hall to the aesthetic of empty stands.

Ultimately, Zeng felt as though she did not perform her best in the 2020 Olympics, though she did finish in the top half of competitors.

She also competed with a full United States team, which she said was an impressive feat for a sport typically dominated by Eastern Europe. Zeng believes that rhythmic gymnastics is growing in the United States, and the qualification of a full team — which has not typically happened — is prime evidence.

“Based on our results, based on the trajectory, already the growth we see,” Zeng said. “Our national team size is bigger, more girls are traveling, more girls are interested.”

Though it would be very difficult to continue her career through college, Zeng says the pandemic has taught her one thing: “Never say never.”

Zeng enrolled in Yale this fall and is planning on majoring in urban studies. For her entire life, her success has been defined by firm goals related to school and gymnastics. At Yale, she wants to relax a bit, “to be less carpe diem and more que sera, sera.”

Zeng is a member of Ezra Stiles College.

Contact CARTER DEWEES at carter.dewees@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 11

“Actually, I used to be a busboy in a strip joint in New York and so I hate strip joints.

I’m not that kind of person.” ZACH GALIFIANAKIS AMERICAN ACTOR

Durfee’s closed indefinitely, The Bow Wow offers alternative

BY ZAPORAH PRICE STAFF REPORTER While Yale students returned to in-person courses and access to campus buildings this fall, one place that will not be reopening for the foreseeable future is Durfee’s Sweet Shoppe.

On the Elm Street side of Old Campus, Durfee’s was a convenience store open to students from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m daily, offering students food and household necessities. After it was revamped in 2017 to include more food options and a higher swipe value, the store was a frequent lunch spot for many Yalies — especially for first years living on Old Campus. According to On-Campus Hospitality, the store had $1.3 million in annual sales.

But Durfee’s closed in the spring of 2020 with the onset of the pandemic, and according to Katie Oca, guest experience manager for the Schwarzman Center, Durfee’s will remain closed for the 202122 academic school year with no definitive plans to reopen. There is an alternative: The Bow Wow, a one-stop convenience shop situated in the recently renovated Schwarzman Center. “[The Schwarzman Center] might feel a little less central to first years, but also, [2025] first years are not all on Old Campus anyway,” said Eugene Thomas ’22, a first-year counselor for Ezra Stiles. “But I think it will be cool

for anybody, especially after this past year. The Bow Wow and Commons in general is a good place for running into people randomly.”

The Bow Wow is one of the Schwarzman Center’s newly created spaces for Yale students and the general public. It opened on Sept. 1 and allows students to use their meal swipe of $9.50 to buy items during lunch hours. The store sells fresh fruit, sushi, graband-go sandwiches and salads, campus essentials, spirit gear and more. Like Durfee’s, the store is marketed to “people on the move,” unlike other food spaces with sitdown seating in the center, according to the center’s website.

Oca said the feedback she has heard from students thus far is that it’s “more efficient” than Durfee’s because of the four self-service checkout kiosks.

She added that it was also “less enclosed” than Durfee’s.

Alexis Lee ’22 expressed similar sentiments. Visiting The Bow Wow for the first time on Wednesday, Lee said it was nicer than Durfee’s because it was “way less congested” during lunch hours.

She added that she liked the variety of options and the centralized location of the store. Kendall Ertel ’24 agreed, highlighting the sushi and healthy food options available.

Still, students reflected on the role Durfee’s had in their Yale experience.

YALE DAILY NEWS

Durfee’s is closed, but new food shops present an alternative for Yale community members.

“Durfee’s was really an integral part of my first-year experience … because of how often I would go there,” Jay Baptista ’23 told the News.

Baptista said he wouldn’t be too disappointed without Durfee’s, but was sad that it is gone.

Thomas expressed similar sentiments, describing Durfee’s as a “cool social experience.”

Thomas, who lived in Lawrance Hall as a first year, recalled the

chicken tenders, chatting with the employees and bumping into peers in his class as some of his favorite moments in Durfee’s. While he was surprised the store did not return this fall, he said that having an alternative was exciting.

While the future of 200 Elm St., where Durfee’s was previously located, remains unknown, Oca said that chicken tenders will also be offered in the Schwarzman Cen-

ter. The Underground — a space for casual dining that includes a stage for entertainment — will feature chicken tenders on the menu. Oca said it will open at a later but not yet specified date.

The Bow Wow is open Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Contact ZAPORAH PRICE at zaporah.price@yale.edu .

COVID casts uncertainty over residential college formals

YALE DAILY NEWS

As restrictions to prevent COVID-19 transmission remain in place, colleges are largely planning to hold in-person outdoor events this fall.

BY ALEJANDRO ORTEGA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER While in a typical year students look forward to their residential college formals, University restrictions on large events and gatherings are forcing colleges to delay planning such events this year.

Residential college formals are typically organized by each residential college’s council in the fall

or spring. These formals are open to all students in the residential college, and students are allowed to bring dates from outside the college if they wish to do so. As a result of the pandemic, residential colleges did not host any in-person formals during the 2020-21 academic year. Despite the ongoing restrictions, however, students hope to create a sense of community similar to that of previous

through modified in-person events largely held outdoors.

“These are events the students really look forward to — and that in itself is the primary value,” Head of Benjamin Franklin College Charles Bailyn ’81 wrote in an email to the News. “Since they are often organized by residential colleges, they promote the sense of community.”

But as students returned to relative normalcy this semester with in-person classes and other activities, restrictions on events and gatherings were set in place in late August and remain in effect as a result of the rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant and continued viral transmission. These restrictions have thrown a wrench into planning typical residential college formals: They allow for gatherings of up to 20 individuals indoors and up to 50 individuals outdoors without “advance approval” from deans and heads of colleges. The current policy is in effect until Sept. 20 and encourages contingency planning for events scheduled after then.

Students in various colleges commented on how they are planning formals despite the ongoing restrictions.

According to Morse College Council President Ramsay Goyal ’24, MCC wants to create “some sort of a formal,” especially as current sophomores and first years have not experienced one before.

Goyal said that the council will likely hold an outdoor dance that will comply with COVID-19 regulations.

Victoria Winter ’22, Benjamin Franklin College Council president during the 2020-21 school year, noted that she intends to assist the current council in planning a formal.

“Half of Yale has not experienced ‘normal’ Yale,” Benjamin Franklin College Council President Grace Dietz ’24 said. “A lot of this institution is about tradition.”

As a result of the restrictions on event gatherings, residential colleges have modified events that would typically be held during the first few weeks of classes. For example, Dietz noted that most events geared towards first year students in Benjamin Franklin were held outdoors.

However, guidelines after Sept.

20 have not yet been announced.

“The basic situation is that such things are fluid due to the public health situation,” Bailyn wrote.

“Something like the Founders’ Ball [Benjamin Franklin College’s formal] would not be allowed right now given the regulations in place in the City of New Haven and Yale.”

Despite the current restrictions, some residential college councils have not completely eliminated the possibility of hosting residential college formals in the fall.

“We’ve included costs associated with Founders’ Ball in our college budgeting, so I hope and expect we’ll be able to do something of that scope, even if we have to make some modifications, but there can be no definitive answers about what/when/ where — and even if — right now,” Bailyn wrote.

Both Dietz and Goyal told the News that their plans remain tentative and would vary highly depending on public health conditions.

“I think it’s mostly a balancing act between COVID regulations, making sure that everyone feels comfortable at events, and trying to incorporate traditions,” Dietz said.

Classes for the fall 2021 semester began Sept. 1, 2021.

Contact ALEJANDRO ORTEGA at alejandro.ortega@yale.edu .

Yale shares official fall spectator policies for indoor, outdoor games BY ÁNGELA PÉREZ STAFF REPORTER As students, faculty and staff walked through the entrance to John J. Lee Amphitheater last weekend, attendants at the entrances to the gym requested Yale IDs before spectators could take a seat to cheer on the Bulldogs. It was the department’s first indoor sporting event since the start of the pandemic, and the stands were full of eager, vaccinated fans cheering on the women’s volleyball team during their tournament.

Yale’s Athletic Department has implemented two different fan attendance policies for this fall: one for outdoor games and another for indoor games. Yale’s Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications Mike Gambardella told the News that unvaccinated spectators may attend outdoor events, as long as they wear a face covering for the duration of the game. He noted, however, that unvaccinated Yale fans are not allowed to attend indoor games.

Besides Yale students, faculty and staff, additional fans are allowed to attend home volleyball games provided that they have been admitted to a pass list by a

Yale volleyball player or opponent, Gambardella said. Each player and opponent is allowed four guests, and each guest must show proof of vaccination as well as a valid ID. He did not indicate how guards would verify the vaccination status of Yale students, staff and faculty beyond asking for their Yale IDs. Yale students, faculty and staff are required to be vaccinated with limited religious and medical exemptions. 98 percent of Yale undergraduates, 97 percent of graduate and postgraduate students, 94 percent of faculty and 91 percent of staff are vaccinated.

Vaccinated supporters at outdoor venues like Reese Stadium, where the men’s and women’s soccer teams play, may go maskless, per CDC guidelines for vaccinated individuals at outdoor events.

Gambardella also told the News that there is no capacity limit on fan numbers at the Yale Bowl, John J. Lee Amphitheater, Reese Stadium or Johnson Field.

“It’s just so fun to play in front of a real crowd and get to compete in a serious environment again after everything being online for so long,” Yale volleyball libero Maile Somera ’24 said after the team’s opening home weekend.

“It felt totally surreal and honestly

we’re just all so grateful to be able to play the sport again and compete together in front of people that are interested.”

Gambardella noted that the Yale policies were developed in conjunction with the University’s COVID-19 Response Team. Each Ivy League team is responsible for their own fan policies, he added.

Fans are also excited to keep supporting the Bulldogs as they make their comeback. Diego Lopez ’24 noted how excited he is to cheer on his friends at games this year after seeing how much work they put into practices.

“I’m really excited to be able to go to these games again,” Jackie Testamark ’24 said. “Not being

able to support my friends in their athletic endeavors was an unfortunate reality of the past year and a half.”

Yale women’s soccer played the first home game of the season on Aug. 27 at Reese Stadium.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS

Yale’s indoor venues currently require fans to be fully vaccinated and wear masks.

PAGE 12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

BULLETIN BOARD CROSSWORD

AVERY LONG is a sophomore in Morse College. Contact him at avery.long@yale.edu .

DORA GUO is a junior in Pierson College.

Contact her at dora.guo@yale.edu .

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 13

“Actually, I used to be a busboy in a strip joint in New York and so I hate strip joints. I’m not that kind of person.”

ZACH GALIFIANAKIS AMERICAN ACTOR

YCC sets policy agenda for transition back to in-person school

BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER After a summer of organizing, the Executive Board of the Yale College Council is beginning the academic year by prioritizing the transition to in-person classes and a campus at full capacity.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, YCC meetings and events were held virtually throughout the 2020-21 academic year. YCC President Bayan Galal ’23 and Vice President Zoe Hsu ’24, along with the rest of the council’s Executive Board, are now navigating the transition to an in-person student government amid changing COVID-19 guidelines.

“Over the summer, the YCC has been hard at work on two primary groups of initiatives: laying the foundation for a productive year and ensuring a smooth transition and recruitment process for the Class of 2025,” Galal wrote in an email to the News.

According to Deputy Academic Life Policy Director Leleda Beraki ’24, the YCC began holding Senate

and Executive Board meetings over Zoom in early August, and members of the Executive Board have already begun working on policy initiatives and communicating with members of Yale’s administration.

Much of the YCC’s activity over the summer focused on easing the transition to college for the class of 2025. Around 350 people attended a series of virtual blue booking sessions that the YCC organized for first years, according to Galal.

The YCC also created a welcome video, handbook and travel guide intended to help acclimate the class of 2025.

Now, the YCC is turning its attention to the transition to in-person classes, an unfamiliar experience for both the class of 2024 and the class of 2025, since most classes were moved to Zoom in March 2020.

“The YCC is working on policy proposals that address concerns surrounding the return to in-person classes,” Galal said. “This includes advocating for the continuation of virtual submissions

for all assignments and the recording of in-person lectures. The YCC is continuing to listen to concerns it hears from students and use those to inform the policy agenda throughout the year.”

According to Beraki, the council’s academic life team is also working on expanding certificate programs, allowing students to count Credit/D/Fail classes toward distributional requirements and making STEM programs more accessible to underrepresented students.

Yale’s updated public health guidelines, which limit gatherings to 20 people indoors and 50 people outdoors, have also raised questions about the potential for in-person events the YCC typically plans each year, according to YCC Events Director Diba Ghaed ’24.

“I was on Events during a full pandemic year, so I have that experience,” Ghaed said. “Now, I feel confident in my ability to plan both [in-person and virtual events]; I just need to sit down and decide which ones need to be planned which way.”

Ghaed explained that the changing circumstances surrounding COVID-19 on campus have created uncertainty about the feasibility of holding in-person events on campus this semester. Although Ghaed said that the administration had granted the YCC permission to hold in-person events early in the summer, the emergence of the Delta variant and subsequent new guidelines led to stricter regulations for the fall.

However, Ghaed clarified that the YCC still hopes to hold as many in-person events as possible, referencing the success of the extracurricular bazaar, which was held in person on Sunday, outdoors and with mask requirements. According to Ghaed, the YCC hopes to hold more social events in person and will resort to holding academic and career strategy events on Zoom if necessary.

“Anything that I can safely do in person I would prefer to,” Ghaed told the News. “I just think there is Zoom fatigue, and I think if you are forced to prioritize, then some-

thing like meeting with someone to go over your resume can be done over Zoom, whereas something like a scavenger hunt can’t be done over Zoom.”

In the coming weeks, the fall recruitment and election process will become the YCC’s primary focus, as positions open for the First Year Class Council and any vacant seats on the Council of Representatives.

“Running for YCC just weeks after arriving on campus can be an intimidating experience, so our hope is to offer as much information and support as possible to those considering running,” Galal said. “Once elections are complete and we have filled all seats, we will be able to move full steam ahead on our long and comprehensive list of policy goals for the year.”

According to YCC Chief of Staff Julia Sulkowski ’24, the YCC fall elections will be held on Sept. 23-24.

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

Student orgs grapple with increased interest and COVID-19 guidelines

BY SELIN NALBANTOGLU CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After a year and a half of online club meetings, postponed recitals and canceled events, the Yale extracurricular scene is partially back to in-person programming.

Student organizations began their recruitment process earlier last week, sending out marketing materials to undergraduates and hosting auditions for those interested. However, this is not a return to normal by any means.

Many Yale students chose to take a leave of absence last year, thereby inflating class sizes, especially for the class of 2025, and leading to an increase in the number of students interested in clubs.

Also, due to the ongoing public health situation, many — if not most — student organizations cannot fully return to pre-pandemic operations. Limits on gatherings and face mask mandates pose new challenges for club leaders.

Auditions for some of Yale’s premier music ensembles have resumed, albeit with slight modifications. Veronica Lee ’23, recruitment coordinator for the Davenport Pops Orchestra, or DPops, explained that while auditions were conducted in person, students had to wear masks.

“In addition, those who play wind instruments are provided with special face masks so that they can play safely,” Lee added.

Normally, DPops is an 80-person orchestra that performs regularly in the Davenport dining hall and Battell Chapel. This year, due to COVID-19 guidelines, the orchestra will split into four groups of 20 musicians and will hold all concerts outdoors, according to Lee. While this change is not ideal, Lee said, she and the DPops community are excited to have the opportunity to host concerts again.

Musical programming is one of the hallmarks of Yale’s artistic community, and orchestras are not the only organizations hosting live performances.

This semester, a cappella groups will resume in-person rehearsals and performances. In compliance with Yale’s COVID-19 regulations, singers must wear masks for the entirety of the practices and performances.

In addition to musical ensembles, club sports will also resume in-person practices and competitions this semester. However, the increased level of interest, combined with COVID-19 limitations, has meant that some captains had to rethink their practice schedules.

“We are still navigating the constantly changing Covid guidelines but we know that we can have practices if we wear masks when we are not swimming,” wrote Anna Pertl ’24, vice president of the club swimming team, in an email sent to new members. “Unfortunately, practices may initially be limited to 20 people, so we may have to invite different years on different days to start out.”

Many students have spent the last year away from sports and are eager to get back into regular practice and competition. However, physical activity also poses a risk of COVID-19 infection, as athletes often come into close contact with other players, and mandating masks, especially for sports such as swimming, is often not feasible.

Another group that has experienced high levels of interest is the Yale University Guild of Carillonneurs. The Guild is responsible for playing the Harkness Tower bells daily, and this year they have a larger group than usual of aspiring carillonneurs to train, according to Guild Recruitment Director Kimie Han ’23.

Normally, students interested in joining the Guild would undergo individual training. However, the carillon room in Harkness Tower

SELIN NALBANTOGLU/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Many student organizations received record levels of interest from students this past week. is relatively small, and there is not enough time to train all of the interested students individually.

“Because of the number of people interested in joining the Guild, we have decided to do group lessons for the first two weeks and then do individual lessons,” Han said.

Groups with competitive tryouts have also become more selective due to the increased class numbers and interest levels. Public speaking groups such as Yale Debate Association, Yale Mock Trial and

Yale Moot Court have dozens of students registered for tryouts with only a handful of open spots.

Other groups like Yale Undergraduate Diversified Investments, Yale Alternative Investments and Yale Undergraduate Consulting Group require formal applications with potential interviews.

All registered student organizations have contact information available on Yale Connect.

Contact SELIN NALBANTOGLU at selin.nalbantoglu@yale.edu .

Portable MRIs help doctors diagnose stroke faster

YALE NEWS

Portable MRI devices have the potential to transform stroke diagnosis in hospitals, a recent Yale study found.

BY JASMINE SU CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A recent study from the Yale School of Medicine found that portable MRIs being used at the Yale New Haven Hospital can improve stroke diagnosis and treatment.

MRI, which stands for magnetic resonance imaging, is one of the safest medical imaging technologies currently available, but the cost and size of MRIs often make them inaccessible, even in the United States. Researchers at the School of Medicine found that portable MRIs,

which are small MRI machines that can be rolled to patients’ bedsides, can be used to accurately identify most ischemic stroke cases — those caused by a blood clot. Published in the journal Nature on Aug. 25, the study affirms that portable MRIs can be used to improve the diagnosis and treatment of strokes. “[This research is] the first clinical validation of this novel technology, which can facilitate brain imaging at the bedside. In a nutshell, that’s what we’re doing,” Kevin Sheth, lead author of the study and a professor of neurology at Yale, said.

Conventional MRIs, while safe, are often inaccessible, since they are costly and must operate in a secure and sheltered room dedicated to the device, Sheth said. He added that they also require specialized technicians and specific cooling and electrical requirements.

Portable MRIs overcome several of these challenges and can be particularly useful for stroke diagnosis, the study’s authors said.

Strokes are commonly caused by either a blood clot or bleeding in the brain, each requiring different treatments, according to Mercy Mazurek, a clinical research associate at the School of Medicine and co-author of the study. If a patient with bleeding is mistakenly given treatment for blood clot, their stroke conditions would worsen.

“To put it simply, treatment for ischemic stroke is going to be a countering occasion for hemorrhagic stroke,” Mazurek said.

With the portable MRI, doctors can more rapidly diagnose the correct type of stroke by rolling the MRI machine to a patient’s location — such as directly to an emergency room. By contrast, traditional MRI machines require patients to be transferred from the emergency department to the MRI suite. Patients then have to be physically prepared for a conventional MRI, which includes removing metal objects on their bodies, according to Mazurek, who said that all of this preparation contributes to time loss in diagnosis and treatment.

It takes around 30 minutes to examine a patient with the new portable MRIs, while conventional MRI takes more than double that time, according to the study.

Beyond its applications to stroke diagnosis, the portable MRI can also be useful for COVID-19 patients, Mazurek said. COVID19 patients who have neurological symptoms may need MRI scans but cannot be transported to the MRI suite, as they are sedated and paralyzed for the ventilator.

This problem can also be solved by rolling the portable MRI to the COVID-19 patients’ bedside.

The low cost of portable MRIs also allows the technology to expand beyond clinical settings or to developing countries lacking access to conventional MRIs, according to Mazurek. She added that while traditional MRIs offer high resolution images, they can cost from $1-3 million per machine.

“These portable MRI devices, being less than $150,000, really open up the opportunity to get MRI technology into not only hospitals, but also primary care centers and other resource-limited settings, so that individuals might not need to go to the hospital to get an MRI,” Mazurek said.

Tertiary hospitals — large hospitals that offer specialized care — in the United States often have MRIs, whereas rural or smaller hospitals may not have any imaging technology available, according to Sheth.

He said that patients in these smaller hospitals often have to be

transferred over long distances to hospitals with more resources, which is not always feasible.

Over 50 portable MRIs are currently in use in the United States and internationally, including in resource-limited settings such as Pakistan, Uganda and Malawi, according to Khan Siddiqui, the chief medical officer of Hyperfine, the startup that first produced the portable MRI device. Yale New Haven Hospital was the first place that adopted this technology.

As the use of portable MRIs increases around the world, Sheth said it should complement, not replace, conventional MRI machines. Because portable MRIs produce lower resolution images, they are unable to capture minute anatomical details needed for certain types of diagnosis, according to Mazurek. There are ongoing efforts to improve the image quality of portable MRIs. “We’re saying that, yes, you can use that technology to diagnose and monitor brain hemorrhages,” Sheth said. “Should the sensitivity be even better? Absolutely, it should. Will it be? Absolutely it will be, but work needs to be done.”

The United States has the second highest number of MRIs per capita globally, whereas a handful of countries have none, according to a 2019 study from Columbia University.

Contact JASMINE SU at i-shin.su@yale.edu .

W VOLLEYBALL Brown 3 Bryant 0

W SOCCER (2OT) Columbia 2 La Salle 1

SPORTS MEN’S TENNIS ORANGE LAWN INVITATIONAL SATURDAY Yale men’s tennis is starting its fall season away in New Jersey at the inaugural Orange Lawn Clay Court Collegiate Invitational this weekend. The Bulldogs will compete against Prinecton, Penn and Buffalo.

M SOCCER Vermont 2 Princeton 0

M SOCCER Bryant 4 Brown 2

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FIELD HOCKEY YALE VISITS LAFAYETTE Yale field hockey (1–1, 0–0 Ivy) started its season last weekend with a win over Merrimack and a loss to Fairfield. The Bulldogs play away at Lafayette on Friday night. The Leopards have started the season 3–1 with wins over Hofstra, Villanova and Indiana.

Yale dominates Lagowitz Memorial MEN'S GOLF

“Teenage prospective student-athletes are as in touch with social media as anyone is. [It] is a way to directly reach out and make a strong impression."

BRAD AHERN DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES & DIGITAL STRATEGY

Cross country prepares for HYP on Saturday

BY RYAN CHIAO STAFF REPORTER More than 21 months after their last race, the Yale men’s and women’s cross country teams are readying themselves for their season opener against Harvard and Princeton this Saturday.

XC COURTESY OF COLIN SHEEHAN

After not playing an official competition in 23 months, the Yale men’s golf team secured a win in its first tournament back.

BY EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA STAFF REPORTER The Yale men’s golf team won the Alex Lagowitz Memorial Invitational hosted by Colgate this past weekend in its first competition since October 2019.

The Bulldogs dominated the event, securing a lead in the first round of play on Saturday and padding that lead in the second round later that day. By the time the tournament, which involved three rounds of 18 holes each, ended on Sunday, Yale had a 15-stroke lead over second-place Seton Hall. The win this weekend was the Blue and White’s first team win since April of 2019, when the team won the Princeton Invitational.

“I’m thrilled with how we played as a team this weekend,” men’s golf team member Ben Car-

M SOCCER Cornell 4 High Point 1

penter ’24 said. “Looking down and seeing a blue Y on my ball while playing encouraged me to keep pushing no matter how well I was playing. This week was a great way to kick off our season and show everyone how deep we are as a team.”

The Colgate-hosted tournament pitted 15 different teams — each fielding six players per squad as opposed to the usual five — against each other. At Colgate’s Lagowitz Memorial, the scores of the best four players from each team each round are summed to determine a winner. All seven of Yale’s men’s golf players traveled to Seven Oaks Golf Club in Hamilton, New York, but first year Robert You ’25 competed as an individual this weekend, though he still donned a Yale cap and striped blue polo. A total of 90 golfers competed at the event.

Yale’s best performers this weekend were sophomore Carpenter and captain Teddy Zinsner ’22, who both finished tied for fifth after three rounds. Each boasted a score of 216, which was only two strokes more than tournament winner and Colgate sophomore Dugan McCabe.

“It was very easy to make mistakes on that golf course,” You said. “We played smart in the three rounds and made sure to minimize our mistakes. Some of the greens were very challenging so hitting the ball to the right spot saved us a couple of strokes.”

As a team, Yale led the field in par-four average — the team’s average stroke count for par-four holes across the entire tournament — and finished second in both par-three and par-five averSEE MEN'S GOLF PAGE 10

The Crimson will pose a measured threat to the Eli runners, with both their men’s and women’s teams placing second at the last Ivy Heptagonal held in the fall of 2019. The Tigers’ men’s and women’s squads finished in third and fourth, respectively, while the two Bulldog teams finished in fifth.

Men’s head coach Paul Harkins foresees the Saturday meet as featuring “three of the best teams in the league,” and a chance to “gauge where we are and what we need to do in order to achieve our goals this season.”

“Harvard and Princeton are always tough opponents, so it’s great to start off with this rivalry, but it will also be good for the young guys to preview the course we’ll be running at Ivy League Championships at the end of October,” Harkins said. The race will take place on Princeton’s home turf.

Throughout the fall, the Blue and White will compete all across New England and cross SEE XC PAGE 10

COURTESY OF TOM CONNELLY

The women’s cross country team will begin its season this weekend, its first competition since 2019.

Olympian Laura Zeng ’25 starts at Yale Yalies who rowed in Tokyo reflect on Olympics

BY CARTER DEWEES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

BY NICOLE RODRIGUEZ STAFF REPORTER Out of the 18 Bulldogs who competed in the Tokyo Olympics this past summer, 11 were rowers representing six different countries.

CREW Four of these Olympic rowers spoke to the News about their experiences: Former Yale heavyweight rower Charlie Elwes ’19 represented Great Britain in the men’s eight.

Andrin Gulich ’22, who is currently on a leave of absence, rowed in Switzerland’s men’s four. Current students Christina Bourmpou ’25 and Dan Williamson ’23, competed in Greece’s women’s pair and New Zealand’s men’s eight, respectively. Two Yale rowers walked away with medals: Elwes with bronze and Williamson with gold. Williamson’s

gold is Yale heavyweight crew’s first gold medal since 1964.

“Being amongst the village, in the dining halls with just thousands of athletes at the top of their game from all over the world, from every sport … it’s an extremely stimulating experience to be a part of that group of people and to know that you also belong there as well,” Williamson told the News.

After initially declining an offer to return to New Zealand and prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, Williamson returned home at the onset of the pandemic, where he trained for a year before making it onto the team. In March 2021, he was officially selected into the New Zealand men’s eight, which had not yet officially qualified for the Games. Later in May, the crew competed in Switzerland, and they won one of the last two spots.

SEE CREW PAGE 10

COURTESY OF DAN WILLIAMSON

At the 2016 Summer Olympics, held in Rio de Janeiro, Yale crew was represented by three rowers.

STAT OF THE WEEK

6.44

In early August, Laura Zeng ’25 competed in the Tokyo Olympics as a rhythmic gymnast and seasoned competitor on the world stage. Later that month, her dad had one last piece of advice before he left her at Old Campus: “Enjoy your new life.”

ZENG For Laura, who has been training to become a world-class rhythmic gymnast since her childhood, the transition to life at Yale has come thick and fast. She has competed in two Olympics — 2016 and 2020 — and four World Championships, two of which doubled as Olympic qualifiers. In a historic performance, she swept all five events at the 2015 Pan-American games in Toronto. She was an accomplished youth athlete as well, winning the bronze medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing in 2014. Now, she is a first year at Yale and a member of Ezra Stiles College.

“It still feels kind of surreal that this is going to be my life,” Zeng said. “It can sound kind of intense, but it is a new life.”

Zeng’s parents and sister are Chinese American immigrants, and her performance background began with Chinese dancing, which often involves classical Chinese music and dancing with fans. When a friend in her Chinese dancing class needed a carpool for rhythmic gymnastics, Zeng’s mom offered to drive the pair of kids.

Zeng then picked up gymnastics and did not look back.

For the next two decades, Laura’s routine became “sleeping in the car [and] doing homework in

the car” as her mom drove her back and forth from the rhythmic gymnastics gym, North Shore Rhythmics, near their home in Libertyville, Illinois. She would regularly go to school from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and train for several hours in the afternoon.

“My mom has been driving me around and feeding me, doing everything that I needed in order to continue doing [rhythmic] gymnastics throughout all these years,” Zeng said.

Zeng’s family has always been at the center of her career. She recalls that her mom never pushed her or pressured her to be successful but provided the tools she needed.

Her dad was the “wizard behind the scenes,” the one who guided her through the early years of her career. Zeng’s father sent her to ballet camps and Chinese dancing as a young girl to nurture her talent.

Zeng’s sister, Yecca, is eight years older and watched Zeng grow up.

“From a young age, she always

was very committed to anything that she tried,” Yecca Zeng said.

“She’s always very eager, talented, and driven.”

When she was 12 years old, Zeng began competing internationally, representing the United States on the world stage.

Throughout Zeng’s teenage years, she balanced both gymnastics and school. While some other rhythmic gymnasts switched to homeschooling to focus more on their careers, Laura Zeng continued public high school in Libertyville, even as she would miss weeks at a time traveling internationally to competitions.

Zeng met her best friend, Serena Lu, through rhythmic gymnastics at a developmental camp, designed to set athletes up for the national team track.

“There is a very strong chance that she doesn't actually say how extraordinary she is, but I'm going to say it, because she's one of the SEE ZENG PAGE 10

COURTESY OF LAURA ZENG

Zeng ’25 competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, which could be the end of a lifelong journey through sport.

NUMBER OF DIGS PER SET YALE LIBERO MAILE SOMERA ’24 IS AVERAGING AFTER YALE’S FIRST WEEKEND OF PLAY, SECOND AMONG ALL NCAA D-I PLAYERS THIS YEAR.

WEEKEND

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

// BY AVA SAYLOR

// DORA GUO

PAGE B2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND RECOVERY

// BY AVA SAYLOR I was probably jealous of you this summer.

Of course, I was happy for you too. I saw you on campus taking summer classes, working dream internships, traveling to parts of the world I’ve only ever hoped to see. It was a game of watching and wishing. While I’d love to say that my summer was spent cozying up in Cabo with a book in one hand and a chilled drink in the other, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, I spent my time in and out of hospitals, subjecting myself to countless tests and (the big reveal) getting my head cut open.

On April 22, 2021, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was my second semester at Yale, and I was one of few first years on campus granted housing in response to the University’s COVID policy. I had been having headaches that wouldn’t go away, so the first thing I did (as anyone does) was Google my symptoms. Of course, WebMD told me I was dying, which is something that the average person would typically brush off. This felt different, though; I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

After a few tedious doctors appointments, I was scheduled for an MRI. They said that I’d likely hear the results in a couple days, but as I was walking back from my appointment, just 15 minutes later, I got the call. Two months later, on June 15th, I was asleep in an operating room having the surgery that would save my life.

Recovery was rough. I had to spend multiple nights in the hospital, relearning basic functions like walking and eating. Even after getting discharged, the smallest of tasks seemed impossible. I spent a lot of time in bed, which gave me an abundance of time to think. I’ve condensed these months of thinking into five points.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about being sick: 1.

2.

“Fight Song” by Rachel Platten sucks. No offense to her. Sure, it’s inspirational; it checks every box. In fact, I don’t even know why I hate it. It would’ve been a lot more useful to be able to listen to it and think, “Wow, this song makes me want to keep pushing forward,” or, “Finally, something I can relate to!” But no. Instead, when I hear it, I feel a wave of irritability consume me. It’s inconvenient, especially considering that it’s a universal anthem for individuals battling severe illness. This same thinking applies to the majority of media surrounding this topic. One might believe that books like “The Fault in Our Stars” makes the experience a bit more bearable, maybe even relatable. But in all realness, I got tired of the “sick girl” trope in film and literature really fast (or maybe I’m just upset at my inability to romanticize it).

You get used to tears. First, your own. Then, when those dry, you have the responsibility of jumping from person to person, breaking the news, and drying theirs, too. It’s exhausting. For this reason, I kept it quiet for a while, but there’s a point where the secret can’t be secret anymore. The worst tears came from my mom. May 20th, the

WKND RECOMMENDS Tofu Tender Thursdays.

3.

4.

5.

night I returned from Yale, she sat next to me on my bed as I handed her a binder that read, “Smilow Cancer Hospital: Brain Tumor Center.” The pain was immediate, and I could do nothing to ease it. There’s no guidebook on how to tell someone you’re sick.

Or, maybe there is, and I was just too tired to read it.

Illness is debilitating in more ways than one. Physically, of course, it hurts. Bad. Mentally, however, the pain is unfamiliar. It’s not something I or anyone else around had ever experienced. I wish I was the type of resilient that sparked beauty in the face of adversity. But I’m not. Instead, I let clutter grow around me. I stayed in bed all day because the pain of the situation grew too strong. I hate-listened to“Fight Song” by Rachel Platten. I felt sorry for myself. But there are times where you learn to really value the time you have left and the experiences you share with others, and that’s what kept me going.

It isn’t as much of a scary process as it is a lonely one. Beyond the literal sense of being alone — in conversations with doctors, in waiting rooms, in the countless hours of pointless WebMD research — there’s a more tangible isolation that comes with illness.

Some people hover awkwardly around the situation, unable to empathize. Some people leave altogether. A rare few really stick around, leaving things (mostly) unchanged.

Somehow, regardless of the category, I’m grateful to all of them.

Even though it’s a lonely process, it doesn’t always need to be that way. As a firstyear student thousands of miles away from home, one of my biggest fears was the inability to rely on the people around me, especially since I had only met them a few months prior. However, my classmates and new friends ended up being some of my biggest cheerleaders. People help, even if it’s who you least expect. My biggest tip: Make friends with a philosophy major; they’re the ones that will be able to walk you through life and death.

As I stepped onto campus this fall, I was nearly overwhelmed with emotion. Outside of learning in a classroom for the first time, eating with friends without having to shout over layers of plexiglass and passing by classmates that I had only ever met on a screen, this was the first time I felt healthy here. It’s true that I’ll never be 100 percent better. I’ll probably always have appointments, always have headaches, always have a weird squishy dent on the back of my head. But that’s okay. Even if things aren’t completely back to normal with me, or if I get stuck sleeping on a random couch during a hurricane, or if I bomb my auditions for clubs that are way too exclusive, I can’t complain. I’m healthy, I’m happy and I have a super cool scar with an even cooler story to tell. I couldn’t be more grateful.

Contact AVA SAYLOR at ava.saylor@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B3

WEEKEND SUN

// JESSAI FLORES

A Solar Summer // BY KATE WILLIAMS For many people, the end of the spring came with the birth of new perspectives for the coming months, some hoping for hot girl summers, hot vax summers or healing girl summers. I did not subscribe to any of these outlooks. Rather, my roommate Luka and I created our own throughout the summer, one that we affectionately dubbed as a solar summer.

It all began with the release of Lorde’s first single off her new album “Solar Power.”

We sat crossed-legged on the floor of our kitchen and swayed back and forth to the music, a bonding moment over our favorite artist. What followed were weeks of serendipitous moments that could only be described by a new addition to our vocabularies: solar.

The solar lifestyle focused on warmth and was defined by yellow. I started to take a moment every early morning to watch the beauty of the sunlight beam through the extra tall windows in our living room, creating a calm, blanketed glow. A moment perfectly described as solar.

Our second weekend living together my roommate and I took a day trip to a quaint

town called Niantic. I walked down the stairs, and we both laughed as we realized we were matching in sunshine yellow, not necessarily either of our go-to colors at the time. We decided to grab coffee at a random local shop and once there, realized it was named “Cafe Sol.” The inside displayed countless pieces of art depicting the sun. The coincidence felt too good to be true.

The solar mentality continued to dominate our lives. Our army of Snackpass chickens that hatched during the summer months all have sun-adjacent names, like Sol and Luz. On Tuesday mornings when we were walking back from the grocery store, we would always run into the same woman walking down Chapel Street, listening to music, walking her dog and hula-hooping all at once. Her presence brought so much joy to our morning and her energy was contagious. We quickly decided that she, too, was solar. One night, Luka decided to give me a tarot reading. He let three cards fall out and placed them face down to read my past, present and future. He flipped over the card in the middle and staring back at us was the

WKND RECOMMENDS Hydrating until you self-actualize.

sun card. Solar.

I got through the brutal heat wave in July by thinking about how very solar the whole situation was. We caught so many beautiful sunsets on our evening walks to see two of our friends living on Winchester Avenue. We picked fruit at Lyman Orchards and basked in the idea that the sun drove the biological processes that allowed us to harvest and enjoy it.

Our application of solar became increasingly broad as the summer progressed. One day driving home, we went by the gas station. The broken pump caused gas to spill on my car and pool on the ground next to it. Luka informed me that igniting my car near spilled gas could cause it to combust — a very important piece of information that I somehow missed out on in driver’s ed. I told him to get out of the car while I started it, but he refused. We were in it together. As he was preparing himself for possible doom, I ignited the engine. We looked at each other, still very much alive. I shouted out the sun for evaporating the gas and allowing us to live. Very solar.

The most solar part of the summer, how-

ever, was Luka himself. He is the absolute sunshine of every day and brings light to everyone around him. My less-than-24hour decision to move in with him for the summer turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The morning we moved out, the sun was especially radiant. Luka stopped me as I was driving away and snapped a picture. Later he texted it to me and captioned it “solar,” of course. A very fitting ending to one of the most beautiful of summers.

To me, our solar summer — a partially joking, partially serious theme — was about the adoption of an optimistic outlook on life.

It was an outlook that allowed us to appreciate the little things, laugh about the difficult things and smile even harder at the good things. It reminded me after the past year and a half of uncertainty, loss and wariness that it is still very possible to create joy and brightness in the people, places and experiences around you. Life can always be sunnier — more solar — than it feels.

Contact KATE WILLIAMS at kate.williams@yale.edu .

PAGE B4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND MOVIES

Layers of Moss

// SOPHIE HENRY

// BY CLAIRE FANG “The Green Knight,” directed by David Lowery, is unafraid to subvert cinematic expectations. As a modern adaptation of an old poem, the movie plays with the structure of its source material and various styles of visual representation. For those not familiar with the original poem, Sir Gawain goes on a quest to prove his honor and chivalric worthiness to inherit King Arthur’s crown by playing a deadly Christmas game with a mysterious “Green Knight.” Through his trials, we find that Sir Gawain has a streak of cowardice alongside his chivalric nature, but in the end, the game is revealed to be just a game, and the Green Knight reveals himself to be the helpful Lord Bertilak. It’s an unexpectedly unconventional story, where the hero is not always heroic — in his final confrontation with the Green Knight, Sir Gawain keeps on a magic green sash which shields him from all harm — and the stakes are ultimately toothless.

Arguably, the movie has a more conventional ending given chivalric tropes and moral-

ity tales about bravery and virtue, where Sir Gawain honorably takes off his invulnerability-granting sash and the Green Knight is separate from Lord Bertilak. However, it still stands out as an uncommonly quiet, meditative film for a story about medieval knights. Sir Gawain, portrayed by Dev Patel as a struggling knight, is lost, confused, sad and wet for the majority of the film, but is always hot. That’s not just my opinion; four separate characters in the film show romantic and/or sexual interest in Sir Gawain, and the camera itself lingers longingly over his figure for the entire movie. His form itself is reproduced into art, first as a puppet and then as a haunting upside-down painting — which he poses for in the second-most sexually suggestive painting scene I’ve seen in cinema. This adds a fascinating new layer to his self-doubt: He’s competing not only with the other knights of the Round Table, but also with the representations other people have of him, and on a meta-level, the original Sir Gawain from the poem.

Given the central focus on Sir Gawain,

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and the fractal-like quality of his multiple representations — including visions and hallucinations — in the film, why isn’t the movie called Sir Gawain instead of The Green Knight? There’s a joke about how English classes teach students to overanalyze meaningless segments of literature, down to “Why are the curtains blue?”

Regardless of whether that critique is applicable to the discipline of literary analysis as a whole, it turns out that the color green itself is a major motif for the film, to the point where a character delivers an entire monologue about green. Near the start of the film, after Sir Gawain cuts off the Green Knight’s head, there’s a haunting shot of red blood flooding over a moss-ridden floor, towards an equally plant-eaten axe. It’s a long, long moment — because it’s meaningful. That one image encapsulates the upcoming monologue about how red — lust and life — is inevitably replaced by green — rot, decay, new kinds of life — and could be the thesis statement of the movie as a

whole. And although Sir Gawain rides out with a striking turmeric-yellow shawl at the film’s start, in the end, his most defining article of clothing becomes a green sash, making him, too, a kind of “Green Knight.”

This movie is likely not for everyone; it eschews action scenes for long, lingering silent shots of the wilderness. If I didn’t like this film, I would say that it was a feature-length slideshow of beautiful desktop wallpapers or T-shirt designs. But I do like this film, and so I’ll say that the pauses between action remind me of Shadow of the Colossus’s emphasis on decay — now we’re back to green — nature’s re-taking of a crumbling civilization. No matter how much the characters push towards chivalric ideals — how valiantly Sir Gawain strives for the crown — the moss is always creeping around the corner. And the wilderness is never fully kept at bay.

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