Yale Daily News — Week of Feb. 5

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

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 14 · yaledailynews.com

Skirting state guidelines, Yale vaccinates all medical students

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER The University is using vaccines allocated by the state of Connecticut to immunize all medical students, even those removed from patient contact, in Phase 1a of the state’s vaccine rollout plan.

The decision — which counters the spirit of state guidelines — has raised questions about whether it is equitable to prioritize non-patient-facing members of the population in vaccine rollout at elite, well-resourced institutions.

Maura Fitzgerald, spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, said that the state only intended to include medical students in clinical rotations in Phase 1a. Yale, however, chose to offer vaccine appointments to all medical students.

University officials justified their allocation on the grounds that that all medical students could come into contact with patients.

Additionally, it is difficult to deter-

mine which students might see patients, they said.

“I think there’s a very important balance between equity and efficiency here,” said Howard Forman, a professor at the School of Management and the School of Public Health.

Vaccines should go to the most vulnerable and under-resourced communities first, but the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good, he said. Forman explained further that if there are extra vaccines left over — vaccines come in five- or ten-dose vials that must be used within hours — that might go to waste, they should go to someone even if they are not part of the primary group.

Some students expressed surprise at the plan, saying that a large portion of them do not interact with patients. Others said that the “arbitrary” vaccination plan happened quickly enough for the order not to make a significant difference in COVID-19 immunity.

Per Connecticut guidelines, the first round of vaccines was fast tracked to health care personnel,

which the state defined as people serving in health care settings with the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials. Still, Yale Health, which gets a supply of vaccines specifically earmarked for members of the Yale community, has distributed vaccines to students who do not come into contact with patients, according to a Jan. 4 email sent to those students.

“Please do not exclude yourself from this group even if you are not at this moment caring for patients,” the email reads. “If you exclude yourself from this group, you will lose all prioritization.”

The University decided to allow medical, physician assistant and nursing students to sign up for vaccines in reverse alphabetical order, regardless of whether they came into contact with patients.

All of them have been invited to receive the vaccine over the next eight or nine weeks, according to Chief Executive Officer of Yale Health Paul Genecin.

ERIC WANG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Phase 1a of the state vaccine allocation plan includes people serving in health care settings with the potential for exposure to patients or infectious materials.

That email contradicts what School of Medicine Dean Nancy Brown later told the News in a Jan. 24 email: that Yale Health is offering vaccinations to clinicians, medical students and physician assistants who inter-

act with patients; researchers who are studying COVID19; and clinical laboratory staff who work with samples that may contain live virus.

SEE VACCINES PAGE 4

Orange alert level unchanged since Nov. MLAX: No play in spring, Ierlan to Denver

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER

COURTESY OF RICK BARNES/YALE ATHLETICS

Yale men's lacrosse players shake hands with Pennsylvania State University players after a game.

BY AKSHAR AGARWAL STAFF REPORTER As student-athletes’ fates remain in limbo regarding spring competition, the Yale men’s lacrosse team has officially decided that it will not play

this season due to an insufficient number of players enrolled, according to an email sent from head coach Andy Shay to some alumni of the program. Shay also confirmed in the email SEE M. LACROSSE PAGE 4

As students start the spring semester, local coronavirus infection rates are so high that they might have moved Yale to a red alert on its color-coded COVID-19 alert system, confining students to their dorms and eventually sending them home.

Connecticut’s rolling 7-day average for new cases per day sits at 1,744 as of Sunday — which may have been enough to put the University in its most restrictive red level, according to Richard Martinello, medical director of infection prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital and public health committee member. When Yale first set the orange alert level on Nov. 6, the rolling average was 988, according to a New York Times database.

Despite that growth, the alert level remains unchanged. The numbers are one factor that the committee considers when advising COVID-19 Coordinator Stephanie Spangler on the levels.

Though infection rates have risen, Martinello said that it would not be a good idea to start the semester at

“crisis level,” as it would be challenging to scale up safety protocols should the situation worsen.

“The numbers were only one piece of everything that was leading to those color designations that Dr. Spangler was communicating,” Martinello told the News. “It just really reflects how much COVID is here in Connecticut right now that we’re beyond where we had already set those numbers.”

The committee has not yet discussed whether to recalibrate the alert levels to account for increased transmission in the area, Martinello said. While the committee has met frequently over the past several months, its focus has been on the vaccine rollout and other aspects of the upcoming term, he explained.

SEE ALERT PAGE 4

YALE NEWS

When asked why the University was not at the red alert level, Martinello said it would not be good to start the term at a crisis level.

YCC, GPSS and GSA Yale will not rename Schwarzman Center leaders all women

BY JULIA BIALEK STAFF REPORTER Currently, the three main student governing bodies within the University — the Yale College Council, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and the

Graduate Student Assembly — are all led by women.

This is the first time that this has occurred since the 2007-2008 academic year. Aliesa Bahri ’22 currently serves as the YCC president, Patrice SEE WOMEN LEADERS PAGE 5

YALE NEWS

Stephen Schwarzman '69 has donated almost $4 million to former President Donald Trump’s campaign efforts.

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER COURTESY OF PATRICE COLLINS, ALIESA BAHRI AND MEAGHAN MCGEARY

Patrice Collins, Aliesa Bahri and Meaghan McGeary currently head the three main student governing bodies within the University.

Stephen Schwarzman ’69, chief executive officer of Blackstone and loyal donor to former President Donald Trump and Yale,

CROSS CAMPUS

INSIDE THE NEWS

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1954.

DOWE

Nine Yale students are fined $20 in City Court and convicted for breach of peace, after police officers testify that they had thrown snowballs in their direction.

Andrew Dowe, beloved lecturer, DUS and Office of LGBTQ Resources, leader died unexpectedly this weekend in his home. He was 34 years old.

Page 3 UNIVERSITY

GRAMMYS

will soon formally have his name emblazoned on a building in the heart of Yale’s campus.

But in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots — in which far-right extremists injured 140 police officers and five people died —

The list of 2021 Grammy Award nominees includes 28 Yale alumni, mostly of the School of Music and for classical music categories.

Page 7 ARTS

NHPS

As seven schools in the district confirm COVID-19 cases, parents and city officials remain divided over the New Haven Public Schools reopening plan. Page 8 CITY

some professors have renewed calls on the University to remove Schwarzman’s name from the new student center, now set to open within the coming year. They argue the symbolic cost of Schwarzman’s naming rights may be too high — even when offset by the $150 million donation the businessman gave to the University.

University President Peter Salovey disagrees. In an interview with the News, he said that Yale would not place a moratorium on donations from Schwarzman or rename the Schwarzman Center — actions the University has taken against others in the past.

Schwarzman, Salovey argued, has broken from Trump in the wake of the insurrection.

“I think it’s really important here to report the facts,” Salovey said in an interview with the News. He quoted from statements SEE SCHWARZMAN PAGE 5 VACCINE

Yale’s COVID19 vaccination outreach aims to address vaccine hesitancy and accessibility issues, especially for those disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Page 9 SCITECH

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION G U E S T C O L U M N I S T PA T R I C I A X U

It’s not over yet At the start of Thanksgiving break, I left Old Campus, relieved after a long semester to finally go home and catch my breath. Meanwhile, my cousin was dialing 911 because he couldn’t catch his.

My older relatives don’t speak English, so I called the hospital and learned my cousin had been admitted into the ICU. We were all terrified, but thought that he would get better now that he was in the hospital. Besides, my cousin was in his forties with no pre-existing conditions.

Over the next few days, I called the ICU day and night to get updates. Doctors and nurses reassured me he was stable and being watched closely. In fact, his oxygen saturation had improved since his admission and he seemed to be doing better.

For a while it seemed that he’d be home soon and everything would be okay.

I guess there truly exists the calm before the storm.

Thanksgiving morning, I groggily answered a call at 7 a.m. from a nurse asking if I could get his wife’s consent to insert a central venous catheter so that the ICU staff could deliver his medication effectively and draw blood quicker now that he was sedated. Sedated? Confused, I questioned further — the nurse realized we didn’t know. She apologized profusely, saying they didn’t call me to let me know because my cousin had called someone before it happened. The staff assumed it was to tell us that he had to be emergently intubated.

What a wake-up call.

I found out later that he had called his daughter, who had no idea her father was going to be intubated after hanging up. The nursing staff set up group FaceTime calls so that we could see him and over the week, we watched as COVID-19 increasingly debilitated him. More machines and more tubes appeared on our screens, but my family continued to talk to him in hopes that he could hear us rally for him through his induced coma.

A week after Thanksgiving, the doctor called an emergency meeting with my family.

My cousin had multiorgan failure, oxygen saturation in the 40s, acute respiratory distress syndrome and complete damage to the lungs in his chest x-rays.

Extreme interventions were already too late and too dangerous. They didn’t believe he would make it past the weekend and asked me to translate to his wife if she would consider a do-not-resuscitate order, because no CPR or AED would reverse the damage that COVID had wrecked on my cousin.

His wife needed time to think about it, but she never ended up having enough. The next couple days, we continued to FaceTime,

begging him to hold on. Sunday afternoon as we were calling, the nurse walked in, said something indiscernible to the camera, and hung up.

She never FaceTimed us back.

After grieving with my family, I sat down at my desk to try to do some work, it was reading period, after all. I started to bawl. My cousin and I had spent grueling hours together to build my desk so that I could have a private workspace at home.

Now, the desk stands empty. I can’t sit there without thinking of my aunt and uncle who should have never had to bury their son; my other cousin who lost his beloved twin brother; my cousin’s daughter who can’t have her father send her off when she starts college this fall; and my dear cousin, who knew he would die alone and called his daughter one last time before never waking up again.

I can’t help but spiral into the hypotheticals and whatifs that could’ve prevented his death. What if Hillary Clinton had become president and handled the pandemic? What if the U.S. mandated face masks? What if we enforced social distancing strictly? What if we remained on lockdown longer? What if I had done remote learning at home instead and found out about my cousin feeling sick sooner, so I could’ve pushed him to get treatment earlier?

It’s too late to go back and address the what-ifs of what might have happened and where we would be instead, but we all have power now to change the course of the pandemic moving forward. The U.S. is in its third surge, and we should all know better by now. What’s killing millions of people around the world is not a hoax — it’s a real and horrifically deadly virus that has cruelly ripped away more than 1.5 million lives in isolation.

Your parties, your vacations, your unnecessary gatherings and outings — those can all wait. Anyone, anywhere and anytime, can get this disease and you never know who will join the 1.8 percent of U.S. COVID patients who have lost their lives. Believe in the ruthlessness and deadliness of this virus, and don’t let it waver for a second just because distribution of vaccines have begun. COVID19 is not gone and this pandemic is far from over.

Wear your masks. Wash your hands. Maintain 6 feet from each other. Quarantine yourself if you’ve been exposed. Heed public health guidelines. Remind others to do the same. Prevent the stories of the families of 1.5 million people worldwide — including mine — from becoming yours.

PATRICIA XU is a junior in Ezra Stiles college. Contact her at patricia.xu@yale.edu .

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Taking things the wrong way I watched the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol live on television. It was around 2 a.m., and my dad and I had sat down to watch what we thought would be the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory.

I didn’t really understand the process, so my dad explained it to me as we watched.

As the night began, Nancy Pelosi asked people to get off the floor because of COVID-19 restrictions.

A senator then called a point of information and asked very sassily how he was expected to raise further questions if he wasn’t allowed to get onto the floor. Mike Pence asked him to sit down and shut up in diplomatic language. “This is funny,” I thought.

The night got increasingly less funny. Pro-Trump protesters broke through the barriers the police had put up and entered the Capitol. I watched on live television as they broke windows and stole Nancy Pelosi’s mail. My dad shared photos of the chaos inside the Capitol from Twitter on our family WhatsApp group. “I should write about this,” I texted. “Don’t you dare,” my parents spoke in unison.

The notion that international students are not meant to comment on American politics has followed me for a long time. It began when a Palestinian student was barred from entering the United States over something that one of his friends had put on Facebook in 2019. Subsequently, the United States began to require visa applicants to provide their social media information as part of their applications.

Back when I was applying to colleges, our high school counselors advised us to clean out our social media of anything that AWUOR might seem ONGURU even slightly a n t i -A m e r i The Wild can. “You’re just really vocal West these days,” they said. “You wouldn’t want it getting taken the wrong way.”

The violence at the Capitol, therefore, was out of bounds. I couldn’t risk having a border officer taking offense and canceling my visa. It could mean the end of the American education that everyone around me is so desperate for me to have.

What is it about America that is so inviting, yet so closed off? You can enjoy American freedoms, but not too much. You can talk about America, but only if you are a citizen. What will you do if you are deported? How will your opinions help you?

Monitoring immigrants’ social media is inherently un-American.

America, for a long time, was considered to be the country for immigrants. You could come in search of economic opportunities and find a better life.

But being told not to talk about the Capitol reminded me of all the things that America hides under the facade of being a good place for

immigrants. The truth is, we have always known that this is what America is. A place so centered on the individual that it regularly turns to extremism, to violence, for the sake of personal fulfillment. That same sense of equality we love so much — you can be anything, believe anything in America — is eventually what eats us alive. It is eventually what we see at the steps of the U.S. Capitol, threatening a coup like the ones we see at home.

What is considered un-American, therefore, is more American than you think. Violence and extremism fester in American society under the guise of patriotism.

“American-ness” is a standard that everyone in the world attempts to reach. The insurrection at the Capitol shows that even America fails to reach this standard.

Americans have to start thinking long and hard about what it means to be American. As the Capitol insurrection showed, there is a wrong way. We are at a crossroads: Do we strive for these ideals that we have failed to reach for the past 200 years, or do we abandon them?

One important step is adjusting our attitudes toward immigrants. Do we welcome them with open arms, knowing they will bring new ideas and cultures, or do we view them with suspicion? The way we treat their social media and public opinion is an important start.

AWUOR ONGURU is a first year in Berkeley College. Her column, titled ‘The Wild West,’ runs every other Tuesday. Contact her at awuor.onguru@yale.edu .

Economics for the People Change is coming to economic policy in America, or at the very least, to President Biden’s top economic policy body.

On Nov. 30, Biden and Vice President Harris named social worker and social welfare academic Jared Bernstein as an incoming member of the Council of Economic Advisers, one of the core bodies that advises the President on both domestic and international economic policy.

Bernstein’s nomination is intriguing because of what he is not. It’s often presumed that a terminal degree in economics would be a prerequisite for advising the President of the United States. Another explanation for the proliferation of Ph.D. degrees is that Council members almost always come from faculty positions in academia rather than a career in public policy.

Unlike nearly all of those who came before him, Bernstein does not share in a traditional economic background. In lieu of a Ph.D. in economics, he holds quite possibly the most unconventional academic pedigree in the history of the Council — two master’s degrees in social work and philosophy, as well as a Ph.D. in social welfare. In fact, he appears to have been the first member of the Council to not hold an economics Ph.D. since Kermit Gordon, a member of President John F. Kennedy’s Council in 1961. Gordon never received a Ph.D. Of course, this doesn’t count Bernstein’s immediate predecessor, Tyler Goodspeed, the former acting chair who resigned on Jan. 7 after the insurrection attempt at the Capitol. Goodspeed holds a history Ph.D.; However, he specialized in economic history, and received his bachelor’s degree in history and economics. Meanwhile, Bernstein received his bachelor’s degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music.

Even without an economics degree, Bernstein, whose interest in social work focused on poverty and inequality, has had extensive econometric training. Formerly the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Biden under the Obama administration, Bernstein has also held senior roles at the Eco-

nomic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on lowand middle-income workers; the U.S. Department of Labor; the ConAIDEN gressional BudLEE get Office; and most recently, It’s the Center for complicated Budget and Policy Priorities.

Wi t h h i s arrival, Bernstein and his colleagues will undoubtedly breathe new life — and a new way of thinking — into an institution that has been around since 1946.

Bernstein has argued how traditional economic beliefs — for instance, not allowing unemployment to fall below a so-called natural rate and avoiding high minimum wages — have distinct costs that especially burden vulnerable communities and blue-collar workers.

He has also pushed back against what he dubs “can’t do economics,” which tells “well-meaning, progressive policymakers why they can’t do the things they wanted to do.” For example, “can’t do economics” would argue that excessively low levels of unemployment would lead to high levels of inflation. Instead, Bernstein is in favor of “can do economics,” which promotes solutions like establishing progressive taxation and boosting government investment.

It is clear that for Bernstein, a background in social work and welfare has proven to be essential in making economic policy that works for the people of our nation. In a 2013 interview, Bernstein argued that after graduation, “Every economist ought to be a social worker for a few years.”

Of course, not every economist-in-training must now drop out of their economics graduate programs in lieu of a social work program. One needs to look no further than Bernstein’s incoming colleagues on the Council to see how others with traditional economics pedigrees have also devoted themselves to a similar people-centric approach to economic policy.

Cecilia Rouse, the incoming chair of the Council, has spent a distinguished career researching workers and the obstacles they face. Rouse, the dean of Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, will also be the first Black woman to lead the body. Similarly, Heather Boushey, Biden’s third nominee, is the former president and cofounder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Her latest book discusses the consequences of inequality on the American economy.

Together, Rouse and Boushey, both Ph.D.s in economics, demonstrate that even those who pursue a traditional economics education are changing. In a field historically dominated by white men, these two women spearhead change as much as Bernstein does.

It is clear that Bernstein’s role on the Council complements those of his future colleagues.

Together, Biden’s new team, if confirmed, appears to be the perfect cohort to bring about a new age of economic policy — one that harmonizes economics, public policy and social welfare.

It is a time of economic crisis for our nation. In Dec. 2020, the U.S. economy lost an additional 140,000 jobs, and the pain was concentrated especially for certain groups like Black and Hispanic women. The pandemic has proven that many are suffering not simply because they were left behind, but rather as a consequence of systemic barriers to their advancement.

It is time for change.

We need the social workers as much as the economists in economic policymaking. We need scholars of ethnicity, race and migration as much as scholars of public policy and political science.

We need women, people of color and people who understand what it means to face economic hardship. So to all those who strive towards a more just and equitable future for our nation, I believe Bernstein, Rouse and Boushey’s nomination herald the beginning of a new day for economic justice.

AIDEN LEE is a rising senior in Pauli Murray College. His column, titled “It’s complicated,” runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact him at aiden.lee@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 3

“I love flamenco. It’s very difficult music to sing. But I think of any genre as a snow globe - you don’t admire it for its stillness. You have to shake it up and see how it explodes.” ROSALIA SPANISH SINGER-SONGWRITER

Beloved DUS, Office of LGBTQ resources leader Andrew Dowe dies at 34

BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER Andrew Dowe, lecturer and director of undergraduate studies of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and associate director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources, died unexpectedly this weekend in his home. He was 34 years old.

Dowe initially attended Yale College, earning his bachelor’s degree in African American Studies and WGSS in 2008. After attending the City University of New York for a master’s degree in education, he returned to Yale as a graduate student, jointly studying African American Studies and American Studies. In July 2020, he successfully completed his dissertation on “how discourses of race, gender and sexuality have shaped queer tourism and representations of the Caribbean,” according to Roderick Ferguson, department chair of WGSS and a member of Dowe’s dissertation committee.

“He has touched countless lives through his presence at Yale, as an undergraduate, graduate student, staff member, and lecturer,” wrote Tamar Gendler, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “Yale is immeasurably better from having had his presence on our campus, and immeasurably diminished by his untimely loss.”

Because Dowe attended Yale in different roles, many of Dowe’s Yale colleagues knew him in multiple ways: first as his head of college, then as his colleague. As his professor, then as his creative partner. As his friend, then his co-teacher.

Maria Trumpler, director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources and a senior lecturer of WGSS, initially taught Dowe in a 2007 junior seminar.

“Already impressed by his curiosity, willingness to question

accepted practices, and his joy in living, I then had the pleasure of creating the Office of LGBTQ Resources with him over the next decade,” she wrote to the News in an email. “I and many others treasure both the care and simple beauty of the interior design and the care and simple beauty of the community he nurtured.”

When Dowe attended Yale as an undergraduate, he was a member of Berkeley College and, upon returning, he managed Berkeley’s Senior Mellon Forum — also known as the Berkeley Commonplace Society — where seniors discuss their senior projects.

“Andrew directed Commonplace with a passion and generosity that instilled an endearing kinship among each of our last dozen classes of seniors, as they presented their senior research to each other over catered dinners within the college,” David Evans, head of Berkeley College, wrote in a college-wide email. “Andrew’s personally crafted vision of Commonplace Society focused on positivity and encouragement, laughter and joy.”

In a separate email to the News, Evans added that “Andrew was, and is, so incredibly beloved by all.”

Craig Canfield, who co-taught “Identity, Diversity, and Policy in U.S. Education” with Dowe this past semester, first met him when Dowe returned to Yale as a graduate student, where both became very involved in LGBTQ activities on campus.

While Canfield “never” felt like he enjoyed previous classes he took that were co-taught, teaching the class with Dowe was a completely different experience. He credits this to who Dowe was as a person: someone genuinely supportive of Canfield and their students, always with a “big, bright smile.”

This smile was continuously mentioned amongst the waterfall of tributes dedicated to Dowe.

Ferguson wrote to the News in an email that his smile “bestowed light on everybody around him” and Evans called it “beautiful and infectious” in the college-wide email.

In almost every single photo of Dowe, that smile — so wide that almost all of his teeth are showing — is a constant.

Hector Peralta, a doctoral candidate in American Studies, first met Dowe during a social event for newly admitted doctoral students. “[His] energy and joy as a queer Black man made me feel welcomed at Yale and New Haven,” Peralta wrote in an email to the News.

Students specifically remembered Dowe for his efforts toward a more inclusive campus — bettering Yale, as Peralta noted, for “Black Queer students and other queer students of color.”

In statements sent out by Dean Eileen Galvez, director of Yale’s La Casa Cultural and Dean Joliana Yee, director of the Asian American Cultural Center, both noted that the impact of Dowe’s death will be especially felt by Black students, Black queer students and other queer students of color.

Ferguson, who only recently joined Yale’s faculty, remembers first realizing how “special” Yale’s WGSS program is, a revelation he credits to how much Dowe loved and cared for the WGSS students, attending their extracurricular events and organizing senior celebrations.

Dowe was both a mentor and a friend — someone who shared advice, brought joy to every conversation, gossiped about Rihanna’s nonexistent next album, had an “impeccable sense of fashion” and shared Canfield’s childhood

COURTESY OF OFFICE OF LGBTQ RESOURCES

Dowe graduated from Yale College in 2008 and remained deeply involved in the University until his death. habit of collecting clown figurines.

“He made Yale human,” Ferguson said.

There was a university-wide vigil held over Zoom on Monday night for faculty, students and staff

to share memories of Dowe and be in community with one another.

Over 250 people attended.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu

FAS Senate and Provost hash out faculty buyout plan

VAIBHAV SHARMA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Faculty, led by the FAS Senate, continue to discuss the retirement plan with Strobel and his office.

BY MADISON HAHAMY AND ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTERS Over the past few months, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Senate and University Provost Scott Strobel have debated reforms to a faculty buyout plan that was widely controversial among Yale professors.

The Retirement Incentive Plan, released in August, allows faculty aged 70 and older to accept a one-time payment of $200,000 and retire by June 2021. If the tenured professor’s salary is equal to $200,000, they can receive a oneyear payment to retire. If the sal-

ary is below the threshold, they can earn 125 percent of their salary, up to $200,000. 177 faculty members are eligible for the payout, but they have to sign on by the end of February to secure the benefits.

“Because of the absence of a well-designed retirement plan, the proportion of ladder faculty who are tenured has risen continuously, and 16% of the ladder faculty are currently 70 and over,” a Jan. 21 report from the FAS Senate reads. “We hope that, moving forward, the University will establish a faculty committee that will improve both the process and the substance of retirement plans that are available to the faculty.”

An inter-school faculty working group analyzed the plan and released a set of recommendations to alter it. The faculty objected to the fact that the Provost’s Office did not consult faculty in drafting the plan. Additionally, they were concerned that the buyout set a rigid retirement date. The professors also cited a slew of issues with the financial and tax aspects of the plan.

After the faculty working group released its initial report, Strobel responded in a Dec. 7 email, saying that the administration was aiming to provide an option for faculty experiencing extreme uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. The University does not plan to offer the

option again in the future, he wrote.

The FAS Senate released additional questions and commentary on the plan on Jan. 21, to which the provost will soon reply, Strobel wrote in an email to the News.

One of the faculty’s central qualms with the plan was that it was developed without widespread faculty consultation. 16 percent of Yale’s ladder faculty is aged 70 or older, they wrote, and there is a need for a faculty committee to help form a flexible and generous retirement plan.

Still, Strobel wrote in the Dec. 7 email that he had consulted with Yale’s deans and the University’s Benefits Office in crafting the plan.

“Given the time constraints and the widespread disruptions of the pandemic, I felt that consulting with all the deans and select others provided a solid grounding for what would be a time-limited offer,” Strobel wrote in the email to faculty.

But the FAS Senate noted that though deans are also faculty members, they are part of Yale’s administration and the president’s cabinet. Solely consulting deans “cannot substitute for shared governance,” they wrote.

Strobel invited interested faculty members to speak with the Benefits Office and Vice Provost Emily Bakemeier to clarify any specific reservations they had.

The FAS Senate report, however, noted that the provost’s invitation for faculty members to discuss their complaints with administrators means that individual faculty, who might be unaware of the intricacies of the policies, have the onus of initiating a meeting. The report called this approach “unwieldy and inefficient.” It also noted that there is no central location for faculty to read all of the policies related to retirement, specifically as to how the Retirement Incentive Plan would work with normal post-retirement benefits.

The majority of the provost’s email defended different aspects of the plan, such as its quick conception during the pandemic. However, Strobel did implement one suggestion from faculty to offer alternative payment options other than a lump sum payment. Now, faculty can receive the payment in installments over two years.

“It is not always the case that spreading the payment over two years reduces total taxes for

some individuals,” Strobel wrote, “because the second installment would generate additional employment taxes and potentially expose a retiree to an additional year of income-based surcharges to Medicare.”

Paul Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of history, described a core issue among faculty that the Provost’s response fails to address: that some faculty would still like to teach a course or instruct in a reduced capacity, rather than retiring altogether.

While Yale might be able to address all of the fiscal concerns, Kennedy noted that “many faculty” considered Yale’s approach to a complete retirement “abrupt” and “cold.” “[Faculty] dislike Yale’s ‘once you’re out, you are OUT’ attitude,” he wrote in an email to the News.

James Scott, Sterling Professor emeritus of political science, told the News that he agrees with the concerns outlined by the FAS Senate report. Scott retired at the end of the fall 2020 semester, telling the News in an email that he was already considering doing so, but the incentive package “solidified my decision.”

Further, he called the concerns of the FAS Senate and subsequent communications with the provost an inevitable result of Yale’s “autocratic” governance, one that functions without consistent consultation of faculty, staff and students.

“It raises the vital question of the degree to which a University ought to be run democratically, who precisely are its citizens, and how their power ought to be institutionalized,” Scott wrote to the News.

University spokesperson Karen Peart referred the News to a statement from Strobel in which he described that he and faculty have “had ongoing conversation” regarding the retirement plan.

Most universities have some sort of retirement incentive program in place — some, like Yale, added additional policies due to the coronavirus pandemic. Harvard University, for example, is adding an additional benefit of one year’s pay, on top of their normal retirement package.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu and ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“You know that these two nations are at war about a few acres of snow somewhere around Canada, and that they are spending on this beautiful war more than all Canada is worth.” VOLTAIRE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT WRITER

Equity versus efficiency in vaccine allocation VACCINES FROM PAGE 1 Genecin wrote to the News that vaccinating medical students in reverse alphabetical order was a way to randomize the invitation process and avoid privileging anyone. The University used the same approach to vaccinate health care workers at Yale Health, he added.

Genecin explained in a late January email to the News that all medical students are exposed to patients as soon as they start school, and that who comes into contact with patients can change rapidly. The best way to protect the students was to vaccinate them all, he said.

But in an interview with the News, Sumun Khetpal MED ’21 explained that medical students complete one and a half years of pre-clinical requirements before entering the hospital wards. It is not until the end of their second year and throughout their third year that students rotate through Yale New Haven Hospital and try out different specialties, Khetpal added.

Since receiving their vaccinations, some first-year medical students started having possible contact with patients this week. In the Interprofessional Longitudinal Clinical Experience courses, which were remote in the fall semester and at the beginning of the spring semester, faculty guide

students on how to function in a clinical environment.

Fitzgerald, who is handling COVID-19 communications at the Connecticut Department of Public Health, said that the state’s intention with Phase 1a was to include only medical students in clinical rotations — not those in other stages of their education.

Department Chair of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health Albert Ko said that because vaccines are a limited resource, particularly at the beginning of rollout, the chief public health priority should be to get the vaccine to people who have the highest risk of complications from the disease or of transmitting the virus to others. Ko told the News that health care workers and patient-facing medical students are included in that group.

“We really want this vaccine to go to our nursing home residents, to over seventy-fives, our health care workers,” Ko said. “The integrity of that program is going to be really key for this to be a public health success.”

But Associate Professor of Epidemiology Luke Davis noted that universities have to balance issues of equity with logistics. It is challenging, and potentially not feasible, to determine exactly which medical students might come into

contact with patients, he said.

Additionally, some students may not currently be seeing patients, but would maybe see them in the coming weeks or months.

The decision to vaccinate all medical students regardless of their level of current patient interaction was not the only point of complaint by students. Also puzzling to them was the decision to vaccinate those students in reverse alphabetical order by last name.

When she heard that all medical students would receive the vaccine, even if they are not patient facing, Aminah Sallam MED ’21 was surprised, she said. Yale was still vaccinating residents and fellows when medical students heard they would be getting the shot, too.

“Because they’re doing reverse alphabetical order of all health professional students, there’s a huge portion of those health professional students who, by the nature of the curriculum, do not interact with patients,” Sallam said.

Sallam had been going into the hospital throughout the pandemic, but she was not concerned about catching COVID-19. Because she does surgical rotations, patients she interacts with must have a negative COVID-19 test before their operations.

“That kind of was a source of frustration among students in

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Yale Health extended invitations for vaccine appointments to medical students to get vaccinated in reverse alphabetical order. terms of how arbitrary it felt,” Sallam said. “So you could have a student with a last name that began with A who would be at the end of the line but who would be in the middle of their clinical rotations get their vaccine after a first-year student who never comes into the wards and has a last name that begins with Z or Y.” But Jonathan Avery MED ’21, who is doing rotations at the hospital this semester, said that though in theory the rollout would have disadvantaged him — due to his last name beginning with “A” — in practice, he was still quickly vaccinated. He added

that he does not think he would have had any reasonable immunity earlier if students in the ICUs and emergency departments had been vaccinated first.

Still, Connecticut as a whole has been strapped for vaccine doses — last week, two hospitals in the state had to cancel vaccine appointments due to short supply. According to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, 45 percent of the state’s population aged 75 and over has received their first dose of the vaccine.

Sydney Gray contributed reporting.

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

No spring season for men's lacrosse, star to transfer

COURTESY OF RICK BARNES/YALE ATHLETICS

As of now, the Ivy League has not yet announced whether there will be a spring season but said competitive play will not resume before February.

M. LACROSSE FROM PAGE 1 obtained by the News that TD Ierlan ’21 will transfer to the University of Denver.

“The team had to choose to enroll and quarantine on February 1, and unfortunately, they were not certain that they would be able to play,” Shay wrote in the email. The

Ivy League has not yet announced an official decision on spring competition. “Since they all want at least one more guaranteed season in a Yale Lacrosse jersey, the overwhelming majority decided not to challenge it. They have been incredibly resilient throughout this entire process.”

Shay continued to say that faceoff specialist Ierlan will graduate from Yale but complete his final season at the University of Denver. Ierlan will be a significant addition to Denver, which narrowly won its first game on Saturday. He will be reunited with former Bulldog Jackson Morrill ’20, who captained Yale last season until its cancellation. Former Yale midfielder Lucas Cotler ’20 is also currently on the Denver roster.

Ierlan, perhaps the most decorated collegiate faceoff specialist in history, broke numerous NCAA records during his time manning the X at Yale and was given several All-American honors. The transfer from Albany earned first-team All-American honors in each of his two seasons at Yale and helped lead

the Bulldogs to its second consecutive NCAA championship game during his tenure. He announced last Wednesday that he had entered the transfer portal.

Ierlan — who faced a similar situation in 2020 when the Ivy League canceled spring competition midway through the season — told the News last spring, “If I play again, it’ll be at Yale.” But 10 months later, he’s changed his mind.

“Due to the current state of the Ivy League, I had to enter the [transfer] portal as a backup measure in case they do not feel comfortable with allowing spring sports," Ierlan said last week. "We have received limited information from the Ivy League. … It would be devastating to everyone [if they] decided to cancel.”

Shay emphasized that Ierlan would have played at Yale if it were at all possible, but the team did not meet the minimum of having at least 10 players enrolled. Ierlan said the Ivy League’s lack of a decision and little hope for spring competition is what first drove him

to enter the transfer portal. Despite transferring to Denver, Ierlan will transfer his credits and graduate with a Yale degree.

Nearly two weeks ago, the Ancient Eight released the first update on athletic competition since its November statement that officially canceled winter sports and postponed any semblance of a competitive spring season until at least the end of February. However, the league refrained from making an official decision on the status of competition. It acknowledged that its athletes may need to make enrollment decisions without a concrete plan in place for spring competition, yet the Ivy League Council of Presidents stated that “significant changes in the state of the pandemic” would be necessary before competition can be considered.

Yale Athletics did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.

Contact AKSHAR AGARWAL at akshar.agarwal@yale.edu .

Yale alert level has not moved since Nov. 6 ALERT FROM PAGE 1 Epidemiology professor and Public Health Committee member Albert Ko added that though case numbers are higher in February than they were in August, there is also more confidence in Yale’s risk mitigation efforts.

The experience from last semester shows that the University’s protective measures are largely effective at controlling outbreaks, he said, and there are mechanisms to scale up protection as needed.

Last semester, Yale introduced color-coded alert levels to convey details about the public health situation on campus and in the surrounding area. The alert levels specify stringent guidelines for student behavior. Orange alert — the current level — restricts students living in their residential college to campus, scales down research and moves all classes online. The red alert level, as explained on the University’s COVID-19 website, indicates that there is a higher risk of coronavirus on campus and that there are significant concerns related to available quarantine, isolation or hospital capacity. No gatherings of any size are permitted in the red alert level and students must remain in their dorms until they can return home.

But the designations themselves are governed by less specific metrics. The Public Health Committee, which advises

Spangler, looks at mathematical models when considering what alert level to assign. But the committee does not establish ironclad triggers to move between alert levels, instead considering a broader set of data to offer them more latitude in decision-making.

The Public Health Committee considers three principal factors when deciding whether to place residential colleges into lockdown or to send students home, Dean of the School of Public Health Sten Vermund said. It looks at the rates of transmission in the community, the number of students who test positive and are in isolation and the number of students who have been exposed and are in quarantine.

Similar to the fall term, the committee did not assign fixed values or thresholds that would require students to finish the semester from home for the spring, Vermund said. That approach affords them flexibility based on how the numbers are trending.

The committee does not finalize specific, automatic triggers for changes in alert level, Spangler told the FAS Senate at its Nov. 19 meeting. At the start of the fall term, the committee was most concerned about rising case numbers among undergraduates.

That later shifted to worries over higher rates in the New Haven community that could spill over into Yale.

Ko offered multiple explanations as to why the alert levels are not governed by specific numbers.

One reason is that Yale is connected to parts of the country beyond New Haven, Ko said. If there are few cases in New Haven, but a large outbreak in New York, Yale might want to “pull the trigger” on more aggressive preventative measures earlier.

Another reason for the flexible thresholds is that Yale, and the United States in general, has imperfect data on infection levels, Ko said. Though undergraduates are tested twice weekly, dining and environmental services staff are not required to be tested as frequently.

Additionally, Ko said, the models rely on a specific transmissibility of the virus. He thinks that there is community transmission of the B.1.1.7 variant in Connecticut and suspects there are more cases that are not detected because there is not a widespread genomic sequencing program. He also would not be surprised if the variants first identified in Brazil and South Africa turn up in Connecticut as well, Ko said.

The big question, Ko said, is whether the variant will exponentially drive up case numbers and hospitalizations. Already, case numbers are higher than they were in August. For this reason, it makes sense to start the semester in orange alert instead of in yellow alert — how last semester started, he said.

Ko said he does not speak on behalf of the entire Public Health Committee.

“My own concern is what we should be doing to protect not just faculty but ancillary staff: the administrators, the people that are coming in and most at risk, people who do the shipping and the deliveries, people who work in the dining halls,”

Ko said. “How are we protecting them? Those are the questions that concern me, that keep me up.”

Yale has had a total of 156 COVID-19 cases since the start of January, per its COVID-19 dashboard.

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

ANASTHASIA SHILOV/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

The Public Health Committee has not yet met to revise the University's COVID-19 alert level, according to Martinello.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.” LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN AUSTRIAN-BRITISH PHILOSOPHER

All women atop student body orgs WOMEN LEADERS FROM PAGE 1 Collins GRD ’22 currently serves as the GPSS president and Meaghan McGeary GRD ’22 currently serves as the chair of the GSA. All three women spoke to the News about what having all three bodies led by women means

for the University’s progress toward gender equity.

“I don’t know how many students across the University know that they have all women leaders right now representing student issues,” Collins told the News. “I think it’s great that we spread that awareness, and I think

that it’s important that we have more women at the table to help contribute to our overall success.”

As GPSS president, Collins primarily serves as a liaison for communication between the University administration and graduate and professional students, advocat-

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The YCC, the GPSS and the GSA are the three main student governing organizations at Yale.

ing for solutions to student concerns and needs. Specifically, Collins mentioned her work making sure that Black students’ needs are being met, a task which she said has been amplified since the death of George Floyd this summer. Collins is the first Black woman president of the GPSS. The GPSS is composed of senators from all of the professional schools, including the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The GSA solely represents students from the graduate school.

Similarly, as GSA chair, McGeary explained that her role requires that she serve as the “primary advocate and interlocutor” between the GSA and the University administration. Both Collins and McGeary described their motivations for wanting to lead their respective governing bodies as rooted in their desire to make a difference in the lives of students.

According to Bahri, her role as YCC president involves advocating to Yale College on behalf of undergraduates and facilitating collaboration among students to tackle the challenges they face. Although McGeary, Collins and Bahri all have their own duties within their respective governing bodies, they often coordinate and work together on policy initiatives. For example, Collins noted that the three women worked together to provide free menstrual hygiene products to students across campus.

“I hoped to serve as YCC President to better support an undergraduate community that I am really grateful to be a part of,” Bahri wrote in an email to the News. “I am grateful to be able to see and work with women serving at the highest echelons of student government. Patrice and Meaghan have been wonderful to work with!”

Both Collins and McGeary expressed gratitude for female mentors within the Yale administration.

Both women expressed their belief that having these mentors — women such as Secretary and Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff-Crews and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Lynn Cooley — has provided them with strength, guidance and support as they work to represent their respective student populations.

“It’s especially empowering to see strong female leadership within the University administration,” McGeary wrote in an email to the News. “I have learned a lot as a leader, speaker and advocate from Dean Cooley and Vice President Goff-Crews, both phenomenal role models and leaders at Yale and in the broader academic administration, and whom I seek to emulate in many ways.”

For her side of it, Goff-Crews told the News that she is “very glad to know” that the students regard her as a mentor.

Additionally, she commended all three women for their talent, communication abilities and dedication to advocating on behalf of their constituents during a challenging time for students.

“Their elections reflect not only their talent and ability, but also the reality that most young people will choose the person that they think best situated to represent their interests, regardless of gender,” GoffCrews wrote in an email to the News.

“While society as a whole has made progress, and we can celebrate our first woman vice president of the United States, I think we can take a lesson from our students.”

2019 marked the 50th anniversary of coeducation in Yale College and the 150th anniversary of women students at the University as a whole.

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

Faculty critical of Schwarzman, Salovey declines to take action SCHWARZMAN FROM PAGE 1 that Schwarzman made on Nov. 23 and Jan. 6. “He’s saying here, within weeks of the election, that the outcome is very certain and the country should move on.”

Some faculty remained critical of the decision in the wake of the election.

“I think that the affront that many people in the University community feel by having that center named for a figure like him is a cost that ought to be weighed against $150 million,” said Matthew Jacobson, professor of American studies, African American studies and history.

Yale has dealt with controversy over names and donations before. In 2017, Yale renamed Calhoun College to Grace Hopper College. At the time, a committee set forth guidelines on the principles of renaming — which they write is sometimes justified, but only in exceptional circumstances.

And in 2019, the University declared a moratorium on accepting donations from Sackler family members, due to their role in causing the opioid crisis through their pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma.

Schwarzman’s behavior in the aftermath of the election last fall has renewed calls for the University to take similar actions.

In a Nov. 6 meeting among top executives and academics, Schwarzman noted that the American public felt skeptical seeing votes coming in for Biden in areas where Trump had taken an early lead. Articles about the meeting reported that Schwarzman had defended Trump.

On Nov. 23, Schwarzman’s name was absent from a letter, signed by more than 160 top executives, that demanded the peaceful transition of power. Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president, signed the letter.

That same day, Schwarzman released a statement saying that he was “trying to be a voice of reason” at the meeting, and noting that the election outcome was certain and the country should move past it. Blackstone spokesperson Tom Clements said Schwarzman’s individual statement was “more targeted” than the group letter.

On Jan. 6, Schwarzman criticized the Capitol attack as an

“insurrection” and an “affront” to democratic values, but he did not directly denounce Trump for inciting the violence, the New York Times reported.

Salovey said that he read the statement differently, interpreting it as Schwarzman explicitly calling out Trump and tying the insurrection to the former president’s statements.

In an email to the News, Clements wrote that Schwarzman assisted the Trump administration with economic policy and trade, and not with politics.

Schwarzman and Trump have not spoken in more than six months, and Schwarzman last donated to the presidential race in January 2020, Clements continued.

Still, professors disagree with the notion that Schwarzman’s allegiance to Trump should be ignored.

Mark Oppenheimer, program manager of the Yale Journalism Initiative, said any moves by Schwarzman

— who has donated almost $4 million to Trump’s campaign efforts — to distance himself from Trump came “too little, too late.”

“I have no problem with Yale accepting donations from people whose politics I disagree with,” Oppenheimer said. “It would be absurd to think that only people with a particular set of politics or views of the world could give money to a college.”

But Schwarzman is a special case, Oppenheimer said, because the executive has been a strong financial supporter of someone who tried to thwart the free democratic process of U.S. elections. Oppenheimer added that Salovey should ask the financier to remove his name from the building, and Schwarzman should comply.

In an email to the News, Clements said that Schwarzman issued multiple statements calling for the peaceful transition of power.

“Steve believed in the mission Yale presented when he was asked to support the new center and continues to believe that it will do great things for the Yale students, faculty and broader community,” Clements wrote. “While Steve disagreed with a variety of President Trump’s statements and policies, he — like 74 million Americans — supported President Trump because he believed his economic agenda provided the best path forward for our country.”

Clements added that “supporting the policy priorities” of a single political party “should not be grounds to undermine efforts” that aim to enhance Yale life.

But Oppenheimer said that the University has historically named its buildings after individuals who espouse values community members can aspire to.

Particularly distressing to him is that the new student center will paint over the name Commons

with Schwarzman’s surname, Oppenheimer added. The University’s largest dining hall traditionally brought together people ranging from first years to faculty.

Though the dining hall within the Schwarzman Center will still be called Commons, the name Commons said something about the University’s democratic values, Oppenheimer said.

“I’m not sure what Steve Schwarzman represents that we can aspire to aside from his checkbook,” Oppenheimer said. “Ben Franklin, Pauli Murray, Jonathan Edwards [and] Steve Schwarzman, which one does not belong?”

Other Yale professors — including Gregg Gonsalves, Jason Stanley and Samuel Moyn — have tweeted about Schwarzman and Yale’s ties to him in the days since the election.

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

LUCAS HOLTER/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

University President Peter Salovey told the News that Yale would not place a moratorium on donations from Schwarzman or rename the Schwarzman Center.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Yale affiliates one step closer to explaining food allergies

BY AMRE PROMAN STAFF REPORTER An article recently published in the scientific journal Cell provides new clues to the mystery behind food allergies by examining the workings of what the authors label as a biological food quality control system — which is intended to regulate the quality of food we consume.

Written by four Yale affiliates, this article delivered a novel perspective on why food allergies exist and suggests why they may exist at higher-than-average rates in industrialized nations.

The authors proposed that allergies, like many diseases, are caused by a malfunctioning food quality control system.

“We are trying to … generate a new framework or a new way of thinking about food allergies to help researchers and clinicians,” said William Khoury-Hanold GRD ’16, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Ruslan Medzhitov and an author of the article. “Immunologists … are still trying to really break ground on really understanding why people get allergies and what they’re there for.”

According to the article’s authors, allergic reactions are an overly severe immune response triggered by a food quality control system. Assistant professor of life sciences at Arizona State University, Esther Florsheim, explained that the system consists of the immune system and other bodily systems that regulate the quality of the food people ingest.

One example of how the system works as intended is when people avoid foods with unpleasant tastes, such as bitter fruits which contain compounds that would disrupt the body’s ability to digest protein, according to Khoury-Hanold.

“That’s a big problem for an animal,” Khoury-Hanold said.

“So those compounds would disrupt digestion of protein and that would be undesirable in terms of an animal’s lifetime. And in terms of evolutionary history, if a species fails to deal with it and keeps using that thing as a food source, it’s not going to be very successful.”

People’s tendency to find these foods extremely unpleasant to eat causes them to avoid the foods and their harmful effects. Further along the digestive tract, other cells sense the toxicity of digested food and have a low threshold for what they deem worthy of expulsion from the digestive or respiratory tract.

In essence, allergies exist when this powerful system is wired to react to what are normally benign substances, according to the article. Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish and shellfish are cited by the article as the eight food groups which account for the majority of allergies.

Given that this sensitivity to certain foods is specific to different individuals, the article proposes that the allergic reaction that follows is the body’s immune response.

“In certain people, [the immune response] becomes exaggerated,” said Zuri Sullivan, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the fourth author of the paper.

“And that’s sort of the basis of why we experience food allergy.”

It remains unknown why the immune system is wired to react to these certain foods. According to Florsheim, the first possibility is that certain foods are more toxic than we realize. The article cites one example as walnuts, which produce toxins meant to ward away predators — but the toxins may cause minimal damage to human cells.

The other possibility, Florsheim explained, is that the body uses certain foods as proxies for noxious compounds. One example may be oysters, which are known to carry many viruses. “[Feeling] sick when you eat an oyster,” Florsheim said, “will later cause your senses to tell you, ‘Be careful because when you ate this last time, there was something that triggered this response. … So, maybe don’t eat that.’”

The article’s proposed cause for allergies is vitally important in a time where food allergy rates are on the rise. One theory in the article sought to explain the increased rate of allergies in industrialized nations: the hygiene hypothesis, which links increasing allergy rates to increasingly hygienic living environments.

Essentially, when human environments are more sterile, children are less frequently exposed to the pathogens that the immune system is designed to handle. This limited exposure causes the immune system to function improperly.

“They’re sort of parallel systems,” Sullivan said.

“The hygiene hypothesis tries to explain our relationship to microbes from an evolutionary perspective, and this food quality control hypothesis tries to explain our relationship to food in a sort of analogous manner.”

The danger posed by allergies is the “collateral damage” incurred in the process of the immune response through severe allergy-related symptoms, according to Khoury-Hanold. He added that mitigating this collateral damage will be the goal of future researchers and clinicians and that doing so will require a greater understanding of the origins of allergies. This future research is especially important as allergies

VALERIE NAVARRETE/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

become more prevalent in human populations, the article states.

Another implication of the article is that to better understand allergies, scientists must work to better understand the gastrointestinal tract and the specific functions of the food quality control system. Florsheim explained how there are some simple questions about the system that scientists are still not able to answer, such as how many cell types exist in the tract and what each of their functions is.

“People, I think, overlook or underestimate how much we

actually, indeed, know about [the GI tract],” Florsheim said. “There are lots of things that we don’t know yet. … To integrate neuroscience, animal behavior and immunology and physiology, those things combined, I think, can give us a lot more.”

According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, over 50 million Americans experience some form of allergy each year.

Contact AMRE PROMAN at amre.proman@yale.edu .

Yale postdoc wins first Cell Press Rising Black Scientists Award

BY ANJALI MANGLA STAFF REPORTER Chrystal Starbird, a postdoctoral fellow who works in the Ferguson Lab at the Yale Cancer Biology Institute, recently won the first Cell Press Rising Black Scientists Award. Her winning essay detailing her experiences as a person from an underrepresented group in science will be published in the February issue of the journal Cell.

The Rising Black Scientists Award comprises a $10,000 award and access to $1,000 in scientific materials, along with increased professional visibility for the scientist who wins. According to Starbird, the benefits of the award extend to a building relationship between the winner and the editors of Cell Press who can act as mentors, which is significant for propelling one’s scientific publishing career. The award was created in 2020 with a mission of breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for professional development while making science more inclusive.

“I wrote an essay that will come out February 18th that is actually personal, but I was really happy to write it,” said Starbird, who was a founding member of the Yale Black Postdoctoral Association last year.

“From my perspective, I always felt like I was a true outlier in science.

Writing something like this lets other people know even if they’re not Black, if they’re just from a low-socioeconomic background, you know if they’re LGBTQ, whatever it is that makes them feel like an outlier or that their cards are stacked against them, that they can succeed.”

The essay details Starbird’s educational journey to gaining her doctorate. While raising three children during graduate school and often feeling like she was the only one who looked like her in scientific spaces, Starbird relied on her optimism and perseverance to finally graduate and perform research on structural biology at Yale.

Starbird reflected on her experience at Yale for the last 3 and a half years as a postdoctoral fellow in a positive light. The University’s vast resources are shared among laboratories, which allows for collaborative research. Starbird works in the lab of Kathryn Ferguson GRD ’96, associate professor of pharmacology.

“It has been a huge pleasure to have Dr. Starbird in my lab-

has fostered professional relationships crucial to her journey in pursuing faculty positions.

“There are a lot of things that make me an outlier in science,” Starbird said. “I saw almost zero Black faculty the entire time I was coming up through the academic pipeline. I only saw them at conferences. I never actually directly through my institution interacted with one or saw one

networking and opportunities for Black scientists. Together, in August of 2020, they founded the Yale Black Postdoctoral Association.

Starbird met Fernandez and Davis-Reyes through the Black Lives Matter subgroup of the Yale Postdoctoral Association, which formed after the killings of George Floyd and other Black victims of police brutality. The 3 connected after discussing what they wanted

SUSANNA LIU/SENIOR ILLUSTRATOR

oratory,” Ferguson wrote in an email to the News. “She was already well-trained as a scientist when she arrived at Yale and works very independently in my laboratory. I look forward to our regular conversations about how things are progressing in her research, at the scientific and experimental levels.”

Starbird emphasized the importance of awards like the Rising Black Scientists Award, which has increased her visibility and

that exemplified what I hoped to be doing in the future. Graduate school’s hard for anybody, but you have to constantly be telling yourself that even though you don’t see anybody like you succeeding, you can.”

During her time at Yale, Starbird and two other Black female postdocs — postdoctoral associate Aileen Fernandez and postdoctoral fellow Brionna Davis-Reyes — realized the need for an organization that advanced their cause for increased

to do with the group, realizing they all wanted to focus their efforts on the retention of Black scientists.

“There is this recruiting effort that happens everywhere, but there isn’t an effort to change the culture,” Fernandez said. “So, you can recruit as many people as you want, but if the culture is terrible, how are you going to keep the people that you’re recruiting?”

Fernandez explained that she and Davis-Reyes were new to Yale at the time and that Starbird was “a natural

born leader,” who helped the three of them contact the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Yale School of Medicine. From there, the three scientists formulated a plan for creating the Yale Black Postdoctoral Association, or YBPA. Although the YBPA was formed less than six months ago, it has already undertaken many initiatives. Three of its projects include the Visibility Committee, Outreach Committee and Professional Development Committee.

Through the work of the Visibility Committee, the YBPA launched an Emerging Scholars Program, where they invite Black scholars — typically postdocs or young faculty members — to give a general talk to showcase the excellence of various Black scientists to the Yale community. They also fundraised over $3,000 for a food bank in New Haven around the holidays last year.

Within the Professional Development Committee, the YBPA tries to select speakers who can discuss specific topics regarding Black scientists navigating professional spaces.

For example, Raven Baxter, a science communicator and molecular biologist, was recently invited to talk about unapologetically being themselves within a professional environment. In January, the YBPA also collaborated on the Intersection Science Fellows Symposium, which aimed to gather postdocs preparing for the job market to give talks and highlight their work.

“Chrystal, she’s definitely our de facto leader, as she’s really well plugged into everything,” DavisReyes said. “Awards like this are so necessary, although better late than never. People have been saying they’re inspired by her, and seeing her in that position getting that recognition has a positive effect on all of us.”

Starbird researches the structures of cell-surface receptors targeted by immunotherapies in cancer treatment.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

ARTS Over two dozen Yale affiliates nominated

for 2021 Grammy Awards

BY MARISOL CARTY STAFF REPORTER The 2021 Grammy Awards list of nominations, announced in late November, includes 28 Yale affiliates.

Each year, the Grammys recognize notable musical artists, recordings and compositions in a ceremony where winners are determined by a vote of Recording Academy members.

This year’s awards ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, will be held on March 14.

Many of the Yale-affiliated nominees

are graduates of the School of Music.

Several were nominated as part of musical groups, including the Oregon Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Still others were chosen as solo musicians or as part of chamber music ensembles.

“It wasn’t even on my radar,” cellist Brandon Vamos MUS ’94 said. “We make recordings every year, and to get that [Grammy nomination] call out of the blue was a shock and really exciting.”

Vamos is part of the Pacifica Quartet, whose album “Contemporary Voices”

secured a nomination for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.

Vamos recalled forming the Pacifica Quartet during his time at Yale and holding the first rehearsals in his New Haven apartment. Vamos noted that in its early days, the quartet moved across states for music competitions, with members rehearsing six hours a day.

Now, they hold a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance from 2008 along with their 2021 nomination.

Another nomination, for Best Orchestral Performance, went to the LA Philharmonic, whose roster includes four Yale alumni — Paolo Bortolameolli MUS ’13, Vijay Gupta MUS ’07, Edith Markman MUS ’73 and David Howard ’77 — and Jin-Shan Dai, who studied at the School of Music but left before graduating.

“It’s a source of pride to be recognized for something that you’ve done within the community,” said Howard, who plays clarinet in the orchestra.

Howard added that the nomination is meaningful because the jury that determines the nominations is composed of professional musicians. “Your peers have listened to it and decided that it’s worthy of nomination, so that’s a good feeling,” Howard said.

Howard noted that the LA Philharmonic’s nomination was likely due to its “impressive” performance of the complete symphonies of American minimalist composer Charles Ives, class of 1898, an uncommon choice for orchestras.

Howard added that the LA Philharmonic is unique because its performance repertoire includes a large proportion of contemporary music.

Composer Lori Laitman MUS ’76 wrote several pieces on singer Stephen Powell’s “American Composers At Play” album, which was nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.

Laitman, Howard and Vamos all said their Yale experiences greatly influenced their careers and Grammy nominations.

Laitman said a Yale course, “Writing Music for Film and Theater,” influenced her career “more than anything else.”

Laitman said the class taught her how to write dramatic music, which became an essential lesson in helping her write music to be sung.

Howard, who majored in Russian literature during his undergraduate years, said his music education was largely self-motivated. His first professional job was in New Haven — a position in the New Haven Symphony Orchestra that he held during his time at Yale.

“I can remember walking across campus on a cold evening — cold was really cold — to find a deserted classroom to practice in the night,” he recalled.

According to Vamos, it was during his time at Yale that he developed the desire to perform in a chamber ensemble rather than a large orchestra. Years later, he still maintains the same passion for chamber music — relating his musical experience in a string quartet to having dialogue in a conversation.

“Those three years [at Yale] were a big part of my development and education,” Vamos said.

This year will mark the 63rd Grammy Awards ceremony.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS

New exhibition at Artspace exhibits ‘Modicum’ of art

COURTESY OF ARTSPACE AND YAWEN ZHANG

BY ANNIE RADILLO STAFF REPORTER A new exhibition at Artspace New Haven titled “Modicum” features work that — despite incorporating all manner of found materials — is all flat.

The exhibition, on view from Jan. 29 to March 13, displays works by 10 artists: Yura Adams, Jennifer Davies, Erin Koch Smith, Jenny Krauss, Nate Lerner, Barbara Marks, David Ottenstein, Gerald Saladyga, Barbara Weissberger and Yawen Zheng. Visitors can view “Modicum” from Wednesdays through Saturdays between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. The featured artworks in “Modicum” offer a glimpse into the artistic styles of different artists, with an often unconventional approach to various mediums.

Curator Sara Salamone, who is also founder of the Queensbased Mrs. Gallery, said the exhibition’s title was chosen because it denotes a “small quantity of a particular thing, especially something considered desirable or valuable.”

Works in the exhibition were selected from Artspace’s “Flatfile

Collection.” Flatfile is a filing cabinet at Artspace containing 2D art submitted by local and regional artists. These portfolios are often used to create fully fledged exhibitions at the gallery.

Salamone, who selected pieces for the exhibition, said the submissions were “wide and diverse.” In making her final decisions, Salamone aimed to highlight artists that were disciplined with a “keen awareness” of their artistic mediums.

Artworks in the exhibition demonstrate an unconventional and experimental approach with mediums. For example, Gerald Saladyga’s work plays with press release images purchased on eBay. Yura Adams described her work as a “running conversation” between photography, digital art, drawing and painting. And Barbara Marks repurposes pellet-gun targets as canvases for bright marker drawings.

“Superimposing my drawings on the spent pellet-gun targets elevates them from [waste] to keepable objects,” Marks said.

Besides pellet gun targets, Marks also uses the “collapsed, disassembled packaging” from ordinary objects such as bar

soaps, crackers, toothpastes and sandwiches for her art.

Adams’ displayed art shows two different artistic styles: digital prints and drawings. The digital prints, titled “Recombinants,” are images that Adams created on her computer using her painting excerpts and photography work.

Adams’ drawings, which also contain photographic elements, reveal her mechanical drawing process.

Saladyga’s pieces also incorporate multimedia. He enlarges images of landscapes from press releases on heavy-duty watercolor paper. The final result looks both technical and detailed as well as dreamy and fantastical.

“It is like play time,” Saladyga said, while describing his creative process. “Once I fasten the photograph down, I have to make a decision and place a mark of some kind on the paper and hope it is in the right place, angle and size and from there let imagination take over.”

The works exhibited by Ottenstein and Lerner are entirely photographic. Both artists hope these images will invite their audiences to pay closer attention to the world around them and devise new ways

of seeing. Lerner noted that most of his work looks at “attentiveness as a mode of being.”

While Ottenstein’s work thematically examines the landscape and the way it is perceived, his works also invite audiences to be attentive and reflect.

“My intent is not to judge,” Ottenstein said, “Neither to condemn nor to celebrate — but to point out, to say, ‘take a look at this.’”

But the exhibition only shows a fraction, or “modicum,” of the featured artists’ work. Saladyga said he hopes visitors won’t limit their exploration of the exhibition’s artists to only what they see in the exhibition, but instead use artists’ websites and social media platforms for a deeper appreciation of their work.

“I think it is difficult for any viewer to make any fast opinions seeing just two works,” Saladyga said.

Artspace will host a virtual artist talk on Zoom later in February, at a date still to be determined.

The gallery will also post interviews with each artist on its website through March 13.

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

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHT

Parents, city officials divided over NHPS reopening plan

BY CHRISTIAN ROBLES, CLAIRE FANG AND CLAY JAMIESON STAFF REPORTERS AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Jan. 19, most elementary New Haven Public Schools partially reopened for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit last March. Since then, a combined total of 10 students and teachers have tested positive for COVID-19 and 131 have gone into quarantine, according to the most recent data from the district’s COVID-19 dashboard.

The positive tests were confirmed at seven different NHPS schools, added to ongoing concerns about the risks associated with and levels of communication in the district’s hybrid reopening plan. And while some parents and officials claim that the district’s COVID-19 plan is irresponsible in light of the pandemic, others say they trust NHPS’ decision to reopen schools.

“I would love [NHPS] to be more transparent, and to really use the parents,” said Magaly Vega, a parent of three Barnard Environmental Science & Technology School students. There has been one confirmed COVID-19 case at Barnard.

Conversations around the district’s reopening plan began late last year. In a New Year’s Eve letter from Superintendent Iline Tracey, NHPS announced that it planned to partially reopen elementary schools, special education programs and the New Arrivals program for English language learners. Under the district’s plan, students can opt into the partial reopening by returning to school for in-person learning for four days a week. On Wednesdays, schools are closed for “deep cleaning.”

On Jan. 14, prior to the schools’ reopening, community leaders and organizations including the New Haven Federation of Teachers, the New Haven Public Schools Advocates and the Citywide Parent Team signed a letter that urged the district to delay their school reopening plans. This letter expressed concern for the lack of “centralized guidance” concerning the reopening.

“The current New Haven Public Schools’ reopening proposal is missing critical information that puts lives at risk,” reads the letter.

“The New Haven Public Schools would be negligent to reopen in the absence of centralized guidance.”

Despite this criticism, the district moved forward with the reopening.

Tracey said that with funding and months of preparation, the district, with the support of the New Haven Health Department, has made sure schools are safe to reopen.

This is not the first time that NHPS has been criticized for its reopening efforts. In September, NHPS reopened schools only for special education. Two months later, First Student — bus drivers for the children attending school — disclosed that 27 of its drivers tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a birthday party. The revelation led to criticisms about the bus company’s use of Zoono, a disinfectant that is not an EPA list-N disinfectant, the category shown to be effective against COVID-19.

“The buses are not being properly cleaned, so that was a big red flag for me,” Vega said.

Vega is one of many NHPS parents who declined to enroll their children in hybrid learning on Jan. 19. She told the News that the recent COVID-19 case at Barnard has only made her “more confident” in her decision.

Vega is not the only parent with concerns about NHPS’ reopening plan. In January, the NHPSA published a COVID-19 reporting form to allow community members to anonymously report concerns related to the hybrid school reopening.

“There were a lot of concerns, outstanding questions about [COVID-19 safety] protocol in schools,” said Sarah Miller of the NHPSA. “In the absence of clear, comprehensive [COVID-19 safety] guidelines, we’ve created a way for people to report issues, problems, they’ve heard in schools.”

On Jan. 31, NHPSA published a summary of questions and concerns from the form, which Miller said has been shared with the superintendent and the Board of Education. The summary calls for elected officials to produce “up-to-date, centralized guidance on infection control” and includes 25 different topics of concern.

In an interview with the News, Miller highlighted some of NHPSA’s questions over the safety of the reopening. These included concerns about the large size of

DANIEL ZHAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Recent COVID-19 cases in New Haven Public Schools have caused some parents to reiterate growing concerns. some classroom cohorts, the type of personal protective equipment available to students and staff, social distancing enforcement, delays in contact tracing and lack of transparency about COVID-19 cases at individual schools. She added that she is troubled by the lack of one clear centralized document that outlines all of NHPS’ COVID-19 safety protocols.

Superintendent Tracey confirmed in an interview that she has seen the letter from NHPSA. Tracey said that NHPS families “don’t have much to worry about” when it comes to sending their child back to school.

She claimed that after months of preparation and thousands of dollars, the city has overcome the challenge of making sure schools are safe to reopen.

Tracey said there was disinformation — that the city is not ready to reopen and does not have an adequate plan — circulating, which she said was creating divides in the community.

Tracey reaffirmed her commitment to transparency surrounding COVID-19 cases and stated that the district continues to have the support of the New Haven Health Department.

But even within the Board of Education, there have been calls

for clearer messaging from NHPS and more consistent protocols.

Board of Education member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur said that she would have liked to have seen a more centralized, district-wide plan on handling coronavirus exposures and infections, as well as more personalized communication from the school system.

“I think we need to be extremely transparent and overly reassuring,” said Jackson-McArthur. “Our leaders need to be very visible, we need to be fearless as far as communicating what’s going on. I’m not sure I’m seeing that.”

Still, some parents said they feel that they can still trust the district’s reopening plan.

Shamekia Moye is the parent of a first grade student at Nathan Hale Elementary School. Earlier this month, Moye and her husband decided to send their son back to Nathan Hale for hybrid learning. Moye said this decision was because they trusted the teachers and school administrators. Since then, Nathan Hale has seen one confirmed case of COVID-19, but Moye said she still feels comfortable with keeping her son enrolled on a hybrid basis.

“[My husband and I] don’t feel as if we’ve put [our son] in harm’s way at all,” Moye said. “I don’t feel bad about my decision, I feel comfortable with it.”

Moye noted that while her son had not been in contact with the individual who tested positive for COVID-19, she felt as if the district was transparent about the details surrounding the case. She said the school informed her of how many people were involved in the situation, the length of time certain individuals would spend outside of school and the school’s cleaning protocol.

Nonetheless, Moye said she is not completely unconcerned about her son’s health. She said that teachers, parents and students need to work together to mitigate the risk that COVID-19 poses to NHPS schools. She urged teachers, parents and children to get tested for COVID-19 weekly to safeguard the health of the entire NHPS community.

There are currently 31 elementary and middle schools in NHPS. Contact CHRISTIAN ROBLES at christian.robles@yale.edu , CLAIRE FANG at claire.fang@yale.edu and CLAY JAMIESON at clay.jamieson@yale.edu .

For some students, taking a leave of absence also takes away healthcare

LUCAS HOLTER/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Some FGLI Yalies have struggled to get health insurance coverage over their leaves of absence.

BY EMILY TIAN STAFF REPORTER The financial aid package Alejandro Ortega ’23 received from Yale did not just support his enrollment. He also gained health insurance — for the first time in his life.

But since Ortega elected to take a leave of absence this semester, his $0 family share financial aid package no longer gives him access to Yale Health’s Hospitalization/Specialty Care coverage.

And because he would have to pay $3,666 for a term of Yale’s affiliate plan, he has opted to go without.

“I hope nothing happens as I don’t have health insurance this semester. It is a gamble,” Ortega said.

Having grown up learning to “deal with it” or pay a doctor out of pocket, Ortega said it was a “gamechanger” to schedule regular appointments at Yale Health without worrying about the bill.

But frustrated by a challenging fall semester online, Ortega is joining a contingent of low-income students whose leaves from school during the pandemic have also left them vulnerable to high healthcare costs.

All Yale College students enrolled in residence are supposed to carry medical insurance for hospitalization and specialty care, according to Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid Scott Wallace-Juedes. Those who don’t have valid coverage through

existing insurance must therefore enroll in Yale’s own health coverage plan. Students who qualify for a $0 family share financial aid offer receive that plan at no additional cost.

“Because federal regulations and institutional policy require that a student be enrolled to receive grant assistance, students taking a leave of absence do not qualify to receive the coverage — or other parts of their financial aid award — during the time they are on leave,” wrote Wallace-Juedes in an email to the News. “The office of undergraduate financial aid does not have the authority to award insurance coverage — or any other form of grant aid — to a student who is not enrolled.”

When students take a leave of absence, they are no longer eligible for Yale Health’s basic plan, which includes access to primary care and mental health and counseling services. Most students taking a leave who stay on their parents’ insurance are unaffected.

Those without a backup coverage plan are frequently first-generation, low-income students.

Students on leave can still pay to receive healthcare through Yale, but they are no longer eligible for student rates. Instead, they have to shoulder the costs of an affiliate plan, which includes basic services, along with hospitalization and specialty care. At $7,332 for a full year, it is nearly triple that of the student price.

“I might have made a more informed decision about taking a leave had I known about the costs of healthcare,” Milo Tamayo ’22, who is an FGLI student on Yale’s specialty care coverage, said. He explained that learning about the affiliate plan came as a surprise. “I did all the math think-

ing the Yale health plan would cost $1,200 a semester.”

He paid for emergency health insurance through personal savings and federal tax credits last semester, but since he is earning less this spring, he decided to forgo that plan.

Now, Tamayo catches himself wondering if he should stop going on bike rides or hikes — which, in case of injury, might subject him to substantial out-of-pocket medical fees.

“The mentality is, unless you’re dying, don’t go to the doctor,” Natalia Taylor ’22 said.

Taylor, who identifies as FGLI and is taking the year off, said that she has been working a fulltime job at home in Colorado and is saving an emergency fund for unanticipated healthcare expenses. But between paying for her car, rent, utilities and groceries, she has not made enough to see a doctor to address a lingering ear infection.

For Josie Steuer Ingall ’24, a student on leave who lives with a rare connective tissue disorder, the affiliate plan would be twice the cost of her rent.

But when her father lost his job in the spring, losing the family’s health insurance plan in the process, she was confronted with a “terrifying set of options.” Even if she purchased Yale’s affiliate plan, it would not have sufficiently addressed her needs: with the connective tissue disorder, Ingall would likely need outside referrals anyways. Yale Health is considered a closed-panel Healthcare Management Organization, meaning that coverage only extends to providers within the Yale Health system and is not compatible with a national insurance carrier.

Ingall’s father found a new employer in September, averting a crisis, but during the summer,

while living in a densely populated area of Manhattan that had been one of the COVID-19 hotspots, Ingall was left uninsured.

Even students with chronic conditions who have found alternatives to their Yale plan found that changing providers disrupted their continuity of care. Deciding to take time off this year meant that Akweley Lartey ’23 needed to find new physicians, therapists and psychiatrists outside of Yale.

Lartey, who identifies as transgender and disabled, applied for Medicaid over the summer, but the approval process was slowed down by administrative errors. And resources at his community mental health center are stretched thin — getting an appointment to see a therapist, he was told, would take between three and six months.

“All of Yale Health is one building,” he said. “Here, outside of DC, I have to do a lot of individual research and coordinate between different offices.”

For Lartey and others, the pandemic has revealed a challenging reality: that coming to college can defend students against unaffordable healthcare, but leaving — even if just for a semester — may return them to a precarious state of limbo.

“Both my parents are immigrants,” Tamayo said. “My mom and dad don’t have a clue about how to deal with it, and I don’t have anyone really to contact.

Looking for health insurance is such a daunting task that I’ve been putting it off.”

The four-story Yale Health building on Lock Street is currently open to in-person appointments.

Contact EMILY TIAN at emily.tian@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

NEWS

“I grew up thinking of snow as a luxury you visit.” JOHN LANDIS AMERICAN FILM DIRECTOR

Yale vaccine outreach addressing access, hesitancy accessibility issues

BY SYDNEY GRAY AND MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO STAFF REPORTERS Targeting vaccine hesitancy and accessibility barriers within local communities has been an important part of the COVID-19 vaccination strategies of Yale, New Haven and Connecticut.

In the Yale New Haven Health System, a dedicated COVID-19 vaccine task force, co-chaired

by Assistant Professor of Medicine Brita Roy and YNHHS Executive Director of Clinical Operations Ohm Deshpande, has been focusing on the factors involved in addressing vaccine hesitancy and increasing the uptake of immunizations within different communities — especially those disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

“What we have certainly seen over the last year is this virus most heavily impacting people of color and communities of lower socioeconomic status,” Richard Martinello, YNHHS director of Infection Prevention and member of Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s vaccine advisory group, told the News.

“We know that that’s where the vaccine can be most impactful.”

For that reason, the state, city and YNHHS are mounting a concerted effort to ensure that those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 can access the shots, Martinello explained.

According to him, this collaboration between the healthcare system and different levels of government has given rise to important conversations that place equity at the forefront of strategization of vaccine distribution. “[These considerations are] a critical thing because otherwise there will be inequities in how different parts of the community are getting vaccinated, and that’s not acceptable,” Deshpande said.

Another concern is that those who have bore an inordinate brunt throughout the pandemic also harbor high levels of vaccine hesi-

tancy. Historically, communities of color have been largely underrepresented and exploited in biomedical research, where the prevalence of racist practices has contributed to current concerns about immunization. Concurrently, people of color also account for over 120,000 of the now almost 450,000 deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States.

The YNHHS’s outreach initiatives to address worries about the COVID-19 vaccine within these communities have only just begun, but will involve leveraging the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation’s cultural ambassador program, which engages local community leaders to promote peer-to-peer discussions about the vaccines and facilitate communication between clinicians and the wider public, Roy said.

The YNHHS website, which is currently in English, is also getting a pilot Spanish iteration soon, Roy said, so that Spanish speakers who are not fluent in English can still navigate the vaccine scheduling system. Additionally, to help those who do not have internet access or struggle with computers, YNHHS has set up phone lines with translators standing by, ready to assist with scheduling.

However, those 75 and older — the only subset of the wider Connecticut population currently invited to seek vaccination — who have actually come to get their vaccine thus far have been predominantly white, Roy told the News.

“A lot of our other groups that actually are at higher risk for COVID are not getting the vaccine right away,” Roy said. “Part of that has to do with hesitancy, part of it may have to do with access.”

To increase access, clinic shifts have been designed to last from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, Roy said. In this way, people who work during the day and those who work during the night will both be able to get the vaccine.

According to Roy, in addition to vaccination sites that have already

UNSPLASH

Connecticut, New Haven and Yale healthcare systems are ensuring the vaccine reaches marginalized communities. been established in lower-income neighborhoods in Connecticut and places that even people without a car can reach, YNHHS is also looking into other mobile solutions that could expand access even further.

These efforts may include transforming the Yale School of Medicine’s community healthcare van into a mobile vaccination clinic.

“We’ll have to monitor the data and then if there are specific pockets, or subgroups of people we’re finding that are not getting the vaccine, we’ll have to figure out other ways to address that,” Roy said.

Department Chair of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health Albert Ko explained the challenges that the U.S., Connecticut and Yale will each face when distributing the vaccine to marginalized communities.

In any massive public health campaign — such as a nationwide vaccine distribution effort — there are essentially three dif-

ferent phases, Ko said. The first phase, which we are currently in, is an “attack phase” in which public health officials and healthcare providers try to vaccinate as many people as possible. The second phase is a “consolidation phase” in which healthcare workers try to “plug up the holes,” ensuring that no one slips through the cracks of the vaccination campaign. The third phase is a “maintenance phase” where questions about the duration of protection conferred

by COVID-19 antibodies after receiving the vaccine will become more pertinent.

Ko emphasized that the “consolidation phase” will be particularly important, and it might still be challenging for marginalized community members to get the vaccine, as many lack access to affordable transportation to vaccination sites.

“Who gets left out of the attack phase is those people who don’t

have access, whether it is to drive or because of where they live,” Ko said. “So it really makes it important that the state and federal government really think about what that consolidation phase is.”

Despite challenges of vaccine hesitancy and accessibility, Ko praised Connecticut’s success during Phase 1a of vaccinating a particularly vulnerable community — nursing home residents. On Jan. 30, Josh Geballe, the chief operating officer for the state, said that Connecticut nursing homes have seen 90 to 100 percent of residents vaccinated with at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Gov. Lamont announced that 364,225 total doses of the COVID19 vaccine have been administered in Connecticut as of Jan. 28.

Contact SYDNEY GRAY at sydney.gray@yale.edu and MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO at maria.pacheco@yale.edu .

Four more Yale alumni appointed to Biden’s cabinet

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Two of the new nominees are graduates of the Yale Law School and will serve as part of Biden’s economic team.

BY GRACE ZHANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The list of Yale alumni in the Biden administration continues to grow, with four new names added to the list in recent weeks.

Two Yale Law School alumni, Brian Deese LAW ’09 and Gina Raimondo LAW ’98, were nominated to President Joe Biden’s economic team as director of the National Economic Council and secretary of commerce, respectively. Maggie Thomas ENV ’15 was named chief of staff of the new Office of Domestic Climate Policy, and Vivek Murthy MED ’03 SOM ’03 was named surgeon general.

“I will say that we are all proud that these and other Yale alumni continue Yale’s legacy of service to our country, following in the footsteps of other Yalies who have served on the national, state, and local levels,” Weili Cheng, executive director of the Yale Alumni Association wrote in an email to the News.

A former Rhodes Scholar and venture capitalist, Raimondo graduated from Yale Law School in 1998 and was elected an alumni fellow in 2014. She served as the first female governor of Rhode Island since 2015. Her notable efforts to

bolster the Rhode Island economy include cutting taxes, raising the state minimum wage, financing infrastructure on a large scale and expanding leave for employees.

As secretary of commerce, Raimondo will be responsible for economic growth and development and communicating with businesses, workers and communities.

Raimondo has communicated plans to support the cabinet’s climate initiatives as well.

“We need to recognize that tackling climate change goes hand-inhand with creating good-paying jobs,” Raimondo said in an interview with Transport Topics. “As governor, I expanded clean-energy jobs, oversaw construction of the nation’s first offshore wind farm and put Rhode Island on a path to 100-percent renewable power.”

Recently, a group of GOP lawmakers expressed support for delaying Raimondo’s Senate confirmation hearing since she has not confirmed a negative stance against the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which they consider a threat to national security. Raimondo, nominated Jan. 7, was approved as a nominee Wednesday by a 21 to 3 vote of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transporta-

tion, but her position awaits final confirmation by a full Senate vote.

Also a graduate of Yale Law School, Deese previously served in the Obama administration as a senior advisor to the president and deputy director of the National Economic Council. During that time, he played a lead role in the United States’ entry into the Paris Climate Agreement.

As director of the National Economic Council, Deese will be in charge of implementing the president’s economic policy goals. Since his appointment, environmental activists on the left — such as the campaign “No Corporate Cabinet” — have questioned his commitment to tackling climate change due to his current role as the global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock. Deese has spoken out about his climate-related goals, saying that when the economy recovers from the pandemic, he wants to focus on building up the American economy while being cognizant of sustainability.

Deese’s position, announced by Biden on Dec. 3, does not require Senate confirmation.

Thomas, who studied federal environmental policy at Yale School of the Environment and graduated in 2015, was most

recently the political director of climate group Evergreen Action.

She also served as a climate advisor to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee during their presidential campaigns. Thomas has withdrawn her name from the ballot of the Yale Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, to take on her White House role.

She will work closely with National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy to develop and carry out the Biden administration’s climate goals, including reducing carbon emissions, developing clean energy infrastructure and working towards environmental justice.

Thomas’ position, announced on Jan. 14, also does not require confirmation from the Senate.

Murthy, who made history as the first surgeon general of Indian descent when he served in the Obama administration from 2014 to 2017, holds degrees from the School of Medicine and School of Management. He is returning to his role as surgeon general after being dismissed by former president Donald Trump in 2017.

Before serving as surgeon general, Murthy directed thousands of Commissioned Corps public health officers in their efforts

to treat underserved populations and founded the nonprofit Doctors for America. He is currently the co-chair of Biden’s COVID19 Advisory Board. Murthy’s nomination received support from many U.S. public health organizations, as well as former surgeon generals David Satcher and Regina Benjamin. Murthy emphasized the importance of speeding up the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Murthy, nominated on Dec. 7, also awaits Senate confirmation.

“I do think there is something really unique about the fact that certain Yalies decide to make a difference in the world,” said E.J. Crawford, senior director of communications and marketing of the Yale Alumni Association. “I think there is something special about the people who are able to take what they’ve learned and translate it into improving the lives of other people. I think that’s a really noble goal, and the fact that you see so many people from Yale doing so, I think is very admirable.”

Biden took office on Jan. 20 and has finished announcing his cabinet nominations.

Contact GRACE ZHANG at grace.y.zhang@yale.edu.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“You wanna know which ring is my favorite? The next one.”

Phase 0 for Yale teams starting semester PHASE 0 FROM PAGE 14 for “additional sport-specific activity in earlier phases.”

Last semester, Phase I permitted limited training and strength and conditioning, but did not allow for sport-specific activities. Phase II allowed for up to two hours of sport-specific and weight training per day with social distancing between participants. Phase III marked a loosening of Phase II restrictions, leaving limits on practice group size up to individual Ivy League institutions.

During Phase 0, no in-person physical athletic activities are allowed, but teams can meet virtually with coaches.

“For me, it really sums up to the fact that the possibility for any baseball is better than guaranteed no baseball,” Yale baseball catcher Jake Gehri ’22 said about his decision to enroll this semester. “Back home in Washington, we don’t have these state of the art facilities like guys down in Texas and Florida have so that was also another factor in my decision. Baseball can be a very distanced sport also so that has my hopes up.”

Last semester, Yale never reached Phase III and instead

spent the majority of the academic term in Phase 0. In total, Yale Athletics spent 44 days in Phase 0, 33 days in Phase I and only six days in Phase II between the first day of class and Thanksgiving.

If last semester’s timeline is any indication of when Yale Athletics will proceed to Phase I, student-athletes would have to decide whether or not to take a leave of absence before training in person with their teams. The deadline to petition for a leave of absence is 15 days after the term starts on Monday.

“I think it was mostly that COVID has not improved enough such that I could have access to the parts of Yale that I want,” sailor Helena Ware ’23 said about her decision to take a leave of absence from Yale this semester. “And I’m definitely missing in-person classes, especially because my course load is so dominated by lab courses and small seminars, which are very hard to replicate online.”

40.2 percent of returning student-athletes elected to take a leave of absence last fall.

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

MEGAN GRAHAM/PRODUCTION& DESIGN EDITOR

Arnautou pursuing a pro career in Greece VOLLEYBALL FROM PAGE 14 leyball team and kept her engaged every day.

“All of the girls on the team were multifaceted individuals, and so much more than just athletes,” Arnautou said. “You had really brilliant, articulate women who were interested in a variety of things and pursuing very different career paths. It was just clear that they had a lot going for them outside of volleyball, which was appealing to me and was true all the way through.

There’s so many ways to be a Yale volleyball player.”

Arnautou also recalled that the mindset of the team was a defining factor in her competitive success. Appleman and her athletes constantly pushed themselves to higher levels, working from Ivy League championships to NCAA championships and challenging much bigger programs with their small group. In every practice and game, Arnautou and her teammates were fighting to win. Being in that environment every day for four years makes the competitive mindset “impossible to unlearn,” according to Arnautou.

When her senior season ended in November 2019, Arnautou had to choose between taking a desk job after graduation or taking the leap to professional play. After signing with an agent, her months-long process ended with a contract with AO Markopoulo.

In August, when she arrived in Greece, Arnautou was immediately thrust into a new routine in an unfamiliar place. In the mornings, she would workout with the team, and in the evenings they would practice on the volleyball courts — a similar athletic load to her time at Yale, she said. Their one or two games each week were entirely closed to fans due to COVID-19 precautions. With her free time, Arnautou was able to explore new places in Markopoulo, cook, play guitar and record new music.

“I know that sometimes when people play overseas, they talk about how the experience can be a little isolating,” last year’s team captain Izzy Simqu ’20 said. “But Franny seems to be adapting super well and she’s always been a person who loves to be in other cultures and learn about new cultures, so she seems to be really loving it. I

Tsais bookend Talbott’s 38-year career SQUASH FROM PAGE 14 coach relationship,” Ming wrote in an email to the News. “It was almost like he was the chef and all of us were his line cooks. At time of business, the matches, we were serious and he guided us and coached us. Huge mutual respect. After practice and after the matches, we could hang out like buddies.”

When asked about his relationship with Ming, Talbott jokingly commented that “he chased my sister for 10 years, and he wouldn’t be anything without her.”

While Ming was a member of Talbott’s first class at Yale, David was a member of his last.

Together, they have experienced both ends of his illustrious coaching career. As David notes, Talbott has never lost his sense of community. Encouraged by the longtime head coach, he said mem-

TOM BRADY

NFL QUARTERBACK

bers of the squash team volunteer weekly at Squash Haven, a local youth program. Talbott received the Ivy Award in 2015 for his work with the program. In addition, Talbott recognizes the importance of a cohesive team, even for an individual sport like squash.

“Talbott emphasizes bringing people ‘in,’ no matter how much of an outsider they may feel themselves to be at the start,” David Tsai said. “Yale squash has represented 32 different countries, and Dave’s been the catalyst behind the program’s diversity. Undoubtedly, he’s had a legendary career of [38] years, but he’s also the humblest person I’ve ever known. This combination — of longevity and authenticity — is hard to find in today’s world.”

Ming remembers Talbott’s ability to lead by example. In particular, he noted that Coach Talbott was “always smiling” as he instructed the athletes. His son,

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

Ming would later end up marrying Talbott's sister 10 years after his graduation from Yale.

on the other hand, remembers Talbott’s “powerful center of gravity for everyone in the room.”

Ming said this leadership style rubbed off on him and stuck with him after Yale.

Over the years, Talbott has left his mark on the squash community. In 2019, he was inducted into the College Squash Association Hall of Fame. Under his guidance, both of Yale’s squash teams have achieved notable success and finished with strong national rankings. In 2016, the men’s team took home the Potter Cup to become national champions, and although the women’s team last won the national Howe Cup in 2011, they have consistently finished in the top six since then.

“He’s one of the most important reasons why alumni, especially recent grads, are still extremely involved in the program,” David said. “When I arrived, I instantly felt like I had a group of mentors to look up to — mind you, these were players that had already graduated but still cared deeply about the team.”

As the search for Talbott’s replacement gets underway, associate head coach Lynn Leong stepped in to serve as the program’s interim head coach on Monday, Feb. 1. But David said Talbott will remain nearby, focusing his energy on Squash Haven and prepared to celebrate with the team as a supporter “in PWG when we win our next national championship.”

When asked about his legacy, Ming emphasized what he viewed as Talbott’s philosophy: “You can still be champions and have fun along the way.”

James Richardson contributed reporting.

Contact REHAN MELWANI at rehan.melwani@yale.edu .

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

Arnautou is currently number 11 on AO Markopoulo, a professional women’s volleyball team in a suburb of Athens, Greece. know that she has already had such a great experience and her team there is super awesome.”

In December, the COVID-19 situation forced the town of Markopoulo into lockdown. Practices and games were cancelled, and any outings from Arnautou’s apartment were strictly tracked. During this time, Arnautou filled her schedule by working out at home and socializing with her roommate and one other teammate. In the new year, the team was allowed to return to practice with some restrictions.

They are set to play their first game since lockdown on Saturday, Feb. 6.

Like many other athletes, Arnautou has been eager to get back to competition. As the world navigates an uncertain time for athletics, Arnautou advises athletes to focus on controlling what you can and try not to stress about everything that is outside of one’s control right now. She also believes that the coronavirus pandemic offers a unique opportunity for athletes to lean into their other passions — developing interests outside one’s

sport can serve an athlete well when they eventually end their career, Arnautou says.

Having entered professional play in such a tumultuous time, Arnautou said that she has put thoughts of her long-term career path on hold, focusing instead on returning to competition. Currently, she is open to a number of paths, but is planning to reevaluate at the end of the season.

“I definitely think I have more in me,” Arnautou said. “Physically, emotionally and mentally, I feel like I can give a few more years to this sport and keep getting better, which is really what drives me. I’m not too tied or married to any one path.

We’ll see, but I definitely feel very happy with where I am now and with this club, and I think I ended up in the best situation possible.”

Arnautou was co-recipient of the 2020 Nellie Pratt Elliot Award — the most prestigious athletic honor given to senior females at Yale.

Contact ALESSA KIM-PANERO at alessa.kim-panero@yale.edu .

Hockey star Curtis Hall signs with Providence Bruins

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

Hall links up with the Boston Bruins' minor-league affiliate team in Providence, Rhode Island.

HOCKEY FROM PAGE 14 poised to become one of the top players not only in our league but across the country. Curtis is not only an elite hockey player, he is an elite human being. He has been and always will be a valued and respected member of the Yale Hockey Family.”

Fellow forward Kyle Johnson ’22 noted that he has seen more players within the Ivy League signing contracts in order to play following the winter season’s cancellation. Despite this, he noted that the Yale hockey team is staying in touch through online events and “doing [their] best to stay close.”

“Losing Curtis is a big loss,” Johnson said. “You can’t really replace players like him … We’ll

compete for our opportunity next season.”

Allain told the News that the team continues to stay in shape through leadership within the team.

And players with junior hockey eligibility have joined junior teams and are thus able to continue to compete, Allain said. He said that Yale’s team is full of “passionate, committed, self-motivated players who feel a need to hone their skills in any way they are able.”

“I don’t have much to lose but I definitely have a lot of experience to learn,” Hall said. “I’m just trying to prove myself every day here.”

Hall was a fourth-round pick for the Bruins in the 2018 NHL entry draft.

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

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 11

“I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.” ICE CUBE AMERICAN RAPPER

Elicker: The state of New Haven is ‘hopeful’

BY THOMAS BIRMINGHAM STAFF REPORTER After a deeply challenging year for the city of New Haven, Mayor Justin Elicker told the Board of Alders on Tuesday over Zoom that he had cautious optimism for the future of the city. In the second annual State of the City address of his tenure, Elicker called on New Haveners to continue strengthening their community.

In his 2020 address, Elicker laid out an ambitious agenda that has been largely derailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, he highlighted achievements in jobs and education. Yesterday, the mayor expressed pride in the city for what he called its focus on the “city’s most vulnerable and challenged residents.” While Elicker said the year has undoubtedly been long, the tone of the address was steady and hopeful. On Tuesday he focused on the city’s ongoing pandemic response, racial inequality and policing as well as its looming budget deficit. Elicker, while recognizing the many setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, painted a vision of oncoming economic recovery and an end to the pandemic in the near future.

“This year, I would sum up the state of our city as hopeful,” Elicker said. “We have more to go, but the end of the pandemic is in our sights.

Our financial challenges are daunting, but our partners give me cautious optimism to have faith [that] we will not only overcome the challenges, but vanquish them.”

According to the New Haven COVID-19 Hub, there have been 9,981 cases of the virus in the city since the pandemic began. Cases have increased by 5,000 since November. Elicker highlighted many of the city’s past and ongoing

response initiatives in his speech.

He stated that the city was one of the first in Connecticut to offer free testing to all residents and made sure that all students had access to computers, free wifi and other electronics to prepare for online learning. He also thanked New Haven teachers as the monthslong debate on the city’s school reopening policy continues.

Elicker also announced that the city has been able to vaccinate over 4,000 residents and has opened several vaccination sites around the city.

“Thank you to our health workers, school nurses and medical reserve corps volunteers for your tireless work over the past year helping New Haven lead during this health crisis,” he said.

Elicker also repeatedly stressed the city’s commitment to its most vulnerable communities, drawing attention to an initiative which would give funding from a $1.5 million program to 23 Black- or Latinx-owned businesses — many of which have been hurt financially in the last year.

He did not, however, bring up the racial disparities in COVID-19 cases and deaths that have faced the city throughout the pandemic.

The mayor also gave substantial attention to the issue of “undoing racism” in the city. He applauded the Board of Alders for its effort to define racism as a public health emergency last week, and announced that New Haven is joining the Government Alliance on Race and Equity. Elicker defined the alliance as a national network of local governments working on issues of racial inequality.

“This work allows us to reach deep into our bureaucracy to normalize the conversation and make the necessary structural changes in the way we serve the public,” Elicker said.

In light of a year marked by increased attention to police brutality against Black Americans, as well as local unrest due to the New Haven Police Department’s responses to city protests, Elicker said his team is poised to launch the Community Crisis Response Team Pilot Program. The crisis response team is designed to send social workers and mental health workers in response to 911 calls where police may not be needed. However, Elicker also expressed disappointment that the city has had to make cuts in its police department.

The mayor’s final points concerned the formidable $66 million projected budget deficit that faces New Haven in the coming year. He called it “the elephant in the room,” and said the city’s finances will become unsustainable if the city does not receive help from outside sources.

“Our city is at a crossroads today,” Elicker said in his speech on Tuesday. “And Yale University and the State of Connecticut are, too. All eyes are on them.”

Elicker took a moment to address Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont directly, telling New Haveners that Lamont will soon release a $40 billion biennial budget proposal. He called out the fact that Connecticut’s billionaires have dramatically increased their wealth while thousands of Connecticut workers have lost jobs. According to the Connecticut Department of Labor, jobs are down 102,000 from where they were one year ago.

Last year, Connecticut’s seven billionaires collectively made $1.7 billion, according to Elicker. This sum of money would be enough to close New Haven’s budget gap for the foreseeable future. In light of this figure, Elicker called Lam-

DANIEL ZHAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Elicker gave his 2nd State of the City address live over Zoom from the Alders Chamber. ont “deeply wrong” for refusing to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest individuals.

“The governor has indicated he does not want to raise taxes on [Connecticut billionaires],” Elicker said. “But at what cost? That forces our cities to raise taxes on residents who simply cannot afford it. Governor Lamont, we are looking to you.”

Ward 22 Alder Jeanette Morrison said that the mayor was able to effectively communicate the struggles the city has faced with the pandemic. She told the News that she thought the mayor outlined the many “partnerships” the city has made to fight the virus well.

Additionally, Ward 1 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 said he was impressed with Elicker’s performance, and commended him on directly calling on Lamont to act. Sabin stated that the city wants to avoid raising taxes on its residents at all costs.

“Our city, our city government and our city residents have been hurt for decades by the inequality that exists in our city and at the statewide level,” Sabin said. “I was very happy to hear the mayor make a specific ask to the governor.”

The mayor closed by stating that this year, the Elm City has shown its resilience. He stressed that as long as the city of New Haven continues to work together, it will persevere.

“Our community gets stronger every day,” Elicker said. “Together we will continue to lead the way and ensure that New Haven is a place where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”

Elicker defeated Toni Harp, the former New Haven mayor, in the 2019 mayoral election.

Contact THOMAS BIRMINGHAM at thomas.birmingham@yale.edu .

SOM posts highest salary growth of top business schools

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER The Yale School of Management’s latest employment report reveals that the school’s median base salary for graduates increased 7.7 percent from last year, which is the highest growth rate among the top 15 business schools that report salary averages.

The report, which uses self-reported data on post-graduation plans, reveals that the median base salary for the class of 2020 was $140,000 — up from $130,000 for the class of 2019. In addition to this base salary, graduates also enjoyed a median signing bonus of $30,000 and a median guaranteed year-end bonus of $20,413. However, the report revealed that the job offer rate declined 5.5 percent from last year’s graduating class, with 85.9 percent of graduates accepting a job offer within three months of graduation, compared to 91.4 percent last year.

“Though employment prospects for the Class of 2020 were certainly affected by the onset of the pandemic, the pandemic’s impact was substantially mitigated by a number of longer-term

trends that have helped to improve students’ employment prospects,” Deputy Dean for Academic Programs Anjani Jain wrote in an email to the News. “Yale SOM’s stature, especially among prospective students and employers, has consistently risen in the last decade.”

Jain explained that SOM’s elevated stature can be seen in the caliber of students the school attracts, the competing business schools which these students forgo to come to Yale and the number of “sought-after employers” who count SOM among their core recruiting schools.

According to Jain, the small size of SOM’s Master of Business Administration program — which contained 346 students in the class of 2020 — enables students to have greater individual access to recruiters from prestigious firms than at schools with significantly larger MBA programs.

According to an article from the business school news website Poets&Quants, while SOM’s 7.7 percent increase in median salary was the largest out of the top 15 schools that report salary averages, the trend of rising pay was common among them all. New York University’s Stern School of Busi-

ness reported a 6.3 percent salary increase, Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management came in at a 5.8 percent increase and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business reported a 4.6 percent increase.

Assistant Dean for Career Development Abigail Kies explained that part of SOM’s high salary growth can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that the pandemic affected large and small organizations differently, giving larger organizations a leg-up in MBA recruitment, and in turn pushing students to accept higher-paying roles that they otherwise may not have.

“Organizations that are larger and more established tended to continue hiring and paying … while many smaller organizations, or ones in some of the lower paying sectors to begin with, pulled back more during the spring and early summer,” Kies wrote in an email to the News. “The result may have been more students accepting some roles (and the associated higher salaries) that may not have been accepted in prior years.”

Even so, Jain highlighted the fact that 40 to 45 percent of SOM’s

graduating class joins an organization as the only hire from SOM — which he said reflects SOM students’ insistence on finding the best match between opportunities and aspirations. According to Jain, this job offer distribution is “strikingly different” from most other MBA programs, where employment is concentrated among a small number of larger firms.

But while SOM graduates’ salaries increased, the report also revealed a 5.5 percent decrease in final job placements. In 2019, 92.4 percent of graduates had received a job offer and 91.4 percent of them had accepted a job offer within three months of graduation. This year, those rates were down to 90.2 percent receiving job offers and 85.9 percent accepting an offer.

Again, SOM was not alone with this trend. Harvard Business School reported a 5.0 percent decrease in job placements within three months after graduation and the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management reported a 9.0 percent decrease, according to another Poets&Quants article surveying

MBA placement rates at top business schools.

The number of SOM graduates entering investment banking remained constant this year at 10.6 percent of graduates this year and last year. According to leaders of SOM’s finance club Richard Damant SOM ’21, Adhi Murali SOM ’21 and Iris Park SOM ’21, the school has a strong track record of investment banking recruiting through its “small but close-knit” Wall Street network.

“SOM has consistently had a yield of 70-75% of students that enroll in the Investment Banking recruiting process receiving internship offers,” the trio wrote in a December email to the News. “SOM’s differentiator compared to other schools is … a smaller [investment banking] contingent that allows for a less competitive and more collaborative recruiting experience.”

36.9 percent of SOM’s class of 2020 entered consulting, 12.7 percent entered technology and 4.2 percent entered investment management after graduation, according to the employment report.

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

Yale ecologist named new Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty

BY JULIA BROWN STAFF REPORTER Aquatic ecologist and Yale professor David Post has been appointed to serve as the dean of faculty at YaleNUS College beginning July 1.

Post — who will serve as dean

of faculty for a three-year term — is taking over for Yale psychology professor Jeannette Ickovics, who has been the Yale-NUS dean of faculty since 2018. Along with his professorship at Yale, Post also served as the chair of the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Miscon-

YALE NEWS

Post grew up in Singapore in the 1970s and now returns to lead the faculty at YaleNUS.

duct from 2014 to 2018. Yale-NUS announced Post’s new appointment in a press release on Jan. 20. Post grew up in Singapore in the 1970’s.

“Yale-NUS College is Yale’s most ambitious international partnership,” University President Peter Salovey said in the press release.

“We are fortunate to have Prof Post, a long-time Yale faculty member, participating in the ongoing hiring and development of faculty for Yale-NUS, which has become a model for liberal arts and sciences education in Asia and worldwide.”

Post researches food web structure and dynamics, as well as the influence of environmental change on ecosystem function, at the University’s Post Lab. He has also studied the impact of environmental change on species in diverse habitats ranging from Connecticut lakes to the Mara River in Africa.

While Post told the News that it is “too soon” to discuss the specific initiatives he will address while in Singapore, he said he plans to

strengthen the Yale-NUS curriculum and enrich the scholarship of its students and faculty.

President of Yale-NUS College Tan Tai Yong said in the press release that Post is a “committed educator” dedicated to the liberal arts and engaging students in research. He said that Post’s appointment will benefit the college’s faculty, students and wider community.

Tan also thanked Ickovics for her work in developing mentorship opportunities for junior and female faculty, promoting multidisciplinary scholarship and highlighting faculty research throughout her tenure.

“In taking on this new role, [Post] will make a substantial contribution to Yale-NUS by continuing to strengthen its outstanding faculty and innovative curriculum,” Vice President for Global Strategy Pericles Lewis said in the press release.

“Prof Post will also help maintain the close ties between Yale and the National University of Singapore as Yale-NUS enters its second decade.”

President of the National University of Singapore Tan Eng Chye similarly said that Post’s appointment demonstrates Yale’s “strong ties” to Yale-NUS College and the University’s commitment to the success of the College — which some Yale-NUS students have recently called into question.

Post said he plans to complete the spring semester at Yale and then return to his childhood country this summer.

“My family and I are excited to live in and learn from a region and college community located at a crossroad of cultures and a center of innovation for the 21st century,” Post wrote in an email to the News. “We look forward to exploring Singapore and Southeast Asia, to eating our way through Singapore’s hawker stalls, and to participating in campus life.”

Yale-NUS College was established in 2011.

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

PAGE 12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

BULLETIN BOARD ILLUSTRATIONS

DORA GUO is a sophomore in Pierson College. Contact her at dora.guo@yale.edu .

MALIA KUO is a first year in Morse College.

Contact her at malia.kuo@yale.edu .

GIOVANNA TRUONG is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College. Contact her at giovanna.truong@yale.edu .

SOPHIE HENRY is a sophomore in Jonathan Edwards College.

Contact her at sophie.henry@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

THROUGH THE LENS

I

spent the first four hours unpacking boxes of my first-year belongings. As I tore back the tape, I relived all the memories of our first year cut short. I sorted through pictures of friends I hadn’t seen in an almost year, and I thought about my friends still on a gap, who I couldn’t see for many more months. From schedules left taped on doors to stolen Old Campus pumpkins in our boxed belongings, there are many signs of our scurried exit. But there are now murmurs of life. And that gives me hope… hope of finding the joy in the uncertainty alongside my friends, new and old. I’m glad to be back.

LUKAS FLIPPO reports.

PAGE 13

NHL Tampa Bay 5 Detroit 1

NWHL Boston 7 Buffalo 1

NCAAM Georgetown 86 No. 15 Creighton 79

SPORTS

NCAAM No. 10 Alabama 78 LSU 60

NCAAW No. 3 Connecticut 94

St. John’s 62

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

MEN’S HOCKEY O’GARA ’16 TO THE HERSHEY BEARS On Jan. 20, the Springfield Thunderbirds traded defenseman Rob O’Gara ’16 to the Hershey Bears, where he will reunite with fellow Bulldog forward Joe Snively ’19. This will be O’Gara’s third consecutive season in the AHL; he played in the NHL for two years following his graduation from Yale.

MEN’S BASKETBALL JONES & ATKINSON ’21 TO REPRESENT USA

Yale head coach James Jones will serve as an assistant coach on the USA Basketball AmeriCup Qualifying team. Former forward Paul Atkinson ’21 will also compete on the team as part of a 14-man roster.

Spring semester begins in Phase 0 PHASE 0

“It was almost like he was the chef and all of us were his line cooks. At time of business, the matches, we were serious and he guided us and coached us.”

MING TSAI ’86 ON DAVE TALBOTT

Arnautou ’20 begins professional play in Greece

BY ALESSA KIM-PANERO STAFF REPORTER After graduating in spring 2020, setter Frances Arnautou ’20 traded her number 23 Yale volleyball jersey for number 11 on AO Markopoulo, a Greek professional women’s volleyball team.

VOLLEYBALL Arnautou now lives and plays in Markopoulo, a suburb of Athens. Since August, she has been training and playing with her club team and exploring Greek culture in her free time. While at Yale, Arnautou won the 2018 Ivy League Player of the Year and was a two-time first team AllIvy selection.

“Frances might have been the most passionate player I’ve ever coached,” Yale volleyball head coach Erin Appleman said. “She was incredibly driven and refused to not go all out every time she was on the court.”

Arnautou grew up in San Francisco and began playing volleyball at a young age. Her mother — a former collegiate volleyball player herself — played a large role in encouraging Arnautou to learn more about the sport and keep playing. At age 14, Arnautou said she truly committed to the sport, giving up weekends and free time to training and competing in club tournaments. She credits her parents with supporting her throughout her athletic journey.

As college approached, Arnautou was interested in a range of programs, differing in size, team dynamic and geography. After meeting Appleman and the rest of the Yale team, she said she quickly gained clarity and knew she wanted to be a Bulldog. Reflecting on her collegiate career, Arnautou emphasized that the sense of community, humor and connectivity between players defined the volSEE VOLLEYBALL PAGE 10

JESSIE CHEUNG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

As with the fall, Yale teams and student-athletes are starting the semester in Phase 0 with no in-person activities.

BY EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA STAFF REPORTER On Monday, when Yale students start classes for the 2021 spring semester, student-athletes will begin the term with no in-person activities in Phase 0 of the Ivy League’s plan for the resumption of athletic activities.

The start in Phase 0 coincides with Yale’s quarantine restrictions and guidelines that attempt to curb the spread of COVID-

19 as students return to campus and the greater New Haven area. Last semester, Phase 0 started on the first day of classes on Aug. 31 before Yale Athletics proceeded to move to Phase I on Sep. 21, meaning student-athletes waited three weeks before beginning limited strength and conditioning training.

Yale’s Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications Mike Gambardella told the News of Phase 0’s commencement on Monday, but

did not specify a projected timeline for a move into Phase I. “Phases are fluid, have no end date and are based on campus health,” he wrote in an email.

As part of the Ivy League’s memo to spring-sport athletes earlier this month regarding the possibility of spring competition, the conference said that it was modifying some aspects of its phasing system to allow

For father-son duo, Talbott was more than a coach

BY REHAN MELWANI STAFF REPORTER After what he called a “heck of a run,” former Yale squash head coach Dave Talbott announced his retirement last month. He told the News he felt the timing was “just right” for him to depart, ending a career that constituted decades of success with the Bulldogs.

SQUASH During his 38 years at Yale, head coach Dave Talbott won eight Ivy League titles, mentored hundreds of athletes and coached one fatherson duo: Ming Tsai ’86 and David Tsai ’24.

While his coaching tactics brought Yale success on the court, for Ming Tsai, Talbott’s actions away from squash eventually turned the beloved coach into not only a friend but a family member.

Ming, a member of Talbott’s first class at Yale and now a celebrity chef and TV host, speaks highly of Talbott’s character both as a coach and as an individual. He even compares his time under Talbott to life in the kitchen. In fact, Ming “got a wife out of this deal,” as he married Talbott’s sister, Polly, in 1996.

“We became fast friends as well as developed a strong player/ SEE SQUASH PAGE 10

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

While Ming Tsai ’86 was a member of Dave Talbott’s first class at Yale, Ming’s son David Tsai ’24 was a member of his last.

STAT OF THE WEEK

17

SEE PHASE 0 PAGE 12

COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS

Setter Arnautou ’20 pursued a professional volleyball career after graduating and now lives and competes in Greece.

Hall ’22 signs with Providence Bruins BY ÁNGELA PÉREZ STAFF REPORTER Yale men’s hockey forward Curtis Hall ’22 signed a oneyear contract with the AHL’s Providence Bruins, the AHL affiliate and development team for the Boston Bruins.

HOCKEY Signing the contract means Hall will forego the chance to play at the NCAA level in his two remaining years of eligibility. Hall was the Bulldogs’ lead scorer in the 2019-20 season and also dominated the ice his rookie year donning the Blue and White.

“I'm really thankful for the two-and-a-half years I’ve had at Yale — I wish it could’ve been four,” Hall told the News. “The friends that I’ve made there will be my friends forever. … I’m looking forward to this opportunity that I have now.”

Hall spoke to the News from Providence after a Sunday preseason game his team won 3–1, saying that while his goal is to eventually join the NHL, he plans to complete his Yale degree by taking online and summer courses. He is currently enrolled online to take classes this semester and said that “getting a degree is a big priority.”

After the Ivy League announced that they would not be hosting a winter season, Hall was contacted by Boston to discuss signing a contract.

He referred to this as a pivotal moment in his hockey career,

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

Yale hockey starter Curtis Hall will forfeit his last two years of NCAA eligibility to join the Providence Bruins on a pro deal. citing the winter season cancellation as a propelling factor in choosing to sign a professional contract.

“Curtis will be greatly missed,” Yale men’s hockey

head coach Keith Allain wrote to the News in an email. “As a sophomore he was our team’s Most Valuable Player and was SEE HOCKEY PAGE 10

NUMBER OF GOALS MEN’S HOCKEY FORWARD CURTIS HALL ’22 SCORED IN THE 2019-2020 SEASON

WEEKEND

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021

// GIOVANNA TRUONG

“Is It Quarantine, or Is It Just Life?”

// BY MADISON HAHAMY Yale’s class of 2020 expected a graduation.

A clunky robe and slightly askew cap, family and friends traveling from around the world to sit through a drawn-out ceremony with thousands of names, one second of erupting in cheers, and then pictures, hugs, tears and a celebratory dinner. They expected a transition: college to not, adult to adult, space, independence, something that made it clear that they were one thing and now they are something different. Moving forward in some way, whatever that way may be.

We all know what they got instead. Or, at least part of it. We know about the virtual graduation, clunky robe and slightly askew cap still intact. We know about the canceled senior trips, lack of hugs and the more subdued celebratory dinners. But we don’t know much about what happened after that. What graduating into a COVID-19 economy meant for their jobs and, even more broadly, their sense of direction. What it means to move into a new city but never meet coworkers in-person. How to decide if you hate your job, or just hate it in COVID-times.

The News spoke to four Yale alumni from the class of 2020, each of whom found their post-college life severely impacted by the pandemic. One lost three separate dream jobs to COVID, one can’t tell how seriously to take his current discontent, one is planning to renege on his work contract and go back to school to weather out the pandemic and recession and one, working remotely while at home with her family, is using the year as a chance to take stock and reframe.

Not one, not two, but three dream jobs Tarek Ziad ’20 had everything figured out.

He got the first and only job that he applied to; his dream job as a wildlife conservator

educator at the Bronx Zoo that was the perfect combination of his two majors, ecology and theater. Since his start date was in May, he found a place in New York and ended his New Haven lease for that month. And then came COVID-19. Because of the nature of his job, it and other educational positions at the zoo were cut, leaving Ziad not only without a job but also without a place to live. He scrambled to find a sublet at the Yale track and cross country team house, but that was only a temporary measure.

Ziad began an almost straight-out-of-asitcom few months that involved him and his friend Austin Stoner ’20 starting their own proxy moving business for undergraduates and others who still had belongings in the dorms and needed someone else to retrieve them (and generating significant revenue), teaching online, selling “everything I ever owned,” temporarily working at the Peabody Museum to help evaluate their renovations, pitching himself and skills live on CNBC in the hopes of networking, and then, finally, hearing back about a potential job as an activities associate at the Yale Club of New York.

“We were vibing, [the hirer] was like this is great, going to put in a proposal for a position,” Ziad said. “Then the Yale Club of New York had a hiring freeze. That job was also taken from me because of COVID-19.”

Ziad moved to New York anyways and signed a Sept. 1 lease, having made enough money off of online teaching and the move-in business to “survive.” Currently, he is still teaching online, as well as helping a doctor in North Virginia with a new podcast. He hoped to produce his senior thesis, an original solo show, in the “real world,” but “COVID-19 has destroyed theater.” So Ziad is in limbo.

He credits Yale’s networking events and options for helping him secure his current jobs, both of which he found through a Yale jobs Facebook group. He was able to perform a five-minute standup set for a show with performances from Sara Bareilles and Taye Diggs through a chain of Yale connections as well. And the other job he lost, reshooting some scenes for the first-year orientation videos, came directly from Yale too.

Despite everything, Ziad told the News that he is enjoying what he’s currently doing.

“I love working with kids,” Ziad said. “At this point, I spend more time with people under the age of 15 than I do with anyone else, but they’re so funny and so smart, so I really love it.”

He’s currently hoping that his initial job at the Bronx Zoo opens back up, or that the Prospect Park Zoo, which may have a potentially similar position, offers him a spot.

“Life is kinda up in the air right now,” he added.

“It’s a little scary, honestly” Ed Gelernt ’20 Zooms in from his apartment in Philadelphia where he currently lives. Gelernt is a ninth grade math teacher at a charter school in Ewing, New Jersey, and the soon-to-be head of the afterschool math club. Currently, he teaches completely online.

Gelernt began his job search in April, during the throes of COVID-19, but he wanted to be a teacher before then. Still, he’s struggling to find fulfillment in the role.

“It’s hard, and it’s frequently disheartening. I just don’t get a lot of enthusiasm and engagement from the kids,” Gelernt said. “Most of their cameras are off, so a lot of my teaching is just looking at a screen of

black squares.”

He added that his school serves a lot of kids with “poor educational backgrounds and unstable home backgrounds,” so he wants to find better ways to help them, but the online format has not been conducive to doing so.

One of Gelernt’s larger worries is whether these struggles are indicative that teaching is not the right profession for him or solely related to the current pandemic.

“Part of the internal challenge of being at a job you don’t love for the first time is that you don’t really know how much of that is because it’s online and how much of that is because of the job itself,” he said. “I never really planned on teaching being my career forever, so I figured only if I fell in love with it would I stick with it for a long time, which obviously hasn’t happened as of right now.”

As of now, Gelernt is planning on sticking with teaching for another year, and then revisiting. But for him, the problems with starting a new job right now also extend to every other aspect of life. Because classes are online, he doesn’t have the opportunity to regularly meet with coworkers, and he recently moved to a new city. He mostly spends his days inside his apartment.

He added that these sentiments, both in the professional and social aspects, are commonly shared among his friends who graduated in 2020.

“A lot of us … wonder how much of our lives right now is because we’re trapped inside without seeing anybody, and how much of it is just because this is life after college,” Gelernt said. “Hard to make friends, seeing people less often. It’s a little scary, honestly.”

See Graduation B2

PAGE B2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND INSECURITIES From Graduation B1 Benefits outweighing consequences A class of 2020 grad, who wishes to remain anonymous due to potential workplace and law school retaliation, was one of the lucky ones. He secured a government job in February 2020, before the pandemic hit.

Initially supposed to travel to Canada, he decided to weather out what he assumed would be a short pandemic at home. He ended up staying until July 15, when he “moved [his] whole life to New York.” He worked from his home there until November, when his office canceled their in-person plans. At that point, he decided to go back to his family in California, which is where he was when we Zoomed. As of now, his tentative plan is to go back in March, once he hopefully gets vaccinated.

Working from home has been hard, though he acknowledges that it would have been much harder if this had happened when he was less mentally resilient.

“Mentally things are harder when you have less autonomy,” he said, adding that “I feel like a little kid again.” Having a “secure home and secure apartment in New York,” as well as a job that “I’m not afraid of losing” have also helped.

Even so, he is planning to quit and, in

doing so, violating his employment commitment. This stems from, similar to Gelernt, missing out on the full post-college experience that he envisioned, one that is both social and professional.

He’s only been able to make one friend through his time working remotely in New York and working at home, a stark contrast from his initial plans of clubbing, attending lots of social events and having some sort of in-person support network.

“Without having a social outlet, I think my job isn’t worth it,” he said.

Instead, he is currently applying to law schools, which initially he wasn’t planning to do until next year, after working for two years.

“I feel bad about it but not that bad,” he said, but “it’s just a job, and they’re not paying me that much anyway. If I can’t have a chance to make friends and have the life I was hoping for at this point, I would rather make progress towards my future goals than stay stuck.”

He acknowledged that this was a privileged position to be able to take, and compared to many of his friends who lost jobs, one of the most fortunate. But he thinks that his path of going back to school next year is going to prove popular among his age group, especially since he doesn’t believe that

employers have done enough to encourage workers to stay, instead emphasizing a “work as usual” approach that is both “impossible” and “deeply frustrating.”

Dissolving the stigma Julia Kahn ’20 initially had planned for a 2020 summer of a cappella tours, traveling, hanging out with family for a little and then moving out to the Bay Area, so that she could easily commute to Facebook’s headquarters, where she was planning to work.

Instead, she found herself at home in Chicago — where she still is — and doing the same job, but remotely.

Kahn is acutely aware that she should be in California right now and entering a new period of her life. But she’s also grateful for what this year has been and what it’s forced her to rethink.

“There are so many things that I was so excited to acquire and accomplish, and what happened instead was that it just made me very grateful for what I have,” Kahn said.

“My family is stable and my job is stable and I’m in stable situations. It’s not ideal, it’s not how I imagined my post-college life to be, but I’m just trying to be grateful for what it is.”

She added that any stigma surrounding people moving back home after college should be “dissolved,” and that “there shouldn’t be any shame” in some sort of familial dependence after college.

Next steps Of the four people interviewed by the News, every one of them hoped that something regarding their current plans would change post-COVID. Kahn was the only one of the three who felt secure in the job path that she was currently on, although she hoped to ultimately change locations.

While Gelernt felt unsure of whether or not he would stick with teaching, the other two planned to either reapply for old jobs that were lost to the pandemic, or completely switch directions for the time being.

Much of their sentiments can be summed up by Gelernt’s thoughts near the end of our call: “Is it quarantine, or is it just life?”

Hopefully, the class of 2020 will be able to know the answer soon. And, for the rest of us, hopefully we’ll never have to figure it out.

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

Being (Considerably) Less Than Perfect at Yale // BY RAFAELA KOTTOU

He asks if I’ve finished the week’s problem set. I laugh. No. I don’t elaborate.

We eat our last two slices of barbecue chicken pizza, fuzzy blankets tossed over our legs and sticky sauce dripping down our fingers. I leave the crust — not because I dislike crust, but because I should probably start that problem set.

In truth, I haven’t even looked at the week’s problem set. I don’t want to think about the week’s problem set. I want to distance myself as much as possible from the week’s problem set. Better yet, maybe I can just pretend that the week’s problem set doesn’t exist. But I don’t tell my friend any of that when he asks if I’ve finished the problem set. I just say no. Not yet.

Life at Yale (or, let’s be honest, life in general) is rather crazy and somehow, the week’s problem set always finds a way to make it into the very back of my mind.

Every week, I manage to convince myself that there are bigger things to worry about.

I should really be deciding on my major or thinking about future jobs or asking myself how many children I might someday want to have. By the time I’ve finished thinking about all that, it’s already Friday. And, well, I’m not going to make myself do the week’s problem set on a Friday. I guess I’ll just have to save it for Saturday.

On Fridays, I try to forget the fact that I am not even remotely close to being the perfect Yalie. You know the one. The one who starts the week’s problem set on Monday, who has time to jog in the morning and eat a

balanced breakfast and get to class five minutes early, who belongs to 10 clubs and two sports teams and seems to have it all figured out. The one who is not me. On Fridays, I try to forget that I may as well be the poster child for imperfect Yalies. Just remember — it’s Friday and on Fridays, we forget. That’s what I tell myself.

By Sunday, I have abnormally large purple bags under my eyes — a massive waste of my new concealer. I haven’t showered since Thursday and my hair is a knotted mess. I could try to brush it, but then it would be a frizzy knotted mess, so I choose to leave it as it is. I tried to party on Friday night, until I realized that while everyone else was getting ready to leave, I was dancing alone in the middle of the room, shouting the words to my favorite song and jumping around with my arms in the air and making a complete fool of myself. Then I stopped. I hope the windows were closed and the curtains were drawn. I wanted to take out my trash on Saturday morning, but clearly the universe did not want me to take out my trash because just as I pushed open the door, I felt my phone vibrate. My mom’s contact filled the screen. I tried to sound pleasant — trash bag in hand, one foot out the door, listening to my mom talk about the weather — when the metal buckle on my shoe somehow managed to hook itself onto my trash bag. And before I knew it, the bag was sliced open and the floor was covered in old orange peels and crumpled-up pink sticky-notes and chocolate muffin crumbs and some strange brown

WKND RECOMMENDS Double masking.

liquid. Oh, and apparently my mom is coming to visit on Wednesday. I should probably vacuum. In case you were wondering, the week’s problem set was total hell and I want to forget it ever happened. And everyone should know that I am not at all prepared for Monday’s quiz.

This week is not an outlier. In fact, it’s the usual. Every week seems to be a wildly imperfect mess. Occasionally there’s some additional drama — snarky comments and angry glares and ugly crying and eventual forgiveness — if my friends and I are feeling especially emotional. Perhaps a bit of additional excitement if I meet a hot guy — before I find out that, of course, he is either taken or gay. Maybe a touch of additional anger if it’s snowing outside because while everyone else seems to find it absolutely beautiful, I hate the snow. I hate it with a passion.

Sometimes, I almost think I have it under control. Things are crazy, but somehow I am happy amid the crazy, so maybe I’ve finally figured it all out. But just when I think that I might somehow be able to survive in this crazy chaotic happiness, something new and wild and totally unexpected happens — some mystery person knows my debit card number and used it to go on a shopping spree at Victoria’s Secret, the one boy who had piqued my romantic interest suddenly has a ginormous ego and my Instagram account has been hacked. Well, that’s life — that new and wild and totally unexpected and completely imperfect thing. I

guess we can never really have it all under control. Because if we could, it wouldn’t be life. It would just be a beautiful daydream.

In the end, I think that being an imperfect Yalie is absolutely exhausting. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be a perfect Yalie. I suppose it would be incredibly awesome. But perhaps there’s some charm in being an imperfect Yalie too. Because sometimes, when you least expect it, you find some pretty perfect bits amid the imperfection.

A best friend who will certainly laugh out loud — and make me laugh with him — when he sees my floor covered in old orange peels and crumpled-up pink sticky-notes and chocolate muffin crumbs and strange brown liquid. A benchmate in orgo lab who reminds me every week to turn the stopcock on my separatory flask before pouring in my yellowish chemical liquid thing. A professor who calls us every morning when we accidentally sleep in, reminding us to wake up and get to class. A soon-to-be roommate who lets me borrow her clothes and reminds me to shower because apparently we should get out and socialize.

And, although I still have to start this week’s problem set, we somehow find time to share those last two slices of barbecue chicken pizza. Maybe this time I’ll even finish the crust.

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

ONLINE THIS WEEK: THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE: Gamze Kazakoglu ‘24 explores the complexities of Orphan Pamuk’s 2008 novel.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND REFLECTIONS

On Attending The Smallest Inauguration in History // BY CLAY JAMIESON If the 45th president and his former colleagues aren’t currently too occupied with post-office lawsuits, they might be pleased to observe that Trump’s 2017 inauguration crowds blew this year’s ceremony out of the water. ‘Sleepy Joe,’ unable to excite even his own party, mustered only the puniest of crowds on the day of his swearing-in; in fact, one could say he’s so unpopular that downtown Washington D.C. was practically a ghost town for all of Jan. 20. Of course, anybody relishing that narrative would be ignoring the presence of a fatal pandemic and forgetting the storming of the Capitol building only two weeks earlier.

Still, they’d be right to say that President Joe Biden’s inauguration was by far the least-attended public inauguration in all of American history. But in making the decision to discourage spectators and focus on digital broadcasting, he might just have inspired more patriotism than any massive cheering crowds could create.

Some of us, however, just couldn’t stay away from the in-person inaugural proceedings. I was one of a handful of impulsive, and somewhat unethical, onlookers who chose to travel to D.C. in defiance of both clear public warnings and general common sense.

I was eager to be present for the making of history, but also filled with a twisted desire to bear witness if anything terrible happened. So I woke up early on the day of the inauguration and took an empty commuter bus from my central Maryland town to the district. Or, rather, as close as the bus could get. While MTA buses usually drop passengers off right in the middle of D.C., an emergency order issued days before meant the route would only go as far as a metro station on the outskirts of the city. Finding an open way into the heart of the city was difficult, but I reminded myself that this was probably a good sign. It reflected the effectiveness of the city’s strategy to deter agitators looking to conduct another violent invasion.

After a quick ride on the Orange Line, I exited the ominously brutalist underground halls of D.C.’s metro subway system, and stepped onto an empty street. A very empty street. That was the first thing that struck me that day, and perhaps the

aspect of the experience that has stayed with me the most.

Growing up only a 45-minute car ride from the capital, I got the chance to walk through downtown D.C. plenty of times: on elementary school field trips, birthday dinner nights with family, rowdy late-night drives to the monuments with friends. I had never seen it like this. The heart of the federal district, usually bustling with tourists and city workers and cars, was completely vacant. The streets were so quiet that the occasional noise from some distant vehicle would echo through the winter air. Within a few minutes of wandering away from the

lar to the Mall: concrete mixer trucks, random lawn care company vehicles and semis, all parked diagonally such that the entire width of the underlying road was blocked. It took me a minute to realize that they had all been placed there by the authorities to prevent any vehicles from ramming through the perimeter fence at high speed and successfully breaching the Mall.

The few people I came across walked past me quickly and quietly and we all looked straight ahead as if any accidental eye contact would kill us. The danger of an armed insurrection, an assassination attempt or violent protests was more real and more

L’Enfant Plaza stop I had exited, I sent a text to my friends waiting for an update: “Big nuketown vibes in D.C. today.”

I passed across a broad boulevard lined with flags waving in the wind — absent of any signs of life — then started meandering toward the stretch of the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. This long green would usually be filled with visitors celebrating on Inauguration Day; today it was completely closed off by a high fence and heavily armed guards. As I got closer, I noticed strangely parked trucks in every single road running perpendicu-

possible for us than it had been in a long time — this had been resoundingly proven just 14 days before.

Even in a pandemic, I was somewhat relieved to find scattered collections of people as I reached the fenced perimeter of the Mall and proceeded to walk along it. There were spectators, the occasional salesman hawking Biden-Harris paraphernalia and plenty of reporters with tripod setups and small technical crews. And, of course, thousands of National Guard troops, in lines within the fence, marching down the sidewalk which was clustered by

// DORA GUO

checkpoints. I spent another hour-anda-half simply wandering around the Mall, taking photos of the bizarre scene and scoping out the best spots to catch distant glimpses of the stands and podium on the West Front of the Capitol.

My friend arrived at L’Enfant and joined me just in time for the ceremony. We hustled to the best area we could find for viewing, a large lawn between a federal office and the National Museum of the American Indian, where a crowd of spectators and journalists had set up shop. If you squinted, you could make out a tiny central area where the speakers would take the podium. Only able to hear the faintest echo of the Capitol’s mic system, a bike rickshaw driver brought a speaker to our spot and played a broadcast of the ceremony for the surrounding crowd.

As for the ceremony itself, any reader who watched a broadcast is probably more knowledgeable on it than I am. There were times when I couldn’t make out the song being sung or the words of a speech coming from the rickshaw’s speaker. I had to cheat once in a while and open up the New York Times livestream on my phone to see Biden’s gestures during his inaugural address. But I had known that this would be the case. I had come more for the atmosphere surrounding the inauguration than for the event itself.

I had come to be able to listen to Biden’s words of unity and healing while I stared at the Capitol dome, through the gaps of a fence and over the heads of a long line of camouflaged U.S. soldiers with large black guns in their hands.

Once the ceremony ended, the bleachers in the distance started to clear, the news channels began discussing the next events of the day for the new president and everybody around me exhaled a collective sigh of relief. Apart from the excellent speeches and the historical nature of the vice president’s swearing-in, it had been gloriously uneventful. There was no violence and no legions of furious flag-toting rebels. The crowds were small. And thank God for that.

Contact CLAY JAMIESON at clay.jamieson@yale.edu .

Reflections on My First Semester at Yale

// VICTORIA LU

// BY CALEB DUNSON Author’s note: This piece was written prior to Thanksgiving break 2020.

It gets dark early now. At around 4 p.m. the beams of sunlight that illuminate my common room begin to fade. The sky transforms into a navy blue canvas on which the sun paints orange streaks. Saybrook’s imposing walls loom over my suite with a mysterious and overwhelming power, intensified as they cut through the blackening atmosphere. At the start of my last week on campus, I sat and watched one of these sunsets from my common room window, and I began to understand and appreciate my relationship with this university.

Normally, I wouldn’t pay any of that much attention. Before then, I woke up each day with a singular focus: get my work done and get one step closer to the end of the semester. But something about my impending departure from the university forced a quiet emotional reckoning.

Before coming to campus, I streamed “Hamilton” on Disney+ an embarrassing number of times. What always stood out to me was Hamilton’s joy and wonder when he first arrived in New York. He had relentless passion, curiosity and ambition because he was aware of the enormous opportunity

before him. He was dead set on changing the world … and he did. When I arrived at Yale on move-in day, I fully expected to be met with a Hamiltonian abundance of opportunities to learn, grow and change the world … and I was. I spent the first few weeks of school meeting as many club heads, faculty members and innovation leaders as was humanly possible. With each meeting, my desire to get involved in everything I could at Yale multiplied.

But after every Yalie has their first realization that “Oh shoot, there are so many things to do at Yale!” they have their second realization that “Oh shoot, there are so many things to do at Yale.” Such was my experience. The fire in my belly was quickly replaced with the anxiety inducing pressure of deciding what to do. Each potential path at Yale was met with an infinite opportunity cost. God only knows what Nobel Prize-winning professor I could’ve learned under or what extracurricular adventure I could’ve undertaken if I’d made a different choice. Instead of engaging in Yale’s entrepreneurial community, I joined student government. I missed out on working with the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project because I decided to write for the YDN. Neverthe-

less, the awe with which I regarded Yale’s resources vastly outweighed my fear of tapping into the wrong ones.

Still, there are aspects of this university that frustrate me. Zoom learning has been a ruthless endeavor for both students and professors, and it seems as if Yale’s institutional gears just continue to turn, unfeeling and unforgiving. The cavalier way in which Yale’s administration has treated student activists is disheartening, and they continue to make decisions about COVID-related campus procedures in an esoteric fashion.

While the University’s leadership may be well within their purview to behave as they do, the cumulative effect of their actions creates a veil of indifference to the well-being of their students. And feeling that your university does not care about you hurts.

Yet, being a Yalie confers a privilege too large to ignore. Living inside the blue bubble blurs reality in a way that places the University comfortably at the center of the universe. We can allow schoolwork to take priority while hundreds of thousands of people lose their lives to a deadly disease, and a movement for social justice progresses just outside of the University’s walls. We can regard our clubs and extracurriculars

with intense seriousness knowing that, at least while we are on campus, our needs are largely taken care of by the University with an expansive treasure chest of wealth.

With these privileges come questions that keep me awake at night. Do I deserve to be in this position? Am I doing enough with the opportunities I’ve been presented? What if I don’t live up to the pressure and responsibility placed upon me by my community?

What if I’m just being selfish by burying my head in my books while the world falls apart all around me?

When I am not agonizing over those questions, however, I stand in awe of Yale.

I relish the fact that I can be a young person in a new place at a strange time, that I can explore every aspect of what it means to be a Yalie, that I can experiment and redefine who I am and what I want out of life.

My relationship with Yale is complicated, but I know there will come a time when I can no longer watch from my common room as the sun illuminates the University’s century-old walls, so I cherish each moment I have here.

Contact CALEB DUNSON at caleb.dunson@yale.edu .

ONLINE THIS WEEK: WKND RECOMMENDS Spicing up your dorm room with a succulent.

ANIME AMONG US: Claire Fang ‘23 explores the underground anime subculture at Yale.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND WINTER

On Winter: In Stasis, But Restless // BY MARGOT LEE

This year I experienced winter for the first time. In Sydney — that oceanside city which I call home — the sun is constant and the beaches never empty. Freezing describes a cool coastal wind rather than water’s steady change of state in the atmosphere. I never owned a pair of gloves or boots and had never seen snow. Winter was that time in the northern hemisphere, I presumed, when the days were dim and lit only by lamplight. It would be cold outdoors but warm inside, and seasonal decorations would burst from buildings. Holiday cards and every movie I had seen promised evergreen garlands and lights on strings. People would move slowly in the streets. They would linger in stores and in doorways as snow piled on windowsills.

My winter did move slowly.

I remained in New Haven as the pandemic was peaking and America’s anxious democracy reeled towards collapse. For two months I lived on Old Campus, in a wood-clad dorm room straight out of the ’60s. Yale’s colleges darkened and shut their gates. Classes ended and my friends moved home. I called them often and my parents not often enough.

I moved my plants from my bedroom to the window and then to the mantle and watched as they all wilted and died over several weeks.

There was a restlessness to the winter. I watched the news and read the headlines with cold fright. 150,000 new cases a day became 200,000 and then 250,000. 3,000 deaths daily.

With all my spare time, I took to walking for hours around New Haven. In the evenings, I cut black paper into silhouettes and hung them on my walls.

By mid-December, I was colder than I had ever been before. Snow fell before the end of final exams. It was like sand, but lighter. At the end of the month, I left campus for a week-and-a-half to visit a friend in western Massachusetts.

In the Berkshires, I re-entered the quiet sanity of family life: driving in a car, setting the table, playing board games where points were tallied on sheets of paper with the initials ‘M,’ ‘S’ and ‘O’ standing for names While all this was happening, Australia once again entered summer. When I called my old friends from home, they were wearing T-shirts and ponytails to keep hair off their necks in the heat. This time of year in Sydney is usually unhurried and lethargic. By early December, schools release their swarms of children into the city. They crowd trains to the harbor and buses to the beaches. Picnickers drink and lie for hours in the shade of fig trees. Windows are left open so that from the street you might hear the chitchat of a private life or glimpse PVC plastic Christmas trees in the living room. It was this wonderful laziness of the Australian summer that I longed for in my own unsettled winter.

I asked my friends about their summers. Were they going to the beach? Not really. In fact, they rarely saw each other.

Lockdown in Sydney was lifting once more, and community transmission was virtually nonexistent. But the routine of the pandemic remained. My friends told me they had been ‘on pause’ for the last year. Like me, they fell into small obsessions and seemed unable to move forward. The summer had not relaxed them. Instead, a lack of anything to do had agitated them as they became increasingly aware of how much time was passing.

They were in summer and I in winter. It seemed my condition was not unique to the weather or continent. Across the Pacific, we had all succumbed to a similar unease. We were in stasis, but restless. Were we just getting older?

As Shakespeare’s “Richard III” ominously begins, ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ While I can hardly stand the play after a year of high school study, I have always liked that line. There was certainly something wintery about the discontent and discontent about the winter. Since the pandemic infiltrated our daily lives, we have all been in a sort of winter-state. Sitting in white rooms in our cold cathode light, rarely venturing outside, and seeing no one. All year we have been in winter. It took over the country, the world, while I was conjugating French verbs and pretending to be busy.

And where was the end of this winter? The pandemic raged and attackers stormed the nation’s capital on the eve of a new presidency. How could we return to a new year and enter the same world after all this? It preoccupied my mind over the winter break.

After an hour of being melancholy and blasting The Carpenters in my dorm room, I went out walking. I passed around the Divinity School and came back down Saint Ronan Street. Behind the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, a hill covered in snow sloped to the road. Pairs of children lugging colorful sleds climbed past me to the top of the hill. People bundled in scarves and coats slid down and laughed, losing a hat or glove on the way.

Parents stood at the bottom of the hill. Even long after the cold became harsh, the children were endlessly joyful. The sun was setting and streetlights were turning on. The scene was straight out of a holiday card. Despite the inertia of the winter and the restlessness of the year, there would always be another tireless generation marching up the white hill.

They sledded down and raced back up. Then they came down again, back to parents who grabbed their mittened hands and pulled them out of the snow, towards home.

Contact MARGOT LEE at margot.lee@yale.edu .

// SOPHIA ZHAO

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