NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 73 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY SNOW
35 26
CROSS CAMPUS Do they still care? Today is the last day for seniors to ask for the ability to double major. We suppose those political science seminars do tend to pile up unnoticed, but still. Cover up. The cover of The
Economist’s next issue — set to be released on Saturday — features a stately looking, powdered-wig-wearing gentleman in a “Y” sweater. Inside the magazine’s pages is a story headlined “America’s new aristocracy,” a deepdive into the dynastic nature of American politics with a special focus on Yale families like the Bushes and Clintons.
Tarry talk. Chef Mario Batali will be at the Whitney Humanities Center today to talk about his newest cookbook. Also a TV personality, Batali is known best around these parts for giving the world (or at least Park Street) the new go-to Italian spot, Tarry Lodge. A dream realized. But wait,
there’s more: Also taking place at the Whitney Humanities Center this weekend is a special screening of “Selma,” Ava DuVernay’s widely praised Martin Luther King Jr. biopic. Afterward, several of Yale’s top AfricanAmerican Studies professors (including Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway) will lead a discussion about the film’s depiction of King.
Live a little. With performances by the Spizzwinks(?), Purple Crayon and Sur et Veritaal, Relay for Life’s kickoff event takes place tonight in Dwight Hall. And there appears to be some kind of ’90s theme, celebrating what some consider to be the liveliest decade of all.
INVISIBLE LIVING AT YALE WITH A DISABILITY
TO RUSH OR NOT?
AROUND THE WORLD
Five debate philanthropy, brotherhood, misogyny, race and misconduct.
NEW DIRECTOR JOINS WORLD FELLOWS PROGRAM.
PAGE B3 WEEKEND
PAGE 3 OPINION
PAGE 7 UNIVERSITY
In one of the first activities that all Yalies share in their college years, freshmen are taught to put a condom on a wooden, phallus-shaped object. Be safe — that is the message the exercise is supposed to convey. But that message may not be taking root in students’ minds. In a News survey on sexual health practices, completed by 241 students, 175 respondents said they were sexually active. Of these students, many reported engaging in sex without a condom and using methods of contraception that are widely considered to be ineffective. Public health experts at Yale and physicians who specialize in student health said that rates of unprotected sex on campus are worrisome.
CONDOMS AND HEALTH
Not enough Yalies are using condoms to prevent STI infection. Of 139 sexually active survey respondents, almost one quarter said they rarely or never use condoms to prevent STIs. Thirty percent said they use condoms only some or most of the time, and 47 percent of students said they always use condoms. Interviewees’ experiences reflect these statistics. Johnny*, a freshman, said that he has had multiple, one-night stands with partners who were happy to engage in intercourse without a condom. “I was shocked,” he said. But Director of Yale Health Paul Genecin and Chief of Stu-
WA LIU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
dent Health and Athletic Medicine at Yale Health Andrew Gotlin were not. Gotlin said he was unsurprised by the survey numbers showing the percentage of students who do not use condoms during sex, as they matched what he sees clinically. Genecin said that since the majority of sexually active respondents were monogamous, putting them at a lower risk of contracting STIs, Yalies with multiple sexual partners may produce very different results if surveyed. “It seems like very few people had more than one sexual
partner,” he said, adding that the number of students who reported having more than one regular sexual partner is the demographic that worries him most. Of those who have reported not using a condom at some point, personal or partner preference for unprotected sex was the most common reason for foregoing condoms. Annabelle*, who never uses condoms with her boyfriend, is one of those students. “It just feels better,” she said. Not having a condom readily available was also an issue
Committee to reevaluate withdrawal policies
BRIANNA LOO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
1942 The University commits to continuing to offer liberal arts courses despite national pressures to focus on technical skills education during wartime. Follow the News on Twitter.
@yaledailynews
ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus
for some. In fact, a quarter of the sexually active students surveyed said they do not keep protection immediately accessible. Jordan*, a freshman who in the past has gotten most of his condoms from the plastic bag in his entryway, said that, at times, condoms ran out. In contrast to the 30 percent of sexually active students surveyed who have opted to have sex despite the unavailability of condoms, Jordan decided not to abstain on those occasions. “I just feel that the risks [of SEE SEXUAL HEALTH PAGE 4
EDITOR’S NOTE On Jan. 13, the News sent a 31-question survey to 757 randomly selected undergraduates from every residential college and class year. All 241 respondents were guaranteed anonymity, in an attempt to ensure the sincerity of the survey’s results, which are reported here. *Name has been altered to protect the identity of the student source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the interviews conducted.
Gordon, voice for academics, to depart BY EMMA PLATOFF STAFF REPORTER
Don’t forget them. It’s a similarly crowded schedule for the arts scene at Yale: Both the Yale Cabaret and OffBroadway are showing plays (Quartet and The Taming of the Shrew, respectively) and the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale plays tonight in Woolsey. Still, we’re not quite sure why there’s a Harvard Choir Concert in Battell later.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
PAGE 12 SPORTS
BY STEPHANIE ROGERS AND AMAKA UCHEGBU STAFF REPORTERS
probably saw in your inbox, Payne-Whitney Gymnasium is in for a busy weekend. Everything from graduateprofessional school basketball games to the national middle school squash championships will fill the gym’s halls.
the Thomas R. Pickering Undergraduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship — supporting master’s degrees and careers in foreign service — is today.
Bulldogs look to take down Bears for second time in as many weeks.
Sex isn’t always safe at Yale
Staying active. As you
Pick me. The deadline for
BASKETBALL
A six-person committee will suggest improvements to Yale’s mental health policies. BY EMMA PLATOFF AND VIVIAN WANG STAFF REPORTERS Following months of campus-wide discussion of the University’s mental health resources, Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway has charged a committee with examining Yale’s withdrawal and readmission policies. The six-person committee, created last month, will delve into Yale’s existing policies and suggest improvements, Holloway said. Currently, the University requires that students apply for voluntary leave of absence within the first 10 days of the semester. After the deadline, students can withdraw from the University but then must re-apply to gain admission. The committee will take into account several sources of information, including a six-page report authored by the Yale College Council last spring that outlined rec-
ommendations for improved withdrawal and leave of absence policies. Committee members will also compare the University’s practices with those of other institutions to see whether Yale should adopt any successful methods, Holloway added. “[The committee’s mission is to] look at current policies and to look at peers’ policies,” Holloway said. “Are we in line with what we state we’re doing?” The idea of reevaluating Yale’s withdrawal policies was proposed to then-Yale College Dean Mary Miller last year. However, Holloway said, by that point it was too late in Miller’s term to begin a process that she would not have been able to finish. The YCC report, which was part of a larger student effort to focus attention on mental illness, highlighted the need to make students who had not withdrawn for disciSEE WITHDRAWAL PAGE 6
After four decades at Yale, Deputy Dean of Yale College and Dean of Undergraduate Education Joseph Gordon will retire next January. Dean of Yale College Jonathan Holloway announced Gordon’s planned departure in a Thursday afternoon email to selected members of the Yale community. Detailing Gordon’s accomplishments, Holloway said it is difficult to imagine Yale without him. Faculty and administrators who have worked with Gordon — from members of the Dean’s Office to curators in Beinecke Library — described him as an indispensable confidant and a font of information on Yale College issues. “His record of service is so extensive, and his contributions so numerous, that it is impossible to imagine an aspect of undergraduate education that has not involved him,” Holloway wrote. After coming to Yale as a graduate student in English in 1970, Gordon joined the department as an assistant professor in 1976. Despite holding disparate roles since then, Gordon — who became deputy dean in 1998 — has maintained a hand in Yale’s academics. He served on the Committee on Yale College Education, spent 20 years on the Course of Study Committee and chaired the Committee on Honors and Academic Standing. He has been involved at every level, from serving as Yale’s first openly gay college
master in Pierson in 1987–88, to filling every specialized position on the Executive Committee, to stepping in as a fry cook on an understaffed food line in Commons during the blizzard that shut campus down for two days in 2013. In an email to the News, Gordon said he does not plan to leave New Haven, adding that he may even return to teaching in the English department from time to time. He said he hopes to continue to support students and colleagues.
[Gordon] has also become a standard-bearer of scholarly and pedagogical ethics at Yale. KATHRYN LOFTON Professor of Religious Studies “It is indeed hard to contemplate leaving the Yale College Dean’s Office,” Gordon said. “But there comes a time when others should get the chance to do the work I’ve tried to do as well as I could, and to experience some of what I have had. If we believe in the value of education, it is in part because we understand that our world is one of mutability, both in our own individual lives and in the lives of institutions.” In the unstudied role of deputy dean, Gordon has sought to coordinate the work of Yale’s SEE GORDON PAGE 6