NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 89 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY CLOUDY
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CROSS CAMPUS
BOOKWORMS EXPLORING STERLING’S STACKS
YDEALISTS
AYO BIOTECHNOLOGY
Students discuss their “Ydeas” for coming Schwarzman Center
YALE SCIENTIFIC MAG, OCS HOST BIOTECH FAIR
PAGE 10 THROUGH THE LENS
PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY
FFY protests Corporation
Got a really big team. The
New York Times covered the Yale men’s basketball team in a story about the Bulldogs’ first chance at an NCAA tournament bid since 1962. “From all I can read and gather from former players, Yale’s going to win it all this year,” Joseph Vancisin, who coached the 1961–62 tournament team at Yale, told The Times. This weekend, the Princeton Tigers broke the Elis’ 12-game winning streak.
Liquor treating. The General
Assembly — Connecticut’s state Legislature — is holding a public hearing to discuss whether or not to allow liquor stores to sell products below the minimum price. Gov. Dannel Malloy has publicly supported the push to lower prices, saying “Why would government force residents to pay artificially high prices? It’s illogical and backwards.” Is it worth it? Let me work it.
David Brooks, a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, and Miroslav Volf, director of Yale Center for Faith & Culture, will give a talk titled “Character, Flourishing & The Good Life” at 7 p.m. in Battell Chapel tonight. One of the questions the scholars will ponder is, “What makes a life worth living?”
Bros and brews. The Yale Science Diplomats present the first in a series of events: “Science @ BAR: Beer, Brains and Barley.” Tonight at 7 p.m., students are invited to learn about the science of beer and beermaking while indulging in BAR pizza and drinks.
SEE FFY PAGE 4
SEE NHPD PAGE 6
Fossil Free Yale held a “speak out” in Beinecke Plaza Friday denouncing the Yale Corporation’s secrecy. BY FINNEGAN SCHICK AND DAVID SHIMER STAFF REPORTERS A week after the Yale Corporation met privately inside Woodbridge Hall, Fossil Free Yale held its own meeting on Beinecke Plaza to speak out against the notoriously secretive body. Roughly 45 students gathered Friday outside the President’s Office to
express frustration with the University’s official governing board, which many claimed inhibits student participation by conferring privately, not officially disclosing its agenda and keeping meeting minutes confidential for 50 years. For an hour, students voiced their concerns in the company of four stuffed mannequin suits sitting in chairs on the plaza — figures meant to stand in for the face-
Polak: the man behind the money BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER University Provost Benjamin Polak is a tall man with a small office on Grove Street who oversees Yale’s academic policies and manages the University’s $3 billion operating budget. He came to the role in 2013, after a year when Yale’s endowment dropped by nearly 25 percent in value, blowing a $350
million hole in the University’s budget. Polak, a former chair of the Economics Department, was heralded as an economics whiz who would help solve Yale’s worsening financial problems. Three years later, the University is seeing strong endowment returns, and the budget had a $194 million surplus in fiscal year 2015. But despite the excitement his appointment generated, the
role of provost is typically out of the public eye, and Polak likes his job for that reason. “I’m a little better behind the scenes,” he said. “That’s partly a skill-set thing. I’m not very good at speaking in public. I’m not as eloquent as [University President Peter Salovey].” The president and the provost are Yale’s two top administrators, and no major decisions are made without input from both
Hockey wins seventh straight
of them. But the jobs are different, Polak said. Salovey sets the University’s direction, and Polak makes sure Yale’s resources are keeping the University moving in that direction, Polak said. The president has vision, and the provost makes that vision reality. The president is the public face of Yale, and the provost works behind the scenes to make sure the University runs smoothly—
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THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
MATTHEW STOCK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Forward Stu Wilson ’16 earned a critical two points on Saturday, including the game-winning goal. BY DAVID WELLER STAFF REPORTER The story of the Yale men’s hockey team’s senior class is not yet complete. But as the Elis’ slate of remaining games begins to run short, those seniors are starting to write that story’s final chapters.
And with the ECAC Hockey and NCAA tournaments still to come next month, the team’s veterans have a lot of work left to do for their tale’s ending to match its beginning — a 2012–13 national championship for the thenfreshmen. But having members of the
squad’s class of 2016 play the hero on both nights of their Senior Weekend is certainly not a bad way to start that conclusion. On Friday night at Ingalls Rink, it was a goal from defenseman Ryan ObuSEE MEN’S HOCKEY PAGE 6
and on budget. “I’m not a very imaginative person,” Polak acknowledged. Polak, who is British, holds degrees in economics and history from Cambridge, Northwestern University and Harvard University. As a professor, his research and teaching focused on microeconomic theory and economic history. ProfesSEE POLAK PAGE 6
Dems seek aid for undocumented students BY WILL MAGLIOCCO CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Swipe right. Visit the News’
y
NHPD promotes first Black female captain
less members of the Corporation. “They are here to represent the fact that the Corporation is present, and it has a big impact on our lives, yet face-to-face interactions we have with members are negligible,” said FFY member Mary Claire Whelan ’19, who helped design the mannequins. “So by having them here,
FINNEGAN SCHICK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
not December, you can still drink horchata at La Casa: The Latino Cultural Center at Yale tonight. The event will also serve as an info session for the Latinx Fellowship, which is affiliated with the Yale Christian Fellowship.
Follow along for the News’ latest.
PAGE 5 CITY
The New Haven Police Department swore in Patricia Helliger as its first Black female captain Friday. The historic promotion ceremony, held at City Hall before an impressive crowd of over 100, included testimonials about Helliger from community members and city officials including Mayor Toni Harp and NHPD Chief Dean Esserman. Helliger has moved up the ranks in the NHPD for 20 years and was promoted to captain after passing a civil service test. As a police captain, she will direct the day-to-day patrols and deployment of one of the department’s police units. During the ceremony, Helliger said she hopes her promotion will encourage women of color seeking advancement within the department. “I react with joy, but also with a sense of awkwardness that it would take until now for this appointment to happen,” Helliger said. “By being the first, it’s lonely. However, by being the first, I am encouraged that this gender and color line — broken today — will pave the way for more women who look like me.” Esserman said Helliger is an excellent addition to the “long line” of women in leadership at the NHPD, including assistant chiefs Stephanie Redding and Denise
Winter’s cold is too much to handle. Even though it’s
1971 University President Kingman Brewster delivers a speech to Yale alums about the distinction between neutrality and morality. “There seems to me to be a terrible tension at the moment between the imperative of University neutrality and the imperative of University morality,” he says.
Miya’s head chef talks sustainability, diet at Sunday talk
BY JAMES POST STAFF REPORTER
The apple farthest from the tree. Jeb Bush dropped out of
the presidential race Saturday night after a series of tough losses. Although he comes from a prominent family — he is the son of former president George H. W. Bush ’48 and the brother of former president George W. Bush ’68 — the youngest Bush’s campaign did not gain the traction that the Republican establishment expected.
SUSHI ON HOWE
Members of the Yale Democrats and on-campus immigrant advocacy group FWDYale collected signatures Thursday evening for a petition supporting a proposed Connecticut law which would extend financial aid at state universities to undocumented immigrants. The proposed bill, S.B. 147, would enable undocumented immigrants to apply for and receive the same institutional aid currently available to all instate students who are U.S. citizens. A modified version of the bill, S.B. 398, passed through the state Senate last May, but failed to come up for a vote in the House before the end of the legislative session due to a protracted debate over the state budget. However, legislators and advocates supportive of S.B. 147, including Co-Chair of the Education & Employment Advancement Committee Rep. Roberta Willis, are hopeful that the bill will pass into law this year. “The bottom line is, for the most part, the beneficiaries of this legislation are motivated students with good academic
preparation who want to further their education,” Willis said. Willis added that giving students equal access to institutional aid is an “issue of fairness.” Advocates of the proposed legislation argue that the current structure of institutional aid at Connecticut’s state universities does not treat undocumented students fairly. Under the current system, undocumented students contribute part of their normal tuition to institutional aid apportioned for need or merit-based scholarships. Undocumented students, however, are ineligible to receive aid that they themselves are helping to provide for others, Willis said. “Undocumented students graduate from Connecticut public schools and their education comes to a grinding halt. The only assistance they get is instate tuition,” Willis said. “For many students, even that is a fairly significant hurdle.” S.B. 147 represents the latest in a series of proposed Connecticut laws that have sought to increase access to higher education at state universities. In 2011, the state Legislature approved SEE AID PAGE 4